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Hail, Caesar! is the name of the Coen brothers’ new movie. It stars George Clooney as a movie star (what casting!) who is kidnapped during the shooting of a epic Roman gladiator picture called Hail, Caesar! This one looks fun. And with the exception of The Big Lebowski, the Coen’s fun movies are underrated,…I quite enjoyed both Intolerable Cruelty and Burn After Reading.
Ok, even though George Clooney’s character says “you ain’t seen nothing yet” in the trailer, I am cautiously optimistic that Tomorrowland won’t actually suck. Brad Bird is directing, for one thing.
Interesting thing about Clooney: even though he’s one of the biggest movie stars in the world, aside from Gravity, he’s never really had a big summer blockbustery sort of hit. Only six of his films have grossed more than $100 million…compare that with Will Smith or even Matt Damon, both of whom are younger.1 Perhaps Tomorrowland will be Clooney’s Pirates of the Caribbean or Bourne.
The list of actors sorted by box office gross is fascinating, btw. The top five: Tom Hanks, Morgan Freeman, Samuel L. Jackson, Harrison Ford, and Eddie Murphy, three of whom are black. The first woman on the list is Cameron Diaz at #13 (and then Cate Blanchett at 21, Helena Bonham Carter at 22, Emma Watson at 25, and Julia Roberts at 26). Sorting by average gross isn’t working for me, but I scanned through and found the top five (who have been in 6 or more films): Emma Watson (whose movies gross $191.6 million on average), Daniel Radcliffe, Taylor Lautner, Rupert Grint, and Liam Hemsworth. ↩
Esquire has Tom Junod writing profiles of the most famous men in Hollywood: Leonard DiCaprio, Matt Damon, and Brad Pitt. This month, Junod tackles George Clooney, who despite not having a big box office hit until Gravity, is right up there with Pitt, Cruise, and Hanks in pure wattage of stardom.
He has other houses. He has one, famously, on Lake Como, in Italy, and he has built another in Cabo. In this, he is not so much of a throwback-after all, Leonardo DiCaprio has a house in Cabo. Indeed, Clooney and DiCaprio once ran into each other in Cabo and struck up a conversation based on their common interest in basketball. They each have ongoing games, and their ongoing games have attained a celebrity of their own. Clooney suggested they might play someday. DiCaprio said sure, but felt compelled to add, “You know, we’re pretty serious.”
They played at a neighborhood court. “You know, I can play,” Clooney says in his living room. “I’m not great, by any means, but I played high school basketball, and I know I can play. I also know that you don’t talk shit unless you can play. And the thing about playing Leo is you have all these guys talking shit. We get there, and there’s this guy, Danny A I think his name is. Danny A is this club kid from New York. And he comes up to me and says, ‘We played once at Chelsea Piers. I kicked your ass.’ I said, ‘I’ve only played at Chelsea Piers once in my life and ran the table. So if we played, you didn’t kick anybody’s ass.’ And so then we’re watching them warm up, and they’re doing this weave around the court, and one of the guys I play with says, ‘You know we’re going to kill these guys, right?’ Because they can’t play at all. We’re all like fifty years old, and we beat them three straight: 11-0, 11-0, 11-0. And the discrepancy between their game and how they talked about their game made me think of how important it is to have someone in your life to tell you what’s what. I’m not sure if Leo has someone like that.”
The latest trailer for Gravity, starring Bullock and Clooney and directed by Alfonso Cuarón (who directed Children of Men).
Holy God, this looks terrifying. Can’t wait. (via ★interesting)
All you really need to know about this movie is that it’s called The Men Who Stare at Goats.
P.S. Jeff Bridges.
P.P.S. George Clooney.
Here’s a novel interview technique: AJ Jacobs sits George Clooney down in front of a computer and talks about what the internet says about him.
We are logged on to a Facebook group called “George Clooney is NOT the sexiest man alive.”
“Ninety-four members,” says Clooney as he looks at the photo of himself with a red X through it. “What the fuck?”
He reads the site’s manifesto aloud:
I for one am sick and tired of George Clooney thinking hes the sexiest man alive, like jesus hes so old! It’s just not right. That man is so full of himself it isn’t funny. Join this group if you totally agree with me.
“Should I defend myself in this one?”
Clooney dictates and I type:
That’s bullshit. He looks great for a 70-year-old.
Is George Clooney the last movie star?
The only one we have. Wow. There’s one teensy-weensy problem, though, that nobody seems to have noticed. One tiny little thing missing from the George Clooney is the World’s Biggest Movie Star storyline…nobody watches his movies.
On the other hand, Will Smith gets Oscar noms and gets people into the theater.
I like Tilda Swinton and all, but her performance in Michael Clayton receiving awards bugs me. She was the only prominent woman character in the movie and was the only character who was insecure, emotional, and tentative. None of the other main characters appeared unsure of themselves for even an instant, not even the crazy guy. In short, Swinton played a stereotypically weak woman in a sea of stereotypically strong men characters. Boooring. At least her character wasn’t just sexy and stupid…but is that progress?
(Warning, spoilers: One could also argue that Swinton’s takedown at the end of the film could be construed as a comment on the part of the filmmakers about the proper role of women in the executive workplace. But I wouldn’t go there.)
Hilarious interview with Ocean’s 13 stars George Clooney, Matt Damon, Ellen Barkin, and Brad Pitt.
Teaser trailer for Oceans 13. Looks like #13 is Andy Garcia.
The Superficial on Kate Moss and her poor taste in men: “You could stick her in a room with Brad Pitt, George Clooney, and the Kool-Aid Man, and five minutes later all you’d hear would be ‘Ohhhhhh Yeah!’”
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