Good Night, and Good Luck! (2005)
I know, I know … since when is a black/white film a genre. Well quit complaining and get ready to enjoy a GREAT film, if you haven’t already. I really wanted to choose this as one of my films so I made up this category. (Plus, how many film titles end with an !). There were other black and white films of the past decade, so don’t think this is the only one (again, I would recommend Persepolis).
Before I go on about how much I like this film, I must admit I have always been fascinated somewhat by McCarthyism (Hence my love of The Crucible). In this short (a whopping 93 minutes) film, one sees Clooney at his finest, as director, writer, and actor (look out Orson!). I have no idea what it was like to have lived in the 50s, but I can assure you I’m glad I didn’t after seeing this film (and after viewing Mad Men and Far From Heaven … thanks wonderful wife … I hope you don’t mind the plagiarism). Back to Clooney … he’s pure genius here, I enjoyed this more than Citizen Kane (does that make me a terrible film critic wannabe, or just a crappy blogger who likes parentheses?). From the excessive smoking to the black and white film stock to precisely every 23 minutes (the standard running time of TV shows from the 1950s) the film being punctuated by a jazz song performed by Diane Reeves (thanks IMDb!), I loved it all.
The story is pretty simple. CBS journalist Edward R. Murrow and Fred Friendly, his producer, take McCarthy head-on and challenge him for what he truly was, a fear monger. Standing by their convictions in the face of personal tribulations, they helped take down McCarthy. The rest is in the details.
To end, in the words of Murrow himself ... Good Night, and Good luck…
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