Oh William...

Network(dir. Sidney Lumet)
First hour was grand. Second hour not so much. Mostly due to the fact that the satire becomes just as extreme as Howard's banter on his show. It's got the passion of a fire and brimstone preacher, but it also got the mind of a schizophrenic screaming it's head off about how the apocalypse is coming. While I'm not a huge fan of television, I can't help, but feel that this film's hatred toward that medium and how it even can be deadly is preposterous. This is almost the equivalent of Jack Thompson's crusade against violent videogames that he claims to be conditioning and training children to become killers. This is clearly a creation of a group of men that don't understand the medium of television so they decide to create this fiery sermon about the evils of it. They do hit some points of criticism that stick like Faye Dunaway's character's affair with William Holden's Max. Easily, the most effective part of the film simply because it's so tragic and serene, but this turns into a crazed rant about television much like the rest of the film. William Holden's performance, however, lends a sense of gravity to this story to keep it from spiraling out of control. He loves her, but she doesn't love him because she was raised on television and he was raised on life. There's a depressing quality to Max telling her, "I want you to love me." A cry from the writer that is out of touch with a society that is in love with television. This should have been the focus point of the film not Howard or even the network. This is supposedly Paul Thomas Anderson's favorite movie. In the making of documentary about Magnolia, he even shows it to the cast and crew. It is easy to see why since Magnolia has a similar "message", but concerning the movies. His film is far more subtle and you care for pretty much all the characters(except for maybe Stanley since I felt he was contrived). While Howard, you can't really care for him. You admire him for his passion, but you can't help to think that he is too extreme much like this film. The end was probably aiming to be tragic, but it registers with a thud. Howard is so out of a touch that he almost seems to be living on a totally different plane of existence so what happens to him isn't as tragic as it could have been. A flawed, but still good film.
*** out of ****