Shattered Glass (2003)

An eye opener for future journalists!

A movie people need to watch at least twice to truly grasp the rise and fall of Stephen Glass. At first, I felt Hayden was just a terrible actor portraying Glass, however, after doing some personal research on Glass himself, I found out he is a really dull individual...so Hayden nailed the part. The movie is quite riveting and I have watched it at least ten times since it was purchased last month. It's definitely worth every penny!! November 23, 2008

One Of The Best Movies I've Ever Seen. (Spoiler Alert)

This is proabably one of the best movies I've ever seen in my whole entire life. For those who don't know about the movie it's basically about one of the biggest and most embarrassing scandals on one side of jounalism and an extremely big breakthrough for another.(Big spoiler alert after this point.)

The movie is about a reporter named Stephen Glass who is a guy who usually does stuff like be modest or funny and interesting so his co workers could like him. Most of the time he was funny and interesting because of his news articles. Such as the one called "Spring Breakdown" which is mentioned in the movie about a convention for colonists and activists. It seemed like everything was going good for Stephen. He was getting away with most of his articles that he was making. Then came the article "Hack Heaven".

It was based on a hacker that broke into a big company named "Jukt Micronics". Everyone thought that the article was true, but one company started investigating. The company was called Forbes. It was a small internet jounalist site like most other jounalist sites at the time. A guy named Adam Penenberg started investigating about the article Stephen wrote. Turned out that most of what Stephen Glass said was completely false. The only thing that turned out true was that there was a state called Nevada in the whole article.

Forbes called up The New Republic the next day and was all over them about this article. So Stephen started actually preparing for what happened by not only making a fake website. He also made a land line for the company and even made fake and very bad cards for the company. Forbes though still uncovers everything about the story and actually digs Stephen and The New Republic deeper in a whole which seemed impossible. So Chuck Lane decides that to confirm if the story was true that he and Stephen got to the place where the article took place. Turns out that everywhere that they went were either close early to when Stephen Glass said it, or just closed entirely.

So Glass then finally admits to what happened. So Lane either has to fire him or suspend him. He suspends him... for a little while at least. Later that night though a co worker of The New Republic mentions to Lane about his brother who lives at Stanford which actually is how he finds out about who actually called him with George Simms. Lane then goes to the office and immediately fires Glass for lieing about the whole article.

After Glass leaves the big part starts falling through. Lane searches through all of Stephens stories. He finds out that most of his stories are almost if completely false. He forces Glass to leave and then tells a good friend of Stephens and good editor at The New Republic about what happens. All of the New Republic find out about it and eventually give in to Lane and apologize for what happened.

The movie speaks a lot for what happened because for written magazines it was a complete embarrassment for what happened to them. While for the internet jounalism it put them on the main stream because they found out about the article and were the first to pounce on the situation. Big year for both areas of jounalism.

The movie was great. Hayden played extremely well in his role as Stephen, and Peter Sarsgaard was amazing at his role as Chuck Lane in the movie. I think it's a movie worth buying and it's one of the best I've ever seen. September 30, 2008

Intense, compelling and heart-breaking

If you have only experienced Hayden Christensen's work in brain-dead blockbusters, be prepared for a surprise. The kid can act.

"Shattered Glass," while far from perfect, is utterly engrossing. Both the heartbreaking exploration of a young journalist's fall from grace and a larger exploration of the definition of honesty, the film maintains suspense throughout.

The cast is uniformly magnificent, but no one shines brighter than Mr. Christensen. Despite playing a socially inept pathological liar, he won my sympathy. The slow, sad unraveling of Stephen Glass' career is treated with gentle decency. In the years since Mr. Glass' transgressions against the truth there have been far more egregious examples of reporters gone wrong. It is doubtful that those who followed in his footsteps deserve the sympathy that Glass does.

As worthy of notice today as it was when the events depicted occured, "Shattered Glass" is a worthy addition to anyone's library. August 10, 2008

Amazing MOVIE and AMAZING performances =)

Amazing MOVIE and AMAZING performances =)

This movie is excellent and for 90 minutes it moves at the perfect pace. The director does an amazing job. This film just pulls you in and you just can't seem to turn away. As much as i wish the film was longer it would probably lose its allure if it was drawn out. The appeal is that the scenes move so fluidly. Everyone's performance in the film is excellent except Hayden. He isn't awful but he is not the scene stealer in the film. I love the special feature of the 60 minutes interview with Stephen because the real Stephen Glass was G*Y and very obvious from the interview. I wonder if anyone else picked up on it. I am not going to get into details about the story but will give you a quick recap, as it's a story about a young journalist the youngest on his team fabricating his stories to impress his co-workers. One story in particular which is the last story he wrote for the magazine gains extra attention which is what leads to his downfall. August 4, 2008

It was all a lie

Mom told us never to lie. This movie shows us why. Not since All The President's Men has there been a movie that showed us the fetid stench of corruption in Washington. Not among its government officials this time, but among the people who inform the public what they're doing. Who's the guilty party now?

Stephen Glass was a rising star at The New Republic magazine in the mid 90s. He wrote funny and clever articles of political satire and events, was earning a six figure salary, and seemed to have it made. One day he wrote an article about a teenage hacker who was offered a position with a company he hacked into, Jukt Microtronics, because it was cheaper for the Jukt to hire him into their payroll rather than sue him for losses. At Forbes Magazine a few weeks later, another reporter was doing a follow up story on this zany adventure when they discovered that none of the people mentioned in the story seemed to exist. Neither did the hacker convention, neither did the corporation, neither did anything. Glass supplied his notes, email addresses, phone numbers, and other things that would allow for the follow up, but they were just lies to cover up the other ones. Soon his other work fell into question. The story about the Monica Lewinsky condoms. The evangelical church that worshiped George Bush Sr. It was all a lie.

Hayden Christensen plays this role quite well, in the fact that he desintegrates into a crying, sniveling little worm desperate to be believed and yet knowing he's been caught. How many others are lying to us? Not just in the field of journalism, but all around us. The best special feature of them all is on this disc, the 60 Minutes Interview with Glass. He explains himself, and we meet his coworkers who had to stand by him as a corporation but watched as they exposed his lies.

The message is NEVER TELL A LIE. It does it with such effortless finess. July 5, 2008

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