Two Actors, Four Movies that got Journalism right

I've just watched Spotlight and Truth back to back and both of them were intense and realistic and Sixty Minutes, no television news show had ever been profitable--and in Spotlight, the shadow of the internet hangs over the newspaper office -- literally. I used to be a reporter, starting off as a magazine writer and then becoming a freelance cityside reporter for an L.A. weekly paper, then freelancing for a a syndicated news service. I rarely wrote hard news but I took my job seriously and i did it with pride. My Great-Aunt Marie had worked for a Chicago paper during WWII and when she came home from the night shift, she noticed that one of her neighbors was always up and talking to someone who wasn't there. She did some investigating and then had a chat with the FBI, who arrested the guy. He was a member of the German-American Bund and he was broadcasting on a radio.  Yes, my newspaperwoman great-aunt caught a Germany spy!!!
well-done. Both of them are about the financial realities of news organizations--before

I grew up in a house where we read two papers every day, the Washington Post in the morning and the Evening Star at night. I don't even know if the Evening Star is still being published--afternoon papers were starting to die even when I was in  high school. On Sundays, my father would drive down to the bus station and pick up copies of the out of town papers.  So newsprint is in my blood and even though I've long since left the newsgatherine world behind, I'm still a news junkie.  And I love movies about journalists. I have a pretty short list of favorite movies in that genre and oddly, Robert Redford is in two of them and Michael Keaton is in the other two.

All the President's Men is a still my favorite of the four movies. It's beautifully acted, beautifully cast, written by the great William Goldman and directed by Alan J. Pakula.  the movie came out 40 years

Happpy 25th birthday Princess Bride

I was listening to an interview with Mandy Patinkin today and he was talking about how people still come up to him and ask him to say Inigo Montoya's deathless lines, "My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."  Those are good lines, but I'm fond of "Never go up against a Sicilian when death is on the line."
I really liked The Princess Bride and have seen it several times since it came out 25 years ago.  I just saw Robin Wright in the English version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and she is still lovely, with the kind of beauty that will be with her until she's 100.
And wasn't Cary Elwes perfect as Westley?  He turns 50 later this month. Hard to believe. He still works all the time, IMDB shows he has eight different movies in release this  year.
My best friend is actually related to the "Dread Pirate Roberts," the Welsh pirate Bartholomew Roberts, who raided off the coast of America and Africa from 1719 to 1722.  His death (in battle with the English Navy) is often seen as the end of the Golden Age of Piracy. I get an enormous kick out of that association. (Family lore has often said that my family had connections to Sir Thomas More, but you know, I'd much rather have a pirate than a saint in my background.)
I read William Goldman's novel, The Princess Bride, and didn't really like it very much. I am a huge fan of the man, though, and think he's written some absolutely flawless screenplays, and this is one of them.
There are so many great lines in The Princess Bride that are still wonderfully quotable. ("I do not think that word means what you think  it means.")
This is a year for anniversaries--the 30th anniversary of E.T., the 50th of James Bond, and this, the 25th anniversary of The Princess Bride, the best fractured fairy tale since Jay Ward closed up shop.