Posts Tagged ‘George Clooney’

The American

Tuesday, September 7th, 2010

tn_americanGeorge Clooney is… THE AMERICAN. In Anton Corbijn’s Americanized remake of Soderbergh’s THE LIMEY, Clooney plays–

nah, that’s not true, it’s not a remake. That would be weird though, especially since Clooney knows Soderbergh pretty good. But I do think THE AMERICAN joins THE LIMEY in a modern genre that I think of as arthouse badass. These are movies that are too quiet and leisurely paced to show to a bunch of teens in a multiplex, but also got motherfuckers getting shot or punched. THE AMERICAN is much more basic and straightforward than THE LIMEY, LIMITS OF CONTROL or GHOST DOG, and admittedly less original. But there’s something powerful about its simplicity. Like a bullet. (more…)

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Up In the Air

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009

tn_upintheairUP IN THE AIR looks like a good candidate for the LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE of the year – the one I like but I’m kind of baffled by how intense the praise is during Critic’s Christmastime, the Season of Bountiful Awards and Lists. If I didn’t foresee that possibility I might not even review it – after all I recently discovered I didn’t even do a writeup of SNIPER, why would I bother with this? But this way if I start resenting it I can read this and get some perspective. I’ll have a record that I thought it was a pretty good movie.

It’s the story of Ryan Bingham, a guy who flies around the country to lay people off. He works for a company hired by other companies too chickenshit to swing the ax themselves. He has a whole rap about how you weren’t meant to be stuck in this job and you need to take this opportunity to follow your dreams. He’s good but, come on, people aren’t really buying it, except out of desperation. (more…)

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Michael Clayton

Thursday, February 21st, 2008

Who the fuck is Michael Clayton and why is he so awesome that a movie is named after him? Well to answer your first question, Michael Clayton is a highly effective “fixer” played by George Clooney who cleans up messes for a big law firm, and to answer your second one I guess they figured coming up with some thriller type name like THE FIXER or DEADLY REVELATION or THE BREADWINNER would be corny so they just said I don’t know, fuck it, use the character’s name, I don’t give a shit. And MICHAEL CLAYTON was born.

The thing I cannot stress enough about this movie is that it’s really fuckin good. I wasn’t prepared for that. I heard it was good, I knew it was nominated for best picture, but I don’t know man. Nobody really properly conveyed it to me I guess. I didn’t expect to be blown away by it. But this is just a great thriller, one that works so well and talks down to you so little it’s hard to believe it was made in this day and age.

The movie starts out with Mr. Clayton late one night betting on cards, then getting an emergency call from the firm, one of their biggest clients was involved in a hit and run and Clayton’s boss (Sydney fuckin Pollack) wants him to go help out. Okay, so this is gonna be some thriller involving a rich guy who tries to cover up that he ran over a jogger, right? No, this is really just here to establish Michael Clayton’s character. We’re about 10 or 15 minutes into the movie, I have no idea what the plot is even gonna be about, and I already like this movie because it’s just so tense.

Before long it skips back 4 days to show us the more important mess Michael Clayton is trying to clean up. His friend Arthur (Tom Wilkinson) has spent 6 years defending a pesticide company against a class action lawsuit, but now he’s off his anti-depressants and for some reason he went nuts, took his clothes off in a deposition room, declared his love for one of the plaintiffs and then chased everybody around the parking lot. And some of it was caught on tape. Not quite as damning as the R. Kelly tape, but close. As Michael tries to talk some sense into his crazed buddy it slowly comes out that Arthur now believes he’s on the wrong side and wants to help the plaintiffs. So the pesticide company and their head attorney (Tilda Swinton) might have some problems with that. And some shit might go down, who knows? (more…)

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Ocean’s Thirteen

Thursday, June 14th, 2007

It seemed like most of the world hated OCEAN’S 12. I always figured it was because it was too strange, but people say it was just too self-indulgent, they get mad watching all those guys having fun together and being cool. Which is weird because if that’s the case I’m not sure why they liked the first one. I mean what else are they supposed to do? Not have fun and wear cheap suits?

Anyway I felt lucky they were making a part 13, like they were doing it just for me and the elite few who still give a shit. But I was mistaken – actually they were making this for the other guys to make up for part 12. This is the same shit but dialed back a little, so they are having a little less fun and are not quite as cool because Matt Damon wears a fake nose in one part. It’s Steve Soderbergh’s most mainstream movie since ERIN BROCKOVICH, but not even as satisfying as that since it’s sequel number two and there’s no surprise factor at all. And you get a little sick of all their con man lingo and code words. For example, faking an earthquake is “an Irwin Allen.” I’m not sure what the name would be for making a fun but forgettable part 3, since most part 3s are widely hated except for Lord of the Rings or if it’s in 3-D. And they are in the problem of being a part 3 only I asked for (see the end of OCEAN’S 12 review above).

I guess the mainstream have forgiven them though, or are willing to give them a second chance at a sequel, because this theater was crowded. I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned this before, but because of my negative past I live with a curse – I am doomed to always have the most annoying person in the theater sitting directly behind me. It doesn’t even matter if it’s an empty theater, this guy will walk in during the previews, scope the place out and decide that the perfect seat is directly behind me. In this case he was a middle aged dude with his adult son, a guy who doesn’t see very many movies. Throughout the movie he asked his son questions such as “What did he say?” and “I don’t get it” and “Who’s that guy?” and “I don’t get it – is he supposed to be gay?” But at the end he seemed happy with it. So congratulations people, you have your Oceans back. (more…)

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Syriana

Monday, December 12th, 2005

SYRIANA is not the movie about the talking Jesus lion, that’s CHRONICLES OF NARNIA. CHRONICLES OF NARNIA is not the one where Vin Diesel says “I haven’t smelled beautiful in a long time,” that’s CHRONICLES OF RIDICK. (more…)

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Good Night and Good Luck

Monday, October 24th, 2005

For those of you out there who enjoy smart, politically relevant, historically based black and white newsroom dramas directed by charming movie stars who used to be on Roseanne, today’s your lucky day motherfucker. Mr. George Clooney is about to climb down your chimney.

GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK is the short and simple story of Edward R. Murrow getting disgusted with Senator McCarthy’s hearings and deciding to use his show to expose them. Some guy called David Straitharn is great playing Murrow, expressing pretty much everything through either facial expressions or the comments he makes on the air. The story is confined almost entirely to the newroom and the bar. It’s not a biography. The only home life is a subplot about a couple who have to hide the fact that they’re married because its not allowed in the workplace.

That actually made the movie more suspenseful for me because for some reason I was too stupid to pick up on the fact that they were hiding their marriage at work. In retrospect it is made completely clear, but I am thick. That’s lucky for me though because the whole time they kept making meaningful glances and dramatic swallows at each other, and I thought they were hiding some other secret, like they were communists or one of them used to be a communist or one of them knew a guy whose name was similar to another guy who once considered himself a communist, but only because he thought communist meant he took communion at church. If they were a good target for commie-baiters it would add more drama to the situation. Their co-workers are taking a principled stand against McCarthy, saying people deserve the right to see the evidence presented against them and that kind of thing. They might feel a little more awkward if they were protecting a real honest to god for sure communist. You know, like Ivan Drago or somebody. (more…)

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Confessions of a Dangerous Mind

Saturday, January 1st, 2005

Well geez, it’s not too often you get this with a movie writer, but apparently this Charlie Kaufman guy can do no wrong. Between the brilliant BEING JOHN MALKOVICH and ADAPTATION and the underrated HUMAN NATURE and now this… I mean really, what more could you ask for from a writer? There is no other non-director writer working who has been so consistently inventive and surprising and at the same time so personal. In fact there are few who have ever worked who could be in this same category. These are all movies made by skilled directors but it is always the writer’s voice that comes through.

You hear that, motherfuckers, the WRITER.

This is Kaufman’s most straight forward and normal picture so far, but that’s not saying all that much. It’s adapted from Chuck Barris’ autobiographical novel, and the gimmick of course is that in the novel he claims to have been a CIA hitman while he was hosting the Gong Show, which seems pretty dubious. Also he talks about the genesis of The Gong Show, the Dating Game, the Newlywed Game, etc.

What surprised me about the movie is that Kaufman and director George Clooney (the guy from OUT OF SIGHT) adapt as if they take the novel completely at face value. It tells the story of his CIA intrigue completely deadpan, to the point that there are scenes where his murders come back to haunt him and he sees the audience of the Gong Show as a bunch of corpses. It is really a pretty serious biopic of this guy, but also faithful to the spirit of his works. There are funny gimmicks like a love montage set to a Gong Show contestant very badly singing an Elvis song. You’d think that would come across as a funny joke but to me it just worked as drama. The relationship in the montage is actually pretty sweet and given that it’s Chuck Barris it’s only fitting that it would be set to the tune of this bad singing.

It goes back and forth from gaudy, artificial game show sets to gloomy eastern european locations where he sneaks around in a fedora and trench coat and shoots people with a silenced revolver. (more…)

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Solaris (2002)

Saturday, January 1st, 2005

Well that young bald man Steve Soderbergh is still on a roll. He just keeps hittin em, bam bam bam and even when they’re not a home run like THE LIMEY or OUT OF SIGHT they’re still real good. Hell, even FULL FRONTAL, he just squirted that one out like a soft ice cream, and it was pretty good ice cream too. This one is a little more of a sunday. It’s not my favorite soderbergh movie but that’s like saying “that’s not necessarily the greatest blowjob I ever got.” This guy has never made a bad movie. Go ahead, try to find one. You can’t. You would have to make a fake movie and put his name on it. But he didn’t make that one, you did. You can’t fool me. Fool me once, shame, shame, you can’t fool me.

First of all let me make it clear that I am ignorant on the topic of Solaris. I have not seen the legendarily long and boring and brilliant Russian version by Mr. Tartavsky. Also I have not read the book which is according to the credits what Mr. Soderbergh’s version is based on. But I did see this movie. So that’s my background on that one.

What it is is a sci-fi picture with no action scenes, no lasers or robots, no zips or booms or bleeping computers or aliens or presidents fighting aliens or scientists capturing aliens to train them to do tricks. George Clooney gets called up to a space station to, you know, help out. The trouble is, weird shit keeps happening. As soon as he steps on the ship he finds bloodstains all over the place. He meets Jeremy Davies, the guy from SPANKING THE MONKEY who looks exactly like the kid from E.T. IS A EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL. Mr. Davies does a great job playing a freaked out stoner nutball who swings his hands around and keeps saying, “Yeah…” as he casually explains that most of the doctors are dead or have disappeared. (more…)

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Ocean’s Twelve

Friday, December 10th, 2004

OCEAN’S 12 is a sequel to OCEAN’S 11 (the 2001 version [not the movie 2001, I am referring to the year 2001, the year the movie OCEAN'S 11 was made {the remake, not the original, that is why I brought up this year thing originally}]) so this will be the sequel to my review of that movie.

It turns out that the eleven do NOT die horribly as I predicted. But their past (the other movie) does catch up with them, and the sequel is all about them doing various heists in order to pay back the money, plus interest, that they stole the first time around. So that means that Ocean’s 11 actually have a net loss across the two pictures. I mean, think about that. That’s terrible! What does that say about the current state of doing a job right? You want to do the impossible, so you bring in 11 of the greatest experts from around the world, you pull it off, you win back your ex-wife, and you have a fun time doing it. And your reward is horrendous debt and threat of life and limb. That’s how this world rewards you for ambition, talent and dedication.

That’s kind of a bummer in a caper movie where you expect each one to be a bigger and better heist. But it’s nice to be able to have another ending that’s not one of the standard caper movies endings (A: they get away with it and are last seen chilling on a beach somewhere; B: they almost get away but die tragically, probaly ironically.) At the very least this movie will probaly be a big inspiration to those of you with large credit card debts.

As you know from my original O11 review, I was already ready for a sequel. And I always pictured it as a tighter version of 011, maybe a little harder. As much as I enjoyed that movie it was no THE LIMEY or OUT OF SIGHT which are the movies that really told me this Steve Soderbergh was capable of a top notch crime picture. I thought they would follow the same basic formula of Part 11 but with the characters already introduced, they would be able to have a more detailed and realistic look at a heist, maybe some gritty everything-goes-sour type business, who knows. But with the same charismatic cast and bouncy sense of humor and funky David Holmes soundtrack. (more…)

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Ocean’s Eleven (2001)

Friday, December 7th, 2001

When you get two Oscar nominations for best director in the same year (for Erin Brockovich and Traffic) and you’re at the commercial peak of your career, what do you do for a followup?

I think Steven Soderbergh has the right answer. Two Oscar nominations is nothing to commit suicide over. Sure it’s embarassing, but it’s not the end of the world. After all it was only one year earlier that his picture The Limey won Best Picture, Musical Comedy or Badass in the 1999 Outlaw Awards, and that magic could not be entirely faded. So Soderbergh packed up the political pretensions, left them out on the porch in a box marked for the retard center, and went and made a casino heist movie.

Storywise, Ocean’s 11 is pretty standard. Pretty much what you’d expect from an ensemble caper picture. You start out with A) the introduction of characters, also known as the Cavalcade of Robbery All-Stars. You know, you start out in one city where George Clooney gets out of prison, then you zip over to LA where 1999 Outlaw Award Winner Tyler Durden is busy teaching teen actors how to play cards. And zip zip zip as you whoosh around to the different cities to meet different colorful characters with their specialties (explosives, pickpocketing, circus, etc.) George Clooney is Daniel Ocean and then you need ten others to be the eleven, so you go and introduce those people.

At the conclusion of Section A you get Section B, the Brian De Palma’s Mission:Impossible maneuver, which is where you get a lot of diagrams and speeches about how impossible the security system is, how many lasers, how many high tech identification devices and what not, and you (the audience) get to enjoy waiting to find out how in fuck’s name they’re gonna get past all this. It’s all about anticipation and problem solving. (more…)

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