[/caption]Carol Forsloff - Page One opens to the public in Portland theaters and other cities nationwide, advertising itself as a “riveting” film that opens up the door to the issues and events of the newspaper business, especially the New York Times, but falls far short of its claims of a serious, exciting film.
It’s tough to ridicule a film when you have been a guest. The Society of Professional Journalists offered its members an advance showing of the film on Wednesday evening. Journalists mingled with an assortment of other invitees to watch the movie before the public opening scheduled for tomorrow.
The Laurelhurst Theater was filled with folks who laughed a little, buzzed a bit, while this reviewer only hoped and fretted when the film would end. The first hour dragged but gave some meat with clips from Wikileaks. When "potatoes" came, the dialogue, they came like the kind of cold mush that makes one want to throw the dinner out. In that proverbial fashion, this reviewer left not long before the film had ended, with leg cramps, headaches and blurry eyes from struggling to keep up with what was mostly rehashed material on television every night.
The New York Times is central to the film about the newspaper business. The theme is multi-faceted, but revolves around the closure of many newspapers and the worries of those in the business that the whole business might eventually be abandoned in favor of a free-for-all of blogs and social sites. The drama for the crowd is whether the New York Times will survive while others sink.
The division that exists between the purists who hope to serve the public and the blog-type folks who favor anything anywhere the public wants to go is played out in the droning conversations that pervade the boring film. It does, however, speak some truth to what goes on inside those hallowed office cubicles and boardrooms where the big boys make decisions for the public and what constitutes the news. One sees the male-dominated echelons of power, from the pop-talking youth that made the grade through college and the former addict, older type who covers in a street-smart way the meanderings of the film.
But everyone looks “with it”, if with it means the sagging jeans, the talk that wanders here and there and misses most of the point, as the point of the film is lost in conversation while the viewer wants to get lost somewhere besides watching a boring film.
Page One has no great names to help bring interest to the screen. Instead it says the public ought to care about what goes on in businesses and boardrooms in the news business every day, especially the New York Times. The clips of historical moments flash through the film enough to stir some interest, but that interest soon dissolves in banal arguments and water cooler bantering that goes on among the boys. Perhaps the film is advertising for the New York Times that the public wants to keep in business because of what its status means to the people working there.
Sundance reviewed the film and finds the producer, Andrew Rossi, lost his focus in this film. Even the New York Times has given a bad review of the film about itself, with reviewer, Michael Kinsley, calling it "a mess."
But my dear viewer, you don’t have to see Page One to appreciate the news. Find some comics to enjoy or turn to sports instead, as this film is not fun enough to spend two hours finding something that deserves to be on the "back pages" of the movies and your town movie news as well.
