Sidney Lumet’s Network (1976) deals with the immense (mostly negative) power behind the huge media networks (*). A decade later, Peter Weir’s The Truman Show (1998) tackles one of the networks’ most enduring offerings, the daily soap opera, or ‘soapie’. Written by Paddy Chayefsky and Andrew Niccol, respectively, the movies observe and comment on the stark realities… Continue reading The incredible Mr. Hughes, birth to middle-age