After a promising but problematic pilot, the second episode of Aaron Sorkin's The Newsroom should have brought things together and smoothed out some of the rough edges. Instead, it's very clear that the series is still struggling to find its feet. Worse, it almost squandered what interest we had in the series by repeating itself in just the second episode.
Pilot episodes are notoriously hard to pull off. The writer must introduce characters, themes, and settings, all while telling a very specific type of ”jumping off” story likely bearing little resemblance to the episodes that will follow. Such is the case with ”We Just Decided To,” the first episode of super-creator Aaron Sorkin’s new show The Newsroom .
After a notable 5-year absence from television, made even more notable by a well-deserved Academy Award win for The Social Network screenplay, Aaron Sorkin returns this Sunday to HBO with his new show The Newsroom . Ian MacIntyre previews the first three episodes of Sorkin's fast-paced and highly political new TV series.
Two of the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival's biggest (or at least its most star-studded) gala presentations take place today: the Brad Pitt n' baseball crowd-pleaser Moneyball and the George Clooney directed political thriller The Ides of March, starring Ryan Gosling. Our has seen both films and lets us know whether or not these celebrity-filled galas are worth the rather hefty price of admission.
The Social Network is a movie that shouldn’t work. It’s a story about a socially challenged, bitterly abrasive geek and how he created a high-traffic website. Hardly the stuff of Oscars or summer blockbusters. Thing is, in spite of this, the movie plays out just like the typical Facebook experience – hard to see what all the hype is about from the outside, quickly captivating at first, then totally engrossing from within.
