Holds up a disturbing image of a consumer culture where trash is viewed as treasure and excess spells success.
Talk Radio (1989)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:25
Fresh:20
Rotten:5
Average Rating:6.7/10
Runtime: 1 hr 50 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: Based loosely on the life of the murdered talk-radio personality Alan Berg, TALK RADIO stars monologist Eric Bogosian as the abrasive, self-loathing talk-radio host Barry Champlain. He spends his... Based loosely on the life of the murdered talk-radio personality Alan Berg, TALK RADIO stars monologist Eric Bogosian as the abrasive, self-loathing talk-radio host Barry Champlain. He spends his nights at Dallas station KGAB engaged in vitriolic conversations with a motley assortment of racists, anti-semites, rednecks, and all-purpose lunatics. Just having learned that his show has a chance to be picked up for national syndication, Barry seems to have ratcheted up the abuse level to new heights, worrying his co-workers. Yet while Barry's career is taking off, studio boss Dan (Alec Baldwin) angers him by trying to alter the provocative content of his show. At the same time, Barry's having problems with his girlfriend and ex-wife, Ellen (Ellen Greene). And a neo-Nazi group is making increasingly menacing calls, forcing him to the edge of a possible nervous breakdown. A compelling take on the dynamics of hate radio and the wages of narcissism, Oliver Stone's film is exceptionally well shot and acted, directed with claustrophobic concentration. [More]
Starring: Eric Bogosian, Ellen Greene, Alec Baldwin, Leslie Hope
Starring: Eric Bogosian, Ellen Greene, Alec Baldwin, Leslie Hope, Michael Wincott, Bill Johnson, Zach Grenier
Director: Oliver Stone
Director: Oliver Stone
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Reviews for Talk Radio
If you’ve ever listened to late-night talkback and found some of the callers unsettling, you’re bound to relive that feeling
Talk Radio...is a nearly perfect example of how not to make a movie of a play.
[Eric Bogosian] is what makes Talk Radio worth seeing, and he is what you'll be talking about afterward.
Talk Radio has the loony intensity of those impassioned conspiracy theorists who look out at the world and see patterns of corruption spreading in all directions...it's another of Stone's wake-up calls to America.
Oliver Stone...turns [Eric Bogosian's] play into a visually achieved, intense and unforgettable movie.
He asks an accepting audience, both in the film and in the theater: How much crap will you take, and why?
It's midnight in America and there's a lot of angry people out there in the darkness. If that's the main point to Oliver Stone's Talk Radio, it's the only one.
One of Stone's unqualified failures, by which I mean that even his usually muscular style can't partially redeem.
Oliver Stone's overly dramatic new ending puts a damper on things, but Bogosian has never been more magnetic
Far more Eric Bogosian than Oliver Stone, and still timely, even after fifteen years.
| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie |
|---|---|
| 44% 44% | Night at the Museum: B… |
| 32% 32% | Terminator Salvation |
| 36% 36% | Angels & Demons |
| 95% 95% | Star Trek |
| 25% 25% | Four Christmases |
| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie |
|---|---|
| 88% 88% | Inglourious Basterds |
| 78% 78% | The Hangover |
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| 47% 47% | The Girl From Monaco |
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