Most of the time, journalism is not that exciting (trust us, we know). But these movies do a superb job of making the business look glamorous, dangerous and fun.
Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis, dazzling in the ease of his brutality) is a press agent feeding scraps of his clients’ gossip to killer columnist J.J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster, steely and remote). In this exuberant jeremiad, directed by Alexander Mackendrick, J.J. and Sidney are at once the rock that crushes decent people and the vermin under it. Ernest Lehman, who had worked for a Broadway press agent, wrote the novelette and first script; but it’s the rewrite by playwright Clifford Odets, who knew plenty about fame and failure, that makes the tale sing and sting.
Odets stewed the characters in venom and peppered the dialogue with wit so acute and sarcastic that, a half-century later, viewers’ heads swim in wonder and revulsion. No one’s nice here; there are only the wicked and the weak. Bile served with brio: would that someone dared to make a movie this dark today. Please, someone — anyone?
The Watergate scandal, which stained and terminated the Nixon presidency, made Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein the ’70s’ primo nerd-studs — guys who became famous by doing an important job sensationally well. Back then smart college grads — whose counterparts 30 years later would head to Wall Street for the kicks and power — wanted to be Woodward and Bernstein. It was only natural that, in the movie version of their best-seller All the President’s Men, the Washington Post cub reporters would be played by the top stars of the decade, Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman.
William Goldman’s script captured the exhausting leg work and the connect-the-dots inspirations that nailed a Presidential conspiracy; and director Alan J. Pakula created a tone both bustling and ominous. Here was a thriller where the good guys work on phones and typewriters, and the bad guys are trying to kidnap with the Constitution.
The Foo Fighters captured five Grammys and Adele won four, including the song of the year trophy for “Rolling in the Deep,” at a Grammy ceremony that had the difficult task of celebrating music’s best while mourning the loss of one of their greatest, Whitney Houston.
From Nicki Minaj’s Red Riding Hood getup to Katy Perry’s head-to-toe blue ensemble, TIME rounds up some of the best (and worst!) sartorial choices at the annual music awards show.
