Conference bookie::movies

    Joyce Kulhawik (channel 4-Boston) says it is a good flick to see.
    
    I think she is usually right on for my money.  I would spend the $$ to
    see it.
    
    -sandy
    

    
    There's a review in today's Herald that gave it a fairly lukewarm
    appraisal - I'm still gonna go see it, though :-)
    
    						- Jim
    

    re -.1 general gist :
    
    Two black men come across a badly beaten white man, who is either dead,
    or dies en route to the hospital.  Glenn Close wants to plaster the two
    men's faces on the front page, along with a headline that says
    'Gotcha!'.  Michael Keaton doesn't want to convict the two men in the
    public's eyes before they're given a fair trial.  From what I
    understand, the plot revolves around this conflict.  Seems a timely topic
    what with Tonya and Lorena having been convicted long before their
    respective trials
    
    						- Jim

Ehhh... the movie was fair... standard Ron Howard type movie;  overhyped and 
under-developed characters.

I was really annoyed by how many Coca-Cola products were being shown.  The
first time I didn't mind... but ten times gets a bit annoying.  Yeah I know...
but when comercial products are mimicked, the real objects really do stand-out.

Overall, I would wait for it to come out on video... definitely not worth $7.50.


**� out of five.

    re: -1
    
    I totally disagree! I thought the movie was great! A roller coaster
    ride full of emotions.
    
    I also feel that Marisa Tomei will probably be up for another Best
    Supporting Actress nomination (based on the movies so far this year).
    
    Possible spoiler:
    
    Best scene (in spite of the language in it) - The one with Michael Keaton 
    on the phone with the editor from the other paper, where every other word 
    started with an "F". When that scene ended, the entire (packed)
    audience cheered! It was a _great_ scene.
    
    A must-see (again) for me!
    
    Catherine
    

    I had to leave right after the part where Keaton yells "Stop the
    presses." Could someone finish the movie for me behind a spoiler
    warning?

    Paul

    re: Keaton yelling "Stop the presses!"
    
    Any new twist provided on that particular cliche?
    
    Richard

    
    What happens after Keaton yells "Stop the Presses"
    
    <spoilers>
    
    Keaton goes to push the button, but it's behind a locked panel.  He has
    to get the key from some poor guy in the john.  By the time he gets
    back to the button, Glenn Close is there.  She and Keaton start by
    arguing, and she would probably go along with him except that the
    printers say they've already printed 90,000 papers.  The argument
    progresses into a punch-up and struggle.  Keaton gets the presses
    stopped, but that doesn't really change anything since they haven't
    been rethreaded or anything.  Close tells Keaton he's fired, starts the
    presses again, Keaton leaves dejected.
    
    Meanwhile, Robert Duvall and Jason Alexander are having their
    two-drunks-in-a-bar scene.  I'm not sure at exactly which point we
    discover that Alexander's character is the parking commisioner Randy
    Quaid has been lambasting.
    
    Marisa Tomei is at home, typing nice thank-you letters while saying
    bitter things, when some extremely upsetting medical development
    occurs.  She starts to hemmorhage, and manages to get call 911.
    
    Back at the paper, Randy Quaid comes out just in time to find that his
    vintage Mercedes has been towed, and damaged, again.  Glenn Close comes
    out and offers him a ride and a drink at the local watering hole, where
    she has been sort of persona non grata since becoming management. 
    Quaid goes with her.
    
    Michael Keaton wanders home and discovers cops and ambulances and his
    bleeding wife and so forth.  Off to the hospital with them.
    
    At the bar, Quaid gives Close a little more chewing out.  During this,
    Jason Alexander tips to who Quaid is and a fight breaks out, which
    people seem content to let progress until the gun Qauid has gets loose
    and Jason Alexander picks it up and starts threatening people.  During
    this, Close has some sort of epiphany of integrity and goes to the
    phone booth in the bar to tell them to stop the presses.  Of course,
    it's noisy in the press room.
    
    Alexander yells at Quaid, waving the gun, telling Quaid how miserable
    his life has become.  When he asks Quaid why he's picking on him, Quaid
    answers, "Hey, buddy.  You work for the city.  It was your turn." 
    Alexander fires at Quaid, but the bullet misses Quaid, goes through the
    telephone booth, and hits Glenn Close in the leg.  So, it's off to the
    hospital for her.  We never discover what happens to Alexander's
    character.
    
    Keaton, of course, has to do the tradition hospital waiting thing. 
    They bring Glenn Close to the same hospital.  She never finished her
    call to the press room and she claws phones off of walls and desks
    while they're wheeling her to the operating room.  She only gets a
    phone when she refuses to sign the necessary paperwork so they can
    operate on her.  She says she will after she gets to use a nearby
    doctor's cellular phone.
    
    They save Marisa Tomei and the baby.
    They save Glenn Close.
    The paper gets the exclusive.
    
    Fade to black.
    
    DFW

    I saw this last night and enjoyed it a lot. (I think I'll now add
    Marisa Tomei to the list of actors I'll watch in anything: she was
    fabulous.)
    
    However, one thing's been bugging me. Michael Keaton steals a lead from
    a rival editor's desk. When the editor calls up to complain, Keaton
    lets him have it with a four-letter-word barrage and hangs up. The
    audience cheers: our hero has come through.
    
    Yet the fact remains that he *stole* something. And the film seems to
    endorse this behaviour because it works. In other words, you can do
    what you like as long as you benefit from it. Isn't this what the Glenn
    Close character is later roundly castigated for? Running the wrong
    story because it'll be good for the paper?
    
    Nick

    Saw this on video today and really liked it. Definitely a good movie
    to rent on a dreary weekend when you just want to veg out a mite :-)
    
    Plenty of name actors doing good work, with especially fine
    performances by Marisa Tomei and Randy Quaid. A nice story twist
    makes the drunk-city-parking-commissioner a sympathetic character.
    
.8>    re: Keaton yelling "Stop the presses!"
.8>    
.8>    Any new twist provided on that particular cliche?
    
    Yes. But I won't give it away.
    
      John

  I saw The Paper on video last night and thought it was ok but not that great.
I think that if I had seen it on the big screen I would have been a little
disappointed. 

  Normally I like newspaper stories but this one comes up a little short. The
characters were all stereotypes with little or no depth and most of the
character development in the 1st half of the movie was done through cliches. 

  The excitement picked up enough during the 2nd half to keep my interest but
there was very little that I would think of as memorable. The all-star cast
of actors did a fine job with what little they had in the way of a script and
there were some fine moments but there were also some gaping holes.

  The hero was right, "stop the presses". In fact, he sort of muffed that line 
which should have been the most dramatic moment of the movie.

  Mild thumbs up on tape but don't pay to see it on the big screen,

  ** out of 5
  George