SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

HottWwjdIam There is just so much movie here. For some it may be too much. But in the same secretly sarcastic way most telemarketers say the phrase, the title of this one is particularly apt.

Kodie Bird True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Myron Clemons A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Peter Anton The drama between Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward carried this film for me until the arena scene. Newman idealizing to the crowd during utter chaos is the most unlikely and disappointing scene I've ever seen in the movies. It all broke down at that point for me. Like actors playing on stage on a sinking cruise ship, the floor fell out beneath them. Successive scenes seemed as in a dream or suddenly a reel from another film was being shown by mistake. Don't waste your time on this travesty of an abortion. You'll wish you had gotten drunk at your local pub instead. There would be better conclusions there about the state of the country and world than you'll come away with from this film.

tortoladvr It is easy to go to 1970's and recapture the era. So many movies wanted to deal with the politics of the time. Parallax View with Warren Beatty, Twilight's Last Gleaming with Burt Lancaster, This movie was part of that attempt. However, unlike the excellent political movies of the 1960's, this movie lacked the quality of writing a Rod Serling and his peers brought to the table. So to truly enjoy this movie,overlook the heavy handed dialogue. Ignore the 1970's film making style and enjoy the excellent cast of actors. For its time it was an excellent movie. Looking at it today I still see the excellence but it has an eerie familiarity to today. Replace WUSA and there staring back at you is Murdoch and his Fox team. That sends a shiver up my spine.

JasparLamarCrabb There's a viewpoint here, but the script is too muddled to make it clear. The world (or at least the US) is going to seed. While a few people care, most don't. Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Anthony Perkins and others populate a particularly depressing New Orleans in this sad movie. Newman takes a job at a right wing radio station run by Pat Hingle while lost soul Woodward slowly slips away. Perkins, an out and out madman, is, ironically, the only one onto what Hingle's radio station is all about. Stuart Rosenberg directed and while there are a lot of great scenes, there's also a real lack of cohesion. Many characters simply have no motivation for what they're doing. Nevertheless, the acting is not dulled. Newman is great and Woodward is even better. Perkins is excellent, stealing the film as a true idealist, whose disillusionment leads him to insanity. The supporting cast includes Cloris Leachman, Bruce Cabot, Don Gordon, Wayne Rogers (very creepy as one of Hingle's goons), and Laurence Harvey as a preacher/grifter. There's a really good music score by Lalo Schifrin.

fardarter As a relatively recent resident of the US, I continue to be astonished at how quickly American audiences forget their own history. I saw WUSA many years ago when I still lived in my native Italy (the Italian version was titled "Un Uomo Oggi" = "A Man Today"!). Two snippets of the film have been with me for all these years. The first is the radio host that invites all to drop what they are doing, go to the window, open it, and start screaming something like "I am fed up and I will no longer put up with this!" The second snippet is the last line delivered in the movie by the character interpreted by Paul Newman -- and I will not say what it says to avoid spoiling it. The themes are big and understandably audiences nowadays are impatient of 'dialog that sounds like speeches' (to quote an unfair reviewer on this site). The south, the issues of bigotry, racism, the Seventies, civic disobedience. At least the dialog has something to say, unlike so many films of the past 30 years. There is so much recent American history in this movie that it should be a mandatory assignment for college-age kids. Most people happily ignore its existence. Is there a way to convince anyone to make this piece available in DVD? It is too important to be neglected. No matter what Roger Greenspun says in his review appeared in the New York Times of November 2, 1970. In those days the Vietnam War coverage in the media made every single political reference seem like another opportunity for constipated American audiences to launch into yet one more conspiracy theory. And the Grenspun review blames WUSA for being 'ponderously allusive'. Maybe, with the hiatus of the past thirty-something years, the allusiveness will seem by now much less allusive and, who knows, we might enjoy this beautiful rendition of Robert Stone's novel. Besides the big issues, however, the movie is quite enjoyable. My vote of 8 only evaluates the viewing pleasure as entertainment.