Product Description

In James L. Brooks' quirky, romantic comedy, three ambitious workaholics are set loose in a network TV newsroom where their professional and personal lives become hopelessly cross-wired. Tom (William Hurt) is the modern anchorman, smooth, handsome and a bit dumb. Jane (Holly Hunter) is his driven, brilliant producer, determined to turn Tom into a real newsman. And Aaron (Albert Brooks) is a seasoned, totally uncharismatic reporter who can't stand Tom's instant success on-camera or with Jane. It all adds up to one explosively funny romantic triangle.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10517 in DVD
• Brand: TCFHE
• Released on: 1999-10-05
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 133 minutes

Amazon.com essential video
Holly Hunter plays a network news producer who, much to her chagrin, finds herself falling for pretty-boy anchorman William Hurt. He is all glamour without substance and represents a hated shift from hard news toward packaged "infotainment," which Hunter despises. Completing the triangle is Albert Brooks, who provides contrast as the gifted reporter with almost no presence on camera. He carries a torch for Hunter; she sees merely a friend. Written and directed by James L. Brooks, this shows remarkable insight into the people who make television. On the surface it is about that love triangle. If you look a little deeper, however, you will see that this behind-the-scenes comedy is a very revealing look at obsessive behavior and the heightened emotions that accompany adrenaline addiction. It is for good reason this was nominated for seven Academy Awards (though it did not win any). There are scenes in this movie you cannot shake, such as Hunter's scheduled mini-breakdowns, or Brooks's furious "flop sweat" during his tryout as a national anchor. Watch for an uncredited Jack Nicholson as a senior newscaster. --Rochelle O'Gorman

Customer Reviews

Strictly a technical review
While this is without question a 5-star film, the dvd leaves MUCH to be desired. Let me begin with the widescreen framing. I was happy to finally see this arrive on dvd in its proper wide format. Out of curiosity I took out my oft-played VHS copy and compared the compositions. Understanding that many 1.85:1 pictures are merely 1.33:1 aspects with mattes placed on the top and bottom of the frame, I wasn't expecting to be too disappointed with the missing, albeit unintended, visual information. But I have to say - not only is the top and bottom masked off, but the SIDES are zoomed in and cropped as well. In other words you lose information on ALL FOUR SIDES, and it does NOT look good. This CANNOT be what James L. Brooks had in mind...could it?!?! Sorry to say, but this has to be one of the most RARE examples where the "full-frame", that is, full aperture is preferred over the letterboxed edition. Which brings me to my next point: somebody PLEASE re-issue this as a Special Edition, replete with commentaries, and any extra footage. Finally, whoever, please, PLEASE re-frame this into a 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer. Widescreen is preferred, but on the existing dvd the framing is just too tight.

"Wouldn't it be a great world ...
". . . if desperation and insecurity made us attractive? If needy were a turn on?" Though Albert Brooks delivers this line, *Broadcast News* is not directed by him; it's directed by JAMES Brooks (who also wrote and produced -- truly a product of one creative mind, here). It's a measure of how well James Brooks knows his 3 principal characters that the actors who play them speak as if they wrote their own dialogue. *Broadcast News* is a classic primarily because these characters are so completely realized, so lived-in, as it were. We end up knowing these characters nearly as well as they seem to know themselves ("I'll meet you at the place near the thing where we went that time"). William Hurt is the not-terribly bright aspiring anchorman; Holly Hunter is the type-A news producer; and Albert Brooks is the reporter after "hard news" (meaning, REAL news). One reviewer here complained that he didn't like Albert Brooks as much as he was "supposed to" and that Hurt's character wasn't villainous enough. But that's the point. While we side with Brooks' work ethics throughout, we are often disappointed in him, particularly when out of lovesick frustration he descends to cheap pettiness by rubbing his intellectual superiority in Hurt's nose and says hurtful things to Hunter's character. And while we disdain Hurt's corner-cutting career ambitions, we're also surprised at the man's humaneness, as when he calls his father in a touching scene, joyously proclaiming, "Dad, I think I can do this job!" The point being, of course, that these are REAL people, presented in such a way as nowadays seems impossible in mainstream Hollywood productions. As if this wasn't wonderful enough, the movie is interested in actual WORK: it's quite educational on how a network news program is edited, staged, and generally put together, even providing the inside skinny on how to straighten the shoulders of one's suit-jacket. And certainly the concern with ethics in journalism puts this romantic comedy on a far higher level than is usual with the genre. I'm talking a level on par with some of the great novelists of the 19th century, like Austen and Henry James and Trollope and Hardy. In other words, *Broadcast News* is nothing less than a formal comedy of manners . . . one of the best ever put on the screen. Oh, and by the way: the bittersweet ending is precise and true. Much like the rest of the movie.

One of the best movies of the '80s
A crackerjack of a movie, it's an intelligent and very funny look at TV broadcast news and the people who bring it to us. William Hurt is the pretty face/no brains anchor, Albert Brooks the smart writer who wants to be an anchor but doesn't have the talent, and Holly Hunter is the hyperactive producer who falls for both guys and loses both. So much is going on in this movie that repeated viewings reveal new insights and are always enjoyable. Great acting by all, and the script is terrific. The only fault, and it's a minor one, is the epilogue: it's superfluous. To me, this is one of the best, if not THE best, movies of the 80's.