Martin's Musings

One of my favorite pastimes is reading magazine articles about (and watching interviews with) George Clooney.

The man’s a charmer who just does everything right.

He’s got the life, but he’s not rubbing it in. He’s enjoying where he is now, and he’s comfortable in his own skin.

And why wouldn’t he be? For Clooney, life is just about perfect right now, as the great and highly amusing cover story of the latest issue of Rolling Stone discusses.

In a way, that’s what makes Clooney’s latest film, The Descendants, so nice.

In it, Clooney plays Matt King, a man whose life is decidedly not perfect, despite the fact that he lives in the seemingly perfect state of Hawaii.

For starters, he’s got a troubled relationship with his wife and a barely-there one with his two daughters (Matt even admits that he’s the “backup parent”).

Then, when his wife is in an accident and rendered comatose, he learns (from his eldest daughter of all people) that she was cheating on him.

Oh, and throw in a complicated real estate deal that involves his many cousins and relatives. Continue reading →

Not much happens in The American, and for a while, that’s alright. George Clooney’s Jack, in Italy to take care of one last job, is a man of few words and even fewer personal connections. We watch as he befriends a priest and a prostitute, and builds a customized weapon for a client, but so little is known about Jack, and about his assignment as a whole, that it’s hard to know exactly what’s going on. Thankfully, photographer Anton Corbijn‘s film is gorgeous to look at. There are some striking images, many beautifully composed, and this elevates the film — but doesn’t detract from it, like in Tom Ford’s A Single Man. Also impressive is Clooney’s controlled, quiet performance. Pretty much all the film’s action takes place in Jack’s head as he contemplates his life and just what all this violence is for, and while he doesn’t say much in words, he says plenty in his reactions and facial expressions. Unfortunately, what little there is of a plot heads towards its inevitable conclusion in somewhat predictable fashion, and that makes this too subtle film a bit disappointing in the end. I’m giving The American a B.

It’s pretty clear early on that Fantastic Mr. Fox is going to be a very special movie.

It’s during the first scene, when Mr. Fox (George Clooney) and his wife, Felicity (Meryl Streep), raid a chicken farm to the sounds of the Beach Boys, that you get your initial taste of director Wes Anderson’s vision.

The characters, with their overly long legs, run and jump, pop up here and there, and speak intelligently, like adults — unlike the characters in most kid-oriented movies.

Yes, the director of such films as Rushmore (one of my all-time faves) and The Darjeeling Limited has not made a typical children’s animated film. Continue reading →

Sometimes, when you set out to make a movie that’s wacky funny, you end up instead with something that’s strange and unfunny. Such is the case with The Men Who Stare at Goats, one of those classic misfires that has almost no redeeming qualities. Starring George Clooney (clearly doing a solid for his friend and producing partner, Grant Heslov, who makes his directorial debut here), Men Who Stare is about a reporter (Ewan McGregor) who tries to impress his wife by going to Iraq. There (or rather, in Kuwait), he meets Clooney’s character, a military man who may or may not be gifted with special psychic powers, who may or may not be retired, and who may or may not still be a part of a top secret military unit that specializes in nonviolent action (such as Jedi mind tricks performed on goats). The film is only sporadically funny, the tone just isn’t right, and Clooney, sadly, seems totally miscast. Just about the only thing worth mentioning positively is Jeff Bridges, who plays the hippie-like leader of the group and seems perfectly cast in his role. Otherwise, Men Who Stare is just weird and unnecessary, and I’m giving it a D.

Oh well. The Coen brothers’ latest, Burn After Reading, is a bit of a disappointment. Their last film, the Oscar-winning No Country for Old Men, was a brilliant but awfully serious affair, so I don’t blame them for wanting to tackle a trifle like this one. I just wish it had the laughs and charm that a similarly light comedy like, say, the totally underrated Intolerable Cruelty did.

At least those two films have one good thing in common: George Clooney, who here stars as Harry, a womanizing charmer, who gets involved with Linda (Frances McDormand), a woman seeking money for four body-enhancing surgeries, who works at a gym with Chad (Brad Pitt), a dim-witted trainer who happens upon a CD filled with the security secrets of Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich), a former CIA analyst who is writing a memoir about his life in the agency, and whose wife (Tilda Swinton) is also involved with Harry. Got all that? It’s a twisty plot that meanders and doesn’t really ever go anywhere (intentionally), mostly because the characters are all basically morons.

There are some good reaction shots, and McDormand and Pitt seem to be having the most fun, but for my money, the best part of the entire movie is the last five minutes, when J. K. Simmons and David Rasche‘s characters try to make sense of it all. I think the Coens needed to put their characters in the film earlier and more often because their deadpan confusion is hysterical and the only thing in the film that really works. Burn wants to be zany, wacky fun, but it’s only mildly amusing. I’ll take Clooney’s Everett McGill or Miles Massey over Harry any day. So rank this one with the Coens’ The Ladykillers remake as a subpar Coen brothers movie. As I said: Oh well. They can’t all be Fargo or O Brother, Where Art Thou? I’m giving Burn a C+.