you are going to get off you ass and make this movie huge.
Get the world out, this movie gives us a history lesson that everyone in America needs to hear.
From the review:
The dichotomy between Murrow and McCarthy is emblematic of Good Night, and Good Luck's fixation on contrast, which manifests itself not only in See it Now's ethical condemnation of the House of Un-American Activities Committee's insidious leader, but also in the film's view of an American culture naively willing to take everything at face value. In an exquisite sequence that highlights the disparity between what's seen and what is, Clooney presents an authentic commercial for Kent cigarettes in which the patronizing spokesman compliments the audience's intelligence for not being easily swayed by consumer marketing, and then asks them to buy—hook line and sinker—the company's (thoroughly preposterous) claim about Kent smokes' healthiness. Immediately after this found-artifact advertisement, Murrow's hilarious interview with Liberace finds the queer pianoman discussing his hopes and dreams for marriage (and his interest in Princess Margaret!), a similar instance of deliberate image-manipulation in which messy, unfavorable realities are glossed up with phony facades in an effort to coddle and hoodwink a public still under the false impression that politicians, presidents, and TV personalities are always operating on the level.
Though never overstepping the story's period-specific confines, the film's contemporary allusions are nonetheless there for those who would seek them: McCarthy's uncompromising view of good and evil (and slandering of anyone who opposed his cause, including the ACLU) is meant to recall George W.'s post-9/11 "You're either with us or against us" declaration and the payback-motivated leaking of Valerie Plame's covert CIA status; his dogged refusal to supply evidence against accused communists, instead preferring to try suspects on speculation and hearsay, is intended to evoke the current brouhaha surrounding prisoner rights at Guantanamo; and his justification that "security risks" necessitate the bending of constitutional freedoms is expected to parallel similar rationalizations for the Patriot Act. "We cannot defend freedom abroad if we desert it at home," Murrow states during his historic nightly news attack on McCarthy's slash-and-burn approach to weeding out potential socialist sympathizers, a famous proclamation that—along with Murrow's similar belief that "We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty"—is meant to reverberate as a censure of the current administration's preferred tactics in selling and orchestrating the War on Terror.
Yet more forceful than its digs at the Bushies is Good Night, and Good Luck's eloquent articulation of television news's duty to challenge the powers-that-be, and the erosion of modern broadcasting's adherence to this responsibility in the face of profit-prompted corporate interference and exaltation of infotainment fluff—the latter of which is Murrow's focus during a 1958 honorary ceremony speech that serves as the narrative's frame. As Murrow's employer William Paley, a superbly conflicted Frank Langella elicits both empathy and condemnation, exhibiting loyalty to the news division's demand for independence while simultaneously becoming increasingly concerned for his network's financial health should Murrow alienate one too many lucrative sponsors. In the film's magnificent finale, Paley and Murrow stare each other down over the lengths to which the media are (and should be) truly autonomous truth-seekers, and the brilliance of Clooney's (and co-screenwriter Grant Heslov's) explosively tense presentation of this face-off is that, though the film's sympathies staunchly lie with Murrow, Paley comes across not solely as a money-hungry scoundrel, but as a resolute pragmatist who believes that facts, even in the hands of an esteemed anchorman, are always subject to biased interpretation and manipulation.
Here is the review:
http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/film_review.asp?ID=1798here is a link to the trailer:
http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/goodnightandgoodluck.html
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