Home :: DVD :: Comedy :: Satire  

African American Comedy
Animation
Black Comedy
British
Classic Comedies
Comic Criminals
Cult Classics
Documentaries, Real & Fake
Farce
Frighteningly Funny
Gay & Lesbian
General
Kids & Family
Military & War
Musicals
Parody & Spoof
Romantic Comedies
Satire

School Days
Screwball Comedy
Series & Sequels
Slapstick
Sports
Stand-Up
Teen
Television
Urban
Broadcast News

Broadcast News

List Price: $14.98
Your Price: $10.49
Product Info Reviews

<< 1 2 3 4 >>

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Very Funny!!
Review: Being in the news business myself, I found this movie to be very funny. Some of the characters were actually characatures of some of the ego-driven, compulsive people I have met in the business. Brooks, Hunter and Hurt are the big three here and they work wonderfully together!!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: good news
Review: biting satire with the cast used very well - Williams Hurt and Albert Brooks are perfect in roles that seem written for them, and Holly Hunter is just priceless; it covers journalistic ethics, the burdens of workaholic single women and office politics, with enough time for a love triangle (the weakest part of the movie). more than a decade later, it seems prophetic, what with all those horrible newsmagazines around. if you hate Dateline, this movie is a must!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Great mainstream comedy
Review: Broadcast news is a fantastic example of great mid-80's mainstream comedy. It'd make a fantastic double-feature with Tootsie, with which it shares a bunch of traits, like:

- an incredible cast of supporting actors.

- a bunch of seemingly throwaway lines and situations that make you belly laugh at the time and then creep up on you later.

- some moderately serious (simple) questions, asked in an effortlessly funny way.

- a particular sort of mid 80's look and feel. (I was surprised to feel a little nostalgic while watching this again.)

Holly Hunter is amazing in this movie, just amazing and charismatic and lovable and genuine, and Albert Brooks brings a real(ly funnily neurotic) pathos to his corner of the love triangle. Bill Hurt never really comes clear for me in anything, but like Brooks, he's perfectly cast here. (It's creepy that Hurt gets top billing on Amazon and the DVD box. Among the three main characters, his easily pulls the least weight. Holly Hunter's the emotional center of everything in this movie, she's making the choices and carrying every scene, and her name should go first.)

After you watch this one, tell me if you think Cher, in Moonstruck, deserved the Best Actress Oscar over Holly Hunter in Broadcast News (and Meryl Streep in Out of Africa). Yeesh.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A WONDERFUL INSIGHT INTO THE WORLD OF THE FOURTH ESTATE
Review: Broadcast News is a minute glimpse into the world of the Fourth Estate. It provides the viewer with an insight into the lives of three budding journalists. Amidst their differences, these three journalists have two things in common. All three of them are highly ambitious and share a sense of determination that it takes to achieve their goals. The movie also reveals the hard work that goes into the creation of a great journalist, and the thrills and spills that come with being a member of the media. But the movie also provides the viewer with a glance of something different - the loneliness that accompanies all the pomp and glory. It is as though it is a mesage to those aspiring to be journalists - "The road is rough, and if you don't think you can handle the ride, get off before it's too late." In other words, the view that the life of a journalist is standing in front of a camera and reading a script is a facade. The movie reveals the reality and the harshness involved with living the life of a jornalist.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: THE PERFECT ARC
Review: Broadcast News is one of those films that makes you feel like you've had a perfect meal. Its makes you feel content and grateful that a film could be so perfect. On the surface this is called a romantic-comedy, a genre muddied buy wittless trash like Picture Perfect but this film is as(for lack of a better word) deep as they come. Yes it is at times funny, but all three leads are very and even painfully real. Holly Hunter periodically disconnecting the phone, crying for a while and then giong back to work, sounds overtly cutsy, but as performed it somehow fits. Albert Brooks (in his best role) is a knock-out, he plays a reporter who is gifted/nuerotic/disposable and very much in love with Holly Hunter. He has this unforgettable speech about Tom(William Hurt) being the devil where he is "semi-serious" that manages to be over the top hilarious and unbearably sad. William Hurt, in his string of great 80s performance plays Tom, a man of low I.Q. but a deep understanding of life, he is the subject of Holly Hunters loathing and affection. These three set the stage for a perfect morality play, a realistic expose of life in network news, its politics and the cost career driven people have to pay. As a critique of network news, I liked this film better than Sidney Lumet's NETWORK becuase that film wet completely over the top in its final quarter, Broadcast News's approach on the other hand is through real characters that we can symphasise with. This is director James L.Brooks's best film. I can only count four he made, most recently As Good As It Gets.That film is just a lighthearted unrealistic if highly enjoyable comedy, and it does not nearly come close to the depth of this film. Broadcast News is a great film.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: An exercise in smart scripting.
Review: BROADCAST NEWS marks the first time I saw Holly Hunter, and I was mesmerized at her focus, quickness, passion, and finally her eccentric prettiness and sex appeal. The movie is hers from start to finish, and makes the 'love triangle' subplot almost unnecessary. She's so smart in the film (a rarity for a lead female character) that you almost think if her only romantic choices are William Hurt's style-but-no-substance anchor or Albert Brooks's neurotic but intellectually arrogant reporter, she'd be better off with Robert Prosky. I guess some of my feelings mirror what San Diego Darren said down below, but it dosen't stop me from being a bit p'od at Albert Brooks. His was the character I identified with the most- the guy who's always seen as a 'brother' to the girl he really loves, and my favorite scene in the whole film is him getting the chance to kiss Hunter romantically. (It's preceded by a truly poignant moment of him confessing how much he loves her.) When he goes petulant later in the story, it's a bit hard to take. Fortunately, the James Brooks script and direction are a joy throughout, culminating in two perfect scenes: one with Joan Cusack unraveling seconds before a tape feed, and a marvelous 360 (?) pan thru the studio showing a live news feed from producer to anchor in one shot.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A well-acted romantic comedy
Review: Holly Hunter is adorable as Jane Craig, a super-hyper, control-freak news producer, and she falls for empty-headed, handsome and up-and-coming anchor William Hurt, who plays Tom Grenick. This is much to the chagrin of Albert Brooks's character Aaron Altman, a hard-working reporter who is best friends with Jane; he also is in love with her himself.

The backdrop is the high-stakes world of network television news, and although the technology has changed since the mid 1980's when this was made, the politics and the cut-throat environment are still exactly the same. There are some very funny moments, including Brooks's hilarious attempt to anchor the weekend newscast. Ultimately, network cutbacks send Aaron, Jane and Tom their separate ways. There's a brief epilogue which takes place seven years later, when Tom is now the prime-time network news anchor. It's bittersweet, as both he and Aaron are married and Jane is involved with a new beau; the three of them are together for a moment, and there are still feelings from both men toward Jane (and vice-versa, to a degree).

The three stars give very strong performances in this film, and the network news background is on the money. Robert Prosky (who starred in "Hill Street Blues" at the time) does a good job with his bit part as the executive producer, although Jack Nicholson was miscast as network anchor--it's a bit part, so I'm not sure why a major star like Nicholson was chosen, and although he's a remarkable actor, it just doesn't work. On the whole, a very good film...between four and five stars. The DVD looks good and sounds fine, although there are no extras.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Perfect Film
Review: Holly Hunter, William Hurt and Albert Brooks are all equally wonderful in this story of love and friendship amid the chaos of a TV news station.

Joan Cuaack is hilarious and Gennie James is impressive as the young Holly Hunter ("if I'm wrong daddy, and please correct me if I am"!!!!!)

It's a film that gels perfectly from being a biting satire on the media, a workplace romance and a coming-of-age drama.

Truly remarkable.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: One of the Best and Most Important Movies Ever
Review: I absolutely love this movie! I've seen it nth times and plan to see it again and again and again. At one level you can love it as the bittersweet love story that it is. We can all relate to not ending up with the person we want because they are attracted to someone else, usually someone not worthy of them (too true!). But also we can appreciate this movie as the savage expose of the television news business that it is: how slick, cheap, puffy stories are replacing hard, thorough journalism and how all news is just decaying into that odious abyss called "entertainment." This movie is more important and relevant now than when it was released 12 years ago and the lines are so wonderful and classic they are as timeless as the film they are contained in. James Brooks has always done good work ("As Good as it Gets" was good but nothing spectacular) but "Broadcast News" is his masterpiece, a masterpiece for all time. I don't think I could say anything more or better than the previous person but I will add that "Broadcast News" is not only great but important because it shows in what direction this country is going in: accepting shallow mediocrity instead of (not always sexy enough) quality. Hopefully we can all learn something from this movie.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Simply A Terrific Film!
Review: I can watch this movie over and over again. Brilliant performances by all in both the primary and secondary roles. The type of movie where each time you watch, you pick up something new. I think that part of the appeal of the movie is that we can all identify with each of the three lead characters in some way. If I had to take just five movies with me to the proverbial desert island, this would surely be one of them.


<< 1 2 3 4 >>

© 2004, ReviewFocus or its affiliates