Good Night, and Good Luck, and I'm Sorry

First, let me apologize to the local cinemas whom I badgered about getting "Good Night, and Good Luck" into their theaters. I never did get to see it on the big screen, the nearest cinema that carried it was about 40 miles away, and I figured I could wait for the DVD. I had somehow thought that the "big screen" treatment of Murrow would be even better than the made for cable movie in 1986, titled "Murrow" and starring Daniel J. Travanti. Boy, was I wrong. The Clooney version, though still very good, is disappointing in every way that Murrow was great. First, it's only 90 minutes long, including credits. Second, there must be at least 30 minutes of vintage Joe McCarthy footage in there, meaning we are only talking about 1 hour of actual acting. Third, when we pull out the waste of time subplot of an "against company rules" marriage between two of the characters, and constantly returning to some singer in a bar, you probably got less than 30 minutes of the famous Murrow/Friendly stuff left, and only a few minutes of the Paley/Murrow/Friendly interaction which is what made the whole McCarthy attack possible in the first place! Hint to George Clooney - if you want to do a documentary, do a damn documentary. This topic is important, damnit, especially in this day and age. Instead we get two minutes of Murrow talking about the importance of TV news, and the difference between censorship and "not stopping you." Those two minutes are what I expected the movie to be about! Murrow was, and still is right....."this instrument...can inspire...otherwise it's just wires and lights in a box." Congrats George, you just contributed to the "lights in a box" movement.