Live from Baghdad (2002)
A group of CNN reporters wrestle with journalistic ethics and the life-and-death perils of reporting during the Gulf War.A Directors Guild Award-winning movie for director Mick Jackson, starring Michael Keaton and Helena Bonham Carter. In 1990, CNN was a 24-hour news network in search of a 24-hour story. They were about to find it in Baghdad. Veteran CNN producer Robert Wiener and his longtime producing partner Ingrid Formanek find themselves in Iraq on the eve of war. Up against the big three networks, Weiner and his team are rebels with a cause, willing to take risks to get the biggest stories and - unlike their rivals - take them live at a moment's notice. As Baghdad becomes an inevitable US target, one by one the networks pull out of the city until only the crew from CNN remains. With a full-scale war soon to be launched all around them, and CNN ready to broadcast whatever happens 24 hours a day, Wiener and Formanek are about to risk their lives for the story of a lifetime.
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Wonderful Movie
disgusting, overrated, pointless
The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.
A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.
Picking up three Emmys from 10 nominations, and being nominated for several Golden Globes as well as many more award wins and nominations, this film shows a realistic and memorable performance of the CNN crew in Baghdad during Desert Shield and Desert Storm.I was very interested in what they did as I was providing support to the B-52 crews as they prepared during Desert Shield, and then I had to go back to the States and watch desert Storm on TV. It's not like I hadn't seen Desert Storm before, only they called it Reforger every time we did it in practice.Michael Keaton and Helna Bonham Carter were fantastic as the leads, and they got incredible support from Lili Taylor (Rudy), Paul Guilfoyle (CSI), and many, many more.
I watched Live from Baghdad as part of a research project. It was slightly different to most 'warcorrespondent in foreign and dangerous country' genre films in as much as it followed TV news-journalists and outlined some of the technical and administrative difficulties faced by them. Also it went to some efforts to outline the historical context of the first gulf war. However, I did not like this film, it was predictable, exceptionally formulaic and dull, the frustration of the news-team in trying to cover the build up to the war does not make for good watching and when (as everybody knows) war does come to Baghdad and the film reaches its supposed climax, the result is underwhelming, a few overblown special effects are thrown into the stew at this point but do little to rouse the viewer from their slumber.
***POSSIBLE SPOILERS***I liked this movie. It was interesting to see how the 1991 Persian Gulf War was covered and some of the differences to how the present day Gulf War is being covered by the news network. Michael Keaton did a good job of portraying Robert Wiener and so did Helena Bonham Carter as Ingrid Formanek. I thought that Bruce McGill looks like Peter Arnett and I think he did a good job as well. I couldn't believe that Bruce McGill is D-day from "Animal House" either.It was overall a well done film and I think that it was interesting for me after seeing the film to see what some of the real people portrayed in the film are actually doing today. 8.5/10
As a film/broadcast student I was astonished and fascinated by this TV movie from HBO. It's funny and interesting what Robert Weiner (played terrifically by Michael Keaton) and the rest of his CNN crew had to go through on their mission to report what's going on in Iraq. And the final scene fascinated me because I can't imagine being in such a situation. Then again it would be kind of fun and exciting.4(****)out of 4(****)starsA little side note:I can really relate to that scene in the first act where Keaton and Carter's character are running around the hotel/office trying to send a satellite signal to Atlanta. It has happened to me quite a few times and it's very frustrating. Especially to the teacher!