f13.net forums - Movie of the Week: Shattered Glass

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April 24, 2024, 04:57:10 PM

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Warning: the author of this review makes no guarantee that the facts therein are correct. Or, the author of this review smiles sweetly, asks if you’re mad, and hopes that you will assume that all facts therein are correct without having the presence of mind to check.

I take my lessons from the guy everyone in the journalism world loves to hate, Stephen Glass. Considering the recent run of reporters caught fabricating parts of their stories (Jaysen Blair and the New York Times, anyone?), the opportunity to make a film about the Godfather of them all could not go un-seized. Cleverly titled Shattered Glass, the film tells the true story of a promising journalist on the staff of The New Republic, a magazine that has been publishing political commentary since 1914. Glass also freelanced for Rolling Stone, Harper’s, and George. Anyone who’s ever written anything in their life finds themselves wondering how the fuck a guy could think he’d get away with shit like this.

Hayden Christensen of Anakin Skywalker “fame” stars as Stephen “Are you mad at me?” Glass, the reporter who just didn’t seem to realize that there’s a genre called the novel out there. Week after week turns into month after month and finally two years’ worth of the some of the best stories The New Republic has ever seen. Problem is, a good number of them are fabricated, in part if not completely. 27 of the 41 pieces Glass wrote in the 2 years he worked for the magazine were found to have bogus elements, and six of those were totally fictionalized. He was eventually caught after a reporter for Forbes Online attempted to do a follow-up piece on a hackers’ convention Glass had covered, only to find that neither the convention nor the people or company involved existed. Evidence against Glass includes flimsy business cards, badly designed web pages, and voicemails on one-line phones. Fitting that a hack would be discovered after writing about hacks. This makes for a pretty exciting story, all told.

That said, the movie itself falls just a tad short of the excellence the material could have allowed it to reach, primarily because of mediocre screenwriting. Line delivery is stiff from almost everyone, and some of the fictional characters writer/director Billy Ray (of 2002’s middling Hart’s War) created for the newsroom just don’t add up. The usually pretty good Chloe Sevigny’s super-strict spell-checker is a journalist of integrity on all fronts, save for the one where buddy Glass is concerned. Well, okay…she does reevaluate her stance, but it’s late in the film and only takes 32 seconds. I’ve said enough. Other characters, such as Peter Sarsgaard’s Golden-Globe nominated Republic editor Chuck Lane, are fun to watch but ultimately underdeveloped, which is inexcusable seeing as how they’re based on real people. Hank Azaria takes a nice turn in a non-comedic role which would have been improved had he been in it more. For some reason, his absence gave rise to daydreams about being at Moe’s, drinking it up with the guys, then getting hauled in for the night by Chief Wiggum for public intoxication after stopping by the Quik-E Mart to get a Squishey from Apu.

There is a small element of suspense for those unfamiliar with Glass’ story. I found myself wondering just when the hell this guy was going to get caught, and how. (Obviously, I knew he’d be discovered, since you can’t make a flick about a fabricator unless you’ve caught him. That, and the back of the DVD sleeve told me they would.) No, the story isn’t the problem. The film’s main downfall is that it is what it portrays—journalism. Billy Ray, in choosing to show us the story through the eyes of Glass’ coworkers, has given us a pretty solid account of his last few months on the staff of The New Republic—and little else. There’s none of the elements that film-goers so treasure in their addiction—no real insight into character motives, no real back-story, and no unexpected turn of events. While the latter is understandable—Ray can’t go fictionalizing a fabricator—I would have liked to see more of Glass’ inner workings. The DVD includes an interview by 60 Minutes with the perpetrator that sheds more light on the guy than the film does, and if possible makes me hate the guy more. I heartily recommend watching it after the film. It makes the whole incredible story more believable.

All in all, this isn’t a bad piece of film, and for anyone looking for a way to spend 2 hours, listening to Christensen blatently foreshadow his lying tendencies with preachy speeches about journalistic integrity isn't the worst way you could go. There’s something alluring about watching a good reporter—or good short fiction writer, you decide—go down the shitter on his own leavings. The flick just could have been so much better, considering that its subject is a pathological liar who seemingly has no remorse for what he’s done and is now banking off of his journalistic blacklisting by joining ethics panels and writing novels about his life. These are the elements of the story I would have liked to see on film—this is the juicy shit, as far as I’m concerned.

“I wanted them to think I was a good journalist…a good person. I wanted them to love the story so they would love me,” Glass says in his 60 Minutes interview. Sounds to me like he’s throwing a pity party. And for some reason, we’re all attending, we’re all interested in this twisted fuck. Journalism career over or no, Glass is still in the spotlight. Which is, after all, what he’s always wanted.

Dawn of the Dead, the original.

I can't say if there is a better movie released on DVD this week, but upon last night's rental, I was extremely disappointed.

The DVD's biggest special feature is that it includes the 60 minutes piece on the RL Stephen Glass....a nice touch, but the only pleasant surprise out of this steaming turd.

They essentially took the 60 minutes piece, and stretched it into a feature film, without providing any insight about WHY Glass decided to fabricate his stories. There is no real introspection, and we arrive after the fact....by the time we get past the introduction, someone is already onto him.

By understanding the premise of the film, the only aspect of the story that even makes it worth over an hour of celluloid is seeing the process in which they discover his deception. It's painfully obvious from the first time Glass is questioned that he is covering his own lies....it's not even particularly interesting to watch him fail to cover again and again.

The script is a tad weak, seems a bit like what may have actually been said, but the characters are so static and boring that it makes little difference.

The performances are spotty as well...Anakin manages to make his Star Wars performance look masterful by comparison. He is stiff, and his wooden, monotone delivery of the lines never seems genuine. Granted he is playing a guy that systematically lies his way through his career, but even the casual speech in the film is not believable. Hank Azaria drops in for a nerf toss of a role as editor/confidante Mike Kelly, and probably performs as well as anyone in the film.

Cinematography and sound/music are competent, nothing really of note here.

In the end, it's a flick where understanding the premise of the film gives away almost literally the entire plot. You spend the rest waiting for him to come clean, which doesn't happen until the waning moments of the film. There really is no dramatic climax....predictable and dull.

I'd have been much more interested to see some of the aftermath of this journalistic scandal, and possibly even a bit about how Glass responded to it. Ultimately, the 60 minutes clip provides more information and insight into Stephen Glass, his motives, and follow up to his story than the film itself.

I'll freely admit that I watched this a night after watching my newly purchased Schindler's List DVD, so perhaps I'm being too tough on it, but the level of quality between those films was like a freefall.

Must be a very weak set of DVD releases for this to be your pick of the week.

Bring the noise.
Cheers...............

to say the least...

Gothika, Beyond Boarders, The Rundown, and Somethings Gotta Give.

Here I thought Shattered Glass was a masterpiece compared to the other tripe released.

Quote from: schild

Gothika, Beyond Boarders, The Rundown, and Somethings Gotta Give.

Here I thought Shattered Glass was a masterpiece compared to the other tripe released.

I actually think Gothika was a better movie, only because it was shot in a lot of blue and gray, which I like, unfortunately that's the only flattering thing I can say about it. Nevermind the fact that color scheme alone was enough to push it above Shattered Glass on the ratings scale, since both movies were horrible.

I completely agree with the fact that watching the 60-Minutes interview would have saved about an hour of time, since every single detail of it was covered unnecessarily at length in the movie.

Thank god we at least have one decent movie, House of Sand and Fog for next week.

Quote from: Ralence

Thank god we at least have one decent movie, House of Sand and Fog for next week.

...and Penn & Teller's Bullshit. Which is supposed to be awesome.

I thought it was actually a pretty good film. I would have been much more unhappy with a psychodrama bullshit film about Stephen Glass' mentality. I don't care much about that. The real drama is in the question of whether Charles Lane is going to be able to confront Glass ethically and bring his staff along with him; it's a subtle movie about office politics and ethics, I think.

Quote

ethics

Heh, you almost make it sound like newspapers know what that word means anymore. There is just no accountablility in media anymore. If there was, a few big papers would have gone out of business last year.

Eh. Going out of business is a pretty serious penalty for the ethical misconduct of individual reporters, you know. I'm more interested in the fact that a) reporters can get away it for a while and b) that they get caught and exposed eventually. B), in many ways, is a good sign, but that's what is at stake in "Shattered Glass"--will Charles Lane bow (or be forced to bow) to the desires of his staff that this likeable, entertaining, skilled writer be merely rebuked or quietly fired, or will he be able to convince them that they are all responsible for what has happened, and must publically confront it, and must deal the harshest penalty they can to Glass? Believe me, inside all institutions, when it becomes clear that some individual has seriously screwed up, there is a very serious struggle between those who think about their responsibilities to higher ethics and those who only think narrowly about their own institution. Often the former lose, and not just in journalism.