Good Night and Good Luck

[Ravenbomb 0]

Just got home from a screen of Good Night and Good Luck, and it was freaking fantastic. Great performances all around, especially from Clooney and Strathairn (if there's any justice, Strathairn will get an Oscar nomination). Anybody else seen it/planning on seeing it?

[USC Wuz Robbed! 0]

I'm planning on seeing it. How was the stock footage of McCarthy?

[Ravenbomb 0]

It was good. I was kind of dreading when it actually came up, cause I wasn't sure how they were going to actually use it, but they did a great job with it.

[USC Wuz Robbed! 0]

Awesome. I wanted to see the movie just for McCarthy. Sounds like it won't disappoint.

[Guest MikeSC]

I've seen it. It'd be great if it had any actual basis in reality.

 

But, since mentioning reality in a movie based on real events can lead to one getting banned, I will say nothing outside of it is a mediocre movie with the factual accuracy unseen since Oliver Stone's latest opus.

[Ravenbomb 0]

It won't. It's easily one of the best movies I've seen this year. I'd say a little more, but it's still too soon after I've seen it

[C Dubya 04 0]

Can't judge Mike's comments until I see the movie, but everything I read indicates that the movie is completely factual, and the thing that it lacks is covering any new ground.

 

Of course, since Clooney donated money to some liberal campaign at some point in his life disqualifies him from ever saying anything factual RIGHT?

[Guest Biggles]

I listened to Clooney give an interview on NPR's Fresh Air. After listening to it, I easily concluded that he's a really smart man. Rather unfortunate his father didn't get elected into office. I can't wait to see this movie! I've heard nothing but good things about it and am glad it's doing well in the box office. Perhaps more movies like this will come out and Bruckheimer movies will fade away.... hey... I can dream can't I?

[USC Wuz Robbed! 0]

I've seen it. It'd be great if it had any actual basis in reality.

 

But, since mentioning reality in a movie based on real events can lead to one getting banned, I will say nothing outside of it is a mediocre movie with the factual accuracy unseen since Oliver Stone's latest opus.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Are you seriously trying to say McCarthy wasn't as bad as people make him out to be? Wow...

 

edit: Oh and the McCarthy footage is the real footage of him. I don't know how it was used but I'd say that that part is factual, unless they put in a bullshit fake convo between Murrow and McCarthy using clever use of pictures and footages.

[Guest MikeSC]

Can't judge Mike's comments until I see the movie, but everything I read indicates that the movie is completely factual, and the thing that it lacks is covering any new ground.

 

Of course, since Clooney donated money to some liberal campaign at some point in his life disqualifies him from ever saying anything factual RIGHT?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

OK, please note: When I'm banned randomly next year and people bitch about this thread because I "derailed" it, I am presently responding to somebody questioning the truthfulness of my statement.

 

The problems?

 

1) McCarthy had pretty well ruined his own career months before Murrow did the first thing in regards to him. Henry Luce and Col. Robert McCormack (two pretty darned conservative fellas) had been criticizing McCarthy's behavior for a long time before Murrow trudged into the picture. Eric Sevareid, a Murrow disciple, said in 1978 that See It Now on McCarthy came "awfully late".

 

Even Murrow has been quoted saying he didn't do much. From Joe McCarthy and the Press by Edwin Baily (1981), Murrow is quoted: "My God, I didn't do anything. Scotty Reston and lot of guys have been writing like this, saying the same things, for months, for years. We're bringing up the rear."

 

So, the whole "Murrow brought down McCarthy" meme is a myth.

 

Hell, televising the Army/McCarthy hearings did FAR more damage.

 

2) CBS' boss risked more than Murrow ever did. Airing Murrow's show could have caused CBS to be taken off the air entirely. Of course, William Paley really wasn't in much danger as he was golfing buddies with Eisenhower.

 

3) Murrow didn't think much of his show about McCarthy. When See It Now published a hardcover book about its greatest hits --- the McCarthy show didn't make the list. Murrow was a little queasy about even attacking McCarthy at all.

 

4) And he SHOULD have been queasy, as the See It Now in question was produced with some amazingly slanted editing. Remember my gripes about Moore's really selective editing practices? It was even more blatant in that show. Watch it sometime (it's on DVD in the Murrow collection). Even some liberal reporters had some major misgivings about how bad the show was cut.

 

5) See It Now, which had bad ratings from the get go, didn't lose its weekly slot after the McCarthy show. It happened TWO YEARS LATER (1956). It didn't make any money and it was removed for that reason.

 

6) The Air Force never threatened McCarthy and Friendly. They were actually quite civil to them, according to Friendly.

 

7) See It Now's attack on McCarthy's attack on Annie Moss is comical because, lo and behold, she WAS a Communist, according to the Communist Party's own records. Bare minimum, she perjured herself. No matter how McCarthy behaved, the knowledge is out there and Clooney, no doubt, knows of it.

 

That's a solid start.

 

And Clooney can act like an intelligent person well. Is he intelligent? Nothing I've seen would demonstrate that.

[Guest MikeSC]

I've seen it. It'd be great if it had any actual basis in reality.

 

But, since mentioning reality in a movie based on real events can lead to one getting banned, I will say nothing outside of it is a mediocre movie with the factual accuracy unseen since Oliver Stone's latest opus.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Are you seriously trying to say McCarthy wasn't as bad as people make him out to be? Wow...

 

edit: Oh and the McCarthy footage is the real footage of him. I don't know how it was used but I'd say that that part is factual, unless they put in a bullshit fake convo between Murrow and McCarthy using clever use of pictures and footages.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

McCarthy was an asshole who, also, happened to be quite correct in his claims. There WAS a significant Communist party infiltratrion in the US gov't.

 

Alger Hiss wasn't alone.

[USC Wuz Robbed! 0]

Interesting perspective, Mike. That will give me an added perspective when I watch the movie.

[Guest Biggles]

Saw it last night...fabulous flick, go see it! Everyone was great in it, especially David Strathairn as Murrow.

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

But, since mentioning reality in a movie based on real events can lead to one getting banned...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Ditto. Which is why the only thing I will say about the film in this thread is that I'm schocked ... SHOCKED that the NY Times would like this movie...

[Vyce 0]

Can't judge Mike's comments until I see the movie, but everything I read indicates that the movie is completely factual, and the thing that it lacks is covering any new ground.

 

Of course, since Clooney donated money to some liberal campaign at some point in his life disqualifies him from ever saying anything factual RIGHT?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

It's more along the lines of, since Clooney is such a big liberal, is it really possible for him to make a politically-themed film that isn't written according to his own biases, the real facts be damned? I would wager that, much like the case with Moore, the answer is no.

[MDH257 0]

A movie has little chance when half the audience has made up their mind that it's "liberal prop" before ever seeing it.

 

I thought it was very good, but I guess that's not worth very much.

 

BTW, the movie is not the ensemble piece that the ads seem to be making it out as. Strathairn and Clooney are clearly the two lead and people in the ads like Robert Downey, Jr. and Patrica Clarkson aren't really that prominent in the movie. I'd probably say Frank Langella has the third most important role. I mention this because in the credits, Straitharn is given top billing and eveyone else is alphabetical (including Clooney). I just was supprised that they seem to be downplaying how much Clooney is in the movie.

 

 

I'm schocked ... SHOCKED that the NY Times would like this movie...

 

This is from the movie. Murrow & Co. have just read a postitve review of their show from someone in the N.Y. Times

 

Guy #1: Send him a bottle of scotch.

 

Guy #2: I already did. How do you think we got the review?

 

Just thought that was funny.

 

 

Edit: There's also a part of the movie where Murrow is arguing with the head of CBS (Langella) who points out some of Murrow's hypocracy by mentioning that when Murrow was picking apart all of McCarthy's misstatements, he didn't bring up all the times McCarthy said Alger Hiss was convcted of treason (he was only convicted of perjury). And that the reason Murrow didn't report it was because he didn't want to defend someone who actually was a communist.

Edited October 23, 2005 by MDH257

[SuperJerk 0]

I finally saw this movie, and decided to look for a pre-existing thread about it. I read MikeSC's post and was surprised no one did a rebuttal to it. MikeSC is around to do a counter-rebuttal, so I trust that anyone reading this has or will see the movie themselves and come to their own conclusions as to whether or not the film had "any actual basis in reality."

 

1) McCarthy had pretty well ruined his own career months before Murrow did the first thing in regards to him. Henry Luce and Col. Robert McCormack (two pretty darned conservative fellas) had been criticizing McCarthy's behavior for a long time before Murrow trudged into the picture. Eric Sevareid, a Murrow disciple, said in 1978 that See It Now on McCarthy came "awfully late".

 

Even Murrow has been quoted saying he didn't do much. From Joe McCarthy and the Press by Edwin Baily (1981), Murrow is quoted: "My God, I didn't do anything. Scotty Reston and lot of guys have been writing like this, saying the same things, for months, for years. We're bringing up the rear."

 

So, the whole "Murrow brought down McCarthy" meme is a myth.

 

Hell, televising the Army/McCarthy hearings did FAR more damage.

The Murrow incident was not the end of McCarthy, but merely one stop along the path of professional self-destruction. But no where in the movie is the idea that Murrow ended McCarthyism ever stated.

 

2) CBS' boss risked more than Murrow ever did. Airing Murrow's show could have caused CBS to be taken off the air entirely. Of course, William Paley really wasn't in much danger as he was golfing buddies with Eisenhower.

This is no way contradicts what was presented in the movie.

 

3) Murrow didn't think much of his show about McCarthy. When See It Now published a hardcover book about its greatest hits --- the McCarthy show didn't make the list. Murrow was a little queasy about even attacking McCarthy at all.

Irrelevant. The perceived importance of the McCarthy/Murrow incident relative to Murrow's other journalistic accomplishments is not something which the film attempts to explore.

 

4) And he SHOULD have been queasy, as the See It Now in question was produced with some amazingly slanted editing. Remember my gripes about Moore's really selective editing practices? It was even more blatant in that show. Watch it sometime (it's on DVD in the Murrow collection). Even some liberal reporters had some major misgivings about how bad the show was cut.

 

Unless you have access to the original footage and compare it to the footage shown on "See It Now", there's no way to verify this claim.

 

5) See It Now, which had bad ratings from the get go, didn't lose its weekly slot after the McCarthy show. It happened TWO YEARS LATER (1956). It didn't make any money and it was removed for that reason.

The fact that CBS could've been making more money from other programming is something which is talked about at length in the film. The film is framed using a speech Murrow gave several years later in which he discusses the dangers of letting television be a purely entertainment driven medum, rather than a medium to discuss important matters of the day. Based on this, would say the lesson the filmmakers intended us to walk away with isn't so much that McCarthyism was reckless, but that television has a responsibility to feed the public discourse and bring important matters to the public's attention. This a point which many critics of this film have completely ignored.

 

6) The Air Force never threatened McCarthy and Friendly. They were actually quite civil to them, according to Friendly.

The two sides had sharp disagreements about whether the piece should air, but its not as if the Air Force was shown threatening to blow up CBS or anything.

 

7) See It Now's attack on McCarthy's attack on Annie Moss is comical because, lo and behold, she WAS a Communist, according to the Communist Party's own records. Bare minimum, she perjured herself. No matter how McCarthy behaved, the knowledge is out there and Clooney, no doubt, knows of it.

Since this is a movie about Murrow, and Murrow really did a show about Moss, I fail to see how this could be considered to not have "any actual basis in reality." And I do not beleive that "See It Now" was attempting to defend Moss's innocence (to my knowledge, no evidence of Moss's guilt exists other than what is cited in the film), but to show how McCarthy was only interested in showboating, and left the hearing only after a few minutes.

[Kaertos 0]

I was actually a little disappointed in the movie, but I think it was my own fault for listening to the hype. I was under the impression that it was a movie about the Murrow / McCarthy stuff, when really it was a movie about how television used to do important things but has become a medium for pure entertainment. It is a story about, at least in the writer's mind, the last imporant thing television ever did.