Boy George's Big Lie!

Rating: 3/10 (6 October 2005)

So what if the Verona cables proved there were Communists in our mists, and Khrushchev's memoirs confirmed the Rosenbergs committed treason, "Good Night, and Good Luck" will make those who share Boy George Clooney's world-view (especially Oscar voters) want to hug themselves.
The irony of using African-American Dianne Reeves to underscore the "crusade" being launched by Murrow and his lilly-white staff is totally lost on Clooney. He isn't much of a director, either: the pacing is sluggish, the scenes are poorly blocked, the characters are not fleshed out, and a sub-plot goes nowhere. To top it off, he decides some gay-bashing is in order. That Clooney socks it to Liberace, of all people, and is being given a pass by the media, is despicable.
McCarthy did not create the blacklist; he did not blacklist Larry Parks for naming names and Zero Mostel for not naming names and Faye Grant for speaking out at a colleague's funeral while "friendly witnesses" Ronald Reagan and Gary Cooper went on with their lives -- Hollywood did. CBS blacklisted numerous artists as well, which Murrow surely knew of, but Clooney ignores. He provides very little background about the hearings or any historical context; he hopes those going in won't be up on the minutia.
He uses McCarthy's claim of 200 card-carrying Communists in the State Department to lead the audience to believe the basis for the "witch-hunt" was false. Eisenhower finally put the brakes on McCarthy, partly because of his police-state tactics, but mostly because he had set his sights on the President's cabinet. And, despite what Clooney insinuates by closing with Ike extolling the virtues of American society, including the right to self-determination, he never publicly denounced McCarthy.
At one point, Paley says McCarthy wants William F. Buckley to do his rebuttal to Murrow's attacks; Clooney doesn't tell you that Murrow refused because he knew that Buckley would have ripped his pompous ass to shreds in a debate.
Too bad Boy George didn't explore instead how the Fourth Estate destroys innocent lives - as Richard Jewell and Wen Ho Lee can tell you - without fear of reprisal. But what do you expect from a self-righteous twit who declared that Charlton Heston deserves to get Alzheimer's? I don't care what your political affiliations are, no one deserves to get Alzheimer's!
And, how cheeky of Clooney not to mention that Time magazine's founder Henry Luce backed Tailgunner Joe. Could it be it's because his baby's distributor is a subsidiary of Time-Warner? Nah!