“We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason”

“This instrument can teach, it can illuminate and yes it can inspire. But it can only do so to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is nothing but wires and lights in a box.” Thus spoke Edward R. Murrow, somewhat a legend of broadcast journalism. Better than average but less than legendary is Good Night and Good Luck, a new film about Murrow’s historic confrontation with Sen. Joseph McCarthy. The timely themes of the film will not go unnoticed by even mildly aware viewers and though the film is certainly competent, that it perhaps its greatest contribution.

The films opens with Murrow (David Strathairn) giving a speech to the Radio Television News Directors Association. His speech encapsulates much of the problems of that television had then, and still has now. The film shares the beginning of the speech at the beginning of the film and ends with the end of the speech. In between are scenes of the decision making that led to See it Now’s confronting of McCarthy and McCarthyism. Other journalists had been poking at McCarthy for some time and Fred Friendly (Clooney) and Murrow found an opportunity to do an excellent piece on television that would add their names to the growing ranks of dissenters. The first shot fired was on Oct. 20, 1953 when See it Now broadcast the story of Air Force reservist Milo Radulovich. He was discharged from the service after his father and sister were labeled as communist sympathizers. Ending the program with, “the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, even though that iniquity be proved beyond all doubt, which in this case it was not," Murrow and Friendly had for the first time taken their personal misgivings about McCarthyism public. This confrontation, and subsequent ones, missed a vital point that the film misses as well. In a free society, what’s wrong with being a communist if you want to? Instead of labeling all kinds of people as communists incorrectly, what if McCarthy had been 100% correct? Clooney does not investigate what the problem would have been about having competent professionals, who are communist, in government, or private industry, position. One can only imagine the laughter that would loose should an agitator for a single-payer health system be labeled a subversive Canadian agent. Being a docudrama perhaps it would have been a bit out of place for the film to go there but it was the fundamental flaw of McCarthyist, and anti-communist ideologies, that communists had no place in America, a purportedly free nation.

Clooney does an excellent job fitting the archival footage of McCarthy and others into this film. He guides the film with a good pace but it still seems to be padded a bit. A subplot about the secret marriage of Joe & Shirley Wershba (Robert Downey Jr. & Patricia Clarkson) is neat enough and good for a few one-liners but there doesn’t seem to be any reason for it to be in the film. It stands in contrast to the subplots of CBS’ wavering support for Murrow and the pressures applied to coworker Don Hollenbeck (Ray Wise) about his supposedly subversive activities. The transitions between scenes are welcome each time with wonderful jazz vocalist Dianne Reeves performing old time pieces in the CBS sound studio. The strength of the performances by Strathairn, Clooney and especially Frank Langella as CBS head William Paley help keep the flaws of the film fairly well hidden.

Though perhaps mildly overstating the importance of Murrow’s influence on the downfall of McCarthy, Good Night, and Good Luck does a good job of elucidating the atmosphere of paranoia that pervaded many parts of the country at the time. It makes a strong and enjoyable contribution to the body of work involving the Red Scare but in the opinion of this reviewer, it still misses an important point. After seeing it, if you’re taking public transportation home, be sure to listen for the recordings that ask you to look out for suspicious activity around you. Then the real strength of the film will be even more evident.

“We have beomce homeless because of war and politics but since I’ve seen this bride I’ve forgotten about my problems.”

It’s March 2003 and many Iraqi Kurds are fleeing towards the Iranian border trying to escape the bombardment of Kirkuk. One pair, a newlywed couple still in fancy dress, is halted when the bride steps on a land mine. Realizing that the mine will detonate if she steps off, she pleads for her husband to help. He runs off in a panic to find help. This is the wonderfully absurd premise of Riverside, a solid film written and directed by Ali Reza Amini.

The film has a broad cast of characters who are all trying to reach safety in Iran An old woman who has nothing left but her cow. A man trying desperately to get the body of hid young son to Iran before burying it. A deserting solider carrying a remarkable quantity of guns. A grandmother carrying her two grandchildren. Three men rather lost and wandering towards the border with only a conflict over doogh to keep them motivated. The first part of the film introduces these characters with rather sparse dialogue, letting their actions successfully define their current situations. There is a sad determination to the grandmother uttering promises of strength to her grandchildren as she hauls them on her back through the mountainous terrain. Most powerful perhaps, is the old woman after a fighter plane spooks her cow. The cows runs off and she sings a quiet condemnation of both her fate and the cow while looking for it. “It was me and the cow and the cow has left me now,” she laments.

As each moves towards the border they begin to come across the bride, who stares at her foot knowing the awful absurdity of her situation. They relate their stories to one another while offering words of strength and encouragement to the bride. Continually assuring her that her husband will be back soon with help they play music, offer good and bad advice, and relate a lovely anecdote about a woman who keeps getting served dry bread and fish head at wedding banquets.

While each is on their way to the eventual meeting spot the film is engaging and moves at an excellent pace. After getting there though, it seems to lose focus and fall a little flat. The plentiful fine moments are swapped out for occasional ones though the film remains gorgeously shot. All this is done against the backdrop of the US invasion of Iraq. No character ever says anything condemning or supporting the attack. They don’t need to. Their difficulty as refugees speaks loudly enough. It’s not just the current war that it’s condemning though. It’s the legacy of an earlier war that exacerbates the problems caused by the present one. It’s an excellent message for the comedic tragedy Riverside, and this review, to end on.

Dumb

In theory one could make a film this year about what Martians are like. It could be a well-shot and directed, finely acted story. It would still feel out of place though because we known that Martians do not exist. It’s kind of like when a Doom character, and a scientist no less, states that, “the final ten percent of the human genome” has yet to be mapped. That’s simply not true and hasn’t been since April 14, 2003. “Some say it’s the soul.” Really? Who? Anachronisms can be cute sometimes but here, and in sci-fi generally, they’re just stupid.

Something terrible has happened in the Union Aerospace Corporation’s research facility on Mars. Now Sarge (The Rock) has received orders to prepare his team of mercenaries, known as the Rapid Response Tactical Squad, to go through “the Ark” and retrieve data and any remaining members of the research team. The last message received was from Dr. Carmack who called for a total quarantine. It seems that something was hunting his team. Something that alternately came out of the Aliens prop library or George Romero’s stash of zombies.

Instead of having any personality each of the characters has a quirk or two. Goat (Ben Daniels) for example is a guy who prays and mutters religious verses. Unsurprisingly, he does not look highly upon Portman (Richard Brake) who is a porn or sex addict of some sort and has bad teeth. Duke (Razaaq Adoti) is a playful fun guy while The Kid’s (Al Weaver) defining characteristic is that he is youngish looking. John Grimm (Karl Urban) comes along too despite having an unpleasant personal history of sorts with the place they are going to. Unbeknownst to him, his sister Dr. Samantha Grimm (Rosamund Pike) is going to be a guide for the group. This is the “drama” of the film. Will they reconcile their differences? Will they come to terms with their parents’ deaths? Will their accents remain the same throughout the film? Is the audience likely to care? ‘No’ to the last two questions and the others aren’t worth the time to investigate.

For those readers who thought the first paragraph contained an analogy, sorry to say that it doesn’t. Martians do figure prominently in Doom. They apparently are the source of human life on Earth as well, an origin story only slightly more plausible than creationism. With all the nonsense going in the film it’s hard to notice the dialogue, which is probably for the best. Any film that says stuff like, “Semper fi motherfucker!” is likely to seem a little off. It would have been humorous at least if Sarge had instead used all english words, “Always faithful motherfucker!” Alas comedy and other forms of entertainment are largely beyond the collective abilities of the filmmakers. Doom does have it’s moments, as when Destroyer (Deobia Oparei) uses a computer monitor as a flail, but it needs a lot more of them. What we end up with is a film that’s most interesting aspect is that the size of the title lettering is inversely proportional to the quality of what follows.

I hate you Hollywood!

Through four-fifths of North Country, the audience receives a rare treat. It’s a film that deals with a serious issue, sexual harassment, in a serious way. It is a compelling drama that is well shot, directed and acted. It is nothing short of tragic then, that the last fifth of the film is some of the worst put to screen this year. Screenwriter Michael Seitzman is no stranger to vastly overblown, yet flat, melodrama. One can see his Here on Earth for a sample of how ridiculous his conception of human interaction is. Yet how is it that most of the film is not only watchable, but truly exceptional, when the ending was so terrible? The answer probably has more than a little to do with director Niki Caro. In 2002’s Whale Rider Caro guided another spectacular story about a woman who challenges the gender roles of her community. It was a beautiful and engaging tale and North Country starts out the same way.

Presenting a fictional account of the nonfiction book Class Action: The Story of Lois Jensen and the Landmark Case that Changed Sexual Harassment Law, North Country begins on the stand with Josey Aimes (Charlize Theron) being grilled about her sex life. The film then goes back to Aimes’ hiring at the mine and the problems she and the other female workers faced there. The harassment was pervasive. It wasn’t just catcalls and sexist utterances, though it was those. It was in many cases more or less sexual assault. When Josey felt able to complain about it, she could do so in the Human Resources office, with a pinup calendar staring back at her. It was the type of openly hostile workplace that really makes you wonder, as Josey’s dad (Richard Jenkins) does, how is it that so many men can behave so badly? They wouldn’t act towards women the same way at a company picnic so why do they do it at work?

Josey’s struggle is not made easier by most of her female coworkers. They need the high-paying mine jobs as much as she does and the repercussions for speaking out have been well-illustrated. Unemployment and hungry families are not welcome ideas when there is no reason to believe your complaints will be acted upon. Or at least, acted upon positively. Josey is subjected to degrading and brutal reprisals as are some of the other women despite having not complained themselves. Particularly disgusting, though it’s hard to pick out the worst from so many choices, is an instance where Sherry (Michelle Monaghan) finds semen in her locker.

Josey finally gets to court only to have her sex life put on trial. That this is done is no surprise. In the actual case Jensen vs. Eveleth Taconite the women were subjected to detailed examinations of their personal lives after a judge granted the company’s lawyers access to their medical records. Where the film begins to falter is when it tries to defend Josey’s sex life. Josey’s sex life is not the point and never was. By focusing on that it focuses less on how she and her coworkers were routinely terrorized at work. Though her lawyer Bill White (Woody Harrelson) does an adequate job in rebutting arguments, the arguments are ones that need not be addressed. All the court scenes deal with only this.

The struggles of Aimes are based largely on the events of Lois Jensen’s Job-like struggle. Where the film fails though, is by trying to rearrange them neatly and add “Oscar moments”. Many of the actions, even the ones that seem over the top, actually did happen. But they didn’t happen like they do in North Country. Particularly regrettable are a courtroom confrontation between White and Bobby Sharpe (Jeremy Renner) and a surrogate father-son talk between Kyle (Sean Bean) and Sammy (Thomas Curtis). The awful Hollywood legalisms and almost absurdist melodramatic conclusion is a tremendous letdown after a great start and middle. It’s worth noting that the missteps happen where the film strays farthest from the true story, the Michael Seitzman coming through maybe. That’s not to say that it isn’t worth seeing or that is doesn’t have brilliant moments, such as Sissy Spacek’s one woman wife-strike, it’s just that a halfway decent ending would have made this one of the year’s best films. Instead it abandons an important and well done story for the sake of, what? Oh well, at least it was better than Disclosure.