Month: November 2005

GO SEE THIS MOVIE!!!

“We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.”
— Edward R. Murrow

…now, I’ll continue… “Good Night, And Good Luck” is a movie co-written and directed by George Clooney…and it’s good… For those who don’t know, it’s a movie about Edward R. Murrow and his work at CBS News in the 1950s fighting against the McCarthy hearings (and Senator McCarthy himself).

Here are a few “oddities” about it:

1). The “villain” (McCarthy) plays himself in the movie, only appearing in TV spots where he was filmed in the 1950s.

2). The movie is filmed in black and white, which really helps since all the newsreels from the 50s are also in black and white…

3). There isn’t much of a soundtrack… There’s some music (jazz…) here and there, but not a lot…

Anyway, the movie is really good, but the reasons that it’s good aren’t necessarily due to strong filmmaking and acting (which are all top-notch, in their own right). The movie is good because of its relevance. It brings up two very good points about today’s world and recent events:

In the movie, the government employs fear tactics to enact laws, etc. that impinge upon our Constitutional rights…in the very same way that the Patriot Act does it today. The movie is generally an allegory to what is happening as we speak in Congress, where we’re giving up our rights because of fear.

Murrow has some problems with the “higher ups” at CBS and ends up making various statements incriminating the American public as only caring about entertainment rather than news, and we see this today as well (to an extent). For example, we are much more likely to turn on “The Tonight Show” rather than “Nightline”…we’d rather watch something funny or dramatic instead of learn more about the plight of women in Africa, or the people losing their jobs as their work is moved overseas. This is the fault of not only the American public, but also the TV networks for allowing this to take place.

So yeah, overally, a really good movie that you all should see at least once. If it isn’t playing where you live (i.e. Kirksville), drive to Columbia or St. Louis/Kansas City. Just see it. It is completely relevant to today’s world without saying anything specific about it. A very timely and well-done movie. Go see it. Right now.

So we saw “Wallace & Gromit and the Curse of the Were-Rabbit” last night, and overall, it was pretty good. I haven’t really seen many Wallace and Gromit flicks (I can only remember one, and it probably wasn’t all the way through…), but I did see “Chicken Run” a few years ago and thought it was alright.

The story itself was entertaining and somewhat fun to watch. I got pretty bored for the first half of the movie, honestly, but the last half really picked up as you figured more stuff out about “the origin of the were-rabbit,” etc… Generally, the humor was rather cute-sy, as opposed to “laugh out loud” hilarious. There were certainly some amusing parts, but the only “laugh out loud” stuff was toward the very end.

The cool stuff was really in the production of the film. I mean, the whole thing (well…save a little CGI…but very little…) was claymation…including things like liquids. It’s crazy that they poured tea…and it was done with clay…and it looked really good. The impressive part is that you really get lost in the story and don’t notice the claymation; it’s like you’re watching any old cartoon or Pixar flick, but with clay textures.

So anyway, the movie was certainly alright and worth seeing, but perhaps worth waiting until it comes out on video…although, I think it’s on the way out of theaters, anyway… The movie is generally amusing and, if anything, a triumph of clay animation. Kids will surely find it entertaining and get into the story more than adults, but it’s still worth a look for us “big kids”…