If you see one movie this year...

I saw George Clooney's Good Night, and Good Luck this past weekend and am still under its spell. It is so refreshing to see a brilliantly crafted movie, with great acting, cinematography, costume/set design, writing and structure. In many ways, this movie is an heir to the great pot-boilers of the past, bringing together all of its elements to propel it forward rather than CGI effects, bad language and sex. The story deals with Edward R. Murrow's crusade in the mid-50's to bring down Joe McCarthy. Clooney smartly lets the late Senator speak for himself, using archival footage (who could really play Joe McCarthy anyway, with his mix of bluster, conviction and in the end fear and weakness at the hands of his interrogators?) What we get is a vivid portrait of incredibly smart and bold people using the power of television to educate the American people about their government's wrongdoings. When was the last time you saw television journalism aspiring to something so important? Of course, in this over-saturated information age of blogs, Bill O'Reilly, Fox News and Air America it's hard to sort through all of the talk to find a singular "fair and balanced" voice. The movie made me very sad, because it showed that we haven't come all that far in 50 years. We still live in a society of government-induced fear, where large corporations are in bed with politicians and the media. Still, this is partly what made the movie so powerful for me; Clooney has created an incredibly subtle critique of our troubled world. It seems that Hollywood may be beginning to rediscover its activist voice with such films as this, Syriana, The Constant Gardener and documentaries such as Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. Maybe Hollywood is more than the land of glam and artificiality...