Network

Everything about the movie is thrilling and flawless.

Like John Updike, Chayevsky and Lumet are here giving us Memories of the Ford Administration -- only they weren’t memories at the time. This was America as it was happening, suicidal ideations born of a scotch hangover, beamed live into every home.

The film looks negligently made; the lighting bleaches the actors' faces, like color TV that needs tuning, and the New York views outside feel like blown-up photographs.

No performance is less than brilliant, with Dunaway particularly effective in the film's showiest role. Holden, Finch and Duvall, as always, contribute bed-rock-solid performances.

This tale of a failing network that feeds on the mental breakdown of one of its anchors, cannibalising itself for ratings, feels as savagely relevant now as it did when it was released nearly 40 years ago.

The plot that Paddy Chayefsky has concocted to prove this point is so crazily preposterous that even in post-Watergate America -- where we know that bats can get loose in the corridors of power -- it is just impossible to accept.

Sidney Lumet's quick-paced direction feels remarkably fresh nearly half a century later. It also says something powerful about the state of the media today. And with their pointed personalities, the charismatic performances still zing.

“Network” is both a highly entertaining drama with lots of laugh-out-loud humor and a film that carries some very timely messages, ones that are extremely prescient in modern times.

Its awfully entertaining, thanks to the self-conscious theatrics of Paddy Chayefsky, the terrific performances, and Lumets steady eye keeping the real world in perspective as the circus comes to town and stays.

In the war between cinema and television, Network remains an atomic bomb.