The Fog (2005)

It'd be quite easy to give this film a poor review just judging by the gut feeling you get while sitting through a trailer for it. It's a remake of a John Carpenter film, though I can admit I haven't seen enough of his work (and the original film this is based on) to judge him, he has enough of a following to safely say remakes of his work will tend to be on the poor side.

This remake of John Carpenter's 1980 film The Fog stars Tom Welling of TV's 'Smallville' and blonde bombshell Maggie Grace from TV's 'Lost.' A seaside town in Oregon (a change from Northern California in the original) is coming up on the celebration of its foundation 100 years ago.

Nick Castle (Welling) maintains his struggling family business, his ancestor was one of the founders of the town. His girlfriend, Elizabeth Williams (Grace) returns after a six month absence conveniently as things begin to get rather...strange in the town. A blanket of fog moves in, with no real warning, and people begin to die.

The one thing I think that had the most negative effect on the film were several just plain stupid things (if you see it you'll see what I mean) that would occur just as an opinion was forming in your head of "hey its not bad for what it is." It was bad, it was bad for what it was, a poor foray into the horror genre. The PG-13 rating should boost its ticket sales with that under-17 lookin' to see a horror movie demographic. But the adults who have a choice, should know better.

Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005)

In a very gutsy move during these times of hot politics, George Clooney co-wrote and directed this film telling the story of Edward R. Murrow and his fight to bring down Senator Joseph McCarthy through Murrow's television program.

David Strathairn stars as Edward Murrow, turning in a performance that gave him recognition at Venice, and there is no doubt further recognition this upcoming awards season. Another mention of note is the performance of Ray Wise as Don Hollenbeck, a minor role in the film, yet he had a prescense and emotion that was there in every one of his scenes.

The style at work here is very unintrusive and simplistic, shot in noirish black and white, noirish cigarette smoke and lighting in every scene, and diagetic music through out, Clooney has a style here unlike Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.

"Good Night, and Good Luck" could not come at a better time, where so many have asked the question of where have the hard-hitting journalists gone? When at any given moment, you can turn on the television and find the latest news on the status of Jessica Simpson and Nick Lache's marriage but when you're looking for hard hitting television, there is a major abscense.