Good Night, and Good Luck

[Dave Mitsky]

I saw George Clooney's "Good Night, and Good Luck" on Friday night. This timely film was extremely good and I very much recommend seeing it.

"Good Night, and Good Luck" scored a very high score of 94% on the tomatometer.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/good...and_good_luck/

Dave Mitsky

[Gillianren]

I ended up explaining McCarthyism to one of the people with whom I saw Harry Potter the night it opened. For cause, I went with "mass insanity."

I really, really want to see the movie today (my boyfriend's day off), but he doesn't. Sigh. He doesn't like dramas.

According to my best friend, test screening audiences loved the movie, but they felt the actor playing Joe McCarthy was a little over the top. And, of course, there was no actor playing Joe McCarthy; it was all actual footage.

[Swift]

According to my best friend, test screening audiences loved the movie, but they felt the actor playing Joe McCarthy was a little over the top. And, of course, there was no actor playing Joe McCarthy; it was all actual footage.

That is both wonderful and scary.

[beskeptical]

According to my best friend, test screening audiences loved the movie, but they felt the actor playing Joe McCarthy was a little over the top. And, of course, there was no actor playing Joe McCarthy; it was all actual footage.

That is both wonderful and scary.

Or it could have just been a marketing ploy, made up or encouraged by suggestions to the audience.

[HenrikOlsen]

The really scary thing about depictions of that era is that it's very easy to draw parallels to current times, including the government pushed media induced paranoia.
If you take the rhetoric of that time and exchange terrorism for communism, you'll have a hard time to distinguish it from what you hear today.

[soylentgreen]

I agree. What a great film. I consider it to be right up there with THIRTEEN DAYS as examples of just how great a historical film can be when the filmmakers are both sincere and frank.

For me, GOODNIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK has a stirring kinship with the CBS live show they did a few years ago of FAIL-SAFE, for which Clooney was a driving force. Nice job with that too!

I don't recall when I started to see it in any substantial form, but there's a movement out there to try to reform McCarthy's negative image. Just horrifying! No matter how paranoid and convinced of enemy infiltration our society becomes, the greater threat will always be the Joseph McCarthys, Janet Renos and the other spiritual descendants of Matthew Hopkins "looking out for our best interests"!

[paulie jay]

Hmmm. I never thought I'd see the day when the words "George Clooney" and "extremely good" appeared in the same... well I was going to say "paragraph" but I suppose I mean "universe".

So it's safe to dive in...?

[Enzp]

Joe was scary, I was young at the time, but I recall the hearings going on.

They whipped up a frenzy, and to call someone "communist" was about as bad as labelling him a rapist.

Joe McCarthy WAS over the top. And who was his attorney always advising him in his ear...ROy Cohn I think. No prize that guy either.

[Gillianren]

Joe McCarthy WAS over the top. And who was his attorney always advising him in his ear...ROy Cohn I think. No prize that guy either.

Roy Cohn indeed. Who died of AIDS, and became a character in Angels in America; he's haunted by the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg.

[Enzp]

I may have to go see the movie.

[Dave Mitsky]

Clooney is a better than average actor, in my opinion, and apart from the travesty that was "Batman and Robin" and one or two other misses has been in some fairly good movies including "Out of Sight", "The Thin Red Line", "Three Kings", "O Brother, Where Art Thou?", "The Perfect Storm", "Intolerable Cruelty", and now "Good Night, and Good Luck", which he directed. It's likely that the latter will be an Oscar contender.

Dave Mitsky