Amid the morass of inane summertime reality shows, there’s an intelligent, timely drama with the return of HBO’s The Newsroom, from The West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin. Jeff Daniels is the lead anchor on a cable network news show in perpetual confl ict over content. Sam Waterston is the news division president and the calming voice. Jane Fonda is the network’s CEO, and Olivia Munn plays an economist with her own show. Emily Mortimer is the executive producer, and Marcia Gay Harden is the network’s pricey lawyer. As a veteran of TV newsrooms for 40 years, I was impressed last season with its realistic look. Oh, there’s a continual din of heated discussions, and then convenient silence as a dramatic moment sets in—but that’s a drama at work, moving storylines along.

Real news stories like the Dominique Strauss-Kahn scandal, the Libyan revolution, and the drone controversy give the show the context of the summer of 2011, when it’s set.

Except for Scandal, no other current show I’ve seen has such rapid-fire dialogue and brisk character interaction. Real newsrooms have lots of down time before air time, but the daily news meetings look real, even if the producers who are pushing stories look south of 30.

Since Sorkin wants to pack as much into as little time as possible, some of the dialogue sounds spoken without punctuation, but the ideas are provocative and sometimes bordering on profound.

The Newsroom presents a souped-up look behind the scenes of a cable news network, and gets a summertime audience to do something unusual for once: think.


Just Like a Woman seems merely a new take on Thelma and Louise: Two women are on the run from lackluster husbands and the law. But the dynamic is distinct. Sienna Miller is compelling as the wife of a philandering, unemployed Chicago slacker. When she too loses her humdrum job, she fi nds work as a belly dancer in sleazy dives with owners with wandering hands. Costarring is Iranian-born Golshifteh Farahani as an unhappy wife in an arranged marriage with a domineering mother-in-law. A shocking accident causes the wife to flee.

This is an engrossing look at a pair of gritty women in an unforgiving world forging an unlikely friendship, and the best movie about belly dancing you’re likely to see.


When you think of Paul Walker, the Fast and the Furious franchise comes to mind, the genre dubbed “tits and tire” movies. Vehicle 19 again places him in a car, but there the similarities end. Walker portrays an American parolee who picks up the wrong rental vehicle at the Johannesburg airport. After receiving some mysterious phone calls that weren’t meant for him, he fi nds a woman tied up and gagged in the back, and realizes this is really the wrong car!

Walker, heretofore pigeonholed as a pretty-boy actor, skillfully carries the movie while continually in the driver’s seat. What unfolds is a web of police corruption, street hustlers, and bandits who pop up outside, bang on the windows, and try to waylay him. Predictably in a Paul Walker movie, there are furious car chases and unpredictable twists and turns. Costarring as the terrifi ed backseat victim is Naima McLean, giving a poignant performance.

I was fascinated by Somm, about fi ve wine experts vying to pass the incredibly diffi cult test to become a master sommelier. The exam, given once a year, is an intense, three-day comprehensive grilling (no pun intended) fi rst conducted in 1969 in the UK. The passion of the contestants is boundless. One tells us that the only days in his life he ever cried were his wedding day, when his children were born, and when he passed this grueling test.

I’d always thought people who ruminate on wine, who let it roll around in their mouth in a blind taste test, spit it out, then make some sort of proclamation, were pretentious and silly. But this remarkable documentary shows the passion, devotion, and expertise of this life calling. Watching the contestants, who bring a lifelong preparation to the test, is amazing. Solely by taste testing, they can divine a wine’s origin, the conditions in which it was fermented, and which foods go best with it.

“Wine is not complicated,” a sommelier observes, before giving the history of wine, all the way back to the Bible. An Italian colleague chimes in with a generational perspective, and we’re taken on a tour of vineyards in France, Italy, and other parts of Europe. “Eat, pray, work, sleep, and drink” was the daily life of ancient monks, we’re told by a sommelier. “Well, which of those is the most fun?”

Ever notice the backup singers behind the stars of music groups? I always wondered about their careers. 20 Feet From Stardom is a remarkable look at those talented artists dreaming of stardom but realizing it may be illusive. All genres of popular music are shown, though many of the singers have similar roots, mostly as children of preachers who began in the church choir.

Best known among them is Darlene Love, who finally found stardom and wound up in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, a tribute to her determination and refusal to abandon her dream of eventual fame. This movie celebrates their aspirations and contributions.  [HS]