Word: cbs
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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NAME: Touched by an Angel OCCUPATION: Sanctimonious TV series BEST PUNCH: Angel network CBS complained the ads suggested a link between the series and the "irreverent movie that apparently belittles every religious tenet embraced by our show...
...employers hire thugs to stalk and scare him, and his wife leaves with their two daughters; he loses everything for a chance to set the record straight and doubts whether the price was worth it. Meanwhile, Bergman can't get Wigand's interview on the air at CBS; Don Hewitt and the corporate heads fear a multi-billion lawsuit from Brown and Williamson, and Bergman must plead with Hewitt and anchor Mike Wallace to get the ground-breaking interview on "60 Minutes." The loose, organic structure of the film works its magic in the first third of the movie...
...scrutiny. But the astonishing character study that dominates the first half begins to unravel when the film, inexplicably, changes its focus from Wigand to Bergman. Just as Wigand is entering his darkest period, becoming psychologically unhinged, the film cuts away to Bergman and his struggles with the brass at CBS. The heroic, moral air that builds up around Bergman in the last third almost suffocates the intricate and brilliant tale before it and threatens to turn the film into a full-blown, us-vs.-them morality tale...
...interests of their corporations at heart and truly hope you see it their way. Otherwise they'll crush you. Brown & Williamson CEO Thomas Sandefur (played by Michael Gambon) has a manner as smooth as the draw of a Kool menthol into the lungs, and every bit as toxic. A CBS attorney (Gina Gershon) softly, crisply tells the lords of 60 Minutes that they must submit to a higher authority--Mammon. The byline is nothing compared to the bottom line. It's a dark reality that Mike Wallace (a deft impersonation by Christopher Plummer) has to juggle. Does his loyalty belong...
...heart, the movie is about family betrayal, the corporate torture of two insiders (Wigand at Brown & Williamson, Bergman at CBS) by the people they worked for and with. Its caveat, which any wage slave should ponder, is that you can be hurt by your bosses' strength or weakness. A change in the corporate weather, and the most valued employee is suddenly expendable--an outsider. Do you fight to get back in? Or plot, with only your rancorous conscience as a guide, how to survive, alone, in the cold...