Saturday, April 18, 2009

Go see "State of Play" ASAP!

My head is still spinning from how ridiculously relevant this film, which stars Russel Crowe and Ben Affleck (groan) and just opened today, is to our class. It almost felt like the film was specifically tailored for our Media Ethics course. I don't even know where to start. First and foremost, this is the first movie that deals specifically with the death of newspapers and the moral and ethical fallout of both the loss of newspapers and the emergence of conjecture-based, in-the-moment blogging.

If the death of newspapers has affected you at all (and it has affected and will affect everybody even if they don't know it yet) and you've enjoyed the discussions we've had in this class, I pretty much garauntee that you will want to stand up and cheer at several points during this movie. I know this post is getting pretty hyperbolic but cut me some slack 'cause it's almost 3 a.m. and I just had to post about this movie while it was still fresh in my mind.

Anyway, "State of Play" also deals with themes and issues that were addressed in the other films we watched in this course, including the murky waters of reporter objectivity and the protection of sources vs. the needs of the public. And as an added bonus: Jason Bateman of "Arrested Developement" fame delivers a fantastic performance as a slimey PR caricature that, as a PR major, I found absolutely hilarious! Bottom Line: Go. See. This. Movie! And Nancy, I think this would be a great film to show in a future incarnation of this course!

2 comments:

  1. Thanks, Mack! Your enthusiasm is contagious -- I've got this on my to-do list for Sunday afternoon.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well, I'm convinced-- it sounds amazing. And I think the Jason Bateman factor (I love him!!) probably makes up for the Ben Affleck factor. I'm looking forward to hearing Nancy's review!

    ReplyDelete