Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: The Post (2017)

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Posted by Mark Ogden (Member # 43) on 01-13-2018, 06:35 PM:

At the AMC Garden State 16, Paramus, New Jersey

*****

In 1969, Daniel Ellsberg, an employee of the RAND Corporation, secretly photocopied a top secret forty-seven volume study of the Vietnam War which revealed, among other things, the the war was being fought on a march larger scale than the American people had been led to believe, and that this was being done even though many in the highest levels of government thought that the conflict was futile and unwinnable. Ellsberg gave the papers to the New York Times which began publishing them, but after they were stopped by a court order he arranged to give them to The Washington Post where editor Ben Bradlee approached owner and publisher Katherine Graham for permission to run them. Graham faced a terrible dilemma in that the study had been commissioned by her dear personal friend, former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamera who she did not want to betray, and that the controversy could scuttle the Post’s initial public stock offering, a badly needed financial move.

The Post is a terrific movie that covers the week in 1971 that the publication of “The Pentagon Papers” initially took place, and Bradlee’s struggle to convince Graham to approve the Post’s involvement even as the Nixon administration was breathing down their necks over the matter. Meryl Streep is terrific as the shy socialite Graham, in over her head as the publisher and well aware that she and Bradlee could wind up in prison for treason. I didn’t care much for Tom Hanks as Bradlee, but the rest of the cast is very good. The screenplay is top notch as well, very tense and fast moving. For a movie that was photographed, completed and released in under seven months, it is a great job all the way, and about as timely as cinema gets. My favorite movie of 2017.

Posted by Allan Young (Member # 6332) on 01-14-2018, 07:22 AM:

The HBO documentary The Newspaperman about Ben Bradley is also worth a watch.

Posted by Harold Hallikainen (Member # 5405) on 01-14-2018, 11:30 AM:

We have not seen this yet, but will asap. I note that Josh Singer, one of the writers, also wrote Spotlight, another very good newspaper drama.

Harold

Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 01-16-2018, 10:35 AM:

I had some problems with the movie, but on a technical note, I thought the music and soundmix were the best aspects of the movie: am going to check this out again but this time at a theater that can playback the 7.1 soundmix as such.

Posted by Aaron Garman (Member # 1653) on 01-26-2018, 07:47 AM:

Spielberg went back to flat for this one. Too bad.

Good film! I felt like it left room for a "sequel".

AJG

Posted by Richard P. May (Member # 3598) on 01-26-2018, 09:43 AM:

For a sequel, try ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN. The closing scene of THE POST, showing the beginnings of the Watergate break in, is the same as the opening of the earlier movie.