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Switching Channels

1988, Movie, PG, 105 mins

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Sixty years after the Broadway opening of "The Front Page," that biting and expertly scripted Ben Hecht-Charles MacArthur comedy is still entertaining mass audiences. This 1988 update is a modernization of HIS GIRL FRIDAY, the 1940 romantic comedy version. Christy Colleran (Kathleen Turner), a news reporter for fictional Chicago cable station SNN (Satellite News Network), falls in love with Blaine Bingham (Christopher Reeve) and plans to move to New York. Determined to keep the top-rated Christy, news director John L. Sullivan IV (Burt Reynolds) finally convinces her to do one last story, interviewing condemned man Ike Roscoe (Henry Gibson), who later escapes. SWITCHING CHANNELS falters in comparison to HIS GIRL FRIDAY, though it does provide some innocuous entertainment. Ted Kotcheff (FIRST BLOOD; FUN WITH DICK AND JANE; NORTH DALLAS FORTY) directs in a style dependent on caricature and comic exaggeration. The stars, however, do a great job within the limitations of an empty-headed script. There are some genuinely funny moments, a few witty attacks on the insensitivity of the press, and a brilliant performance by Gibson. leave a comment
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Switching Channels: Organization and Change in TV Broadcasting
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From Harvard University Press (Hardcover)
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