Lecture me

Rating: 7/10 (26 March 2016)

It's not that this isn't a star-studded gripping movie about an important subject. It just wasn't best picture to me (for which it won an Academy Award, along with best screenplay). For that it played it far too safely. Much of the movie reminded me of the 1994 "The Paper", also headlined by Michael Keaton.
In a way, The Paper was better because it was entirely fictional and therefore could go all-out. "Spotlight" (named after the editorial crew of the Boston Globe that uncovered the scandal) kinda had to try to fit the facts. For example, the journalists seemed to do relatively little uncovering themselves, for that they relied heavily on attorneys, experts and interest groups, and at times they even blocked the investigation. Boston is described as a type of mafia territory where you can't escape the Catholic church, except for when you're Jewish or Armenian. That seemed a pretty shallow explanation.
Rachel McAdams didn't seemed too much of a Hollywood blonde to fit into the newspaper. Have you ever seen newspaper journalists? There's a reason they don't work in front of the camera.
For me, I'd rather have a great movie about a trifling subject than a good movie about an important subject. Because I don't like being schooled by mother.