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Pictures...it's been said are worth 1000 words. No stretch here of course, after all this is a movie. Of course, it's how the visuals are used that determines what the words are not saying. In Falling Down this all comes together within the first minutes. A particularly bleak and angst filled atmosphere speaks volumes as it unfolds and it needs no dialog because the point is clear. No dialog, just abrasive noises. Nice appetizer for what's about to unfold. Brilliant. I've already engaged and actually nervous.

It's been said this is a black comedy. Shall we say the comedy might be the absurdity which is all too relatable in the modern world. I'll say this again, brilliant. This movie is one of the top ten of the twentieth century. See it if you haven't and see it again if you forgot how good it was.

Watching this film I'll admit it's quite entertaining, but it is a good central tenet played with a heavy dose of whimsical comedy making it feel like opportunities missed with a weak script. With the few remaining actual print editions of newspapers a young adult of 2025 can hardly know how important newspapers were a generation or more ago. Many cities had multiple publications with some having two editions a day. The newspaper was the conduit for all the news of that mattered. A true window to the world. So what if by some kind of unexplainable circumstance you could read the next day's paper today? You'd be both blessed and cursed. You could corner the stock market, possibly help prevent crimes and more. It would be a very heavy thing and if that premise could have been explored with more soul it may have been a contender as an all-time great. Not that the whimsy can't be superlative as in "It's A Wonderful Life", but this script just isn't on that level. Powell is a good protagonist, not unlike Jimmy Stewart, but he just doesn't deliver the beating heart Stewart brought to life in "It's A Wonderful Life" due more to the writers than by any fault of his own. Even though, as stated before, this is an entertaining film.