• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

ALAN ALDA

DAVID SCHWIMMER

NOAH WYLE

ANGELA BASSETT

COURTNEY B. VANCE

PETER COYOTE

JAMEY SHERIDAN

FLOYD ABRAMS

PRESTON BAILEY

JULIE ANN EMERY

MICHAEL O’NEILL

KRISTEN SHAW

KRISTEN BOUGH

ROBERT HARVEY

ANGELICA TORN

ROD LURIE

Writer-director Rod Lurie is fascinated by the worlds of journalism and politics, as evidenced by such films as The Contender, Resurrecting the Champ, and the short-lived television series Commander in Chief, which featured Geena Davis as the first female president of the United States. He managed to combine his interests in Nothing But the Truth, a hard-hitting film that takes its inspiration from real-life events but puts its own spin on them.

Kate Beckinsale gives an exceptional performance as a Washington, D.C., newspaper reporter who pursues a story that shows the U.S. government has acted improperly in creating an international incident. In the process she reveals that a fellow mom at her daughter’s school (Vera Farmiga) is in fact an operative for the CIA. Beckinsale runs with the volatile story but pays a heavy price for her exclusive: government special prosecutor Matt Dillon sees that she’s thrown in prison for refusing to reveal her source.

Beckinsale’s editor (Angela Bassett) and the newspaper’s lawyer (Alan Alda) do everything they can, but the prison term drags on for days, then weeks, then months. Meanwhile her apolitical husband (David Schwimmer) tries to understand how she can make their young son suffer a wrenching emotional separation for the sake of a principle.

We, too, have cause to wonder if the reporter’s decision is the right one as the drama unfolds. Filmmaker Lurie shows us both sides of the story before landing a wallop with his final revelation.

Obviously, Lurie based his screenplay on the real-life story of New York Times reporter Judith Miller and former spy Valerie Plame, but this film isn’t just a camouflage of the facts. It has its own story to tell, and it does so with intelligence and verisimilitude. The cast couldn’t be better; Beckinsale hasn’t had a role this good in years, and once again Vera Farmiga deserves “most valuable player” consideration.

This is the kind of movie that is bound to stimulate discussion and debate, as it did when my wife and I first saw it. What’s more, we found that it had staying power…yet what lingered in our minds wasn’t the issue of journalistic ethics but the choices Beckinsale’s character made as a mother and a wife. Any movie that has you thinking and talking about it afterward is easy to recommend.

If you’re wondering why you’re not familiar with this film, given its provocative subject matter and high-profile cast, it met the same fate as Brian Goodman’s What Doesn’t Kill You (which Rod Lurie coproduced) in December 2008. It played just one week in theaters before its distributor went out of business. These worthy films never had a chance; if not for DVD they might have vanished altogether.

98. OCTOBER SKY

(1999)

Directed by Joe Johnston

Screenplay by Lewis Colick

Based on the book Rocket Boys by Homer H. Hickam Jr.

Actors:

JAKE GYLLENHAAL

CHRIS COOPER

LAURA DERN

CHRIS OWEN

WILLIAM LEE SCOTT

CHAD LINDBERG

NATALIE CANERDAY

SCOTT MILES

CHRIS ELLIS

If there’s anything that can hurt a movie nowadays it’s the perception that it’s “nice” or “sweet.” Those words, which once were considered compliments, are now seen as a liability by Hollywood, which believes that young audiences will reject anything that doesn’t have edginess, or at least attitude.

They’re not entirely wrong. Having taught at USC for more than a decade, I’ve gauged my students’ response to movies old and new; they readily embrace cynicism but have a harder time when a film is openly emotional or free of irony. I have also learned that many of them don’t actually approach life with such a hardened attitude—but peer pressure makes them think they should. If I show them a film that’s nice or sweet and I prepare them for it by giving them permission to drop their defenses, they often respond with enthusiasm.

I can’t imagine