“I’m sorry I impugned your cocksmanship.” If that isn’t the best line in cinema, I don’t know what is. There are dozens of other contenders in this picture. To call “Network” ahead of its time is simply too obvious. Predicting Murdoch-ism, reality TV, globalism and so on. One thing I noticed this time — the umpteenth time I’ve watched, with mouth agape, this work of genius. “Network” was actually overestimating the eventual decay of the American society (which we, heading in to the second W. Bush administration, are now in the depths of.) “Network” had as its great common denominator Anger. Anger against the Man for political and social reasons. This Anger is manifest in much of today’s culture — but it isn’t anything remotely as enlightened as Howard Beale’s ravings or the ultra-left terrorist actions of “The Mao-Tse Tung Hour.” The Anger served up by our media is self-serving. Anger at our our body image — feeding into diet magazines and eye shadow. Anger at foreigners. And the prose of Paddy Chayefsky is eloquent in a way to make the dilaogue on Fox News and MSNBC look like the grunting of cro-magnum men. Think Howard Stern instead of Howard Beale. When someone walked out of “Network” in 1976 who in their right mind would ever think that, compared to the socio-political climate or 2004, it would seem like the “good old days?”