Some reviews starting to come out: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/bombshell_2019

I really liked Roach's HBO films in the similar arena. It's just hard to see this being successful. In order to be accurate, you'd have to lampoon Fox News. And whether it does this or not, people are going to think it will and in this overly politicized culture that we live in now that will sink it with a large percentage of the audience.

Or people will go because they like the actors and think it looks good. Like me...

I don't see it doing any better than Vice, which didn't do well. But I will be seeing the movie for sure.

Theron’s makeup to make her look like Megyn Kelly is amazing. She really does look like her on this.

Unrecognizable!

Saw this last week at a special preview/discussion held by a local college. The movie wisely focuses on the scandal and isn't a takedown of Fox News or conservatives. There's an early scene where some characters talk about taking legal action against Roger Ailes personally as opposed to Fox, which is really useful for anyone who doesn't understand why it makes more sense to go after an individual rather than a corporation.

One of the other guys who attended the screening said afterwards, 'Charlize Theron is a beast. I watched her for 15 minutes and didn't realize it was her.' Theron is truly amazing in this movie, and if she's not part of the conversation for the upcoming awards season then the voters need to get their heads checked. Margot Robbie is also strong in the acting department and is involved in a scene that's going to stick in your mind well after you've seen the movie. Nicole Kidman's Gretchen Carlson is more of a catalyst in the story and actually gets sidelined for a healthy portion of the film. Carlson was obviously important in the actual scandal, but her portrayal in this movie makes her seem like she's taking a backseat to her co-leads. John Lithgow isn't exactly sympathetic as Ailes, but he certainly makes the Fox News CEO seem a bit more than a two-dimensional villain.

There's some fourth wall breaking at points, but (IIRC) only with two of the characters. It's a little bit jarring in a couple of places but not enough to ruin the movie. The film also uses captions to identify the large number of characters, which is helpful, especially if you're not familiar with all the players from the original news story. It gets a bit frustrating, though, when some of those identified turn out to be rather inconsequential and only have (in some cases) a few seconds of screen time. You also get to hear the thoughts of certain characters. In a couple of instances, the internal monologue crosses over into narration, but those parts only come up a couple of times in the movie. In short, Jay Roach wasn't phoning it in; he was definitely busy in that director's chair.

If I'm not mistaken, the last Jay Roach film I watched was the third Austin Powers movie. Bombshell is light years away. It's provocative and raises important questions, but despite the heavy subject matter still manages to inject instances of levity. I think Roach gets the right tone for this story and turns the scandal into a very watchable film.

You should at least see Recount and Game Change if you liked this. I thought Trumbo was excellent as well.

Game Change is great! I was kinda disappointed with Recount.

Thanks. I'll see if I can track those down.

The first two are HBO movies and are on HBOGo. Trumbo is on Starz and Kanopy.

Thanks again. Starz and HBO are extra subscriptions that I can't fit into my budget right now, but I should be able to stream from Kanopy through my local library. It looks like my library has Game Change and Trumbo on DVD, so I can just borrow those in the next little while.

Mendelson says Bombshell is a dud.

Saw a test screening back in May, so its been a while, but I thought it was all right. Theron is definitely far and away the standout.

And he also says Black Christmas was “mostly pretty damn good”. Which comment is more laughable?

I like his box office analysis pieces but don’t take much stock in his reviews.

I think what it comes down to is... yes terrible things happened to these women. But they were peddling some atrocious shit while working there. So, are you able to see past that part of it? Maybe you can, maybe you can’t. I can understand if someone couldn’t. That seems to be one of his issues.

I saw this over the weekend and it didn't do much for me. I thought the tone was all over the place. I didn't like the opening fourth wall break narration. Thankfully, that doesn't happen for the whole movie. Voice over is used throughout and that isn't too bad. I guess Charles Randolph thinks he needs to replicate his winning formula from The Big Short? It just doesn't work too well for this topic. There are some good scenes here and there and Theron and Robbie shine. There are a lot of actors in this who pop up for just a brief scene.

I thought the Showtime miniseries The Loudest Voice did this way better, but that focuses more on Ailes.

This, to no surprise, isn't doing very well at the BO. I think Lionsgate assumed this would be their Oscar frontrunner, but they are going to need to throw their money behind Knives Out instead.

The Ailes stuff is just so slimy that it is hard to find entertaining, especially since the tone of this movie is a little all over the place. The Fox News of it all makes it hard to really root for anyone too. I thought Theron did some nice work as Kelly though.

I actually enjoyed this one. Not great, but a good film. And Theron was fantastic. Like so many others have said, she is the stand out. I still think Renee Zellweger gives the best performance of the year. But Theron was the second best.

The actual Megyn Kelly is keeping relevant and doing interesting things. Here's an interview she did with Ashley Bianco, the one-time ABC staffer who was made the scapegoat when the Amy Robach "hot mic" video on ABC killing the Jeffrey Epstein story was leaked. I'd rather watch stuff like this than BOMBSHELL.

Saw a test screening of this back in May and had to sign all this shit about not revealing anything. But even back then, definitely didn’t think it would be a front runner for anything. I thought it was all right. Theron did a great job.

Caught this Saturday. Good acting all around, but nothing exceptional. The only surefire noms I see for it are for Robbie in Supporting category and possibly Theron in lead.

Good recap.
I just got back from seeing it tonight and I have similar thoughts to what you pointed out here. I thought it was pretty good. Very well acted by everyone. Lithgow was also really good as the slimey Roger Ailes. It really showed what a piece of shit he was. The "audition" scene with Margot Robbie's Kayla was really uncomfortable to watch, but she really sold the emotions of that scene.

Charlize was excellent IMO as Megyn Kelly. She really carried the movie. I hope she gets some acting nominations for her work here.

What the fuck was with the CGI Bill O Reilly.? Why did they CGI his face and no one elses. That was bizarre.

I thought it looked like CGI too. But I think it was just an actor who looked a lot like him and they put a lot of makeup on. It definitely did look weird.

Saw this last night and thought it was pretty good.