Good Night and Good Luck

(Movie Review)

I’m a bit behind on this one because of Japan (my standard excuse for everything). I wasn’t able to see this movie at first in Japan because it never got a big theatrical release over here. And then by the time I was back in the US, all my friends had already seen it.

Although I suppose I could always have just rented it by myself. Which is what I ended up doing the other night.

Despite my lateness in getting around to seeing this movie, I have a feeling for most people this is the kind of movie that you’ve either already seen or aren’t interested in. But I’ll go ahead and sing its praises anyway.

For fellow history buffs, this is a real treat. It mixes in Hollywood stars with lots of old archival footage to give a film that feels like a gripping drama and a documentary at the same time. Although wikipedia draws attention to some of the accuracy gaps in the film, I still felt like I learned a lot.

And, although I’m far from the first person to mention this, its subject material couldn’t have come at a more appropriate time. As you listen to discussions of civil liberties, secret military tribunals, the act of habeas corpus, and the rights of the accused to fair trial, you can’t help but compare it to recent events.

If you haven’t seen this movie yet, I can’t recommend it enough.

Useless Wikipedia Fact
Gartner Group forecasts that blogging will peak in 2007, levelling off when the number of writers who maintain a personal website reaches 100 million. Gartner analysts expect that the novelty value of the medium will wear off as most people who are interested in the phenomenon have checked it out, and new bloggers will offset the number of writers who abandon their creation out of boredom. The firm estimates that there are more than 200 million former bloggers who have ceased posting to their online diaries, creating an exponential rise in the amount of dotsam and netsam (i.e. unwanted objects) on the Web.

Link of the Day
The Daily Show and Political Activism

Good Night and Good Luck: Movie Review (Scripted)