What A Difference Forty Two Years Makes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                               Really, darlings, I had not seen "Network" since 1976, when I was a tender 21.  Last night, Channel 13 broadcast it, and, with "A Crime To Remember" not being aired, I watched, in rapt fascination.  The film not only holds up, the actors' performances are better than first realized, as was the prescience of Paddy Chayefksy's  screenplay, demonstrating today how closer we are to what he was writing about, than when he first did.

                               No, we don't have on camera executions yet, but we are not that far from there. That is, we are a lot closer to its actuality than when "Network" first predicted it. And how about Faye Dunaway, as Diana Christensen?  On one level, she is a hoot; on another, chilling note, the ascendancy of the Career Bitch Castrator evolving her issues into what has become the Me Too Movement, can be traced back to her performance here.  Chayefsky supposedly started writing this script in 1974, so the Dianas were already out there.  But it took Faye's performance to crystallize and unmask them, in the real life office world.  Where they still reside.  They are all about justification, by way of vagina!  Bullshit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                               Ned Beatty, as Arthur Hutchinson, is the other fascinating trope.  Was he a disciple of Ayn Rand, or what?  His brilliant speech on the dehumanization of the individual may sound like a plea for individuality, but if it is really listened to, it is pure advocacy. Which is why I was confused when Peter Finch, as Howard Beale, agreed to take on this message.  Up till then, I was with Beale all the way.  Why he pandered to this corporate shit indicated to me, as many said, he was on the brink of madness, and had now reached it.

                                 I had forgotten how truly brilliant and iconic Finch was as Howard Beale. In some ways, I see myself as an online Howard Beale, though I am not the least bit messianic.  There is a method to my madness, and points in what I say, however crazy they may seem.  And I am always aware of what I am writing.

                                   Finch's impassioned performance took my breath away.  The passion generated during his monologues, and his passing out, made me wonder if this was his routine, or real.  Especially, when, several months after wrapping up on "Network," the actor himself died of a heart attack, at the age of 60.  I wonder if the energy he had to summon to enact this part was responsible.

                                   How much of "Network" is commonplace today.  With Reality TV, where folks drink bugs concocted into a milkshake, and shows like "LOST" and "Survivor" earn ratings, and Kendra Wilkinson is some kind of female Howard Beale, how far away are we, really, from that on air execution????????????  Not very!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                    Gays may think they are accepted in the workplace, but they are not; they are marginalized.  Conformity is as rampant now, as the more glamorous Fifties, when people pretended courtesy, rather than enact the savages they are now! And they talk about political correctness??????
Hah!  Wait till the time comes--and it will--to tell MY story!!!!!!!!!!   Howard Beale, indeed!!!!!!!!!!

                                     It was appalling to me, in this so-called liberated age, that Channel 13 snipped the much talked about bedroom scene between William Holden and Faye Dunaway.  On screen it was a stunner, with Dunaway mounting him, and riding furiously in as inhuman a way as Debra Winger would ride that artificial bronco in "Urban Cowboy," several years later.  A pity, since the orgiastic moment, which stunningly bordered on the pornographic on screen, back in 1976, was a brilliant example of the female use of vaginal power, evolving into Career Bitchery and now the Me Too Movement.  I bet Rose McGowan owns this on DVD, and masturbates to it!

                                     By the way, the rumor was always out there, and still exists, that, for the only time in his career, William Holden admitted to losing his professional virginity.  That Faye must have been really revved up!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                   "Network," like "Nashville" the year before, is even more with it today, then when first released. A sad commentary on our society, where, today, such films could not be made.

                                      As I watched Beale's execution last night, and the film fade out, I wondered,
"Where are all the mavericks today?"  Why have they been silenced, and why is that silence allowed?

                                     Were Paddy Chaye-

fsky still alive, he might or not be surprised at how prescient his writing in "Network" was.

                                       Brilliant as the film is, its accuracy in today's world only saddens me!!!!!!!!!!