Watch: If this ‘Newspaper Movie’ looks familiar, that’s because it’s a spoof of all journalism films
Naturally, the fake trailer is about a brave team of journalists risking it all to break the biggest news story in history.
The trailer in the video above is for a movie about an intrepid group of reporters that really stands out from the pack, and could be a contender at the Oscars. No, it’s not The Post, or Spotlight, or All the President’s Men, or even The Wire, though it very well could be.
Which is exactly the point Seth Meyers, host of the talk show Late Night, is trying to make with Newspaper Movie. The fake trailer pokes fun at journalism films by putting them under the microscope and laughing at the generic tropes employed by these films – shots of the printing press, repetitive use of the words “sources” and “journalistic integrity”, lots of smoking, evil lobbyists, and, most importantly, imposing shots of iconic Washington DC buildings to “convey the power of longstanding institutions”.
Newspaper Movie is, obviously, a spoof. Featuring some questionable fashion, a suspicious exchange of manila folders between two people sitting on a park bench staring straight ahead, an early morning stack of newspapers wrapped in twine being tossed out the back of a delivery truck, and a lonely, workaholic reporter with an empty fridge, it’s got them all.