Tuesday’s Top Trailer: Page One

Welcome to a weekly feature here at Movies with Abe, Tuesday's Top Trailer. One of my favorite parts about going to see movies is the series of trailers that airs beforehand and, more often than not, the trailer is far better than the actual film. Each week, I'll be sharing a trailer I've recently seen. Please chime in with comments on what you think of the trailer and how you think the movie is going to be.

Page One – Opening June 24, 2011



This isn’t your usual Tuesday’s Top Trailer. There are no big stars, no well-known director, and no independent street credit. In fact, it’s a documentary, a genre which is often hard-hitting and informative, and just as off-putting to a number of viewers who would much rather have an acted narrative set out for them. While I’m not always in the mood for a documentary, I certainly see the value in nonfiction filmmaking, and I was lucky enough to see almost twenty-five documentaries last year. This one really strikes me as quite intriguing, mostly because it hits close to home (in a generally positive way) and is very much a developing story. I’ve actually e-mailed Brian Stelter, one of the top media reporters for The New York Times and one of the subjects of this film, to (hopefully not obnoxiously) correct a few mistaken facts about the Emmy finalists several years ago. My intersection with the topic of this film also comes as someone coming into the field of journalism as it’s undergoing a major transition to new forms. While I certainly fit into the new mold, like Stelter, it’s definitely more difficult to “break into the business” with considerably fewer options, like local papers and magazines, out there. David Carr has the best line of the trailer, speculating that Stelter “is a robot assembled to destroy me,” and I think this movie should appropriately probe those ideas of new media and those who might get left behind, even if they were and still are the pioneers of their respective fields. Mainly, this is a story about the people behind the scenes, whose work we read but whose faces we don’t often see, and as an aspiring journalist, I’m very interested. Anything about The New York Times is sure to be fascinating. On a less serious note, I’m amused that it’s rated R, presuming that Carr is likely responsible for that.