The Quintessential Hawaii film

The Quintessential Hawaii film: Blue Hawaii

Hawaii is widely seen as America's slice of exotic paradise. It's one of the nine states I haven't been to but my image of it is well-formed by the friends I have who take their once-in-a-lifetime vacations there and by all the sitcom specials (Saved by the Bell, My Wife and Kids, Step by Step, Full House) where the family or gang takes a trip to Hawaii.

A popular choice is Fred Zinnemann's From Here to Eternity.

The 1953 Best Picture Oscar winner, set in a military barracks on the eve of Pearl Harbor, is famous for that makeout scene on the Beach, Montgomery Clift's broody performance, and Frank Sinatra winning an Oscar for a character dressed in tacky Hawaiian shirts. 

From Here to Eternity did lead to an increased resurgence in Hawaiian aloha shirts but the problem with the film is that Pearl Harbor doesn't define Hawaii. It's one of the two most disastrous homeland attacks ever to occur on American soil, but that's more of an anomaly and that anomaly is far overshadowed by the ensuing years of Polynesian-tinted sunniness.

Courtesy: Fox Searchlight Pictures

Another option is Alexander Payne's 2011 film The Descendants (an Oscar nominee and winner in the screenplay category) which (like Sunshine State) seeks to crack the facade of a tourism mecca and show struggling ordinary people underneath. The film delves into the social hierarchy between Hawaiian land owners, natives, and new blood in the real estate market, but this all falls into the B-story that's overshadowed by an A-plot about a disheveled middle-aged man struggling to cope with the pending loss of his unfaithful wife. In short, it's largely a film about a disheveled George Clooney in tacky Hawaiian wear. 

Descendants is a worthy runner-up, but my pick is going to be the 1961 film Blue Hawaii because it's pure kitschy, fun escapism. 

Elvis Presley stars as the quintessential all-American looking to have a good time after getting out of the Army. His father wants him to work at the Great Southern Hawaiian Fruit Company but Chad decides to work at his girlfriend's tourist agency instead as a guide. 

It's not really about any sort of grand socio-economic conflict. The film's tag line was:
"Ecstatic romance...exotic dances...exciting music in the world's lushest paradise of song!"

Also of note: A lot of the glamour of Hawaii was first spread through military men stationed in Hawaii during the war reporting back to the homeland on how glamorous the islands were, so it's fitting that Presley plays an ex-GI, although his journey is in reverse. 

In short, the film features Elvis (an honorary Hawaiian) wearing an aloha shirt and playing a uke. What better image could Hawaii want than that?

Some Capsule Reviews of 2011

This holiday season, consider making a $1 donation to this blog.

Some links: What if the SAG Awards Didn't Exist?
An Open Letter to Dwight Howard and Chris Paul on Gunaxin

Some movie reviews of 2011 Films (rapid fire edition)
Cedar Rapids-Ed Helms plays a small town insurance salesman who goes on his first plane trip to the big city to attend a convention. This movie is an excellent example of "Funny cause it's true" comedy. Trade and professional conventions are treated by the people who put them on and many of the attendees as highly exciting. From an outsider's perspective, it's a bunch of people overly excited to be spending a weekend at a hotel listening to lectures. Thus, you have a perfect premise for a movie and with the point of view being told from the perspective of the greenest convention goer ever to exist, there's not a mean bone in the film's body. John C. Reilly does his best to channel Jack Black. If I have one complaint about the film, is it ends on too much of a high. Even the best convention experiences aren't THAT life-changing.

We Built a Zoo-Covered here in my retrospective of Cameron Crowe. A must read if there ever was one.

Horrible Bosses-That was one enticing trailer that "Horrible Bosses" offered. Unfortunately, many of the best jokes were in the trailer. Oh yeah, and the trailer was misleading. It's not a film about three people trying to murder their bosses. That's really just the first act of the story. Maybe it's because the film switches directions in so many spots, that the film feels kind of rushed.

Overall, the film is still pretty decent. Jason Sudeikis, Charlie Day, and Jason Bateman have some pretty good chemistry and Kevin Spacey and Colin Farrell have a lot of fun hamming it up as villains. Also, Julie Bowen of "Modern Family" pops up into the mix and gets kind of naughty.


Hangover II-Probably THE most shameless sequel to come along as of lately. It was enjoyable only on account of the fact that I was already in the theater (on account of other people) and did my darndest to forget I ever saw the first film. So if you try really hard, you can enjoy this film, but I do strongly believe that if a film has nothing original to say, then there's no reason for it to be made.

Cowboys and Aliens-This wasn't meant to have a shelf life beyond the two hours you spent watching it last summer, but this movie has proven surprisingly memorable for me. Several elements in the plot (i.e. why aliens would want gold, why Olivia Wilde's character wouldn't reveal her form, etc.) didn't make too much sense but it wasn't a movie that took itself seriously and I really appreciated it on the level of genre filmmaking (or more specifically, double genre filmmaking). The visuals, special effects and certain members of the cast (Adam Beach and Sam Rockwell made great supporting players) worked well. There was a sort of clash between Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford (One reviewer called the pairing a "peanut butter and peanut butter sandwich" and I ) both being the grumpiest guys you've ever seen, but I was won over by both of them even if I felt like it was a little too much friction.

Hugo-The main negative is that pretty much everyone says the movie starts off pretty slowly. It's over two hours and you could easily come in 45 minutes in and not miss much. This is somewhat of a problem because it's a mystery and the film works best on first viewing as the clues come together.

Other than that, it's an excellent film. The colorful cast of characters and excellent actors behind them are the film's biggest strength.



Descendants-This film is really two stories that don't connect as well as they should. It's not really a negative, though, because both stories work very well. One story is about a man coping with his wife's death and the other is about the responsibilities of the descendants of a land-owning clan to preserve the land. It's material that falls really well in Alexander Payne's ball park (co-written by Dean Pelton on Community of all people).

Both of the two central performances are overrated in terms of the Oscar buzz they're receiving. As I've written extensively, I'm finding the hoopla surrounding George Clooney to be overpowering of him whenever he is on screen. His performance is good but doesn't show many new notes in comparison to Up in the Air or Michael Clayton. Shalene Woodley is good but not great.

Burn After Reading review

I have now seen 8 Coen films to date and would not profess myself a major Coen fan. I was baffled by No Country for Old Men, I fell in love with Oh Brother Where Art Thou, I watched the cult status behind Big Lebowski and Fargo grow from the sidelines, I enjoyed Intolerable Cruelty, and I lost my faith in the brothers with Ladykillers and Man Who Wasn't There.

As you can see, it's an up and down relationship that I've had with their films, and was hesitant to log in an 8th Coen outing (I feel 7 is more than enough films to see of a director you're not crazy about) but couldn't resist the bizarre-sounding plot and the idea of seeing Brad Pitt go into full comic mode. And I thoroughly loved the film.

For one thing, I'm a native of D.C. and the Coens have a great sense of place in their films: the superficiality of sunny Hollywood in Intolerable Cruelty, the bible-belt-based bluegrass-churning populist Southern Charm in Oh Brother Where Art Thou, and the quirkiness of the Minnesota cold in Fargo.

I can't tell you how great the reception was in my theater in D.C. where we might not see these things as that far-fetched: beauracrats (in the form of JK Simmons) making decisions about what to do when people are getting killed and secrets are being spilt out to other nations on the basis of what takes the least paperwork and allocating $50,000 for a random lady's plastic surgery for virtually no reason at all.

The plot is truly screwball and does a far better job of past Coen films at raising the ante in the third act so that we're invested to see what deliciously improbable ways the screenwriters will tie up the loose ends. It also doesn't help that some of the protagonists are actually likable: Brad Pitt as the airhead exercise junkie who's as faithful a friend as they come, Frances McDormand as the gym worker who just wants to look pretty, Richard Jenkins as the poor schlub who likes her, etc.

I believe there's such a thing as too much George Clooney

I don't know about anyone else but I am so sick and tired of hearing about George Clooney. Don't get me wrong, I don't really have anything against him: he has been in some good movies lately. I think very highly of Syriana and Michael Clayton, and he seems like a nice guy, but there have been a constant stream of articles coming at me for 3 years, all virtually saying the same thing: George Clooney is great, he's selfless, he does charity work, as if he's the only actor in Hollywood ever to be good-looking AND promote good causes.


Time Magazine recently had an entire cover story on Clooney with teases like "what are his secrets to success?" "how does he do it?" I already know the answers to these questions:

He does it because he doesn't take himself too seriously, he owns a lot of money and a condo in Italy, is friends with Brad Pitt, he has a famous show business aunt, he likes movies from the 1960s and feels passionate about how movies can carry political messages blah, blah, blah.


It's the same interview over and over again.

Here's the way Hollywood stars generally work: Sometimes, a star does something really great and breaks out (i.e. Jamie Foxx in Ray, Jonny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean, Helen Mirren in The Queen, Jake Gyllenhall and Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain) and they're the focus of a lot of attention for a while and then the buzz generally dies out while newspapers and magazines write about other people. A way to really break out is if you have two movies close to each other or within the same calender year: Seth Rogen had Knocked Up and Superbad pretty close to each other, Jamie Foxx had Ray and Collateral, Michael Caine had a "career resurrection" with Weatherman, Bewitched AND Batman Begins; Leo DiCaprio had Blood Diamond and Departed.

This enables a magazine writer to not just conclude that the breakout star had a good performance but that he's on a roll.

Back to business: George Clooney had a breakout period in 2005 when he released Syriana and Good Night and Good Luck: Two movies that were message pictures. The themes of Good Night and Good Luck which Clooney directed, wrote, and everything else was: 1) the Red Scare was bad 2) Edward Murrow was good and 3) All journalists suck today. Syriana's theme which Clooney didn't write was that oil was a big and complicated issue.

Anyway, this period where the press becomes infatuated with a star usually lasts for a short while (it culminates into orgasmic proportions around the end of the calender year when magazines and newspapers do entertainers of the year-themed issues), but the press has been infatuated with George Cooney since 2005 and it's become a love affair that has to stop.


I know that Clooney is a charming and nice guy, but this is not news after constantly telling us this for 3 years. Unless he's done something new, like develop superpowers, I do not want to hear it. And Clooney, you're not helping either. Stop hogging the spotlight, and dominating press interviews for films like Ocean's 13 and Michael Clayton when you're clearly not the best actor in the film.


But back to the press: If you still insist on covering George Clooney, how about talking about Darfur. That's this region of Sudan that your boy George is apparently doing something to help make peace or facilitate, or something like that. I don't really know because you never really tell me that: all you tell me is that George Clooney is such a dreamy and great guy because he helps with Darfur, yet I haven't learnt a single thing about what's going on in Darfur from any of these articles since George-mania has struck. Off the top of my head, didn't Jane Goodall do a lot of charity work in Africa for her foundation. Do articles about Jane Goodall talk about how great of a person she is or do they just cut right to the chase and talk about the charity work.




Other examples of Clooney overkill:


The Washington Post wrote an article after the Oscars that reported "George Clooney, who has recently replaced Jack Nicholson as the big man in Hollywood, was on hand at the Oscars....." I'm sorry, how is this objective reporting? By what standard has Clooney replaced Nicholson? Why does George Clooney even need to be mentioned in the article, if he didn't even win anything? George Clooney was nominated but seemed like a pretty poor sport throughout. He was probably the 4th or 5th most talented nominee in the field yet, he kept spouting off about he pissed off he was about how he was going to lose to Daniel Day-Lewis, as if Jonny Depp and the others wouldn't have also beaten him. George Clooney was also on a ridiculous special by Oprah at last year's Oscars, where 6 Oscars winners interview each other. Clooney had an interview with Julia Roberts. Don't Julia Roberts and George Clooney talk all the time since they've worked on films together? How is this a special occasion? This past week Time put Clooney on the top 100 most influential people AGAIN with a tribute that said the exact same things everyone else said before

Syrianna Review

Syrianna is a riveting political thriller about a very hot button issue, the oil crisis, that few people really know much about beyond the numbers that appear on gas station billboards. It was released at the right time of year so that its inevitable Oscar buzz considerations will give the material added weight which might have been what the exec producers (including the politically active George Clooney and producing partner Steven Sodebergh) were going for. Still, it's not an overtly political film.

It doesn't seek to point fingers at an administration although with our overly polarized political culture today, people are bound to dismiss it as left wing propaganda, and that's unfortunate because a work of art like this deserves to be treated as art rather than politics.The main criticism, as far as I can tell, is that the plot is too complex for the average viewer, but that's partially the point: that the oil crisis is a complex matter and that's why an easy solution isn't in the works. I'll concede that this wasn't necessarily a smart move on the filmmakers' behalf to clutter up the start of the film rather than provide an attention-grabbing opening, but the film gets easier to swallow as it goes along. Matt Damon deals with a strained marriage and the tragedy of his 6-year old son's death but sees an opportunity for an unlikely friendship and business pairing with an enlightened Arab prince. George Clooney plays a CIA operative with an estranged son and wife who treats covert operations and killing like any other 9-to-5 job until he gets betrayed by his government. Jeffery Wright plays a cold and methodical lobbyist hired to find and weed out the corrupt link in an oil merger and he's equally at ease playing a game of racquetball with his suspect as he is calling him out before the board on his corruption. And then there are the two Arab youths looking for jobs who befriend a shady man and eventually become suicide bombers. It's the human dimensions of these stories and the way Stephen Gaughan masterfully weaves them together that make the movie so engaging as the movie moves past a cluttered-up start.

Credit director Gaughan. Making his directorial debut after winning an Oscar as the screenwriter for Traffic, Gaughan appears to be a firm disciple of Stephen Sodebegh's school of film-making, as he copies some of Sodebergh's tricks: showing only parts of conversations to make it appear as though we're coming in midway, on-location shooting with an independent feel, bridging different places together illustrated by text, etc.

Michael Clayton as a piece of movie mismarketing

First of all, I saw Michael Clayton and it was a great film.

The poster for the film shows a picture of George Clooney and the film is named after his character. I personally don't believe this is a film centered around one person. Clooney might be the person with the most lines and screentime, but I saw it more as a film about a relationship between Clooney and Wilkinson. There relationship reminded me a little bit of Rain Man in that respect: a sane guy having to deal with a brilliant insane guy. Tilda Swenson and Sydney Pollack also play significant roles.

Lions for Lambs, for example, markets itself as "Cruise, Streep, Redford" and supposedly Tom Cruise is an egomaniac. Why couldn't this film have been "Clooney, Wilkinson, Pollack"?

I think the answer is that Clooney is just a humongous star right now (I personally have no problem with George Clike him, I think his star is just shining a bit too bright, in my opinion) and the best way to sell the film is to market it as a George Clooney vehicle.

New Rules

This is my version of New Rules. It's based off the comedy bit that Bill Maher does on his HBO show. I'll keep adding to it as I think of more:

If you've joined the cast of ER, and find yourself successful there, that doesn't mean you can count it as a career resurrection. I saw John Stamos the other night (by the other night, this was some time ago) talking about how while his attempt to helm a series in Jake in Progress was admittedly a failure, he's happy to have found his groove on E.R. Newsflash: John Stamos, you are still not a successful TV actor. Joining the cast of E.R. is like being traded to the San Antonio Spurs as their 12th man and picking up a championship ring with them. Carrot Top and Fran Drescher could join the cast of E.R. and the show would still live to see another season. E.R. is just one of those shows like The Simpsons, Law and Order, and Meet the Press, that is no longer amazing television but has been going on for so long and is in such a secure timeslot that the networks just leave it alone. There kinds of shows don't end until way after they have passed their prime.

Conan O'Brien (and probably David Letterman too) can no longer use people as punchlines to his monologues that he has as guests on his show. I saw Lindsay Lohan on his show the other day and he was as cordial to her as can be for someone who exploits her family dysfunction on a weekly basis. Conan O'Brien also cannot use the star of a just-cancelled NBC sitcom like John Lithgow, Matt LeBlanc or Whoopi Goldberg as a punchline to a monologue joke if he had that guest on at the beginning of the TV season to plug their show and he himself noted how much he "just loved their show."

All the major newspapers should collectively limit themselves to a quota of ten stories on how handsome and dashing George Clooney is to a minimum. And if we're gonna praise George Clooney for his ability to bring publicity to the misery going on in Africa, then why don't we write articles about what he actually does in Africa rather than write articles about how great of a guy he is because of what he does in Africa.

Anyone who acts as a first career gets priority in casting to anyone who acts as a second career and uses the publicity to promote their first career, whether it be stand-up comedian (Dane Cook, Kevin James), actress (Mandy Moore, Alicia Keys, Jessica Simpson, 50 Cent, Justin Timberlake, Li'l Bow-Wow, Drew Lechay, Nelly), basketball players (Shaq, Darius Miles), or rich girl (Paris Hilton). Speaking of which, Joe Simpson cannot be allowed to make movies (Employee of the Month or Blonde Ambition) simply because he wants to find something for his daughter to do.

No more commercials for movie promotions saying "It's official. Jackass 2/Saw III/RV/Silent Hill/Failure to Launch is the #1 movie in America. Come see what all the buzz is about" without enclosing a disclaimer to the public that you're film is the #1 movie in America for this past weekend and not the whole year. You must also disclose that in any given year about 30 pictures share that honor with you and that you're only competition was:
-Fearless and Flyboys in the case of Jackass 2,
-The Departed in its 4th weekend of release in the case of Saw III
-United 93 which only had a 1/3 the number of theaters that you did for opening weekend and Stick It in the case of RV
-Two equally forgettable movies like The Sentinel and American Dreams in the case of Silent Hill
-The Shaggy Dog and The Hills Have Eyes in the case of Failure to Launch

Is it Ocean's 13 or Ocean's 4?

Ocean's 13 is coming to theaters this week and I'm already wishing this film was never made. It's not the actual film I'm wishing didn't exist. Despite the abysmal failure of Ocean's 12, it's very probable that, considering the potential of Stephen Sodebergh and the strength of Ocean's 11, this film will be good and I'm looking forward to seeing it.


But the question is whether it's worth having to see these self-indulgent fests of self-praise that occurs when Matt Damon, George Clooney, and Brad Pitt all over the press circuit this week? Now, don't get me wrong. I have no problem with Matt Damon and while Brad Pitt can tend to get a little overly metaphysical/spiritual/philosophical when asked simple interview questions, he's OK with me as well. If George Clooney is far off in Africa or campaigning for his dad, I'm OK with him too. My problem isn't really with George Clooney as much as it is how his ability to make every (male and female) Hollywood reporter fall in love with him results in an over coverage of him with hard-hitting stories like "George Clooney: a great and selfless guy or the greatest, most handsomest, most selfless guy there is?." By selfless, do you mean "talks about himself less"? Because, I haven't seen much evidence of that. Also, did you omit actor with range in there? Well, that's cause he doesn't have much of it. I do think he deserved the Oscar for Syrianna (and some people don't), but that's about as far as his range stretches. "Oh, let's not bash George Clooney," you say, "He's doing great stuff for Darfur." Well, the George Clooney publicity machine is not doing it' s job very well because I challenge you all: How much do you know about Darfur because of George Clooney? The articles that have come out with regard to George Clooney are along the lines of "Clooney: Great guy because he went to Darfur" rather than "Here's what's going on in Darfur"

So as I was saying: Matt Damon by himself = Good, Brad Pitt by himself = Mostly good, George Clooney = Mildly Tolerable. However, when you get the three in the same room, it's a whole different monster. They start congratulating each other on winning People Magazine's sexiest man award, fooling around with reporters and giving humorous answers (except when the questions are about politics in which case, George never misses the opportunity to promote his cause*), and talking about how great each other are. Add Julia Roberts and see things get worse. so it might be a blessing in disguise that she's absent from this one.


These guys were so distracted by how much fun they were having on the set of Ocean's 12 that they forgot to double-check at the end of the film if they had made a coherent plot (Stephen Sodebergh has been guilty of this before: see Full Frontal). I remember on three separate (Letterman, Inside the Actor's Studio and Good Morning America) occasions, Matt Damon had felt a need to remind us in interviews that while he and the gang were having fun in Ocean's 12, that they were still professionals and were going to deliver us a professional product. That should have been our first clue as to how bad Ocean's 12 would be. When he was promoting The Legend of Bagger Vance, he wasn't bragging about how professional he and Will Smith were able to maintain their work. That's sort of implied.
Ocean's 11 was notable in 2001 for the fact that all these A-list selflessly took pay cuts so that the film could support such a large ensemble. It doesn't look like their egos took a pay cut, unfortunately. These guys have so much fun with each other that I think they forget there are other people in the cast. I seriously wonder if Brad Pitt could even name the other 11 members of his own cast? Don Cheadle pops up occasionally so at best, we should just call this film Ocean's 4 judging by the press releases. I never see Shaobo Qin, Eddie Jemison, Scott Caan, or Casey Affleck involved in any of the press interviews. Poor Casey has the unfortunate distinction of being Ben Affleck's brother and on top of that he doesn't even get any recognition for his own film.
Lastly, what about Elliot Gould and Carl Reiner? Carl Reiner is a comedic legend and Elliot Gould was one of the best actors in the '70s through a string of Rob Altman films. You would think they might have gotten some recognition as well.
*I don't have anything against Clooney's politics and agree with his viewpoints. In my opinion, the political views expressed in his pictures are that if nothing else, "we should be open and be allowed to criticize our government." At the same time, he babbles on non-stop about his politics to the point where it bores me to death and doesn't seem to have an off-switch. I felt it was slightly insensitive to use his Golden Globe acceptance speech to deliver a Jack Abramoff as if he was filling int for Jay Leno on the Tonight Show.
Footnote:
I'm slightly less upset over this matter, when I learned that Carl Reiner was on Late Night with Craig Furgeson tonight. In the film, he admits that Ocean's 12 wasn't good but Ocean's 13 is well-written and greatly enhanced by Al Pacino. We will wait and see. Reiner was also shilling out for the greatness of Cheadle, Clooney, and Pitt. Well, Carl, don't sell yourself short, you're a great actor yourself.

What exactly was the point of Good Night and Good Luck

In retrospect, I think Good Night and Good Luck got nominated because of the novelty factors: Black and White, it had some innovative artistic decicions, etc, as well as the surging popularity of George Clooney at the time.

In truth, it wasn't that much of a film aside from David Strathain's performance and the jazz numbers. It was a film I would describe as narratively bare.

What's more, I don't really agree with this whole "good journalism is dead" theme. Look at Anderson Cooper and Brian Williams. Those guys are thoughtful, inquisitive, highly intelligent, compassionate to the issues that are troubling Americans and I feel highly professional. They've displayed intelligent viewpoints on Iraq long before the rest of the nation did and have continually donated their time to travel away from the anchor desk and cover Katrina to ensure that the nation does not forget that. Brian Williams flew to Virginia Tech within a day of the shootings (either the day of or the day after). Cooper travelled to Iraq and Katrina multiple times. Another great news journalist, Tom Brokaw, had an excellent sense of professionalism and wrote a couple excellent books

The media also did an excellent job on the whole in covering the tsunami disasters that marked the beginning of 2005. I was personally touched with the way the media led our nation to care so deeply for people halfway around the world.

And whose to say that they wouldn't have stood up to Eugene McCarthy if they were around back then. If anything, journalists back then were dumber, because they didn't call out the HUAC sooner, and if everyone EXCEPT for Edward R Murrow bowed to McCarthy, then it doesn't sound like a respectful era.

This Oprah Winfrey Oscar Special is rediculous

Tonight's Oprah Winfrey Oscar Special advertises "First-Time Oscar Winners Go One-On-One" with three big interviews: First, Sidney Poitier will be interviewed by Jamie Foxx. Actually, I'm pretty sure those two have met before since Jamie Foxx thanked Oprah in his Oscar acceptance speech for introducing the two. Still, a discussion between the two might offer a lot.

Let's see who's next. Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman. I'm not sure who's interviewing the other. This isn't really an interview from one person to his idol, it's just more like two peers chatting. They've never worked together, so maybe it's their first time chatting, but still if the theme was you could interview anyone, maybe you'd pick Shirley MacLaine, Elizabeth Taylor, Eva Marie Saint, Kirk Douglas, Ernest Borgnine, or some of the other great actors and actresses who are still alive (by the way, I know Kirk's award is only honorary and I'm sure there are five better examples of living oscar legends who are still alive but I can't think of that many off the top of my head, you get my point).

And that goes double for you, Julia Roberts. Roberts is going to be interviewing George Clooney in what I find extremely shameless. First of all, the two have already worked together in self-congratulatory films like Ocean's 11 and Ocean's 12 and she had a rather pointless role in his directing debut "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind," and added to the time I'm sure all three (George, Julia, and Oprah) spend chatting in his Italian Villa or whatever, I'm sure they've had enough time to get to know each other. Besides, the degree to which they both admire themselves and each other is evident through their half-baked collaborations with each other for the Ocean's movies and with Stephen Sodebergh (i.e. Full Frontal in which Julia Roberts is just playing herself and thinking her story about how she met and married a crewman on set is interesting enough for a movie). Clooney and Roberts' work with Sodebergh used to be good, but its dissolved into a group of people who are so happy to be in each other's company that they forget they have an audience to entertain. Good German, from what I understood, was an interesting experiment in using film stocks and what not, but I hear it wasn't particularly good as a movie (although mabybe someone has seen it and could post their opinions otherwise, I'd be open to hearing them).

By the way, now I'm going off on a tangent, but I notice that whenever Matt Damon was interviewed about Ocean's 12 and in his upcoming interviews on Ocean's 13 he always likes to stress "we're having fun on set, but we're working too. We realize that we have to be professional and we get to work every day," like he's covering up for playing hooky (sorry if I misspelt that, there's a movie on TCM i'm trying to catch so I'm hoping to wrap up this blog entry soon) from school.

Also, I'm not gonna say I'm sick and tired of George Clooney and I hate him, because I realize that it's just natural human tendency to feel that way about someone when they're a little over exposed, and I want to be aware that it's not so much him but his overexposure I'm getting tired of. I liked him in late 2005 when he had that successful run of 2 critical hits in the same year with Syrianna and Good Night and Good Luck, but I notice that all people ever do to George Clooney is shower him with praise. I don't think he's faced a remotely tough question in an interview lately. He gets lobbed the same questions: "Why do you go to Africa?" "Why do you make political movies?" (that's an easy one, rather than asking him IF he has political views, ask him ABOUT his political views) "How nice is your villa in Italy?" "Can I come?". Enough already.