Salon.com > George Clooney http://www.salon.com Wed, 30 May 2012 06:12:34 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 New Yorker profile? No, thanks http://www.salon.com/2012/05/13/new_yorker_profile_no_thanks/ http://www.salon.com/2012/05/13/new_yorker_profile_no_thanks/#comments Sun, 13 May 2012 01:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12919099 Last year, The New Yorker ran a long, flattering profile of the director Andrew Stanton, the Pixar veteran who was engaged at the time in reshoots for the troubled "John Carter." The article, by Tad Friend, noted some of the studio’s concerns about the initial cut of the film, which was Stanton’s debut in live action, but for the most part, its tone was highly positive, portraying Stanton as nothing less than Pixar’s resident storyteller: “Among all the top talent here,” an executive is quoted as saying, “Andrew is the one with a genius for story structure.”

Six months later, "John Carter" became one of the costliest flops in Hollywood history, and while the film may have its redeeming qualities, story structure isn’t among them. Read in retrospect, the Stanton profile now seems laden with irony, and it isn’t alone: A striking number of recent New Yorker features on movie directors and actors have been followed by embarrassing setbacks for the artists in question, usually involving the very projects that the articles are extolling.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/05/13/new_yorker_profile_no_thanks/feed/ 31 Parenting advice from George Clooney’s dad http://www.salon.com/2012/03/21/parenting_advice_from_george_clooneys_dad/ http://www.salon.com/2012/03/21/parenting_advice_from_george_clooneys_dad/#comments Wed, 21 Mar 2012 19:20:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12716581 When George Clooney was arrested on Friday while protesting outside the Sudanese embassy in Washington, he was not alone. "I'm glad to be standing here with my father," he told reporters as he and his dad, former news anchor and television host Nick Clooney, were led away. Later, Clooney told Fox News Sunday that "I grew up in a family that believed your job was to be involved with your fellow man. You have a responsibility to participate in the human condition." It was an example instilled in no small part by a father who he says was a "big believer in the importance of information."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/03/21/parenting_advice_from_george_clooneys_dad/feed/ 15 Seeing my father, through my cousin George http://www.salon.com/2012/02/26/seeing_my_father_through_my_cousin_george/ http://www.salon.com/2012/02/26/seeing_my_father_through_my_cousin_george/#comments Sun, 26 Feb 2012 14:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12414571 Every icon has a person living inside. It’s true of famous people, and true of everyday icons, too — the idealized figures against which we hold the real people we love. When iconography and reality press close enough to break the skin of one another, things can get uncanny quickly. And things got really uncanny for me when I saw "The Descendants."

One reason for this is that my cousin is George Clooney. He’s older than I am, old enough to have fathered me if he’d really had to (he would have been a high school junior, but, hey, our family’s from Kentucky). I tell you he’s older only because I don’t want you to get the false sense that we grew up together. Rather, I grew up watching him. I was 8 and 9 and 10, for example, when George was on "The Facts of Life" (and believed, as only an 8- and 9- and 10-year-old girl might, that this was a good career move for him).

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/02/26/seeing_my_father_through_my_cousin_george/feed/ 12 “The Descendants”: George Clooney’s Oscar-friendly Hawaii vacation http://www.salon.com/2011/11/16/the_descendants_george_clooneys_oscar_friendly_hawaii_vacation/ http://www.salon.com/2011/11/16/the_descendants_george_clooneys_oscar_friendly_hawaii_vacation/#comments Wed, 16 Nov 2011 01:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=10224364 When I covered the premiere of Alexander Payne's bittersweet, Hawaiian-themed comedy-drama "The Descendants" at the Toronto International Film Festival, I largely dodged my own mixed emotions about the film. Instead, I wrote about the evident fact that it may well win George Clooney the leading-role Oscar that has so far eluded him. (Although he's twice been nominated for best actor, in "Michael Clayton" and "Up in the Air" -- and was also nominated for both screenplay and direction with "Good Night, and Good Luck" -- Clooney's only Academy Award so far has come in the supporting category, for "Syriana.") So it's time to come clean and say that "The Descendants" bugs me quite a bit, even as it successfully navigates humor and heartbreak, and ultimately packs a considerable emotional wallop. It's an unusual combination; if a movie can be subtle and clumsy at the same time, "The Descendants" is that movie.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/11/16/the_descendants_george_clooneys_oscar_friendly_hawaii_vacation/feed/ 15 Best of Toronto: Oscar candidates and indie breakouts http://www.salon.com/2011/09/16/toronto_wrap/ http://www.salon.com/2011/09/16/toronto_wrap/#comments Fri, 16 Sep 2011 00:30:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/andrew_ohehir/2011/09/15/toronto_wrap One journalist friend of mine describes the Toronto International Film Festival as an exercise in chaos theory or, to put it another way, a gigantic real-world game of Tetris. No other festival in the world has so many simultaneous identities or fills so many niches: Toronto hosts a number of major Hollywood premieres and kick-starts the Oscar season, serves as the North American entry point for adventurous cinema from all over the world, rivals Sundance as a marketplace for American indies and is the principal showcase for Canadian film, all at the same time.

So no matter how many movies you see at Toronto -- and I've seen plenty over the past week -- you come home wishing you could have stayed longer, slept even less or sternly said no to party invitations. Among the films I didn't see, I particularly regret Jennifer Westfeldt's suddenly hot indie comedy "Friends With Kids," Andrea Arnold's reportedly abstract take on "Wuthering Heights," Spanish director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo's horror film "Intruders," the ass-kicking Indonesian action film "The Raid," Woody Harrelson's star turn as a corrupt cop in "Rampart," Japanese master Hirokazu Kore-Eda's "I Wish" ... the list doesn't stop.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/09/16/toronto_wrap/feed/ 2 “The Descendants”: Clooney’s Oscar-worthy role as a Hawaiian dad http://www.salon.com/2011/09/14/descendants/ http://www.salon.com/2011/09/14/descendants/#comments Wed, 14 Sep 2011 00:30:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/andrew_ohehir/2011/09/13/descendants TORONTO -- More of a muted, bittersweet Hawaiian-themed cocktail than a masterful cinematic experience, Alexander Payne's new family comedy-drama "The Descendants" clearly emerges from the Toronto International Film Festival as a leading Oscar contender. I suppose that's partly a commentary on the middling quality of this year's Toronto lineup, which features many small-scale delights but few smash hits. But it's also an endorsement of the low-key, seemingly casual charm of "The Descendants," which begins as a rambling tale about an inept father wrestling with tragedy and gradually builds toward a satisfying emotional payoff.

This is George Clooney's star vehicle this fall -- as opposed to "The Ides of March," which he directed and in which he plays a supporting role -- and this is the one that may see him collecting gold figurines during the cold-weather months. Clooney's gotten better and braver as he's aged, and no longer seems the least concerned with nurturing his personal vanity or protecting his star image. He is unquestionably the star of "The Descendants," but his character, a slightly disheveled Honolulu lawyer named Matt King who seems to view chinos and a Hawaiian shirt as formal attire, is not exactly a glamorous movie hero.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/09/14/descendants/feed/ 11 “The Ides of March”: George Clooney’s dark political vision http://www.salon.com/2011/09/12/ides_of_march/ http://www.salon.com/2011/09/12/ides_of_march/#comments Mon, 12 Sep 2011 11:12:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/andrew_ohehir/2011/09/12/ides_of_march TORONTO -- It was a little disconcerting to attend the North American premiere of George Clooney's "The Ides of March," a theatrical and atmospheric fable of American political corruption, in an enormous theater packed with Canadians. Of course the story of idealism poisoned into cynicism, or the clash of political and philosophical ideas transformed into a game of short-term tactical advantage, is not specific to the United States or to alleged democracies. Clooney's title makes a slightly awkward reference to the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 B.C., which was in fact an unsuccessful effort to overthrow despotic rule and restore the Roman Republic. Clooney's film (adapted from Beau Willimon's play "Farragut North") depicts a more mundane variety of political coup, but is clearly meant to show a society sliding in the same direction.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/09/12/ides_of_march/feed/ 20 Five pop culture items we missed http://www.salon.com/2011/06/23/pop_five_justin_bieber_macys/ http://www.salon.com/2011/06/23/pop_five_justin_bieber_macys/#comments Thu, 23 Jun 2011 22:24:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/tv/feature/2011/06/23/pop_five_justin_bieber_macys 1. Lost roles of the day: Nicolas Cage and Gary Oldman were up to star in the film "Dumb and Dumber." I imagine it would have been a much more disturbing movie if that had gone through.

2. Breakup of the day: George Clooney and Italian TV personality Elisabetta Canalis. Since she told the press two weeks ago she wanted to marry the movie star, I doubt it was one of those mutual separation things.

3. South African hipster band of the day: Not today, Die Antwoord! I'm really digging the Parlotones, a rock band from Johannesburg. They are currently completing the American portion of their 18-month sold-out world tour, so catch them while they are around.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/06/23/pop_five_justin_bieber_macys/feed/ 6 What’s wrong with George Clooney’s bachelorhood? http://www.salon.com/2011/01/24/george_clooney_bachelor/ http://www.salon.com/2011/01/24/george_clooney_bachelor/#comments Mon, 24 Jan 2011 15:25:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life//feature/2011/01/24/george_clooney_bachelor It is a truth universally acknowledged that an internationally famous movie star, in possession of an Academy Award, numerous accolades as the Sexiest Man Alive and a reputation as the handsomest humanitarian to ever contract malaria, must be in want of a wife. Unless he's George Clooney.

Appearing on the already distinctively lively "Piers Morgan Tonight" show, the man for whom the tuxedo seems to have been invented unequivocally admitted his lack of interest in matrimony to his father, Morgan and the world. "I hate to blow your whole news story, but I was married," he said, alluding to the four-year marriage to actress Talia Balsam that ended in 1993. The actor, who described a recent trip to the Sudan in which he contracted malaria as "good fun," clearly harbors no similar sentiments about the institution of matrimony. "I gave it a shot," he shrugged, adding that his track record has "proven how good I was at it." Is that the sound of a million dreams dying?

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/01/24/george_clooney_bachelor/feed/ 77 Oscar, you chose the wrong George Clooney http://www.salon.com/2010/02/18/oscar_performances_clooney/ http://www.salon.com/2010/02/18/oscar_performances_clooney/#comments Thu, 18 Feb 2010 01:20:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/stephanie_zacharek/2010/02/17/oscar_performances_clooney In Jason Reitman's "Up in the Air," George Clooney plays a smooth operator who fires people for a living but who must eventually recognize that it's love, family and connection that matter. In Wes Anderson's "Fantastic Mr. Fox" Clooney plays a fox who steals chickens for a living but who must eventually recognize that it's love, family and connection that matter. Only one of these performances has been nominated for an Academy Award, and it's the wrong one.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/02/18/oscar_performances_clooney/feed/ 23 The Oscar nominations: Trying to please everyone http://www.salon.com/2010/02/02/oscar_noms/ http://www.salon.com/2010/02/02/oscar_noms/#comments Tue, 02 Feb 2010 17:03:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/film_salon/2010/02/02/oscar_noms So what was the inflated Academy Awards best-picture category, expanded this year from five to 10 nominees, going to bring us? More populism or more existentialism? Was it going to open the door to animated films, to fantasy and science fiction, to foreign flicks and low-budget indies -- or just to middle-of-the-road Hollywood sentimentality, calibrated to draw in heartland viewers who've increasingly tuned out the whole Oscar spectacle?

Given the Academy's catholic desire to please all its contradictory and overlapping constituencies, it shouldn't have surprised anyone that the answer was all of the above. And yet, somehow, it did. I think of the five extra nomination slots as the "Dark Knight" apology awards, but this year offered no exact TDK-cognate, i.e., no commercial-critical behemoth likely to be snubbed by the Academy members' peculiar blend of middlebrow snobbery. (Just to be clear: I didn't like "The Dark Knight" much, personally. But that's irrelevant when it comes to the Oscars. Given its alleged seriousness, cultural impact and box-office firepower, a best-picture nom should have been automatic.)

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/02/02/oscar_noms/feed/ 37 Box office report: “Avatar” hits $2 billion http://www.salon.com/2010/02/01/box_office_3/ http://www.salon.com/2010/02/01/box_office_3/#comments Mon, 01 Feb 2010 06:32:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/film_salon/2010/01/31/box_office any movie not by James Cameron]]> "Avatar" won the box office derby for the seventh straight weekend, taking the record for the biggest seventh weekend gross ($30 million) from "Titanic" ($25 million). Dropping just 14 percent, the unstoppable monster has now grossed $594 million, meaning it will cross "Titanic's" $600 million gross in the next two or three days, perhaps on Tuesday, when the Oscar nominations are announced. Early last week, James Cameron's amazing hit surpassed "Titanic's" worldwide box office gross to become the world's highest-grossing movie. This weekend it crossed the seemingly unfathomable $2 billion mark worldwide. You can babble all you want about inflation, 3D and IMAX ticket prices, and what have you, but check out this little statistic: When "Avatar" reaches $2.239 billion, which it will in the next two or three weeks, it will have doubled the worldwide take of every other movie ever made except "Titanic." It will also soon have a $1 billion lead over any movie not directed by James Cameron. There's not much more to say at this point than "wow" and "don't make a sequel," so let's move on.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/02/01/box_office_3/feed/ 8 Directors of the decade: No. 1: Charlie Kaufman & David Chase http://www.salon.com/2009/12/31/seitz_no1/ http://www.salon.com/2009/12/31/seitz_no1/#comments Thu, 31 Dec 2009 02:31:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/film_salon/2009/12/30/seitz_no1 David Chase, the creator of HBO's "The Sopranos," directed just two installments of the series' eight-year run, the pilot and the finale. Charlie Kaufman is mainly known as a screenwriter and has directed one theatrical feature, "Synecdoche, New York." Why are two people known mainly as writers sharing the top slot on this list of the decade's most important directors?

They're here because they spent the decade working within the same entertainment industry that otherwise prizes reassuring clichés and flashy stupidity, and produced work that was more compelling and unified than the work of all but a handful of full-time movie directors. They're here because their visions kicked down the doors of the audience's and the industry's preconceptions and showed them what's possible. They're here because their insights into human nature (not coincidentally the title of one of Kaufman's scripts) are so sharp and evocative that when we want to remember what it meant to be alive in the aughts, we'll only need to watch an episode of "The Sopranos" or a movie written by Kaufman and it will all come flooding back.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2009/12/31/seitz_no1/feed/ 18 “Up in the Air” leads Globes nods http://www.salon.com/2009/12/15/us_golden_globes/ http://www.salon.com/2009/12/15/us_golden_globes/#comments Tue, 15 Dec 2009 08:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/2009/12/15/us_golden_globes The recession-era tale "Up in the Air" led Golden Globe film contenders Tuesday with six nominations, among them best drama and acting honors for George Clooney, Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick.

Other drama picks were the space fantasy "Avatar," the Iraq War tale "The Hurt Locker," the World War II saga "Inglourious Basterds" and the Harlem drama "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire."

The musical "Nine" ran second with five nominations, including best musical or comedy and acting slots for Daniel Day-Lewis, Penelope Cruz and Marion Cotillard.

Also competing for musical or comedy are the romance "(500) Days of Summer," the bachelor-party bash "The Hangover" and two Meryl Streep films, "It's Complicated" and "Julie & Julia."

"Up in the Air" generally has been considered a comedy, but its inclusion in the drama category could give it more weight as a potential favorite for the Academy Awards, where dramatic films tend to dominate.

Playing a frequent-flyer junkie in "Up in the Air," Clooney had a nomination for best dramatic actor, along with Jeff Bridges as a boozy country singer in "Crazy Heart," Colin Firth as a grieving gay academic in "A Single Man," Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela in "Invictus" and Tobey Maguire as a prisoner of war in "Brothers."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2009/12/15/us_golden_globes/feed/ 0 “The Men Who Stare at Goats”: Quick, look away http://www.salon.com/2009/11/06/men_who_stare/ http://www.salon.com/2009/11/06/men_who_stare/#comments Fri, 06 Nov 2009 01:05:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/review/2009/11/05/men_who_stare There's a serious lack of subtlety in mainstream American movies these days; for now, at least, the big studios have all but given up on luring grown-ups back into movie theaters. So there were plenty of reasons to look forward to "The Men Who Stare at Goats," a deadpan comedy based on the real-life events chronicled in Jon Ronson's nonfiction bestseller of the same name. The movie is directed by Grant Heslov, producer and co-writer of George Clooney's "Good Night, and Good Luck." Its stars are Ewan McGregor and George Clooney, two great-looking, charismatic, seasoned actors who tend to choose their material carefully and intelligently. And Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey show up in smaller, supporting roles. What's not to love?

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2009/11/06/men_who_stare/feed/ 12 Early odds on the Oscar derby http://www.salon.com/2009/09/23/oscar_kickoff/ http://www.salon.com/2009/09/23/oscar_kickoff/#comments Wed, 23 Sep 2009 10:23:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/beyond_the_multiplex//feature/2009/09/23/oscar_kickoff

 

A still from "Up"

It's an autumnal phenomenon, as predictable in its own way as the first signs of red and gold in the treetops: As dozens of new movies flood the fall marketplace, most of them without a hope in hell of reaching a paying audience, people in the industry begin to protest that the film economy is finally and permanently broken. This year the alarm has been sounded by indieWire blogger Anne Thompson, long among the most levelheaded and reality-based of Hollywood reporters, and that fact has momentarily transfixed the attention-impaired elite of movieland.

"The old independent market is over," wrote Thompson last week, summing up the aftermath of the just-completed Toronto International Film Festival, which saw only a handful of modestly scaled distribution deals. "A new one will take its place. But we are smack in the middle between the end of one paradigm and the start of another, and it's a scary place indeed." Added Thompson, "I saw one movie after another [at Toronto] that was unreleasable in the current climate," predicting that most of the 145 films for sale at Canada's huge film marketplace "will wind up streamed, downloaded and viewed on a small TV or computer or mobile screen."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2009/09/23/oscar_kickoff/feed/ 17 No country for human beings http://www.salon.com/2008/09/12/burn_after_reading/ http://www.salon.com/2008/09/12/burn_after_reading/#comments Fri, 12 Sep 2008 10:35:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/beyond_the_multiplex//feature/2008/09/12/burn_after_reading

Focus Features

Brad Pitt, left, and George Clooney in "Burn After Reading."

Here's the right word to describe Joel and Ethan Coen's star-studded, pack-of-maroons spy comedy "Burn After Reading": It's patchy. Of course that sounds like I'm dismissing it, but I don't exactly mean it that way. The film is hilarious in patches, shocking in patches, utterly convincing in patches and close to brilliant in patches. As with the much-laureled "No Country for Old Men," the Coens seem to be Mixmastering themes and elements of their earlier films; there are traces of "Fargo," "The Big Lebowski" and "Blood Simple" in the DNA of "Burn After Reading." But those comparisons aren't likely to benefit this work of lightweight inside-the-Beltway misanthropy, which possesses neither the morbid, cinematic gravity of their better crime films nor the absurd delirium of their best comedies.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2008/09/12/burn_after_reading/feed/ 16 Gone fishin’! Back soon — here’s what awaits http://www.salon.com/2008/09/10/vacation_9/ http://www.salon.com/2008/09/10/vacation_9/#comments Wed, 10 Sep 2008 09:12:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/beyond_the_multiplex//2008/09/10/vacation

Photofest

Peter O'Toole in "Lawrence of Arabia."

Since there's no downtime in the film calendar anymore, I'm just going to go ahead and take a vacation during the busiest infotainment season of the year. I'm sorry to harsh out Harvey Weinstein's mellow and all, but my mom hasn't seen her grandkids in seven months, and there you have it.

I've got reviews of Alan Ball's literary adaptation "Towelhead" and the Coen brothers' new George Clooney-Brad Pitt spy farce "Burn After Reading" ready to run later this week. I wasn't super-nice to either of those films, but I won't be alone in that, I suspect.

Also opening this week are a couple of intriguing-sounding documentaries I haven't caught yet: film critic-turned-filmmaker Godfrey Cheshire's "Moving Midway," about the relocation of his family's North Carolina plantation house; and Irena Salina's "Flow," which is about the global water crisis, possibly the most urgent environmental issue of today, tomorrow and the day after that. Both open Sept. 12 in New York before national rollouts begin.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2008/09/10/vacation_9/feed/ 4 News roundup: Coens, Coco, John and Che http://www.salon.com/2008/09/02/roundup_24/ http://www.salon.com/2008/09/02/roundup_24/#comments Tue, 02 Sep 2008 10:42:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/beyond_the_multiplex//feature/2008/09/02/roundup

Focus Features/Macall Polay

George Clooney in a scene from "Burn After Reading."

Yeah, I know, you've all been kind of busy with history-making moments and brilliant acceptance speeches and trying to figure out the mystery woman from Alaska. But somebody's got to pay attention to the important news, out at the insect-gnawed edges of the entertainment biz, and I guess that somebody's got to be me. As we turn the corner from summer into fall, here's the gritty reality you've been missing.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2008/09/02/roundup_24/feed/ 7 “Leatherheads” http://www.salon.com/2008/04/04/leatherheads/ http://www.salon.com/2008/04/04/leatherheads/#comments Fri, 04 Apr 2008 11:00:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/review/2008/04/04/leatherheads Whatever possessed George Clooney to make a comedy about professional football circa 1925, an era when professional football, at least as we know it now, barely existed? It's hard to imagine who, if anyone, could care about such a subject. And yet the sheer weirdness of the idea is what I liked best about "Leatherheads," Clooney's third picture as a director, particularly considering that in the current climate, making any movie whose objectives can't be summed up in two sentences is ill-advised.

In "Leatherheads," a pro football player, Dodge Connelly (Clooney), recruits a dashingly ordinary college star and war hero, Carter Rutherford (John Krasinski, of "The Office"), to resuscitate his moribund team, the Duluth Bulldogs. His reasoning: College football really packs 'em in. (Clooney opens the movie by showing us a college football game, complete with enthusiastic crowds roaring in the stands.) Professional football, on the other hand, attracts only scruffy ne'er-do-wells who seem to be more interested in throwing dirty punches on the field than in actually playing. And who wants to watch that? (Clooney makes the point by contrasting the college game he's shown us earlier with a solitary cow standing in a field, momentarily startled when a bunch of rowdy guys in leather helmets thunders past her.)

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