To commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Traverse City Record-Eagle, the State Theatre is showing five of the best newspaper-themed films of all time this week. It's a stellar lineup, including a number of films with personal significance to me and a few can't miss-events for film lovers, starting with the granddaddy of cinema itself.

1. "Citizen Kane" - Sunday, November 16 at 6:00 p.m.

What do you say about this film that hasn't already been said? It's impossible to call yourself a movie buff and not have seen "Citizen Kane." On a personal level, Orson Welles has singlehandedly driven my obsessive need to achieve since I first saw the film at age 17. If nothing else, he's a great benchmark to measure your mid-20s by (as in - "Orson Welles made 'Citizen Kane' when he was 26, and I can barely decide if I want to get off the couch and jog today. Real inspiring, Milligan.") To pass on the opportunity to see this film on the big screen is almost a crime against cinema itself. Expect a full house Sunday night.

2. "Newsies" - Monday, November 17 at 7:30 p.m.

Here's where the personal revelations start to get embarassing. "Newsies" is one of those films no adult should ever admit to liking. Period. However - I've had enough conversations where someone accidentally mentions it, there's an awkward pause where everyone decides how to react, and then someone bursts into "Sante Fe" to know that a frightening number of us do, in fact, like it. Not even just like - love. Nonsensical, creepy (what was that prostitute doing with those 12-year-old boys?) and over-the-top cheesy, "Newsies" nonetheless remains my highwater mark for Disney musicals. (I mean, just look at that poster. That is the Dark Knight himself doing a leaping pirouette off a stack of newspapers, people. It doesn't get any better than that.)

3. "Deadline - U.S.A." - Tuesday, November 18 at 7:30 p.m.

If ever there's a compelling reason to visit the theater, it's to see a lost treasure that's not available anywhere else on video or DVD. Enter "Deadline - U.S.A.", a great Humphrey Bogart film that inexplicably remains unavailable to moviegoers 56 years later, except for movie screenings like this one. Humphrey takes on a racketeering gangster and tries to close out his newspaper with a bang in this suspenseful and realistic take on the newspaper world in the 1950s.

4. "The Year of Living Dangerously" - Wednesday, November 19 at 7:30 p.m.

Back before Mel Gibson swerved off the racist/religious deep end, he was making some pretty great films in the '80s and early '90s. One of those films was "The Year of Living Dangerously," the story of a young foreign correspondent who gets caught up in a love affair while covering the political turmoil of Indonesia. Featuring an Oscar-winning turn by actress Linda Hunt, this is a classic entry in the journalism film canon.

5. "All the President's Men" - Thursday, November 21 at 7:00 p.m.

What does it take to convince a high school senior that journalism, not marine biology, is the career she should be pursuing? For me, it came down to a combination of working on the high school newspaper and watching "All the President's Men." The journalism gene had been hereditarily present, but until the day I saw Redford and Hoffman wearily pounding the streets, shaking down Deep Throat and pursuing a dangerous and top-secret government story, the gene lay dormant. No more after that. "All the President's Men" remains an inspiration for generations of investigative journalists - even after leaving the newspaper world to focus on marketing, I still get the urge to give it all up and make peanuts chasing leads every time I watch this film.

Regular ticket prices apply for all films in the Newspaper Film Festival. For a complete listing of movies and showtimes at the State, click here.