We won!

I agree that that's what makes for great reporting and gets it in the paper. I agree that they shoeleather worn out on reporting this story is fantastic; but, again, I just didn't think it made for a very suspenseful drama. For example, they spent the entire movie setting up Church v. Paper, but then we never see a resolution of it.

 

Maybe I'd see this as more of a "win" for journalism if the industry hadn't spent the ensuing 15 years taking a collective shit on its legacy.

 

It's like the Marines.

Regardless, I'm just taking some time to rebuild my swing.

 

I thought it was a pretty strong year. I haven't seen The Revenant, but gather that it was pretty damn good. The Big Short, Room and Spotlight were all incredibly well done. If they still limited the field to five nominees, that would be four out of five that all had a legit chance at taking home the big one.

Spotlight and Room both blew me away.

It was nice to journalists portrayed in a positive manner for once. I think journalists have largely replaced lawyers as the preferred scumbag, asshole, unethical characters in Hollywood.

 

They treated lawyers fairly in "Spotlight," as well. More like hostages to the system they operate in than actual scumbags. The closest analogy to "Spotlight," thematically, is "The Wire." Both are really about the corrosive effect of institutional inertia.

 

Agree with your first point. They easily could have portrayed lawyers as soulless profiteers, preying upon the victims of molestation for money. In a similar respect, The Big Short treated the hedge fund managers kindly. Again, they could have made them look like profiteers betting against the American economy, but instead gave the characters a healthy dose of self-doubt and humility about what they were doing. Given what they knew, and the system they were in, they'd have been doing themselves and their investors a disservice if they hadn't shorted the CDOs.

I've never seen The Wire, so I'm not sure about your second point.

 

And let me make it clear: Lawyers, including the lawyer in the movie running the "racket" that Keaton's character threatens to make the centerpiece of the Globe's reporting, are not blameless. I am the same poster who has made this same argument regarding soldiers in an unjust war, so I feel like I should make it here, too, for consistency's sake. The point isn't that the lawyers here were anywhere near heroic, but that they were human, and affected by particular forces bigger than themselves. Not everyone was meant to be a hero.

 

Given that the Best Picture award has recently honored films about silent movies, slavery and the Iraq War, other things America no longer goes for - honoring a movie about journalism is fitting.

 

Look, the emotional climax of the whole movie is when Walter Robinson (Michael Keaton) admits that as Metro editor he was responsible for the Globe previously ignoring the story when it was brought to him, and Marty Baron essentially tells him to forget it and focus on the work they have done on the story. That very much speaks to Dick's idea of institutional inertia as a major theme of the movie.

 

Correct.

But:

"I could have done something, but didn't."

"That's OK, do it now."

"OK."

...does not a great movie make.

 

I think some of us are going to have to agree to disagree on this point. I thought it was very realistic and raw and, frankly, made for great moviemaking, compared to a lot of what is out there.

The other great moment was Ruffalo's hissy fit that won him the Academy Award.

He speechifies for a minute. And finally Roger Sterling says, in essence: "Are you done? Now go do your fucking job."

It's a movie about so many things, wrapped in this humble little package. But one of the things that it's about is work.

"Your wife doesn't mind you working so much?"

"No. She does."

I know, I know. Work doesn't make for a great movie, in your opinion. We disagree, I guess, which is OK.

 

Ruffalo didn't win. But he was damn good, and so was the film.