Amy and I just finished watching Good Night, and Good Luck.  Wow!

We both sort of knew the story of Ed Murrow taking on U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy during McCarthy’s anti-Communist crusade while chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.  The movie has motivated me to Kindle a Murrow biography and read it.

The movie was fantastic – Amy and I kept shouting at the TV during it which is always the mark of a successful movie in our house.  David Strathairn was incredible as Murrow and George Clooney did a great job as his counterpart / coproducer Fred Friendly.

One of the awesome things about the United States is that due process matters.  Another is that freedom of speech is a valid construct – and even more so in today’s web saturated universe.  So far in my 42 years on this planet I’ve never been afraid of speaking my mind.  I’ve often been wrong – and will admit it publicly whenever I am – but I love the fact that I can state my thoughts without fear.

As the midgame of our presidential election reaches a climax, this is powerful stuff to consider.  Marc Andreessen wrote a superb post last week titled An hour and a half with Barack Obama.  I’ve been supporting Obama in the primaries (even though I’m Independent – my party affiliation is "unaffiliated".) Marc’s post totally nails why I’m supporting Obama.  Regardless of who you support, it feels great that it’s acceptable in this country to write (and watch) what we think.

To Mark Cuban, Todd Wagner, and Jeff Skoll and their respective colleagues who produced the movie – nicely done!

After seeing Borat last weekend, Warren and I were debating which scenes were real and which scenes were faked.  Warren apparently stayed up late researching it, but if he’d waited a week he could have read the Slate story titled What’s real in “Borat”?  The reactions of the people involved to the Slate reporter are fascinating.

Amy and I went to The Departed last night.  I’ve got some general movie fatigue these days because everything seems to suck, be a remake of Top Gun, or just be dull.  However, The Departed was incredible and it just blew us away.

Jack Nicholson may be my favorite male actor of all time.  Leonardo DiCaprio is finally coming into his own now that he’s an adult.  Matt Damon finally had a role where he needed to act – and he did a great job.  While it’s weird watching Martin Sheen be anything other than Jeb Bartlett, he also shined even when he was splattering.  Vera Farmiga had the best line of the movie when she said to DiCaprio “your vulnerability is really freaking me out.”  And Marky Mark Wahlberg continued to bend my mind with his range. 

Scorsese made sure there was plenty of gratutious violence, but for a Boston-based corrupt cop movie, it was believable.  Having lived in Boston for 12 years, it’s such a delight to watch it in a movie rather than live there.

About an hour into Superman Returns, Amy leaned over to me and whispered “The Matrix wrecked everything.”  I yawned about 20 times during this two hours and thirty four minutes of this movie – it’s was as boring an “action/adventure” movie as I’ve seen in a while.  We are in movie hell this summer up in Homer – we walked out of Nacho Libre after 20 minutes and stumbled through the disappointing Click.  So far, only Cars has been satisfying.  When is The Matrix IV coming out?

Technorati Tags: movies, superman

I haven’t been out to see a movie in a while (I don’t know why – Amy and I love movies at the theater.)  Last night we saw Thank You For Smoking.  It was brilliant.

I thought the Christopher Buckley book Thank You for Smoking was an absolute riot when it came out.  The movie is based on the book and does a superb job of telling the same story while updating it a little.  Aaron Eckhart was phenomenal as the main character (a cigarette lobbyist) and William H. Macy continues to be the sleeper actor of the universe for his portrayal of the Vermont senator who wants to put poison labels on cigarettes.

The one liners were awesome.  Following are a few better ones to give you a taste.

• Michael Jordan plays ball. Charlie Manson kills people. I talk.
• My other interviews have pinned you as a mass murderer, blood sucker, pimp, profiteer and my personal favorite, yuppie mephistopheles.
• My job requires a certain . . . moral flexibility.
• You know the guy who can pick up any girl? I’m him on crack.
• Don’t forget, I’m his father, you’re just the guy who fucks his mom.
• We don’t sell Tic Tacs, we sell cigarettes. And they’re cool, available, and *addictive*. The job is almost done for us.

At 92 minutes in length, it also nicely broke the mold of movies that are 25 minutes too long.