kolya-886-801271
Morning Glory is a delightful movie of a young woman who breaks through in her job as a morning show producer.
Unfortunately they also felt it necessary to justify the hunt for the lowest common denominator in TV. And Becky turns out to be unscrupulous to do anything for the better ratings. Which of course the film sets her up to do. But did they have to make her pursue trash TV so enthusiastically?
Quote: "The war between news and entertainment has been going on for years and guess what? Your side lost."
That's the plucky whizkid TV producer talking. And the side that lost, according to her is of course the news. And if you disagree with that assessment, you may feel a bit uneasy to root for her success.
Harrison Ford presents the other side of serious news that has a drinking problem alienated kids and just isn't very fun. Since this is an uplifting story he eventually succumbs to Beccky's tomboyish charme, infectious enthusiasm and the ruthless brainless stupidity she chooses to perpetuate. Happyend!
lavatch
"Morning Glory" is a lively sitcom style film about network television's morning programming. A dynamic, ambitious television producer (Rachel McAdams as Becky Fuller) is hired to salvage the "Daybreak" show, which is suffering from low ratings.The film develops an improbable plot about the two hosts of the show (Diane Keaton and Harrison Ford), their conflicts, and Fuller's attempts to inject some live and energy into the show.The best relationship that unfolds in the film is that of Fuller and the old warhorse newscaster, as played by Ford. His character believes it is beneath him to pander to the public with mindless morning entertainment. There is some good chemistry between McAdams and Ford, and she attempts to bring out the best in him. He recognizes her sincere intentions, and eventually rewards her with some entertaining skits and routines on the show.The film was well directed by Roger Mitchell, who captured the frenetic atmosphere of a network television crew. There was excellent camera work in dissolves and close-ups. The film was well cast with actors such as Jeff Goldblum as the hard-nosed television executive and Patrick Wilson in a thankless role as the romantic interest of Becky Fuller.While entertaining, "Morning Glory" could have been a better film. It tended to take itself too seriously and did not always provide believable situations within the studio. (The programming flub in labeling Jimmy Carter as a "sex offender" was not funny, and is the kind of snafu that rarely ever occurs in professional broadcasting.) But the film is worth seeing for the performance of McAdams. She was so engaging that it was not credible why she as executive producer of "Daybreak" would not have cast herself as the program's host.
blanche-2
From 2010, Morning Glory is a nice film, if predictable and derivative. The big problem I had with it was that with another cast, it could have been a TV movie. The cast is excellent -- Rachel McAdams, Harrison Ford, Diane Keaton, and Patrick Wilson. McAdams plays the hard-working, loyal Becky, who has been working at one TV station a long time, when the rumor starts that she is the next producer of the show. When the call comes down from the head office, she finds out she's fired due to budget cuts.Frantic, she starts applying everywhere, and lands an interview at a dying TV show. She convinces the interviewer (Jeff Goldblum) that she is the woman for the job, and gets it.There are some tremendous challenges ahead. First she has to fire the sexist coanchor and find a new one. She decides that a famous news journalist the network has under contract, Mike Pomeroy (Harrison Ford) who is presently being paid $6 million to do nothing, is the man for the job. He absolutely refuses to go to work for a show that does soft news. Becky, however, has looked at his contract. It can be cancelled if he's offered a network job and refuses it. Reluctantly he comes on board and makes everyone's life miserable. He and his coanchor (Diane Keaton) loathe one another. Mike sits there, all right, but little else, and instead of ratings going up, they go down, and Becky's job is in danger, as are the jobs of everyone else. She is given one more chance to save it.Becky knows from her new boyfriend (Patrick Wilson) that Mike is the "third most horrible person in the world," but somehow, she has to convince him to get into the spirit of things.Charming film, though Diane Keaton was wasted in her role as coanchor. Rachel McAdams always reminds me of Jennifer Garner. She's likable and hyper here, as someone who acts insecure but really knows what she's doing.The curmudgeon Mike Pomeroy is played to perfection by Harrison Ford, who has a heart -- somewhere -- but long ago, it was buried by ego and anger as he's come to realize that the pursuit of a big career left him with nothing. His performance at the end of the film makes it what it is - warm, sweet, and fun. A delightful rental.
Max_in_Vienna
Take a young, attractive, highly motivated would be television executive lacking any experience, add a fledging, soon to be cancelled television morning show and the following off-the-shelf characters: (1) an aging, grumpy investigative reporter past his prime, (2) a grumpy, aging talk show host equally past her prime and (3) a grumpy if not aging managing executive who, for unexplained reasons, hires our young, attractive, highly motivated but inexperienced lead as executive producer. Further add a few odd-ball straight-men for comic relief and a couple of reasonably good lines, "a couple" meaning "two", and presto: a further petri dish film is born.Given an eminently foreseeable story-line and one-dimensional characters, Ms McAdams, Mr Ford and Ms Keaton do a reasonable job attempting to breath some life into this film
but even defibrillators have a maximum setting
and for good reason; there is a point where honest attempts at resuscitation turn into superfluous and cruel mutilations of a corpse.
AD
