Good Night, and Good Luck

I got a copy of Good Night, and Good Luck on DVD in a $3 bin at Big Lots a couple of weeks ago, and watched it with a friend who'd never seen it.  I saw it in the theater when it was new.  When I told my dad, who was 76 at the time, that I wanted to see a movie about journalist Edward R. Murrow's role in the downfall of Senator Joseph McCarthy, he said, "I guess you don't really remember that."  In fact it all happened well before I was born, so to me it's history.  Dad remembered it, but he never liked to talk about the past, and I never really asked him about this incident and what he'd thought of it all at the time.

Fabulous movie.  The director's choice to use newsreel footage of McCarthy instead of hiring an actor to play the senator was brilliant; no one can claim he put words in McCarthy's mouth that the man never said.  David Strathairn was excellent as Murrow, and since I don't remember the man himself I can't complain that the actor doesn't look like him.  I kind of wish that Clooney had stuck to directing and had not chosen to play a role in the film as well; he was the only casting choice that I found a little jarring, reminding me that I was watching a movie.