WCBE 90.5 FM: "Good Night and Good Luck," "North Country," "Separate Lies," "Domino"

WCBE#239-FINAL
It's Movie Time
Co-hosts, writers & producers: John DeSando & Clay Lowe For WCBE 90.5 FM

Reviews: "Good Night and Good Luck," “North Country,” “Separate Lies,” “Domino”
Taped: 1:30 pm, October 19, 2005
Air Time: 3:01 pm and 8:01 pm, October 21, 2005
Streaming live on the web at http://www.wcbe.org .

The script:

John
“Good Night and Good Luck” is good for journalists and blue states . . .

Clay
"North Country” is a bad place for a woman to take the job of a man . . .

John
"Separate Lies” separate friends and lovers . . .

Clay
“Domino” is as subtle to watch as a face breaking glass . . .

MUSIC UP THEN UNDER FOR:

Richelle Antczak
"It's Movie Time" in Central-Ohio with John DeSando and Clay Lowe . .

MUSIC BRIEFLY UP THEN SLOWLY DOWN AND OUT

John
I'm John DeSando

Clay
And I'm Clay Lowe

John ("Good Night and Good Luck")
Clay, Edward R. Murrow represents the epitome of the crusading and self-sacrificing newsman. He risked his career in the 1950’s to bring down the most infamous senator of the last century, Joseph McCarthy, whose witch hunt for “Reds” created cowards by the score and a few heroes, Murrow one of them.

Director George Clooney’s left-leaning, hero-worshiping “Good night, and good luck” is not surprisingly pro Murrow and CBS. Clooney brilliantly directs a classic journalism film noir in which the heroes are real and the bad guys scary.

Television journalism was the big winner, for it became with Murrow a part of the checks and balances necessary in a democracy.

"We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty” is a mantra for our times, echoing down the 50 years since Ed Murrow dared to proclaim it.

That’s heroic in any age.

Clay ("North Country")
Well, folks, for one woman who worked in the open mining industry in northern Minnesota, the federal courtroom was the only place that would hear her complaints against workplace abuse. At least that’s the story told by Niki Caro (Whale Rider) in her new film North Country.

Set against snowy landscapes ravaged by massive explosions and earth moving machines, North Country features Josie Aimes (Charlize Theron), who chooses to work side by side with the men she grew up with. Her father, uncles, cousins, schoolmates, and even an old boyfriend, however, turn against her because she, and a handful of other members of her sex, have invaded their previously male-only domains.

Not as feisty as Sally Field in Norma Rae, nor as cocky confidant as Julia Roberts in Erin Brockovich, Charlize Theron nevertheless holds her own in this trio of Hollywood’s crusading women who learn how to say “no” to the systems and men who would abuse them.

John ("Separate Lies")
Anyone who has attended a family Thanksgiving dinner knows that under all the patter and bonhomie is a time bomb of regrets and recriminations waiting for the moment someone reveals a family secret or lie. The new film Separate Lies has everyone in barrister James Manning’s household knowing the current dark secret in the first half hour.

The maid’s husband has died from a hit and run accident, and the offending car may have been driven by Anne Manning (Emily Watson), wife of James (Tom Wilkinson) while she was with her lover, Bill Bule (Rupert Everett). Everyone must decide the right course of action. During the time they agree to hide the crime, the old worm, conscience, works on them all in different ways.

Manning’s exclamation at one point reduces all the intrigue to its common denominator, placing our wealthy players with the rest of us when he says, "I'm afraid that's a little too Jerry Springer for me.”

Clay ("Domino")
Jerry Springer, John? Tony Scott’s new film “Domino” gives you the real Jerry Springer in action plus a whole wacked out world more. Christopher Walken plays a sullen producer of Reality TV. Mickey Rourke plays a bounty hunter hovering in his own grizzly five o’ clock shadows. And Keira Knightly plays a displaced Brit model who does the L.A. bounty hunting thing just for fun.

But buyers beware, because if YOU take this movie too seriously you’re as dead as the dormouse in Alice’s Wonderland because “Domino” is nothing more nor less than a shameless rip-off of movies about poor little rich girls and sexy-beast bad guys.

You know, John, now that our President is in desperate need of another Tony Scott moment, like the one he used from Top Gun, maybe he should shag the hair of his recent supreme court nominee, then have her come out fighting with guns blazing under each arm. No wonder Karl Rove loves Tony Scott.

But enough of chain smoking newsmen, Minnesota mining girls, lying aristocrats, and double barreled bounty hunters, John, because it’s grading time.

John

Holy Hooters Hooray!

"Good Night and Good Luck” earns an “A” because it shows AMERICANS are rarely UN AMERICAN . . .

Clay
"North Country” gets a ”B” because justice, not BATHOS, is what we need in a courtroom . . .

John
"Separate Lies” earns a “B” because BARING lies is more fun than BURYING them . . .

Clay
“Domino” gets a “B” because cinematic BALLISTICS also are a means of revealing character . . .

John
Clay,

You and I have separate LIES: You lie about your age, and I just---- lie about . . . he, he …

I'm outta here.

Clay
John, that I have lied makes me “perfect” indicative; that you would lie, makes you perfect “conditional” . . . touché.

I'm outta here, too

See you at the movies, Folks.

HIT MUSIC

Richelle:

The Award Winning "It's Movie Time" with John DeSando and Clay Lowe is written and produced by John DeSando and Clay Lowe in conjunction with 90.5 FM, WCBE in Columbus and 106.7 FM in Newark.

MUSIC UP AND OUT

© 2005 John DeSando and Clay Lowe