Oscar Fever - Good Night and Good Luck
Bit by the oscar bug, I am on a crazy drive to see all the Oscar nominated movies. Completed so far, Crash, Good Night and Good Luck and Brokeback Mountain. So, here are the reviews for these movies.
Good Night and Good Luck
Directed by renowned actor, George Clooney, it tells the story of two journalist's altercation against Joseph McCarthy, an US Senator who was infamous for his drive against communists.
This is not a movie which can be liked by everybody nor is made to please everybody. To enjoy this movie, one should
1) Be an ardent movie fan, with enough appreciation for direction, acting, screenplay and other arts associated with a movie
2) Be knowledgeable about US history, especially about Joe McCarthy and his Red Scare.
3) Be able to enjoy a dialogue-oriented movie with nil or minimal action.
In layman terms, this looks more like a documentary than a movie. Based on true events happening around 1954, the movie is about Ed Murrow, a journalist for CBS who disliked the way Joe McCarthy acted against Communists. Joe McCarthy eploited the prevailing post-war Communist fear and rallied against the communists mercilessly. He would brand people as a communist without evidence and prosecute them. Anyone opposing him would automatically be branded as a communist too. Even then, Ed Murrow started a news show against him, aware of the dangers he would face. Even the channel and sponsors would stand against Ed during this time. How effective his campaign was forms the basis of the movie.
The best part of the movie is that nobody plays Joe McCarthy. Instead actual footages of McCarthy's speech and his rebuttal to Ed Murrow are used. Even the news items of people condemned by McCarthy appear as actual footages. The only actors in the movie are the journalists, channel people and few others. Clooney has blended the footages effectively in the movie. Not to say that the entire movie is in Black and White
The movie basically makes us think (in Ed Murrow's words) about the use of television as a tool to emphasise the reality of the world we live in rather than as an entertainment machine.This is best summaried by a line Murrow's speech when he says about Television, "This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire, but it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box"
posted by Rajesh @ 9:04 AM
11 comments
11 Comments:
have been wanting to see the movie for some time now. too lazy though to get a good movie these days. just watch standard potboilers if i watch anything at all. and btw, welcome darthsimian to the world of blogging :P
Whatever happened to Syriana ?
-Sud
Syriana is still way later in my list of movies to see
Coming up, (Oscar fever is done :) )
Revolver
Rabbits
Wallace and Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit
Capote
and then Syriana
REVOLVER MOVIE SPOLIERS BEWARE-----
Dude,
Finally got to watch Revolver today. By the middle of the movie you can guess that Avi and Zach are the two cell mates. However Avi says "I am you" or something like that sometime near the end which makes you think the two are not real but part of Green. I did find some explanations online but none of them can completely explain everything. For example,
1) Why does Green suddenly faint in the beginning ?
2) How the hell did Green, once ill become ok again ?
And some other questions. I think there are a few plot holes.
Did'nt like it as much as similar movies (like Donnie Darko which was just perfect, or MDrive or OldBoy or Clockwork orange, etc).
Check my list here (http://www.imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=5496118)
-Sud
saw Good Night and Good Luck finally. was ok but i wasnt too impressed. the TV funda and the courage of Murrow were good as were the gritty portrayals but i thought most of the interesting history was lost. i wud hv preferred it if the movie had more abt the red scare as such. this plot had only a small portion of the full story. for example, annie moss(the black woman shown answering questions to the committee) was actually a communist party member and was lying in the hearings. and mccarthy, for all his errors, seems also to have been honest in many of his dealings. anyways waiting for ur other reviews.
The movie was NOT about Red Scare :) The movie was about Ed Murrow and his fight to use television as a tool to show the realities of the world. McCarthy was just a major character in his fight.
I said in the review that you NEED to know about McCarthy and Red Scare to enjoy the movie. That is probably a flaw of the movie. A casual watcher will never like this movie. After i read about Ed Murrow, McCarthy and Red Scare, I saw it again and liked the movie a lot. For the dialogues, especially.
No more review until this weekend. Then probably will put a review for Munich.
dei exactly my point.. the movie is NOT abt the RedScare - it wd have been better if it had been more abt it. the movie is not simply historical or biographical. it is an allegory of the modern world, where TV has become what Murrow fears it will be if we dont use it responsibly and i feel it wud hv been stronger if they had shown the red scare and also presented a more balanced view. this way it has become only a thulping of govt tactics and preachy on the 'right' way to use media.
waiting for Munich!
Cannot BELIEVE THIS, but V is at 237 (after freaking 8 grand votes). I don't know what I missed that the others got from it.
-Sud
Updates please.
-Pseud Deer.
Oh, and I almost forgot this. Check out your batch (IITM Chem 2003) photo here (http://www.flickr.com/photos/balubk/114253528/). You need a Flickr account and you should add Bala as a contact. Worth going through the entire procedure since the snap is an absolute specimen.
-Sud
Saw this movie on a flight... Awesome Movie... !
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