News

After Bonnie Parker and Joan Crawford, Faye Dunaway's most famous role is arguably sociopathic TV producer Diana Christensen in "Network." The youngest of the film's leads, Diana personifies the generation "raised on TV." Her ambition to bump up the ratings of the Ubs network sees her put the mentally ill Howard Beale (Peter Finch) on TV, then arrange to have him assassinated once his ratings falter. She ruins her relationship with fellow producer Max Schumacher (William Holden) along the way.

"Network" is famous for its verbose dialogue, scripted by screenwriter/satirist seer Paddy Chayefsky. From Beale's "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not gonna take this anymore!" or the towering Arthur Jensen's (Ned Beatty) "You have meddled with the primal forces of nature!," many of the film's monologues have become deservedly famous. However, Dunaway apparently had the hardest time of the film's leads wrapping her brain around Chayefsky's words.

If the only performance Ned Beatty had ever given was the six minutes he appeared in “Network,” he’d be an actor the world would remember. In that visionary satire-that’s-not-really-a-satire, Beatty, who died Sunday at 83, does one of the most towering one-stop scene steals of all time as Arthur Jensen, the corporate communications overlord who comes in to read the riot act to Howard Beale (Peter Finch), the mad prophet of the airwaves. Ushering Howard into an empty boardroom, he closes the blinds, which makes the room look like something out of “The Godfather Part II.” He then says, “You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale,” not just shouting the words but roaring them, then adding, with an up-the-ante flourish, “And I won’t have it!”

In the mesmerizing monologue that follows, Beatty proceeds to explain The Way Things Are. He sounds like a Pentecostal preacher,...

Ned Beatty, the Oscar-nominated character actor known for his scene-stealing roles in Deliverance, Network, Superman, and Nashville, has died at the age of 83.

TMZ first reported that Beatty died Sunday morning in his sleep surrounded by family, with the actor’s manager later confirming to Variety that Beatty died from natural causes.

A veteran of over 150 films and television roles, Beatty made his first big-screen appearance in 1972’s Deliverance about four men whose canoeing trip goes tragically awry. (In perhaps the movie’s most culturally enduring and infamous scene, Beatty...

Actor Ned Beatty passed away in his sleep on Sunday. The Oscar nominee, known for turns in Network, Deliverance and much more, was 83.

Beattie’s manager, Deborah Miller, confirmed the news to Deadline, saying that Beattie passed away from natural causes this morning, surrounded by his family and loved ones. No other details about his death were provided.

“Ned was an iconic, legendary talent, as well as a dear friend,” said Miller, “and he will be missed by us all.”

Born on July 6, 1937 in Louisville, Kentucky, Beatty kicked off his career as an actor around the age of 19, when he appeared on stage in the play Wilderness Road. He spent his first 10 years in the profession working in theaters across Virginia, Kentucky and Indiana.

In 1972, he made his feature film debut in John Boorman’s thriller Deliverance, opposite Jon Voight and Burt Reynolds, playing the role of Atlanta businessman Bobby Trippe.

Veteran character actor Ned Beatty, famous for roles in movies like Network and Superman, died Sunday at the age of 83.

The actor passed away in his sleep surrounded by loved ones at his home, a family member told TMZ. No other details have been given at press time.

More from TVLineThe Conners Kills Off Pivotal Roseanne CharacterManifest Cancelled After 3 SeasonsIs Celebrity Dating Game Worthy of a Big, Blown Kiss? Grade the Premiere

Throughout his five-decade career, Beatty played heaps of memorable movie characters, such as Gene Hackman’s sidekick Otis in 1978’s Superman and its 1980 sequel. In 1977, he was nominated...

Bryan Cranston’s blistering performance as Network‘s mad-as-hell prophet of the airwaves – now ranting from Broadway’s Belasco Theatre – is all the proof anyone could need that an actor can demolish any and all associations to a role that audiences carry to their seats.

I’m not referring to our memories of Peter Finch’s instant classic performance of raving newsman Howard Beale in Sidney Lumet’s 1976 masterwork. The ghost Cranston battles is his own, and even if by now he’s an old hat at ripping away a perma-glued fictional persona, his Network star turn is no less mesmerizing, so thoroughly does the actor strip away Walter White.

And Lbj (All the Way) and Dalton Trumbo (Trumbo) and hapless Hal (Malcolm in the Middle). But those characters – might as well toss in Seinfeld‘s oily dentist Tim Whatley, too – can’t really compete with Walter White, the high...

Because 2016 cares not for subtlety, this month marks the 40th anniversary of “Network.” Since its release in November 1976 to wide praise and an eventual heap of Oscars, director Sidney Lumet and writer Paddy Chayefsky’s excoriation of the exponentially money-driven, bottom-feeding tendencies of television news has only grown in renown, as each angry pundit updates the film’s library of prophecies about The State of Television Today.

With the ascent of an actual reality TV star to the U.S. Presidency following a broadcast news cycle that worked for everything but a dedication to public interest, it would seem that this depressing political season has reached the logical end of the film’s apocalyptic forecast, landing on a reality too absurd for even “Network” to dramatize: Howard Beale as President. However, as we reflect on what’s gone wrong with contemporary news media and political culture, it’s important to...

Film critic David Thomson, author of “A Biographical Dictionary of Film” and “How to Watch a Movie,” has a new book coming out this month, “Television: A Biography,” which examines the medium and its six-decade history. In the book, Thomson addresses the medium in two sections: “The Medium,” which explores the social and political climate of the television age, the move from novel craze to complacent habit and more; and “The Messages,” which considers the evolution of TV shows, the relationship between Americans and television and more. “The sacred fixed altar (the set) has given up its central place of worship and is now just one screen among so many, like the dinner table kept for state occasions in a life of snacking,” says Thomson.

Read More: Interview: David Thomson Talks New Edition Of ‘Dictionary Of Film,’ Roger Ebert, Future Of Cinema And Much More

In the excerpt below, read...

Last Week’S Review: ‘Mr. Robot’ Throws All Decorum Out The Window

Swedish Psycho

We start right before last week’s episode ended, with Joanna Wellick waiting to confront Elliot. To him, everything about Joanna is off. He thinks she can hear his conversations with us, and Mr. Robot feels like she can see him. This week poured fuel on a smoldering fan theory that Tyrell is yet another one of Elliot’s personas — Joanna continues to address Elliot as “Ollie,” using the wrong name but with an air that she’s in on the joke. Does that mean she’s also playing along with Tyrell-as-Elliot, too? Even the name of this episode, “Hidden Process,” points towards the idea of another persona hiding in Elliot’s head. This show has made some outlandish plot turns work in that past, but this one strains credulity. If they really are going this route,...

Network

Directed by Sidney Lumet

Written by Paddy Chayefsky

Us, 1976

You can always pick out the true greats from the history of cinema by viewing them today and discovering that the product hasn’t aged, the message has not faded, and the era was not an inherent part of its magic. In fact, quite often, the visionary manner of true masterpieces mean they sit in equal stead with viewers then they did then. Think of how The Godfather is still an immersive and essential viewing experience, how 2001 is just as inspirational with its maddening visual poetry today as it was in the 1960’s, or how Apocalypse Now’s thematic resonance transcends the Vietnam war niche of war film genre and becomes something else entirely, something very special. It’s another 70’s classic that is under the microscope this week, Sidney Lumet’s often overlooked satire Network, a film of mean spirit,...

We start the Top 7. You finish the Top 10.

This week’s “Question of the Week” on Jeff Bayer’s “Movie B.S.” podcast is inspired by Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days, a film about bullies and wimps clashing within the American educational infrastructure (I’m just assuming – Jeff reviewed it, I didn’t).

Read Jeff Bayer’s review of “Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days”

In honor of the wimps and their bullies, it’s time to think about the best clashes between the two in all of cinematic history. Below is a list that covers the moments of “Bully vs. Wimp,” but it doesn’t necessarily mean victory for the little guy. Sometimes, the wimp wins, but in others, the bully just keeps on harassin’, sassin’, and obviously, bullyin’.

Here are the Top 7 Bully vs. Wimp Moments …

7. Porky’s (1982)

Bully: Porky Wallace (Chuck Mitchell)

Wimp: Young...

A god more indestructible than The Avengers’ nemesis Loki, Ned Beatty’s character Arthur Jensen in Sidney Lumet’s drama Network will forever be one of the most powerful villains in all of film. His face illuminated by a row of green lamps in a dim conference room, this chairman of a massive media conglomerate educates future TV prophet Howard Beale (played by Peter Finch) about “the primal forces of nature,” something that speaks galactically beyond accusations of greediness towards “The 1%.” In the movie’s epiphanic moment, he informs Beale that “… There are no nations, there are no peoples … there is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multi-national dominion of dollars … It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet … That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today!”

In this monologue Jensen...

"Sidney Lumet, a director who preferred the streets of New York to the back lots of Hollywood and whose stories of conscience — 12 Angry Men, Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, The Verdict, Network — became modern American film classics, died Saturday morning at his home in Manhattan. He was 86." Robert Berkvist in the New York Times: "'While the goal of all movies is to entertain,' Mr Lumet once wrote, 'the kind of film in which I believe goes one step further. It compels the spectator to examine one facet or another of his own conscience. It stimulates thought and sets the mental juices flowing.' Social issues set his own mental juices flowing, and his best films not only probed the consequences of prejudice, corruption and betrayal but also celebrated individual acts of courage."

"Nearly all the characters in Lumet's gallery are driven by obsessions or passions that range from the pursuit of justice,...