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"Watching Good Night, and Good Luck is like seeing the pages of Life magazine, circa 1954, come to life on the screen," raves Stefan Ulstein (Christianity Today Movies). "George Clooney's original and powerful vision of Edward R. Murrow's confrontation with Senator Joe McCarthy is a work of art."

I agree with Ulstein, and so do other Christian film critics: this is a riveting production. Clooney isn't just another celebrity who fancies himself as a director. Here he has choreographed the most tightly wound suspense film about telling the truth since Michael Mann's Oscar-nominated The Insider.

Clooney gets fine performances from an all-star cast, including Robert Downey Jr., Jeff Daniels, Ray Wise (Twin Peaks), and the radiant Patricia Clarkson (Pieces of April, The Station Agent). He does some solid acting himself. But make no mistake: the movie belongs to David Strathairn, who delivers an intense and riveting performance as Murrow himself, the newsman who set new standards for journalistic integrity.

Of course, any film of this nature begs the question: Is it entirely accurate to history? You'll find different opinions The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Slate. But as thought-provoking entertainment, it's firing on all cynlinders, inspiring us to be vigilant, to seek out the truth of a matter, and not to merely accept what authority figures tell us.

Ulstein says the film "will be particularly interesting to the politically and historically sophisticated, but anyone with a basic knowledge of the McCarthy era should be able to follow it. Those in positions of leadership in churches and other ministries will see it as a cautionary tale: Don't let anyone else do your thinking for you. The truth is the thing. Cherish it and defend it."

Harry Forbes (Catholic News Service) says the movie "should educate a new generation about how [Murrow] … bravely took on [McCarthy's] witch-hunting tactics. … Clooney's tribute to a TV golden-age legend is well deserved, especially in this age of superficial, sound-bite reporting."

"The subject matter is interesting and the message quite pointed," agrees Chris Monroe (Christian Spotlight). But he concludes that "overall the film was not entirely captivating."

Mainstream critics are raving about the film, saying that Strathairn might be on his way to an Oscar nomination.

True love. Attractive young people. A soundtrack full of classic rock and fresh new pop music. A sense of humor. These are the building blocks of a Cameron Crowe film. He's made this combination work in several audience favorites, from Say Anything to Singles to Jerry Maguire to Almost Famous. After misfiring with a mixed-up thriller called Vanilla Sky, Crowe has now gone back to what he does best. The result is Elizabethtown. Is he back on top his game?

Not quite. While most mainstream film critics are praising Elizabethtown for serving up some memorable sequences, many of them agree that the film is severely flawed … even though the negative early reviews provoked Crowe to do a last-minute re-edit of the film.

Elizabethtown is the story of an audacious young professional who hits rock bottom and learns hard lessons about family through a series of emotional epiphanies. In an ironic twist, Drew Baylor (Orlando Bloom) is saved from a suicide attempt when he hears about his father's death. On the flight to join his mourning family, Baylor meets a sexy flight attendant (Kirsten Dunst), and they fall in love just as his life becomes entangled in family dramas.

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October (Web-only) 2005, Vol. 49