You know what your going to get when you turn on or read mainstream news, you choose what makes you feel congratulated with stories that say, ‘you’re right!’ or ‘be afraid’ which in this sense, means, ‘You’re left.’ Ok enough of my political humor…I’m a moderate for the record, wishing everyone could always compromise and be adults…and with that to finish off the metaphor…in my perfect world, the news of the world stories would be more like the truly precise and helpful graphs they (the Times) posts about Covid outbreaks. A factual news paper with the obvious exception of the Op-Ed pages.
And since my m.o. is for everyone to be happy and get along, and since we did sell many copies of Jiles’ book News of the World for that very reason-the ‘nice story aspect,’ a feel good, feel right tale that brings everyone comfort, I was in the mood for a lazy river ride, where I can tell the beats coming up in a story. And who is more of a reassuring actor than Tom Hanks, ground zero Covid celeb?
I guess I raised my hopes for maybe a more complex story given the two who adapted the screenplay were Paul Greenglass (who also directed News of the World and directed the fantastic Captain Phillips) and Luke Davies who wrote both Lion and Beautiful Boy, both complex and very moving films.
And I really do like Tom Hanks (should receive the most handsome beard and mustache set for sure), but maybe it’s that I can’t unsee him in his better films, so everything else now is simply gravy. Or perhaps the story was just too simple…And I really don’t want to hear how profound the young girl (what gives with the Howdy Doody makeup freckles?) as (Helena Zengel) since she didn’t have a lot to do, REALLY, and young actors like Lucas Jaye from Driveways did ten times the acting this year.
Sorry to bring the bad news to the world…News of the World is just mediocre to me.
