Review of Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005) by Courtland B — 22 Aug 2009

I really cant say how much I loved this film.....I really feel its Cinema perfection at its finest.

Good Night. And, Good Luck is by far one of my favorite movies of all time, how else can such a story be captured and told to an audience? well try putting it in complete black and white as his broadcast was & use real video footage from the House of un-American activies comity complete with real video of Joe McCarthy himself and his ridiculous god complex speeches of mindless self indulgence and over priding himself on spying on American Citizens unconstitutionally who by the more were actually Innocent or framed by him and Richard Nixon (Alger Hiss Cough Cough) anyways....

The Film starts out at a Network dinner commending and rewarding Edward R. Murrow for his service during World War 2 as his service as a news broadcaster.

Jeff Daniels makes his appearance here and I have to say, when you grow up knowing a guy from Dumb and Dumber you love seeing them in a serious role. Jeff Daniels is the type of actor who only does movies he wants to do, I honestly dont think he does it for the money anymore but for the message....Example's (Away We Go, State of Play & The Squid and the whale) hes always a pleasure to see.

David Strathairn is probably one of the few actors who when they actually dive into their character you forget that its an actor on film, what plays well in his favor is now every time I think of Edward R. Murrow I think Strathairn first then the actual guy.....which reflects worse on me and better on him.

Edward R. Murrow is by far the most respectable journalist in news broadcasting history, he was lucky though it was back when you actually told the news and didnt worry about ratings....it was like a public service because people actually wanted to be informed and didnt give a crap about Lindsay Lohan's DUI trial (most recent none news I could think of) people wanted to know how the war was going, people wanted to hear when someone in the government was abusing their powers and ignoring Habeas Corpus as Dwight D Eisenhower put it so perfectly in his speech.

And now onto what I think is the Pillar that set this movie in solid concrete of perfection, George Clooney not only acted in this film but he also Co-wrote and directed it and I would argue and defend that he did it flawlessly.

This movie doesnt just do History right but it does cinema right and how rare is that? how often can you get the absolute cinema perfection with your protagonist (Murrow) taking on the big Judicial by-laws abusing Excuse of a politician known as Joseph R McCarthy....we have genuine suspense when they first take on McCarthy and after they read their reviews of yay & nay sayers, when McCarthy decides to fight back and tries to get William F Buckley to do his rebuttal (too busy to fight his own wars, too cowardly is more like it...and using a racist like Buckley) only to have that denied and ends up doing it himself and does so not by countering Murrows statements and pointing out their false assertions but just attacks Murrows character personally and tries to paint him as a communist & a socialist and everything else that makes Sarah Palin angry enough to quote Ronald Reagan but i'm getting off subject.

Every single Actor & Actress in this movie do a fantastic job and I will continue to defend this movie until the day I die as being nothing less then cinema perfection....