Liberace vs. Britney

Rating: 10/10 (6 October 2005)

It is worth the watching just to see David Strathairn channel Ed Murrow. Good cast all around with Frank Langella as William Paley, for instance. It uses a lot of real archive footage of McCarthy and others to add authenticity. Aside from being in black and white, it also goes to some effort to portray live television of the era in the CBS studios. It certainly tries to address the larger point of whether mass media will only dumb us down or help to inform us that there are matters that are truly important. The Murrow speech which begins and ends the film may or may not resonate with audiences today but the subject is more timely than ever.