I do think that's one you need to watch when you're very much awake and alert. The dialogue is so literate and layered, you'll easily miss a lot if you're the least bit sleepy.
You are so right, Barb! Thank you.
I still had
Quiz Show from my Blockbuster online account, so I watched it again tonight, including of course the part I'd slept through before. And I'm SO glad I did! Some observations:
1) My memory was that it was about an interesting episode in 1950s television history. Watching it tonight, I realized it's much more about class and ethnicity in the 1950s. I love movies that explore '50s class and ethnicity, because the dynamics are partly forgotten now. For example, one of my favorite scenes:
HERB STEMPLE (John Turturro) to government investigator DICK GOODWIN (Rob Morrow): Here, have some rugula, it's a Jewish delicacy, you don't know what you're missing.
GOODWIN: I'm very familiar with rugula, thanks.
(STEMPLE and his wife exchange glances.)
STEMPLE: How'd a guy like you get into Harvard?
2) I want to include this movie on one of my many hypothetical writing projects, about class in movies.
3) Rob Morrow! I would have gone to the grave not remembering Rob Morrow as being good in anything since
Northern Exposure. But he was fantastic in QS. (Makes me want to rewatch a season or two of NE. Why isn't that show on 24 hours a day, like
That '70s Show?) I wonder why he's not doing much now.
5) And of course Ralph Fiennes was really good, too. I kept thinking of the first time I saw him, in
Schindler's List, and marveling at his versatility.