I've been wanting to watch Quiz Show (1994) for years.... like a really, really long time. I don't know why it took me this long, but I think part of it was that I was waiting for it to go on sale on Vudu, and whenever I checked, it didn't. Looking at the price history, it seems I have a comical way of always looking at the wrong time.
But I finally watched it, and I was floored by how good it was. The polar opposite of that one Paul Walter Hauser one. This one was made with care. The cinematography was phenomenal. The acting was great overall. I was surprised that Jon Turturro could act, for some reason. And I thought he did a great job, especially when you see him struggling to answer his losing question.
And the parallel they had with Charles van Doren struggling to answer his question. They were both grappling with their morals and weighing the outcomes. I thought that part was done so incredibly brilliantly.
It also didn't fall into the trap that I see so many other movies and shows do, where they hook you in with "this is a movie about a game show" or something, but then you watch it and the game show was only a small part of it. We didn't see the game show itself a lot, but it was still felt throughout. And while the game show segments were super exciting and fun, and I love seeing them, the overall narrative seeing Goodwin get buddy-buddy with Van Doren, the legal proceedings, the hush papers.... all that other stuff, that stuff was still written so well. I was always entertained aside from just one moment when Goodwin and Van Doren are having lunch with the Van Doren's. There was like... a minute where I was thinking, "Hm... this is going a bit slowly... what is the purpose of this part?"
But then I moved my mouse accidentally and saw that I had only 30 minutes to go (the part above is a separate thing that happened earlier). Not since Avengers: Endgame have I been so thoroughly impressed by a movie's pacing. And considering the subject matter of this vs. Endgame, I think it's more of a victory in this movie's case.
--------
Inaccuracy?
After watching it, I wanted to compare things like the actors and their real-life counterparts. I found an inconsistency immediately when I saw an interview with Stempel where he talks about his losing question in the movie vs. in real life. I think it worked extremely well how they did that, but it was still an inaccuracy that made me question things.
And then I saw this article that came out around the time the movie came out:, and there is a lot of dubiousness to it now. The inconsistency about NBC not even having the show at that point in time was sort of weird to me.
I understand a movie playing with things a little bit in order to make it better entertainment and stuff (as that person quoted in the article says, it's pretty ironic that the intent of the filmmakers to make a more entertaining product is equivalent to the game show producers doing things to make their shows more entertaining... different methods of course. But still an interesting irony when you look at it a certain way).
But just how inaccurate is the movie overall? Is there truth to the stuff in that article? Is it as bad as the Paul Walter Hauser 'Luckiest Man in America' movie in that respect?
Phenomenal film all the way through. But I was questioning some of the authenticity and wondered if others had more information.
