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Superb ‘Spotlight’ Doesn’t Turn Journalists Into Heroes

In Reviews, Spotlight-movie by PhilSaviano

Nov. 3, 2015 | BOSTON GLOBE — Actually, one of the reasons that “Spotlight” is so deeply, absurdly satisfying to this newspaper writer — and to most of those I’ve spoken with, at the Globe and elsewhere — is that Tom McCarthy’s movie doesn’t turn its journalists into heroes. It just lets them do their jobs, as tedious and critical as those are, with a realism that grips an audience almost in spite of itself.
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A Sensitive Cast Brings the Powerful ‘Spotlight’ Investigation to Life

In Reviews, Spotlight-movie by PhilSaviano

Nov. 4, 2015 | WBUR-FM — The scandal broke on Jan. 6, 2002, the Feast of the Epiphany — and what a revelation. On that Sunday, The Boston Globe Spotlight team released the first in a series of articles that would earn them a Pulitzer Prize and cast light on a story that had been festering in the dark corners of Catholic parishes around Massachusetts for decades: Priests had been molesting children while church officials knew and did nothing to stop it.
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Survivors of Clergy Sexual Abuse Discuss How ‘Spotlight’ Portrayed Their Trauma

In Feature Stories by PhilSaviano

October 2015 | BOSTON GLOBE — “Ann Hagan Webb didn’t expect to get emotional while watching Spotlight for the first time. As a survivor of sexual abuse by a Catholic priest, she had already lived through the events depicted in the film. But Webb found herself feeling completely overwhelmed as she observed how The Boston Globe’s Spotlight team of investigative journalists personally reacted to uncovering the systemic problem of clergy sexual abuse.”
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For ‘Spotlight,’ Actors Portrayed Hunters Chasing Predators

In Feature Stories, Spotlight-movie by PhilSaviano

October 30, 2015 | NY TIMES — “Working from a cramped, dingy office, a scrappy band of journalists exposes the Archdiocese of Boston’s decades-long cover-up of sexual abuse of children by scores of priests. Definitely an investigation worthy of a Pulitzer Prize, which the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team won for that 2002 series. But fodder for a Hollywood film?”
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In ‘Spotlight,’ an Oscar Favorite, Dogged and Ink-Stained Heroes

In Feature Stories, Spotlight-movie by PhilSaviano

October 11, 2015 | NEW TORK TIMES — They have been whipsawed by the web and left jobless by the thousands in round after round of layoffs and early retirements. Their public standing just barely rises above that of lobbyists and telemarketers. But against all odds, the hottest heroes in Hollywood — at least in this early stage of the Oscar hunt — are a bunch of scruffy, middle-aged newspaper journalists.
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“This Film is the Current Front Runner for Best Picture”

In Reviews, Spotlight-movie by PhilSaviano

September 15, 2015 | NEW YORK POST — My favorite film at the Toronto Film Festival is probably also the Oscar front-runner at this moment: Tom McCarthy’s “Spotlight,’’ a crackling, important account of how the Boston Globe doggedly pursued its Pulitzer Prize-winning exposé of the Catholic Church’s longtime system of covering up sexual abuse of minors by more than 100 local priests.
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