Kind of a reverse-Weinkauf quote from Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly:
There's a reason that Good Night, and Good Luck, as nimble and craftsmanly as it is, feels thin. The movie's passion, and in a sense its true subject, remains off screen: It's there in Clooney's presumption that the audience will see Murrow taking on McCarthy and make an analogy to the present day, asking itself why no one in our corporatized media culture has dared to take a comparable fearless stand against the Bush administration. But the analogy is facile at best. George Bush, whatever you may think of his policies, isn't Joe McCarthy, and it's not as if his most fervent detractors in the press have been silenced. To suggest that the spirit of Edward R. Murrow has been crushed out of journalism is to turn nostalgia for the age of stern father-figure newsmen into the stuff of conspiracy theory.Good, I'm glad someone said it. I plan to see the film, but this is one of those I'm really really glad I don't have to see on the Upper West Side. Posted by Stephen Silver at October 8, 2005 11:18 AM