FEBRUARY/MARCH 2006
George Clooney's Goodnight and Good Luck
You make a lot of
films, do you? You make a lot of films yourself? Yeah,
I'd like to see you make a film first before you get to
talk about it. What a jerk.George Clooney
CAST
& CREW
Screenplay: George Clooney, Grant Heslov
Director: George Clooney
Producer: Grant Heslov
Executive Producer: Todd Wagner, Mark
Cuban, Marc Butan, Steven Soderbergh, Jennifer Fox, Ben
Cosgrove, Jeff Skoll and Chris Salvaterra.
Cast: Stars David Strathairn as Murrow,
George Clooney as Fred Friendly, Robert Downey, Jr. and
Patricia Clarkson as Joe and Shirley Wershba, Frank
Langella as Bill Paley, Ray Wise as Don Hollenbeck,
Heslov as Don Hewitt, and Jeff Daniels as Sig Mickelson.
GRAMMY® Award-winner Dianne Reeves appears and performs
in the film as well. Directed by George Clooney,
who co-wrote the script with the film's producer Grant
Heslov, "Good Night, and Good Luck."
stars David Strathairn as Murrow, Clooney as Fred
Friendly, Robert Downey, Jr. and Patricia Clarkson as Joe
and Shirley Wershba, Frank Langella as Bill Paley, Ray
Wise as Don Hollenbeck, Heslov as Don Hewitt, and Jeff
Daniels as Sig Mickelson.
Is
it possible that the exceptional subtlety that is
conferred on the wavelengths of black and white film,
rather than colour, is caused by the fact that the eye
runs the scenes through the part of the brain that reads
the printed page.?
Most black and white film is today called Film Noir and a
social smeer of intrigue and condemnation veers near the
critic's texts. Outright I would say that any
condemnation of Clooney's film, Good Night and Good Luck,
would reveal in the critic the very material that Clooney
himself intensifies in his study of Senator Joseph
McCarthy and Ed Murrow. Apart from the fact that Murrow's
persistent reach for a truth reveals the political
possibility that the military indictment against a
service man, whose case in the courts was rejected
largely thanks to the material that Ed Murrow put on air
in the CBS News Studios, not only clarifies, as the
victim of military indictment states, "the
possibility of a chain reaction" that could reach
into the citizens' world unless checked at this very
point, but also how just one small political crack in the
criminal veneer of the military authority or government
can turn the secret flask of calumny and
misrepresentation upside down; the broken vessel then
offers any higly intelligent reasearch or news
investigator with the rewards of a new jigsaw that will
give the true picture that demonstrates to all the source
and the strength of fraud and fanaticism.
Clooney's
film gives the best representation of journalists'
deadline meetings and the nature and manner of the
purpose of a NEWS bulletin that I have ever seen. The
actor he chose, David Strathairn as Ed Murrow, isolates
Murrow among his companions in a particular way that
indicates a real understanding of human relationships and
regard, that has real strength, and animation, that makes
one want to participate in the applause that Murrow's
companions regularly gave him. This is not the conscience
of a moral or christian man, this is the conscience of a
real life and mind, aware that each trap that confines or
kills our instincts and motivation is killing one most
valuable feature of life, that of our coexistence in the
large communities of regions or nations. This subject,
examined in this study of Ed Murrow the nature of
journalism, that in his case was a vital evening
appointment with those communities, that reached far
beyond individual concerns, but yet identified the
individual links that conserve human dignity and rights
that can so easily be corrupted. But also not only by a
political criminal action but also by the neglect of a
society led fruitlessly by the nose toward trivial
entertainment. This last was insidiously clarified by the
script for the CBS boss who expected Murrow to alleviate
any serious viewpoints with banal celebrity chase-ups. A
man whose life is ruled by the finance of his investors,
and by his concepts of service from his employees, that
contained the cunning of an ill educated man whose sole
notion of opportunity was as "a debt incurred",
and in this case by impermeating his directives to staff
with hints that he had a hold over their private and
domestic lives as well as their employment. "I put
your son through school!"; "How is...your
wife?" However I would not neglect to mention Diana
Reeves, the words of whose songs where sardonically
symbolic of related scenes.
The real luxury for me of the marvellous detail that
black and white film gives to every moment of the reels
was an extra that makes me regret the loss of my small
black and white TV, for instance, where one is closely
responsive to the slightest innuendo of a raised eyebrow
or the many mirrors of the facial muscles that complete
our communications as humans with one another.If anyone
knows how to send e-mails to George Clooney would they
please send him this review?
Jocelyn Braddell©March2006
Telling the
'approved' story
March 7, 2006 01:12
AM / The Rant .
By DOUG THOMPSON
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/blog/2006/03/telling_the_approved_story.html
On an unspecified
day last week an employee of a federal agency that cannot
be revealed delivered a document that cannot be
identified to a company that cannot be named seeking
information that cannot be discussed.
The
aforementioned federal agent left the unidentified
document with an employee of the unnamed company. That
employee then called the owner, who must remain
anonymous, to inform him that the document that could not
be identified sought information that could not be
discussed. The owner who must remain anonymous instructed
the employee to deliver the unidentified document to a
lawyer whose name is protected by attorney-client
privilege.
The lawyer
whose name is protected by attorney-client privilege
examined the unidentified document and then reviewed the
information that could not be discussed with the owner
who must remain anonymous.
With the
approval of the owner who must remain anonymous, the
lawyer whose name is protected by attorney-client
privilege contacted a
The U.S.
attorney who demanded that his identity be concealed then
claimed the owner who must remain anonymous violated a
law that could not be disclosed and faced arrest for
charges that could not be specified because he had
referred to the document that cannot be identified in an
article for a certain, but unnamed, web site.
The lawyer
whose name is protected by attorney-client privilege
argued that his client could not be charged under the
undisclosed law because he had been acting as a
journalist at the time of the alleged publication and not
as the owner of the company that cannot be named. He had,
in fact, learned of the existence of the document that
cannot be identified from a third-party, who was not
named, and was not aware of its exact contents because he
had not seen or read the document and, therefore, was not
aware of the exact contents that cannot be discussed.
The
So walking
this fine line of justice allowed the owner who must
remain anonymous to avoid confinement at an institution
at an unknown location for an unspecified length of time.
In
exchange for his freedom, the owner who must remain
anonymous agreed to write a "clarification" of
what happened, following the guidelines for publication
laid down by the Bush administration.
Which is
what you just read.
©
Copyright 2006 by Capitol Hill Blue
Who the hell is
this Thompson guy anyway?
The Rant Archive
Top of Page
Comments
Oh, Now I
see....that makes perfect sense. Why didn't you say that
in the first place?
Posted by chris
To the
owner who must remain anonymous:
An
unidentified reader, whose name has been changed to
protect the innocent and whose whereabouts are unknown,
extends a particularly joyful sentiment, the degree of
which cannot be disclosed, after reading a certain work
of clarification, the object of which is not public
domain. The tenacity of the owner, clearly expressed
through non-specific verbiage, is unparallelled and is
very much appreciated by a loyal reader of an
unidentified publication.
Posted by
Unidentified Reader at March 6, 2006 09:48 PM
Let me get
this straight. A federal attorney whose identity must be
kept secret and concealed wanted a news story pulled,
which also must be kept secret because its publication
violates a legal statute that also must be kept secret.
If all of
the above is true, either the blow back against the
current administration will be huge, in the order of
impeachment or this will make McCarthyism seem like small
beer and the press will most certainly terrorized into a
form of self-censorship that is practiced in countries
with totalitarian regimes.
Posted by A.R. Yue
at March 6, 2006 09:57 PM
That is
the greatest piece of Literature since Roger Zelazny's
deconstruction of the Lord's Prayer in "Creatures of
Light and Darkness"
Posted by
wishnevsky at March 6, 2006 10:01 PM
Doug,
please. I laughed until I cried. Then I cried some more
because I realized this might be funny if it weren't
true.
Posted by Cindy at
March 6, 2006 10:14 PM
Oh my
God...Brilliant!
Posted by Atomic at
March 6, 2006 10:20 PM
I'm in my
50s and I have some experience kicking the government in
the knees in the interest of justice. I have more than
100 publications, some of which are quite formidable. I
have edited thousands of legal documents and articles.
The above
is the most brilliant piece of writing I have ever seen.
I am in awe!
Like I
said in the post below, if you need help, it will arrive.
Posted by
Posted by Marple at
March 7, 2006 12:10 AM
I'm
thinking this hilarious but ultimately sad rant was
written in "clarification" of a security letter
your "company" received earlier.
Wasn't the Patriot Act "approved" by Congress
to fight terrorists, not journalists? Isn't there a a way
to charge them in court for misuse of governmental
powers? If all journalists who received such nonesense
wrote about it as openly as you have, the public would
respect and trust them much more. Start a revolution,
please.
Posted by Eve Leland at March 7, 2006
12:19 AM
publish
this:
I am
xxxxxx at this flagrant xxxxxx! This type of xxxxx is
appaling! Patriotic citizens should xxxxxx their
Congressman at the first opportunity.
Thank you for sharing this with us!
Kadolz99
Posted by Steve
Harrison at March 7, 2006 01:05 AM
so it has
come down to this, eh? as a canadian that wished he was
american for the first 50 years of my life, i can only
say, o
Posted by
canadiantrain52 at March 7, 2006 01:32 AM
Doug;
Is it too soon to start counting the days until an
unidentifiable leader of an undisclosed country has
served out the remainder of his or her term of an
unidentifiable office and an undisclosed country might
finally be able to assess what needs to be done to clean
up an unimaginable mess that may or may not have been
created by unknown individuals?
Posted by Bob at
March 7, 2006 02:38 AM
Doug,
Your article is brilliant.
My prayers are with you and yours.
Posted by unnamed
citizen at March 7, 2006 08:12 AM
As always,
well done Doug. I think you have illustrated our current
situation, with the present administration BRILLIANTLY.
Terrifying ain't it??
Posted by Granny at
March 7, 2006 08:16 AM
Dear Owner
of the undisclosed website required by law to remain
anonymous under penalties as yet undisclosed and
protected under the non-+provisions of the act which
heretofore must also remain secret.
B R I L L
I A N T !!
I have now
become more convinced than ever that unamed individuals
who have received no official guidance to not officially
scan or look into the undisclosed website and the
non-existant writings of individuals therein which cannot
be protected under the first amendment of the
constitution, the oft refferred to as "just a GD
piece of paper" trashed under secret executive order
in the dark of night at a meeting in an undisclosed
location that never officially happened. ...could now
face anything from harrassment to prosecution as
determined by un-named individuals at locations that
cannot be identified under new Justice department and NSA
guidelines.
Translation:
Someone's bringing the cards, who wants to bring the
sandwiches and the soft drinks.
Possibly,
members of the undisclosed website, now under scrutiniy
from un-named individuals scanning from undisclosed
locations could get the first choice of rooms at the new
camps currently under construction at other undisclosed
locations by unnamed companies who were let no-bid
contracts for these non-existant facilities at undiscloed
bid.
Yippie!!
Posted by ANONYMOUS
101 at March 7, 2006 08:28 AM
Excellent!
This piece should be studied in literature classes
side-by-side with the works of Jonathan Swift. The Bush
Administration has great potential for immortality in the
literary world of satire. Future generations will think
it all just as far-fetched as so many today consider
"Gulliver's Travels" and "A Modest
Proposal". But even for them it will continue to
have great entertainment value.
Posted by Joe Buff
at March 7, 2006 09:33 AM
Sooooooo
... these things of which you allude to ... they would be
properly catagorized as known knowns, known unknowns, or
unknown unknowns?
"Reports
that say that something hasn't happened are always
interesting to me, because as we know, there are known
knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know
there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there
are some things we do not know. But there are also
unknown unknowns - the ones we don't know we don't
know" -- guess who
Posted by Bill at
March 7, 2006 09:40 AM
Summary:
So for
people who haven't read your site before, you were issued
a FBI nation security letter requiring you to divulge a
bunch of information and you reported that you were given
the letter which violates some unconstitutional law this
gestapo passed.
And now
they threatened to arrest you for doing so which
apparently sufficiently scared you into writing that
prose above.
When are
we gonna kick out the pack of terrorists running this
country?
Moreover,
when are we gonna kick out all the senators and
representatives whose yellow spines have allowed this
B.S. to take place?
Posted by Bob at
March 7, 2006 09:58 AM
Hey it
sure would be nice if those keystone cops at the
unidentified federal agency would spend more time
figuring out who it is out there who attacked the
(redacted
(b)(6)) found (redacted (b)(6)) moving, touching, and
(redacted (b)(7)(C)). I agree with (redacted (b)(6)) that
(redacted (b)(6)) can go (redacted (b)(7)(C)) and the
(redacted (b)(6)) they rode in on, heh.
Don't let
(redacted(b)(6)) (redacted (b)(7)(C)) you, (redacted
(b)(6)). Fight the good (redacted (b)(7)(C))!
-(redacted
(b)(6))
Posted by Nemo at March 7, 2006
11:52 AM
The
Ministry of News applauds your report and wholeheartly
agrees that Peace is moving closer with our Victory over
our opponents.
We
sincerely hope that our news contributes to understanding
your delightful interaction with the minions of our
government, hwo know what is right and good for you.
Have a
nice day.
Posted by Eric
Blair at March 7, 2006 12:23 PM
Just a
comment from an unknown reader at an unknown location:
It is rumored (or not) that I may (or may not) have read
the unknown story on the unknown web-site at an unknown
date and time. Fortunately for me (or not) I have an
unknown medical condition (or not)diagnosed by an unknown
doctor at an unknown time which causes me to unknowingly
forget what I thought I unknowingly may or may not have
read. Fortunately (or not) this condition may (or may
not) be called "Karl Rovitist" and that
unknowingly doing anything (or not) has already been
declared (or not)as a legal defense for anything I may
(or may not) have done. So see Doug don't worry, be
happy, or not. If you need clarification (or not) you can
let me know (or not)and I'll get back with you (or
not).----Easy
Posted by Unknown B
at March 7, 2006 01:10 PM
I wonder
when they're coming after the rest of us. After all, if
we read the undisclosed story about the unidentified
document, we surely are guilty of some unnamed crime.
p.s. I
too, am wondering about an alternate website (just in
case).
Posted by lylene at
March 7, 2006 03:37 PM