Good night and good luck

The movie was a little disappointing, or was it the rest of the evening, it's hard to tell. No review is objective, and who would want an object's analysis of another object anyway? I'm not sure what I was expecting, having watched another Clooney vehicle, "Ocean's 11," a few nights earlier, but this one didn't quite deliver.

I appreciate the distress call Clooney et al are sending and the period re-creation of circa 1953. Black and white film works well for this picture of cramped smoke-filled rooms in the masculine domain of the TV news business in its heyday. I appreciate the symbolic omnipresence of cigarettes in that world - smoke-screens, smoke and mirrors, smoke signals, where there's smoke there's fire - and the body language of men in suits lighting up next to their Underwood typewriters and big microphones.

I get the storyline of compromises built on compromises in the big-time game of journalism qua entertainment qua advertising, and I understand the self-preservation through self-censorship that occurs within the battle against censorship. Pick your battles, etc. And anyone with a pulse will get the unstated parallel with the media 50 years later, still tip-toeing around a ruthless crusade of lies and insinuations against civil liberties and those who have the cojones to exercise them. Murrow does not come across as an optimist. Good night and good luck indeed.

Somehow I failed to suspend disbelief and feel like it was Murrow I was watching and not David Strathairn, an actor I respect from his many John Sayles movies (Eight Men Out, Passion Fish, Matewan, Brother from Another Planet, etc.). Frank Langella was excellent as CBS boss William Paley, the tallest guy in the best suit. George Clooney and Robert Downey, Jr., gave confincing portrayals of square-jawed pretty faces in gray flannel suits. Joseph McCarthy gave a superb performance as himself. I'd like to see the same movie made by John Sayles with a tenth of the money, but that would be a John Sayles film, rather than an imitation of one.

The green tea and berry pie at the Radio Cafe were tasty, but the waitperson behind the glass case was so loud I couldn't hear myself think. Maybe that's her way of telling us to go away, it's closing time. And it wasn't her fault the ensuing conversation was amorphous and my two companions and I had trouble understanding one another's critique of public education. It was probably my fault for trying to steer the conversation in that direction. So I drove home wallowing in the inability of three otherwise articulate people to communicate beyond the anecdotal retelling of their personal histories. When I was in fourth grade, blah blah blah. Oh yeah, well when I was in sixth grade, blah blah blah. Yes, but when I was in eleventh grade, blah blah blah. Maybe the movie had more of an effect than I give it credit for, since the title sums up my attitude at the end of the evening.