Published: April 26, 2009 01:05 am      

MARREN: State of newspapers reflected in film

I could never be a music or movie review guy because I can’t even remember lyrics of a song or titles of a movie. Actors in those movies ... forget about it.

So, in an effort to not appear as a movie critic, because I’m not, I’ll just simply say — you have to go see “State of Play.”

It stars Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck, Helen (should have spelled my name Marren) Mirren and Rachel McAdams. It is based on a six-part British television series of the same name, which follows a newspaper’s probe into the death of Congressman Ben Affleck’s mistress.

OK, I said I wouldn’t be reviewing the movie ... so here’s why I liked it and you should go see it. If you are reading this column, and I won’t even split hairs whether you are reading online or paid for the hard copy, you’re supporting a newspaper.

I wouldn’t say it’s an undertone, because the film makes it pretty obvious, but the movie goes into the battle between blogs and news stories and even objectiveness and our struggling industry.

Really it’s a political murder mystery, but you can’t look past the obvious newspaper trends of today — at least I couldn’t. Maybe it’s because I’m in the business, albeit a community newspaper as compared to the fictional big town newspaper in Washington, but the movie nailed the same industry conversations and struggles that we have.

It may be subtle to those not in the newspaper business, but right from the beginning as the veteran Crowe is chasing a story, using his long list of contacts and sources, the film just screams old school reporting, old school journalism. From his coffee cup to his pen behind the ear and reporter’s notebook, Crowe was cast perfectly as the traditional newspaper reporter.

Enter the young, clean cut, cool McAdams, who was also cast perfectly, but not as the traditional journalist, but as the Washington Globe blogger. He writes for print on a 16-year-old computer at a desk buried in old newspapers, she writes for the fashionable Web with no deadline in sight. It’s something newspapers have embraced, with their own bloggers, but then also competed against when other news organizations use their bloggers to “report” the news.

Depending on which blog you’re reading, some can be seen as reliable, others are just as Crowe’s character described to McAdams: opinion and innuendo.

Early on McAdams comes calling for Crowe’s help, knowing that he used to room with the congressman who’s mistress was just thrown in front of a subway. Crowe writes her off, shunning the new wave of “journalism” and getting back to slinging ink.

It’s a fun movie to watch, regardless, but the battle between old journalism and new is fascinating. The screenwriters, directors, producer all did a great job in capturing the newspaper industry as it is today.

They injected the urgency to get the story, and to get it right and how that would keep the print copy viable. But you also see the need for the Web and getting stories posted there as well, since that’s what your newspaper audience demands.

Mix in the fact that Crowe and Affleck’s character’s have a prior relationship and you can see the battle journalists have when a source is too close and you have a movie. Keeping that objectivity is always difficult, especially when an investigation you are covering centers on an old roommate.

I don’t know, maybe I got too hyped up about it because newspapers played the lead role, but I really think it’s because the film did such a good job nailing the current flux newspapers are in.

One downside about the whole movie-going experience ... at the end when the final story was published and the camera’s take you to the pressroom of the Washington Globe to watch the true newspaper production process, people started walking out. Sure, the credits were rolling, but watching the plates being created to the presses rolling to the delivery was a fun ending to a suspenseful movie. Only a few were interested.

Maybe the captivating scene of some go-getter typing away at their computer, posting a blog online would have kept people in their seats just a minute or two longer.

Tim Marren is the managing

editor of the Lockport Union-Sun

& Journal. Contact him at Tim.Marren@lockportjournal.com

or 439-9222.