2K Replay: GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK

 by Adam Riske

Nominated for “Best Picture” at the Chicago Film Critics Association Awards. It lost to Crash. Ouch.

• Best Scene/Moment: The speech Edward R. Murrow (David Strathairn) gives that bookends the movie about the idea that television has a responsibility to enlighten and inform its audience.

• Best Song: “You’re Driving Me Crazy” by Dianne Reeves. This is great steakhouse music and having the right steakhouse music is important. I once ate at a steakhouse that played Rihanna and it was all wrong.

• Best Merch: A “George Clooney certified shirt and tie from his movie Good Night, and Good Luck” for $3,500.00. It comes with a Certificate of Authenticity. I’ve been meaning to upgrade my wardrobe lately. Should I start here?

• Director Grade: Good Night, and Good Luck was directed by George Clooney.
Great Movies: Good Night, and Good Luck
Good Movies: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, The Ides of March
OK Movies: The Tender Bar
Bad Movies: Leatherheads, The Midnight Sky
Unseen By Me: The Monuments Men, Suburbicon, The Boys in the Boat
Overall Grade: B

• Double It with This 2005 Movie: Capote

• Year 2005 Movies to Trailer Before Them: Brokeback Mountain, Crash, Munich

• Never Talk to Strangers or Good Night, and Good Luck? Good Night, and Good Luck

• Mall Movie? Nope. This is an intelligent drama for adults. Intelligent adults go to the mall but not for intelligent dramas. Fancy theater in town all the way. The movie maybe would hit the mall at the end of its run after the Oscar nominations.

• Only in 2005: Best Picture at the Academy Awards going to a movie as lame as Crash instead of clearly much better movies like Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Good Night, and Good Luck, and Munich.

• Scene Stealer: Cigarette smoke.

• I Miss: Looking forward to movies directed by George Clooney.

• I Don’t Miss: Warner Independent Pictures. Other than this, Before Sunset, and a few select others, they made a lot of dry, unmemorable movies during their brief run.

• 2005 Crush: Patricia Clarkson.

• 2025 Crush: Clarkson!

• What I Thought in 2005: I thought Good Night, and Good Luck was really good, and I was especially impressed with George Clooney at the time, who was on a roll acting-wise and two for his first two directorial efforts with this and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. I also thought it was cool to see a lead (a great lead) performance from David Strathairn, who’s more often found in supporting roles.

• What I Think in 2025: Good Night, and Good Luck holds up tremendously well and is maybe even more relevant in 2025 than it was in 2005. No wonder Clooney chose to revive it recently for Broadway. The film has a great ensemble and is just a well-made, stirring drama. This movie is underrated and, more importantly, under-discussed nowadays. It’s worth a revisit if you’re like me and haven’t seen it since its initial release.