FilmJerk Favorites

A group of unique directors and the essential works that you've got to see.

||| Henry Koster |||
Henry Koster

Although his name is not a household one, Koster is responsible for some of the most beloved and endearing films of the late studio system era.

This is a delightful comedy starring Cary Grant as a suave angel helping distraught bishop David Niven with a new cathedral and his wife's (Loretta Young) affections. This is a deftly handled comedy set within the religious world that never preaches, nor disrespects it’s subject matter - and Cary Grant ice skates!

Another comedy slash drama with religious overtones, that doesn’t stoop to pandering an opinion to its audience. Koster wisely allows this simple, but potently charming tale of two European nuns to unfold before our eyes as they come to New England and, guided by their faith and relentless determination, get a children's hospital built.

James Stewart stars as a good-hearted drunk whose constant companion is a six-foot, invisible rabbit named Harvey. In lesser, or heavier hands, this Broadway success may have suffered, but Koster allows Stewarts natural charm and audience appeal to be the fuel that runs this whacky engine.

Recommended by CarrieSpecht

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Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism

By EdwardHavens

August 6th, 2004

It’s hardly a newsflash to learn the Fox News Channel is a bastion of Republican ideals, more a propaganda machine for the right wing than a legitimate news source. Yet director Robert Greenwald often feels no qualms about using Fox News-like partisan tactics for his new documentary, “Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism,” resorting to the same incredibly biased didactic subterfuge he attempts to speak out on. Greenwald and his team put up the good fight, but can’t help but find itself on the wrong end of a losing battle, since the war on television journalism was lost several years before media baron Murdoch created the channel.


It was in April 1986, when Geraldo Rivera was able to successfully sell his "Mystery of Al Capone's Vault" to the masses as legitimate news, when the final nail was pounded into the coffin of television journalism. Today, there are a few brave souls like Mike Wallace who attempt to maintain the highest ethics, but for the most part the talking heads on the idiot box are more concerned with ego and image, a gaggle of chucklenuts who have so blurred the line between news and entertainment, the word infotainment needed to be created. We now live in a world where Will Ferrell is gladly given time on the once-proud Today Show to read the news as his fictional Ron Burgundy in order to promote his movie, full hours of “news magazines” like 20/20 are happily handed over to an A-list star to promote his or her latest screen effort or album, and former sports stars are more likely to have their own news channel show than a reporter who has spent twenty years in the field busting their hump to get ahead. Where is Greenwald’s disgust about these types of attack on journalism?

The director’s concern, at least this time around, is on one man, Rupert Murdoch, and the media empire he has created. Worldwide, Murdoch and his company, News Corp, own 175 newspapers, 100 cable channels, 40 book imprints, 40 television stations, 9 satellite TV networks and one movie studio. On a daily basis, his various enterprises can reach over two hundred and eighty million people in the United States. Those kinds of numbers should scare and outrage you, making you want to call up your FCC representatives and question why they allowed one man to have so much control over the news that is reported, if only FCC Chairman Michael Powell (whose father just happens to be our nation’s Secretary of State) wasn’t trying to rewrite the rules to give people like Murdoch the ability to buy even more television stations.

While “Outfoxed” does present a fairly strong case against Murdoch and the Fox News Channel, so much information is presented so quickly and without much time to let it sink in, that some viewers are likely to feel overwhelmed by the onslaught of facts, figures and testimonials. Originally released on DVD before its release into theatres, home video is the best format for this documentary, as it gives people a chance to pause for a moment and think about what’s just been presented, to reflect on the testimony of former Fox employees and stalwarts of journalistic integrity like Walter Cronkite.

Despite its shortcomings, “Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism” is required viewing not only for media watchdogs and future journalists, but those who are concerned with how news is disseminated.

My rating: B