I once had a temp job helping Warner Bros. move its video library to a new location. A HUGE perk of that was that I could keep any duplicates I found.
Any recruiters reading this? I’m in the market again!
Among them was RKO 281. Unfortunately, it was only in the past couple of years I finally thought it was about time I got to actually watching ALL the titles I’d accumulated over the years. Too late for the ones that were on VHS – and RKO 281 was one of them.
Darn…
At least I didn’t lose any money in its case though. I got to watch it for free now on HBO Max.
Exciting movie. If you already know the story behind Citizen Kane you’re not learning anything new, but it’s told really well. A stellar cast including John Malkovich as the subject of the film I just wrote about, James Cromwell as the subject, essentially, of Citizen Kane itself, Melanie Griffith as the (in)famous Marion Davies, Roy Scheider as the head of RKO, and Brenda Blethyn as a legendary gossip columnist helps tremendously.
Ultimately, the movie would rise or fall on the strength of Live Schrieber, though. As Orson Welles, he dominates every scene and needed to be absolutely electrifying. He is! Despite being too old (albeit not distractingly so) to play a “boy wonder” and despite being a character actor through and through, Schrieber exudes remarkable charisma and captivates us as much as Welles was captivated making Citizen Kane. We can FEEL the former child prodigy’s excitement at not only tackling a project astonishing for its boldness (a warts-and-all biopic clearly inspired by the world’s most powerful media mogul, who could crush him with one article), but equally astonishing in its style, introducing ALL sorts of new filmmaking techniques and cinematic touches.
Woo! Well done Ray Donovan!
That’s to say nothing of what a fun, entertaining movie Citizen Kane is. Those of us who love it will certainly appreciate RKO 281 that much more. I’ll get to it more soon though; first let me just finish up with RKO 281 itself.
Bottom Line: Awesome time!
Up Next: One more making-of movie.
%
Recent Comments