As busy I get from time to time, I find that I can't see every movie under the sun, leaving my friends and colleagues to fill in the blanks for me.  As poetically as I think I wax about movies on this website as a wannabe critic, there are other experts out there.  Sometimes, it inspires me to see the movie too and get back to being my circle's go-to movie guy.  Sometimes, they save me $9 and you 800+ words of blathering.  In a new review series, I'm opening my site to friend submissions for guest movie reviews.

TODAY’S CRITIC: Lafronda Stumn

Lafronda Stumn is a student at Madisonville Community College and intends to graduate with an Associate's degree in Associate of the Arts. She plans on earning a Bachelors Degree in Motion Picture Studies and English at Wright State University. Her favorite Directors are Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and Spike Lee, and her favorite actors are Al Pacino, Denzel Washington, Meryl Streep, and Halle Berry. Lafronda contacted this page looking for a place to get published and I enjoy giving people that very kind of opportunity. This is her big tenth guest review for Every Movie Has a Lesson. Welcome back, Lafronda!

HER REVIEW: The Post

It is a dream come true when two of America’s greatest actors of our generation Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep, team up for the first time—being directed by one of our greatest living directors, Steven Spielberg. This trinity of great talent is a sure-fire way of being high-quality entertainment, and it is. 

The film first takes place in 1965, where soldier Daniel Ellsberg (Matthew Rhys) is at work in Saigon, Vietnam, with his troops struck by Vietnam soldiers. Ellsburg comes home and tells the Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara (Bruce Greenwood) the bad news. However, McNamara tells the press the war is going fine. No problems. No Complications. Hearing this, Ellburg takes matters into his own hands and sneaks a ton of papers, over 1,000, out of Pentagon unscathed, and takes them home back to D.C. 

The movie shifts to Washington D.C. in 1971, where Publisher Kay Graham (Meryl Streep) has is now the owner of The Washington Post after her husband's death of suicide. She is trying to publish a frivolous front-page story about President Nixon's Daughter's upcoming wedding to Eisenhower. Graham discusses this with Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks), the Editor-in-Chief of The Washington Post. Graham argues that it will sell many papers and that the wedding's added publicity would make more readers, female readers become more interested in reading The Post. 

The Post is also meeting with board members in allowing The Washington Post to go public. The members discuss how much money to obtain if they go public. How much money can they acquire as a result? Graham feels self-conscious when she is the only women, albeit the owner of the newspaper, to have to deal with the sexism with some of her colleagues, Arthur Parsons (Bradley Whitford), in particular. 

Graham is also good friends with Abe Rosenthal (Michael Stuhlbarg), The New York Times editor and his wife, and after a dinner party at her home. Rosenthal reveals information about Macamara, and his cronies in the government are going to disclose the report by The New York Times. The bombshell article is being blackballed by the President, even though the constitution protects the press's freedom.

Ellsberg then goes to one of The Post's most influential reporters, Bob Bagdikian (Bob Odenkirk). After a long, drawn-out process, they meet. They meet in a motel room, and Bagdikian presents with over a thousand documents of info. They were dating back to Eisenhower to then-current President Nixon. Not only are they losing the war badly. Their reason for staying gives a reason to question our democracy and call out bad behavior within our government. The press is supposed to call out hypocrisy and injustice that goes on. The movie is Graham releasing the story and suffering the possibility of losing The Post with workers losing their jobs in dealing with a bully of the presidency.

There are great scenes in this movie. Streep's character faces facial expressions when she deals with the sexism of being the only woman in a room filled with men. The scenes of Streep and her daughter discussing her job and the stress of it were amazing. The unique look on Streep's character's face when she decides whether to publish this story. Streep's gaze on her face is what great non-verbal acting is all about.

The cinematography by Janusz Kaminski camerawork lit in the color hues of gray, green, and dark blue. The camerawork is gritty and intense, and the film does feel we're living in early 1970 of the art direction and costumes as well. The screenplay by Liz Hannah and Josh Singer is taunted and lean with little nuggets of info on how the actors use the dialogue as a text of earnestness and conviction of emotion and thought. Hanks is the stable salt-of-the-earth. Hanks's characters have loyalty issues when he developed a close friendship with Kennedy and kept some secrets involving his death by his wife, Jackie. 

The film is very relevant to today's headlines with the current Washington Administration running amuck and how the New York Times and Washington Post became poster children of not holding our public officials accountable for questionable actions. But standing up for the underdog against all odds is what makes us great Americans and how standing up for your principles and being self-aware of the world around us is what makes yourself a better human being and making this country more remarkable and more prosperous.

Rating: ****

CONCLUSION

Thank you again, Lafronda! You are welcome anytime. Friends, if you see a movie that I don't see and want to be featured on my website, hit up my website's Facebook page and you can be my next GUEST CRITIC!