For some perverse reason, I've always found it easier to write with the sound of talking in the background. If there's nobody around, I put on a podcast or an episode of some cable TV series. The other day I put on All the President's Men. I've probably seen it half a dozen times, beginning with its original release in 1976. The movie, directed by Alan J. Pakula from a script by William Goldman -- based, of course, on the book by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein about how they brought down President Nixon -- is a brilliant piece of work. It tells a complicated, potentially dry story in a riveting manner. The actors, starting with Robert Redford as Woodward and Dustin Hoffman as Bernstein, are terrific. And thanks to the work of first-rate cinematographer Gordon Willis, it's visually arresting throughout, with individual camera shots (such as the slow vertical pullback from our intrepid reporters as they sift through hundreds of loan slips at the Library of...(Read Full Article)