good nite & good luck

Collapse

Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • #46
    Re: good nite & good luck

    Originally posted by cluckyburger
    in any case, have you seen this movie? I think it's pretty wellmade and sucessful. i would like to hear your views. maybe you'll change your mind?
    Authorized? Change his mind? Clucky, clucky, clucky ...
    http://confoundedfilms.com

    http://www.myspace.com/confoundedfilms

    Comment


    • #47
      Re: good nite & good luck

      It was a predictable affair. Nicely shot, competently acted. A sporadically compelling history lesson, and a mild "thinker."
      ENNIS spits in the palm of his hand, puts it on himself.

      Comment


      • #48
        Re: good nite & good luck

        Good, solid piece of filmmaking. Like "Capote" it never hits you over the head, but depends on nuance and subtlety. It really captured the look of those years (and I'm young enough to remember them) as well as the political climate, which was genuinely scary. Murrow was a great hero to a lot of people back then. A newsman who took sides. Very different from what we're used to today.

        Tough to say who this'll go over for those who don't remember him or his times. But it does comment, without bludgeoning the audience, how much like those times we live in now. "If you're not with us, you're against," says George Bush, and that could've been written by Joe McCarthy.

        Great they used footage of McCarthy instead of having him portrayed. His rebuttal to Murrow is famous--McCarthy was drunk out of his mind when he delivered it. It's what killed him, too.

        Comment


        • #49
          Re: good nite & good luck

          I didn't think he was drunk out of his mind. Maybe he was a very controlled drunk - like Pen.

          I agree that old footage and new was seemlessly edited together.
          ENNIS spits in the palm of his hand, puts it on himself.

          Comment


          • #50
            Re: good nite & good luck

            Loved this film. So simply shot ... a fly on the wall. Very little camera movement and almost never unnecessary. The black and white photography was gorgeous. The performances were perfect. One of the best examples of "stillness is drama" I've seen in a long, long time.

            Loved that McCarthy was only shown via archival footage ... this movie destroys him with his own words just as Murrow skewered him with his own words back in 1953.

            My only complaint in the entire film was the history lesson scroll at the beginning. Perhaps today's viewers aren't aware of McCarthyism and the red scare, but even without the scroll someone should have been able to piece together what was happening. Those who were previously unaware of the events depicted in the film can go do their own research if they're that interested.
            http://confoundedfilms.com

            http://www.myspace.com/confoundedfilms

            Comment


            • #51
              Re: good nite & good luck

              believe it or not it was shot in color, then the color was removed.

              Comment


              • #52
                Re: good nite & good luck

                I think it's one of those that should be on everyones DVD list. It's a keeper. I wouldn't go as far as to say it is to free speech what Shoah is to genocide but it is a timely reminder, things being what they are.
                http://wasitsomethingiwrote.blogspot.com/

                Comment


                • #53
                  Re: good nite & good luck

                  Ali, it was famous in its day that McCarthy was drunk and slurring his words when he made that rebuttal.

                  Hairy, I think the history scroll in the beginning is not at all out of place. McCarthy was at one time a household name; now people under thirty-five don't even know how to find Iran on a world map. To expect viewers to go out and read about McCarthy is to expect too much. I don't think a little background is out of place here.

                  By the way. Terry Gross on Fresh Air did a great hour-long interview with Clooney, in which he discusses many of the artistic choices he made for this picture. I don't know if it's available as a podcast download, but you should see if you can access it. You, especially, would enjoy it, Hairy.

                  Comment


                  • #54
                    Re: good nite & good luck

                    The scroll made me cringe. It was the only thing that bothered me in the entire film.

                    This obviously wasn't a mainstream release so playing to the lowest common denominator is not required.

                    It's made over $23M domestic off a $7.5M budget so it should be in the black before it even hits DVD. Nice to see that happen for a film like this.
                    http://confoundedfilms.com

                    http://www.myspace.com/confoundedfilms

                    Comment


                    • #55
                      Re: good nite & good luck

                      I'm kinda surprised how much praise this film got.

                      As a history piece, it was interesting, but not as a dramatic movie. I didnt see any character development or a real story arc.

                      The subplot of Joe & Shirley seemed sorely underdeveloped - I didnt feel any real tension when it was shown that they were married. Why were we supposed to care about that, and what was the consequence of this discovery?

                      Unfortunately, even the main plot of Murrow vs McCarthy,felt breezy. The way it was shown in the film, it seemed as if McCarthy was just easily taken down - and the thing that took him down was to simply show that some of his facts were wrong. Maybe thats how quickly it happened in real life, I dont know, but I kept wondering where the drama in that was. And I was also annoyed how no one was pointing out that simply being a communist shouldnt be a problem. Instead, Murrow kept saying that his problem with the hearings was the McCarthy was using secret evidence and misrepresenting the facts.

                      I just wanted more with everything. And felt there wasnt enough here to merit the kind of praise that was heaped on this film.

                      I enjoyed the historical clips and I was scared at the similarities between the Red Scare and the War on Terror, but that's about all I got out of this film. Well, that, and I thoroughly enjoyed Strathairn performance. It was probably worth it just to see him do such a terrific job in this movie.
                      Last edited by Qazworld; 04-16-2006, 06:38 PM.

                      Comment


                      • #56
                        Re: good nite & good luck

                        The Joe/Shirley subplot was an echo of the McCarthy plot: that no one working in the news department was supposed to be married to another employee; the idea that this was somehow unethical or even tainted.

                        And, yes, that was pretty much how McCarthy was taken down: Murrow allowed him the time to hang himself on network TV. After that he was finished.

                        There are recordings available of the Army-McCarthy hearings, worth listening to. It was a scary time when a lot of careers were ruined, families torn apart and people killing themselves because they had lost everything to the mythology of a dipsomaniac senator from Wisconsin.
                        Last edited by Jake Schuster; 04-17-2006, 05:31 AM.

                        Comment


                        • #57
                          Re: good nite & good luck

                          Jake - you left musician Woody Guthrie off your list. His son, Arlo, later gave us the classic "Alice's Restaurant" ditty. A darn funny song, even if you are on the other side of the political persuasion.
                          We're making a movie here, not a film! - Kit Ramsey

                          Comment


                          • #58
                            Re: good nite & good luck

                            I know about Woody, Bill. I was just listing people in our business. There were of course tons more in all walks of public life.

                            Pete Seeger was another, by the way. In the current New Yorker (last week's, by this time), there's an excellent piece on Seeger that describes a concert he did in Peekskill, NY with Paul Robeson, when the local chapter of the KKK attacked them and their families.

                            Comment


                            • #59
                              Re: good nite & good luck

                              Recently saw the Hal Ashby biopic of Woody Guthrie, Bound for Glory. Really enjoyed it on many levels.
                              http://confoundedfilms.com

                              http://www.myspace.com/confoundedfilms

                              Comment


                              • #60
                                Re: good nite & good luck

                                Just saw this last night, and I really liked it.

                                I think the drama was understated if you weren't aware of the HUAC era and what could happen to Murrow if they failed.


                                but what struck me the most was the stillness of this movie. Like Capote, it was a quite film with little camera movement.

                                If you aren't aware of the HUAC era, read up about Arther Millers experience infront of the commitee, and how it ruined his friendships.

                                Comment

                                Working...
                                X