A Disquieted Place

Continuing on with my spooky season coverage, I watched Late Night with the Devil for you, and now we’re going to talk about it.  By now you know that horror is far from my favorite genre, but it definitely has its draw when it’s done really well and Late Night is done very well.

First, the vitals.  Coming in at a scant 93 minutes, Late Night is a refreshingly compact movie that doesn’t waste much time, nor much of anything else.  In an era of bloated 2+ hour everything, plus the inevitable 4 hour Snyder Cuts, seeing a movie that’s just over an hour and a half was such a welcome change.  I really appreciate the economizing of storytelling—not that I don’t love to have a show with 8 or 10 episode and getting really stuck into it, but having a story told well in the time it takes to watch two episodes of The X-Files is just so nice.  It’s not a movie that feels short though, if that makes sense.  It’s lean, not thin.  All the fat has been trimmed and it doesn’t feel like there’s a wasted word or wasted shot in it.  Everything there has a purpose and it draws you in and keeps you there.  It’s a variation on the found footage theme; what you’re witnessing is a moment lost to time, immortalized in film, but somehow forgotten, unearthed for your eyes.  The movie starts with a quick overview, an introduction to the film you’re about to watch.  David Dastmalchian (whom you may know as Kurt from Ant-Man or Polka-Dot Man from The Suicide Squad) plays Jack Delroy, host of the show Night Owls, a perennial also-ran against Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show in the 1970s landscape of late night television.

The footage you’re about to see is disturbing, they warn you.  Well, I don’t know about that, but it’s definitely some pretty creepy stuff.  As the introductory exposition explains, Jack is coming back from a personal tragedy and wants desperately to shake off the stigma of always being the runner up to Carson.  This pushes Jack to make more and more controversial decisions for his show, culminating in this Halloween special episode—an episode in which he brings on a medium to cold read the audience and a young girl called Lilly, the sole survivor of a Heaven’s Gate-like, demon worshipping cult that, under the care of parapsychologist June Ross-Mitchell.  The idea here is to have Lilly tell her story and, eventually, see if she can channel the demon Abraxas, which the cult worshipped.

As you can imagine, what happens next is a source of great distress to everyone involved.  As it builds to a crescendo, the night goes terribly awry, and things get severely out of hand.  But more than anything, this movie is not about demonic possession.  This is not The Exorcist with a twist.  It’s not even about charlatans and fakers, nor is it about skeptics or close-mindedness to the unexplained or unexplainable.

It’s about success.  It’s about fame.  It’s about the sacrifices that people will make, both real and imagined, physical and emotional, that take a toll on them as they push their way to the top, or at least, in the case of Jack Delroy, very close to it.  Despite the trappings of a 1977 live broadcast, the things the movie has to say about modern content creation are both cutting and palpable, especially in a world where paths to fame and success in the media space are more varied than ever.  I’m not sure that anyone in the 1970s or 1980s or even the 1990s could have imagined a society in which you could make millions of dollars by having people watch you play video games or do makeup tutorials or do whatever it is that people do on TikTok.  This isn’t a criticism of any of those things; I’m genuinely amazed and often in awe of content creators who not only push to the top of their field in an increasingly competitive and saturated, noisy marketplace of content, but also cross over into traditional media as well.  I often wonder, when I hear someone sing with a voice so beautiful it moves me or I see someone act so well they completely disappear into their characters and all but literally become another person and they don’t get fame and recognition for those talents what sets the people who do apart.  Hard work and talent of course play a part, but I think it’s fair to say that there’s a lot of luck involved as well.  But Late Night asks some very poignant questions about what you’re willing to give up and the lengths to which you’ll go in order to bask in the warm glow of audience adulation and makes some clever observations about the toll it takes on not only those seeking fame, but on those around them as well.

All this comes through the lens of a film so convincingly authentic looking and feeling that it’s easy to get lost in the movie.  The use of highly talented actors and actresses who are not household names definitely adds to this feeling of authenticity.  David Dastmalchian is not generally seen as a headlining name, despite the fact that you’ll probably recognize him if you’ve seen even half as many movies as I have and despite the fact he showcases some incredibly acting talent in this film.  Which, honestly, shouldn’t surprise me, because I’ve seen him play so many different roles well, but always in the background.  Australian actress Ingrid Torelli absolutely nails the role of Lilly in a way that leaves you unsettled from the moment she comes on screen until the end credits roll.  She has an extremely peculiar way about her, staring into the camera and seemingly always knowing immediately which camera is on her, only breaking to speak to Jack or glower at the skeptic brought on to debunk the acts on the show.  That is, until she’s strapped to a chair and the events of the film are truly set into motion.  It’s easy to focus on the two of them as standout performances, but really no one isn’t carrying their weight in the film and they all do such a great job, I could spend the rest of my column inches just singing all their praises.

Doing a full analysis of this film seems warranted, but I don’t want to go any deeper into it because I can’t do that without spoiling the movie for you and this is something I want you to experience for yourself.  The attention to detail in every level of this movie is immensely impressive—it’s not just the acting that’s praiseworthy, every little thread in the movie can be followed to a satisfying end and the way every minor aspect of the film looks and feels like a great deal of thought and care went into it, from the moments in which tape betrays its age through dubious warps and glitches, to the placement and positioning of every single prop—Late Night with the Devil is a masterclass in minutiae, a practice in particulars, and a study in specifics.  Even the name of Jack’s late night talk show Night Owls feels like a carefully crafted reference not only to the idiomatic use of the term, but also to the owl iconography in alien and paranormal circles. It’s not just an entertaining and insightful film, it’s relevant in today’s media landscape.  When we look at the sounds that echo across cyberspace, they are often the outlandish, the ridiculous, the vitriolic, the venomous, and the insidious.  The ones banging the drums the loudest to get over the din of the billions of voices are sometimes the ones that will do and say anything to get their version of success, no matter the damage they do.  And we’re all part of the outrage cycle; this bitter, spiteful ouroboros that we participate in with our television ratings and social media accounts.  Late Night with the Devil asks hard questions about the cost of success when you’re willing to attain it with reckless abandon and the complicity of those who allow it to happen.  And they’re questions we really should think about before answering.  Late Night might not scare you in the way you think it will, but it should scare you.

Charley and the Hemoglobin Factory

We did it, team.  We made it to another spooky season.  So this is the point where I remind you that I’m really not a horror guy, but then I go on to tell you about something in the horror genre that I really enjoy.  It’s true, horror is far from my favorite, but when it’s done well, I really appreciate it.  And there is one offshoot of the horror genre that I actually do love: the horror-comedy.

On the surface, it seems like an incongruous set of ideas.  If horror films and series act as a stand-in for tribal rites of passage or act to satiate our evolutionary instincts that have taken a back burner because we don’t really have to worry about being eaten by wolves for the most part anymore, adding comedy to the mix doesn’t seem like a great idea.  But it really is.  They can vary from creepy with a side of comedy to being fully farcical parodies like the Scary Movie franchise, so horror-comedies have a lot to offer even true fans of horror and non-fans alike.

So let’s talk about the 2011 remake of Fright Night.  I say this without ever having seen the original 1985 film or its sequel that I didn’t know existed until two days ago, but I have to say, I genuinely and thoroughly enjoy this film and upon watching it for only the second time recently, I think I’ve got to confer unto it hidden gem status.  I’m fully aware of how it was received critically, with an RT score of 72% and just 64 on Metacritic; and I know how I normally feel about movies in the 70% range, but this is definitely one of the exceptions.  Fright Night is a surprisingly strong entry into the world of horror-comedy.

It’s a fairly breathless ride. The movie starts in media res, setting up the premise.  Bad things are happening and people are dying and it gets really bloody.  Vampires and all that, they seem to always forget their manners.  But then you cut to Charley Brewster (played by the very talented late Anton Yelchin) walking his dirt bike home and chatting with his pretty neighbor before his mom (played by the always excellent Toni Collette) gets on his case for leering.  Charley is a fairly typical teenager, trying to shed his nerd past in an effort to be perceived as cool and do all the things being a nerd can sort of lock you out of socially when you’re high schooler surrounded by high school-aged minds.  I remember these days well, back when nerd culture wasn’t mainstream and, though the memories are fading quickly, I also remember what it was like to be a teenager unsure of yourself, so I commiserate with his plight.  Some typical chauvinist teenage banter ensues, but it doesn’t last long before Charley’s nerd past rears its ugly head in the form of McLovin from Superbad (Christopher Mintz-Plasse, who plays a variation on the roles you know and love from him, but with a neat twist).  He ambushes Charley after class and lays it on him—the empty seats and Bueller moments in the morning roll call aren’t kids skipping class; they’re being eaten by a vampire and that vampire turns out to be the sexy next door neighbor digging out the concrete under his house for some unknown reason.  See, Charley has this new popular girlfriend (played by Imogen Poots, who seemed to be Yelchin’s horror partner; she’s also great in the very good, but not very funny film Green Room with him) whom he is desperate to keep from finding out that his deep dark LARPing secrets, so when McLovin threatens him with exposure, he agrees to go with him on his recon mission.

And from there, the movie just flies.  In about 10 to 12 minutes, you’re in on everything and Charley has been brought up to speed.  Fright Night is not a movie that’s interested in keeping you waiting or keeping the main characters in the dark.  It doesn’t take long before you’re thrown into the deep end and so are they.  What results is a legitimately funny, action-packed locomotive ride to the end of movie, with very few stops along the way.  The inimitable David Tennant plays Peter Vincent, a Criss Angel-like illusionist who claims to have occult knowledge of things like vampires, and he absolutely crushes the role.  As someone who has never been a Doctor Who fan, I am quite the big fan of Tennant (his pandemic show Staged with Michael Sheen is a particular high point for me and he just seems like an all around good guy) and he does not disappoint in Fright Night.  If I had been on the fence about the movie until his appearance, his performance absolutely pushes me over into the solid like side.  Tennant plays the role of Peter Vincent with such aplomb and charm that, well, he doesn’t really need vampire mind control powers to get you in a trance.  He’s just that good.

After speaking to Peter Vincent, Charley gears up for the final showdown.  He does what any high school kid would do when faced with a supernatural monster—he heads to the local hardware store and loads up in a way that feels very familiar if you’ve seen Stranger Things before this.  I’m not certain that scene is a reference to Fright Night, but I really do like to think it is.  I know I’ve come across a fair few inquisitive cashiers in my time, so it’s probably a juxtaposition of a common occurrence into a fantastical setting, but, well, we humans are wired to find patterns and connections, so let me have this one.  It’s certainly more fun than when the cashier comments on my pint of Americone Dream, boxes of frozen White Castle, and takeaway container of store-made pasta salad (that counts as a vegetable, right?).  Why yes, I am having a party; I just happen to be the only one invited.  Anyway, it was always going to end in a final showdown (between Charley and Colin Farrell, not me and the cashier, I don’t get down like that) and the movie comes to a satisfying ending.  Horror-comedies that have tonally difficult endings are a problem that can muddle the whole experience, but no splash on this one.  It’s a solid conclusion.

And that’s really kind of it for the movie; without just recapping what goes on, since it moves at such a breakneck pace after a relatively short preamble, I can’t go much deeper into it without spoiling the film for you.  It’s 106 minutes of turn your brain off fun.  By comparison, 106 minutes into Jurassic World: Dominion—which definitely requires you to turn your brain off, but the fun part is a missing component—you probably still think the movie is about dinosaurs and not about giant bugs.  If you feel like you need something like that this season, in this particularly scary October, Fright Night might be the movie for you.  At the time of posting, Fright Night is available on Peacock and Hulu, as well as being on Tubi, which is free to use (without an account, if I recall correctly), with ads being the only inconvenience.  I think you should give it a try.

Vince Vaughn and the Ill-Behaved Primate

I didn’t have high hopes for Bad Monkey. Don’t get me wrong, I like Vince Vaughn as much as the next guy; Old School was one of those movies I loved growing up, but have been a little hesitant to return to because I’m not sure how well it has aged (actually, I’m fairly certain it hasn’t aged that well, thinking about what I remember of it). So I sort of assumed that Bad Monkey would see a continuation of that sort of “lad humor” that I’m really not that into anymore. I figured if I’ve outgrown Old School, I’ve outgrown Vince Vaughn. But, I was convinced to give it a shot and I couldn’t be more glad that I did.

It turns out that Bad Monkey is kind of a combination of a noir detective story, Miami Vice, and, oddly enough, Ted Lasso, with which it shares some of the creative team. Vaughn plays Andrew Yancy, an on the rocks detective in the Florida Keys, who is in trouble because he, somewhat rashly, but in a sort of justified kind of way, pushed a rich old guy into the ocean…with his car. But anyway, he went from Miami PD to the Keys, and is perpetually a dog with a bone.

The inciting incident is somewhat gruesome. An arm is found during a fishing tour and Yancy’s boss wants Yancy to take the arm up to Miami and try and dump it on them so his precinct doesn’t have a murder counted against them. Do this favor and his suspension would be lifted. So, he drives the arm up to Miami and when he’s rebuffed by PD there, his boss instructs him to dump the arm, this time into a swamp so the alligators can clear the case for them.

Remember what I said about Yancy being a dog with a bone? Well, in this case, it means that he couldn’t let that go. I know cops don’t have the best reputation these days and rightly so, and often I find myself having a hard time stomaching a certain type of cop show that is still prevalent on network TV, but Yancy seems to not only truly care about justice, but in the Ted Lasso tradition, he also truly cares about people. Like the legendary moustache man himself, Yancy is a surprisingly kind and open-hearted fellow who likes to talk. A lot. But there’s this almost incongruous quality to the job that he does and the way he goes about it. He reads people well, but he takes as them as they are. He judges a bit, sure, we all do, but it’s never too petty (though at times it does get pretty petty), but his approach to life and to people is very positive. He’s an oversharer, perhaps, but Yancy really does come across as a person who believes in right and wrong in a way that is very much live and let live, until you start harming another person. Unlike Lasso, Yancy does have a bit of a rough edge to him and he has his fair share of flaws—he’s not a relentless ball of positivity and energy that Ted Lasso is, but he’s definitely a good person. Even though he’s a cop. Well, he’s mostly a cop. Well, sort of, anyway.

It’s not just a character-driven show either and it’s more than Vaughn’s performance as Andrew Yancy that keeps you there. And it’s also not just my unending appreciation of Meredith Hagner’s abilities as an actress either that kept me interested (if you haven’t seen Search Party yet, it streams on HBO and she is an understated powerhouse in it). In fact, just about the whole cast is excellent. It’s difficult enough to point to Vaughn’s and Hagner’s performances as standouts amongst their peers, because it’s even more difficult to not mention how good just about every other actor is in the show. I mean, this is a show that also has Michelle Monaghan, who is one of my favorite actresses of all time and whom I rate very, very highly on the talent scale. In addition to her, there’s also Jodie Turner-Smith, playing a dubious island mystic known as The Dragon Queen (you may have seen her playing Mother Aniseya in the unfairly maligned The Acolyte on Disney+, but that’s a whole thing for another post), Natalie Martinez, who shines in her starring role, and Rob Delaney, Ronald Peet, and John Ortiz (fresh off his role in American Fiction) who round out the cast with aplomb. Everywhere you look in Bad Monkey, there’s an abundance of acting talent. But, the story is compelling and it comes to a narratively satisfying conclusion after 10 episodes (really sort of feels like the sweet spot for TV series these days, 8 to 10 episodes, except for Bob’s Burgers and Abbott Elementary, for which there will never be enough episodes for me). It weaves itself from a whodunnit to a howcatchem and I am completely fine with that. Every transition and story movement feels natural and organic, nothing comes out of nowhere. Yancy was never going to be Philip Marlowe and he was also never going to be Columbo, but the show threads the needle very well, giving you an engrossing story that you enjoy watching unfold. I don’t want to go into too many details and ruin the experience for you, but suffice it to say that from the very first episode, I was hooked. The twists and turns along the way are always earned, they’re never just there for shock value, and every beat they hit feels like part of a well composed symphony.

And that’s one of the hardest tightropes to walk when writing a mystery, even though this isn’t strictly a mystery all the way through. Too many times, you find yourself embroiled in a plot, running the numbers in your head, pinning up yarn on your corkboard until you look like Charlie from Always Sunny and then the show decides to throw you something at the end that makes no sense just because it’s something you’d never have thought of. Or, sometimes the clues are there, but the conclusion is so unsatisfying that it tanks the rewatchability of a series. A great mystery is a great mystery, even after it’s solved. But some shows just don’t stick the landing and they do it in such a poor manner that you can’t go back to it and enjoy the process again in the future, such as recent hopefuls Death and Other Details and A Murder at the End of the World. It feels like it’s happened so many times that I hesitate to recommend a mystery until I know that the ending is a good one. But that’s not a concern here, as everything is crafted so well and no surprise is too far out of left field as to feel too easy or manipulative. The show respects its viewers and doesn’t pull cheap tricks. I really like that and I appreciate the skill it takes to manage that feat.

As of the time of writing, Bad Monkey’s season finale just aired this week, but its fate for a second season is still up in the air. Luckily, it’s on Apple TV and not Netflix, so it hasn’t been cancelled five times before even airing, but it also means that it’s not as widely available as it would be were it on Hulu or Peacock either. But if you have Apple TV, it’s well worth your time. And if you don’t have Apple TV, but can get a free trial of it, definitely do that. I won’t tell, promise. Yancy would probably let it slide too.

I Want a Clean Fight, No Blows Below the Fold

It’s amazing how little changes over time.

There are a few kinds of movies I’m always going to be interested in. I love a war movie. When I hear of a new one coming out, I always eagerly await the reviews, decide to watch it anyway, and if it does disappoint, I keep my head up looking for the next Saving Private Ryan, Black Hawk Down, Dunkirk, or The Covenant, when, sadly, we have a lot of Jarhead 2s and Hacksaw Ridges. I love a whodunnit, I’ve seen all the Branagh Poirot movies at least twice and I tell anyone who will listen that See How They Run is an underrated gem. I also love movies about curmudgeonly writers, but I feel like if I said why, that would be telling.

But I’m not here to talk about any of those kinds of movies. I want to talk about another kind of movie that I love—reporter films. It’s not something we see too often anymore (though it seems they’re making a comeback), but as a kid, reporter was always one of those things I wanted to grow up to be, along with astronaut baseball player and moon knight (not the superhero Moon Knight, mind you, a knight on the moon who rides a space dragon), as well as a brief stint wanting to be a chaotician, so when a good reporter film comes along, they’ve got me hook, line, and sinker. I love seeing an overworked, underpaid underdog taking on the system to get the truth to the people. I especially love it if they’re exposing corruption and conspiracies, but it doesn’t always have to be so grandiose. I don’t always need it to be as hefty as Spotlight or State of Play, or as understatedly brilliant and touching as Safety Not Guaranteed, or as significant in scope as Frost/Nixon or Zodiac. Because when it comes to those fighting for the truth, it is always hefty, it is always touching, it is always significant; to me, at least.

And that brings me to The Paper, a movie that I’ve had in my Netflix queue for weeks, but I could never find myself in the right mood for until it got the dreaded “Leaving Soon” tag on the thumbnail. Of course, the way streaming services work, it’s likely only a matter of time until it pops up on some other streamer, so I could always go on the hunt for it again in a few weeks (don’t you love the freedom of cable cutting?), but I found the two hours or so and decided to put down Astro Bot and watch it.

Boy am I glad I did.

Tomei shines as Marti, just one of the excellent performances in this film

For those unfamiliar, like I was, The Paper is a 1994 film about a struggling New York newspaper that is a stand-in for the New York Post, taking place over a 24 hour period, or one news cycle, which is how the news used to be before 24 hour news channels and eventually Twitter changed the entire scene. We open on two young Black men stumbling across a vandalized car with anti-white slurs painted on it. They think the occupants are asleep, so they approached the car to wake them up and tell them that it’s not that safe a place to bivouac for the night and they should probably move on. But in the car were two slain white men and beside it, a discarded MAC-11 lying on the sidewalk. As one man reaches for the gun, the other tells him not to, and a witness stumbles upon the scene, causing the Black men to flee in fear of being held responsible for the double homicide they did not commit. More on this later. Then we get to see Henry Hackett, played by Michael Keaton, whom, depending on how old you are, you may remember as Batman, Beetlejuice, Birdman, or if you’re one of the unfortunate few who also sat through The Flash, old Batman. You may also recognize him from Spotlight, another excellent film in which Keaton plays a dedicated newsman. He wakes up next to his seriously pregnant wife (played by Marisa Tomei), fully dressed, and very deeply in trouble with her. You see, in addition to being the metro editor for a troubled paper, he’s also about to become a father for the first time and his wife is worried—and scared—that she’s going to lose her career, also as a reporter, and end up raising their child with an absentee father and partner because he’s always at the office. Rounding out the cast is not only a ton of talent you’ll recognize, namely Glenn Close, Robert Duvall, and Randy Quaid, but also a veritable who’s who of slightly younger than you remember them white guys, such as the bad guy from Mr. Robot, Gil from Frasier, that cop from an episode of Monk where he briefly rejoins the force, and another guy who was also in Spotlight. There was definitely a lot of “Oh, I know that guy, he’s the one who does the Nixon impression in that episode of Parks & Rec”, but overall it was a reasonably diverse cast for 1994, including Geoffrey Owens and Roma Maffia, and I commend them for that. With these older movies, you take what you can get; diversity wasn’t a priority in the 90s, so when you see anything even reasonably diverse, it’s memorable.

He’s not paranoid if they’re actually out to get him, right?

What is also memorable is what hasn’t changed. Young Black men are still blamed for crime, the NYPD still busts down your door with guns drawn no matter who is in the room, and the truth is still a fight. It’s a story as old as stories about the news—business wants while the news needs. The paper, the New York Sun, is recovering from teetering on the edge of shutting up shop when the business-minded paper savior and managing editor Glenn Close brings them back from the edge, but only just. And here it is. Here is the crux of the story, the spool around which all the threads are wrapped. The news needs the truth; the news needs accuracy, clarity, timeliness, and diligence. And all these needs cost money. Business wants profits. In order to maximize profits, it’s usually the needs of the news that suffer. Business wants, the news needs. It’s hard not to see the tension and how both sides here have genuine pros and cons; Close may be the antagonist in the film, but she’s hardly villainous. After all, you can’t have the paper if you can’t keep the lights on and put ink on the page. So in order to have independent journalism, you need to have someone footing the bill. But there needs to be balance—all too often now, business seems to take the forefront. Sensationalism is the word of the day; if it bleeds, it leads, but even better now if it makes you angry. In an era where the truth has become malleable, where total fictions and outright lies are run with loudly and corrected quietly, and misinformation and disinformation are beamed to your phone in an instant, The Paper seems more relevant than ever.

I know it may seem like they’re friends from this picture, but they’re not

In a way, it’s a love letter to journalism, including the dirty side of it. The Paper doesn’t shy away from the characters’ personal struggles and faults. Glenn Close is having an affair with a reporter. Robert Duvall has an estranged daughter and a prostate the size of a bagel, according to him. Marisa Tomei is nigh on petrified that she’ll be raising their child alone, losing her identity in the process. Keaton wants to be there for his family, but constantly ignores the concerns of his wife because of his dedication to the paper; so much so that he steals a lead from competing paper The Sentinel, while there on a job interview for a job that Tomei desperately wants him to take because it means better hours and more money for their nascent family. Randy Quaid’s character is a needed bit of comic relief in what is ostensibly a comedy, but even he has his troubles—we meet him sleeping on Keaton’s office sofa with a revolver tucked into his pants because he believes the civil servant he’s been lambasting in his column is coming after him. These people do a thankless job with little pay and great personal sacrifice; at least when it’s being done right. The movie still finds the comedy in their situation, though. Through all this, there are plenty of laughs to be had, but it’s not the thing about this film that really stuck out to me; it’s how even thirty years later, these stories still feel familiar, not because they’re overused tropes, but because they’re still relevant. Because we’re still facing them. Because not enough has changed. Print media is still in peril. The truth is still under attack. Profits are still being prioritized. The police and public are still all too happy to blame the closest Black person for crime, and the cops still come through the door in a way that makes every arrest feel like it could end up like Two Distant Strangers.

Now that campaigning politicians can lie, admit it’s a lie, and continue to run on the admitted lie and people believe them, it may seem quaint for reporters to come to literal blows over a headline painting two innocent kids as murderers being brought to justice, but the fight for truth has to happen on every level. Shades of the Central Park Five loom over the lead story in The Paper, but beyond that, we know here, as viewers, that the two teenagers accused of the murder are innocent, but we’re not the only ones. After hearing some chatter on the police scanner, Quaid is convinced that not only is the arrest bogus, the cops know it’s bogus, and the arrests are just for optics. But, Close wants to run a gotcha headline because they got pipped to the post the day before on the actual murders; and I mean she literally wants to run a photo of the suspects doing the perp walk to the prison bus with the headline of “GOTCHA!” plastered across the front page. News reports running in the background televisions have interviews with people cancelling plans to come to New York; tourism dollars were starting to become a concern citywide because the murders and news coverage were stoking racial tensions. Pressure on all sides. Keaton decides to step up, running with Quaid’s intuition, but doesn’t have the proof. But like any dedicated journalist, he’s determined to get it.

A bagel, he says, ruining one of my favorite breakfast items for the next few months, at least

The story has lots of plot points that weave together, but it all comes to a head when, two hours after they’re supposed go to the presses, let’s just say that Keaton and Close make more than impassioned arguments for their side. And what ensues, well, that just needs to be experienced without me tinting anything for you. But what I will say is that while The Paper may be a forgotten film, overshadowed by other blockbusters from 1994 like The Lion King, Forrest Gump, True Lies, Clear and Present Danger, and Speed, this is a movie that holds up to the test of time and—in the current news climate—is more than relevant, it’s important. The Paper leaves Netflix on September 30th, so I haven’t given you a very large window, but like I said, if you miss it, keep it on your watchlist. It’ll show up somewhere soon enough and it is absolutely worth your time. Because good journalism is as important as ever and this movie acts as a well needed reminder.

Here Keaton uses an ancient relic, a landline.