Good Night and Good Luck

Let me start by saying this was a briskly paced, well acted serious movie which does a superb job in showing the events following Edward Murrow's decision to take on the red scare crusade being led by Senator McCarthy. David Straithairn does a fantastic job in portraying the stoic, courageous, and fiercely independent Edward Murrow.

The problem with the film is it too narrowly focuses on these events. It never makes clear why living in America in this time period was so wrought with fear over communist infiltration and how a man like McCarthy was able to gain such a stranglehold on the American people. As seen here our only understanding of the fear and power his committee hearings held is in the CBS owner growling, "This could be bring down my whole company" and CBS lawyers interviewing Murrow's news team for communist ties.

It is a great failing of this film that it seems so perfectly logical for Murrow to bring McCarthy down. One never appreciates the great amount of courage Murrow had to muster to take McCarthy on and that is truly a shame. A young audience member who watches this film will not come away understanding how out of control the fear of communism had become in this county and the civil liberties that were being violated for hundreds of "alleged" communist sympathizers.

A History of Violence - R

This is such a disgrace for a great actor like Viggo to be seen in. To start this movie seemed interesting, the story seemed to escalate and only at the very end did I realize that it was all mis-leading you to think there is a climax.

Why this movie sucks: Sex Scenes: I still don't understand the reason the 2 very graphic sex scenes were in this movie, I am certainly all for sex scenes when there's a point. I didn't see a point to either of them in this movie, people literally laughed when a very violent fighting scene turned into a STAIRS sex fest.

Characters: Possibly this movies biggest flaw. Viggo's character has so little depth it was laughable, there was very little history given on his Johnny and there was no reasoning given for why he changed who he was, or how, or anything about his past really. You didn't even know him, yet the movie was supposed to make you feel for him? Then Johnny's brother comes into the picture, and he wants to kill Johnny because of what... Johnny made it hard for the brother to get into goods with some mob people? We also know nothing about him, and all he has to do is ask and Johnny just drives up to Philly with no more reason then, because. His character should have KNOWN what his brother was like and predicted it. None of this made sense to me, It all seemed so empty.

Violence: I do NOT have a problem with violence in movies, I think a lot of times violence makes a movie have lot more impact (IE: Kill Bill, Four Brothers) but in this movie all the violence happened just so it would happen. There was no suspense, AT ALL. It just happens then its over, it was very boring, and very graphic.

Walk the Line - PG 13

Last year we had a movie about the life of Ray Charles. It came out and was quite popular and went o­n to win many awards. Whether those were given because of the quality of the film or because Ray Charles had died recently is up for discussion, but the film won them nonetheless. This year we have the same situation with Walk the Line, a film about the life of Johnny Cash, who also recently died, and you can already feel the award buzz that surrounded it.

Walk the Line starts with Cash (Joaquin Phoenix) getting ready to go back o­nstage for an encore during his Folsom Prison gig. He is staring at a circular saw and reflecting o­n his past. He remembers his older brother dying when he was still young, and his abusive father blaming him for it. Cash proceeds to remember the rest of his childhood and his service in the Air Force and how it helped him write songs that had meaning. Through his memories, Cash tells us the story of how he became a rock star and eventually found his true love.


In a movie like this depends heavily upon the performances of its cast. Joaquin Phoenix plays Cash perfectly and has been mentioned quite a bit in regards to a Best Actor nomination. Reese Witherspoon also has a bunch of buzz surrounding her performance as Cash’s love interest June Carter. Most people who see the film will have some familiarity with Cash and Carter, and the actors performances of them should please.

Last year Ray was nominated for Best Picture. It certainly was not o­ne of the five best films of last year, maybe o­ne of the best 25. Walk the Line is no different. Both films are entertaining and have a good story, but there have been many other films which have been much better.


The problem with Walk the Line is that the story is so clichéd. We’ve seen this story before with most films about the rise of someone famous. The main character often has a troubled childhood and problems with women and drugs. This leads to the character finding what is needed to conquer said problems which leads to the characters redemption. Walk the Line follows this formula exactly and the reason it follows the formula so well is because the story is true.


This presents another problem with Walk the Line, you cannot blame anyone for the story being clichéd. If there were no troubled childhood or alcohol problems then there would be no movie. Nobody would go to a film about a famous person who was born in the middle class and stayed clean all his life just to get a break and become famous. There is no conflict in that story.


Walk the Line does what it can with its story and does a good job at making the film entertaining and the end product is well worth checking out. The performances are spot o­n and the film is shot beautifully. Is the film o­ne of the best of the year? Of course not. Should it be showered with awards come awards season? Oh hell no, and if they do come, they’ll be for the recently deceased Johnny Cash and not the movie. What this film is, is an entertaining look at the life of a music legend, worthy of a recommendation.

Thumbsucker - R

In this wonderful indie film, Justin (Lou Taylor Pucci), an unhappy teenager in a dysfunctional family, comes to the conclusion that he should kick the comforting habit he has of sucking his thumb. Maybe the habit could be the root of all his problems. He consults his new-age dentist, Perry (Keanu Reeves), who tries to hypnotize Justin into kicking his habit, but it doesn't do the trick. Perry then prescribes Ritalin to Justin. Justin's domineering yet distant father, Mike (Vincent D'Onofrio), and his loving yet daydreaming mother, Audrey (Tilda Swinton), are strangers in their own family. They don't know what to do with their son, so they agree, after hesitation, that Ritalin might be the solution. And at first, it seems to do the trick. Justin gets interested in school and joins the debate team, led by Mr. Geary (Vince Vaughn), who is Justin's greatest (and obsessed) fan. Justin wins numerous trophies, accolades, etc., but as his success increases the strength of his ego, his life becomes dissatisfying once again. Is it because he is no longer sucking his thumb? Were things better when he had his thumb to go to in times of need? Should he kick the Ritalin and go back to his thumb? Thumbsucker is an intriguing film dealing with the complexities of family and the problems of finding out who you are. With amazing performances across the board, the darkly comic tale strikes a note of originality that bests most mainstream films today. The characters are so fine-crafted and nuanced, and the story is so original (yet not over-the-top) that it's hard to stop watching. At the film's close, I found myself sad because not only had I met a group of characters that felt real and alive to me, but I had grown to care about them like they were my own dysfunctional family.

Angelo