The Monuments Men is a worthy effort -- but was it inspired by The Victors?

According to the latest aggregation of opinions on Rotten Tomatoes, George Clooney’s The Monuments Men hasn’t fared very well with most of my critical brethren. But I find myself inclined to give it an appreciative thumb’s up, if not a full-throated roar of approval. And not just because, as a minor-league history buff, I am reflexively fascinated by accounts of efforts to retrieve art masterpieces plundered by Adolf Hitler’s minions during World War II.

Isn't it time we forgive Geogre Clooney for Batman & Robin?

Ever since I uploaded this 1997 interview onto YouTube more than six years ago, I've noticed a steady stream of nasty, nastier and obscenity-stuffed comments by people who absolutely hated Batman & Robin. And, look, I'm not a major fan of that flick, either. But c'mon people: Can't we let bygones be bygones? It's not like Geogre Clooney hasn't made it up to us. This year alone, he lent strong to Sandra Bullock in Gravity, one of my favorite 2013 films.

And later this year, he'll be front and center in a movie I'm extremely eager to see, after seeing another movie that touches on the same subject.

Also: As I have noted before: If you go to the 2:19 mark on the above YouTube clip, you'll hear Clooney say some nice things about Michael Gough, the late, great Brit actor who played Batman's butler Alfred in four Batmovies. For that reason alone, I'm more than willing to cut Clooney some slack.

Today's second shameless attempt to draw hits with a post that has The Dark Knight Rises in the headline

Back in the day, George Clooney (and director Joel Schumacher) wanted to give us a sunnier, funnier Batman. (And, while they were at it, a first look at a bad-ass Bane.) But, well, that didn't work out too well, did it?

Next for George Clooney: A tale of real-life heroes

Fresh from his critical and commercial success with The Ides of March -- which will be released on homevideo Jan. 17 -- George Clooney has announced his next project as a multihyphenate: An adaptation of the nonfiction book The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History by author Robert M. Edsel. The movie will be a true-life, post-WWII adventure drama about a special unit of U.S. Army specialists charged with locating and recovering art seized by the Nazis. And if that sounds just a tad familiar, well, maybe you saw (or at least read my review about) this fascinating documentary four years ago: The Rape of Europa.

My Top 10 of 2011

To begin, as I do every year, with my standard disclaimer: This may be my list of the Top 10 Movies of 2011 – but it’s not necessary a rundown of the year’s 10 Best Movies. Because, quite frankly, I haven’t seen every single movie released in the US during the past 12 months. But it most certainly is a list of my favorite films to open in U.S. theaters in 2011.

(To be sure, at least one didn't open in Houston – but that is H-Town's loss.)

These are, of course, purely arbitrary and totally subjective choices. And I’ll freely admit that, a decade or so hence, I might look back on the following lineup and want to make additions or deletions. At this point in time, however, I can honestly state these are the 2011 releases that impressed me most. And best. So there.







Hugo. Martin Scorsese’s awesomely fantastical and fervently heartfelt fable of resilience and renewal is an exhilaratingly loving ode to the magic and immortality of cinema, a stirringly exciting adventure with a delightfully Dickensian flavor, and a powerfully eloquent expression of human longing for a sense of purpose. Not incidentally, it’s also the very best 3D movie ever made. And I must admit: I never thought the sight of a mechanical man drawing a picture ever would get me teary-eyed. But… Well, if you passionately love film and you see this particular film, you’ll understand.







The Descendants. George Clooney gives the finest, strongest performance of his career – so far – in this richly amusing and deeply affecting dramedy by filmmaker Alexander Payne (Sideways, About Schmidt). You could say Clooney’s character – Matt King, a Honolulu lawyer whose life undergoes dramatic changes as his wife hovers near death – is a typical Payne protagonist, a normally risk-averse fellow who gets shaken out of his routine, and shocked out of his expectations. But Clooney makes that character uniquely, memorably and well-nigh perfectly his own.







Daydream Nation. Charged with alternating currents of teen angst, sardonic wit, nervous dread and impudent sensuality, Canadian filmmaker Mike Goldbach’s dazzlingly inventive comedy suggests Juno as reimagined by David Lynch – or a sunnier, funnier Donnie Darko – as it renders the misadventures of its sarcastic, sexually precocious 17-year-old heroine (a breakthrough performance for Kat Dennings) who remains whip-smart and wickedly droll while confronting the peculiarities of life in the weirdest small town this side of Twin Peaks. (This Canadian import received criminally sparse U.S. theatrical release – but it’s well worth catching on cable or home video. And, yes, those are quotes from my original Variety review on the DVD package.)







Young Adult. Charlize Theron’s brilliant performance as a spectacularly self-indulgent thirtysomething author who behaves not just badly but borderline madly while revisiting her hometown is nothing short of jaw-droppingly fearless. And so is the sharply insightful and often discomfortingly comical movie – created by the Juno team of director Jason Reitman and scriptwriter Diablo Cody – that showcases Theron’s Oscar-worthy star turn.







Margin Call. Armed with his own savagely smart and profanely witty script and an impeccable ensemble of perfectly cast actors, first-time feature director J.C. Chandor takes dead aim at the Wall Street wheeler-dealers who – while swept up in a perfect storm of unchecked greed, wanton hubris and self-absorbed panic – triggered the financial meltdown of 2008. The movie is some kind of David-Mametesque  masterwork, suspenseful and sardonic in equal measure, but be forewarned: If you play a drinking game that calls for taking a shot each time some anxious character reacts to bad news by gasping “Fuck me!” – you’ll likely be passed out on the floor by the midway point.







50/50. And now for something completely different, a comedy about cancer. No, make that: An extraordinarily funny and exceptionally humane comedy about cancer, inspired by the real-life experiences of scriptwriter Will Reiser. Joseph Gordon-Levitt compellingly ricochets between emotional extremes as a Seattle radio producer who relies (sometimes begrudgingly) on emotional support from a raucously uninhibited buddy (Seth Rogen) and a sincere neophyte therapist (Anna Kendrick) while fighting the good fight against a dread disease.







The Ides of March. George Clooney does his finest work as a film director – so far – in this acerbically crafty and meticulously crafted drama about power plays, double crosses, inconvenient tragedies and brutal disillusionments behind the scenes of a Presidential campaign. Major props go to Ryan Gosling, who so adroitly conveys profoundly mixed emotions as a campaign tactician that even during the final second of the last scene, you’re not entirely certain just what he’ll do next.







Midnight in Paris. Woody Allen’s immensely likable and immoderately clever comedy has Owen Wilson hitting all the right notes (at precisely the right moments) as the sort of character Allen himself used to play in his films, a romantic who’s deeply mistrustful of intellectuals, but equally skeptical of those who don’t know (or care) about the artists and artistry he admires. While on vacation in Paris with his materialistic fiancée (played rather too convincingly as a hectoring nag by Rachel McAdams), Wilson’s Gil, a successful screenwriter determined to write his first novel, is magically transported back to the 1920s and allowed to hang out with such luminaries as Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway and Pablo Picasso. It’s a great place to visit – but perhaps, Gil reluctantly realizes, not the best place to live.







Win Win. Written and directed with subtlety and skill by Tom McCarthy (The Station Agent), this warm-hearted yet clear-eyed comedy surprises and delights while focused on a financially stressed lawyer and part-time high school wrestling coach (Paul Giamatti at his finest) who does the right thing for the wrong reasons when he becomes the surrogate father for a client’s teen-age grandson (Alex Schaffer, arguably the most promising newcomer of 2011).







Moneyball. To be entirely honest, I don’t know nearly enough about the inner workings of The National Pastime to judge whether every minor detail in the storyline – the literally “inside baseball” stuff – is altogether accurate. But I can spot a great movie about dogged persistence and seriocomic obsession when I scout one, and I can tell when a major star (Brad Pitt, take a bow) gives a performance that marks him as a Hall of Fame player, so Moneyball scores a spot in my Top Ten lineup.

Runners–up: Warrior, Buck, Brotherhood, Contagion, We Bought a Zoo, Super 8, Thunder Soul, Rango, Drive and The Artist.

Farewell to Michael Gough (with a little help from George Clooney)

I'm much too busy right now coverng the SXSW Film Festival in Austin to give the late, great Michael Gough -- one of my all-time favorite character actors -- the send-off he richly deserves. For right now, please accept as my tribute the above clip. At around the 2:19 mark, George Clooney and I speak admiringly of his Batman & Robin co-star.

Impossible couples

George Clooney and Grace Kelly? Clark Gable and Madonna? Johnny Depp and Ingrid Bergman? Consider the possibilities considered by Worth 1000. (Hat-tip to John Guidry.)

20 years on with The Show Business Bible

During an especially affecting moment in Spring Forward, one of my favorite films, Ned Beatty – playing a parks and recreation worker on the verge of retirement – marvels to a younger colleague played by Liv Schrieber that, somehow, when he wasn’t looking, several years slipped away: “Time goes by, and it seems like a little time. You turn around, and it was a big time.” How true.

Twenty years is a big time by anybody’s measure. But I’ve had a mostly grand time during my past two decades as a free-lance film critic (and, periodically, theater critic) for Variety, the venerable trade paper that I still think of as The Show Business Bible. That it actually has been two decades is a little disconcerting – has it really been that long? – but never mind. This weekend, it’s also a cause for celebration.

To be precise: My first three free-lance reviews – all of them for films shown at the WorldFest/Houston International Film Festival -- appeared in the weekly edition of Variety dated May 2, 1990. One of the movies just happened to be Red Surf, a melodrama about drug-dealing surfers starring a very young George Clooney. (For the record: the other two were Revenge of the Radioactive Reporter and something called A Girl’s Guide to Sex.) One week later, Variety ran my review of another WorldFest/Houston offering, Chopper Chicks in Zombietown, a spoofy sci-fi B-movie that showcased a very young Billy Bob Thornton in a supporting role. And two weeks after that, I reviewed yet another WorldFest feature: Across the Tracks, a dysfunctional family drama co-starring a very, very young Brad Pitt.

So you see: Right from the start, I’ve specialized in spotting fresh talent for The Show Business Bible. Well, OK: I’ve been lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to spot fresh talent. Thanks to Variety.

I already was gainfully employed as a film critic for the late, great Houston Post when I was approached – by no less a luminary than Peter Bart himself -- to serve as a Variety stringer. But in my mind, writing for Variety – even back when I started, at a time when film critics didn’t receive a full byline – was not just a step up but a leap forward. To put it simply and hubristically, it was, to my way of thinking, a sign that I had arrived. I had made the grade, passed the test, completed my apprenticeship – and somehow gained entry inside a very select circle. I felt I had become part of a grand tradition. And you know what? I still feel that way.

Blame on my misspent youth. Back in the mid-to-late '60s, when I was a high school student in New Orleans, I fortuitously discovered The Show Business Bible in a library and was instantly smitten. In fact, I'm not ashamed to say that, while I was growing up, there was something truly magical to me about Variety, my own private gateway to Hollywood and beyond.

On Fridays -- after school or, quite often, very early in the morning, before classes -- I would take the bus downtown to buy Variety at a newsstand. (It took two days for the weekly edition, then published on Wednesdays, to reach N.O.) I would devour all the reviews of movies and plays and TV shows, all the news about movies in production and box-office hits and misses, and gradually master the Variety-ese slanguage so I could fully understand what to the uninitiated must have seemed like indecipherable code. And, of course, I would marvel at the colossal special-edition issues dedicated to film festivals and year-end wrap-ups, all them filled with dozens of full-page ads for forthcoming movies.

I continued to be awestruck buy The Show Business Bible well into my twenties and beyond. I still have a photo somewhere that my wife took of me during our first trip together to New York in the mid '70s, long after I had begun my professional writing career. It's a picture of me standing in front of the old Variety office near Times Square -- the one with the big Variety logo emblazoned on a huge ground floor window.  I am smiling a great big goofy kid's smile in the picture, like a True Believer enraptured by his proximity to some hallowed shrine.

So, of course, when Peter Bart called more than 15 years later…

I know, I know: Some of you will be quick to dismiss all of this a sentimental blathering, or shameless self-aggrandizing, or both. And that’s your prerogative. For others, it may seem odd, if not downright incomprehensible, for anyone to still feel so emotionally bound to anything so seemingly antiquated as a newspaper. But, hey, that’s my prerogative. Besides: I’ve also been writing web-only reviews for Vaiety.com for quite some time now, so it’s not like I’m exclusively an ink-stained wretch. But I remain, deep down, an analogue guy in a digital world, as my heart continues to beat to the rhythm of a printing press. That may change – well, actually, that must change, eventually – but not too soon, I hope.

This is probably where I should write something about all the notable filmmakers whose first films I reviewed for Variety at various and sundry film festivals. And after that, I guess I should toss out ten or twenty titles of films that I got to review before anybody else thanks to my Variety affiliation. But that really would be self-aggrandizing, and I would deserve every brickbat tossed in my general direction. So I’ll leave it at this: I am deeply grateful that I’ve been a part of the Variety team for the past two decades. And I look forward to my next 20 years with the organization. (Assuming, of course, that they'll have me.) Because even though I know that the day may come when print media as we now know it will go the way of 8-track tapes and VHS movies, I’m sure that Variety, in some form, will survive and thrive. And I hope to remain part of its ongoing tradition.

Good movie, bad timing, terrible events

Much like my Variety colleague Derek Elley, I enjoyed The Men Who Stare at Goats as a satisfyingly quirky mix of straight-faced, off-the-wall absurdism and darkly comical political satire, featuring splendid ensemble work by the exceptionally well cast George Clooney, Jeff Bridges, Ewan McGregor, Kevin Spacey and Stephen Lang. But I must admit: When I viewed the Overture Films release Sunday, I was temporarily shaken by the unfortunate timeliness of a scene in which a berserk solider opens fire at other service personnel at a U.S. Army base.

Mind you, I don’t hold this against the filmmakers, who had no way of knowing their movie would open at theaters and drive-ins everywhere within days – hours, really -- of the tragic events at Fort Hood here in Texas. But I certainly can understand, if not share, the concern of someone like Vanity Fair’s Julian Sancton, who’s wondering whether the unsettling scene should be deleted from all future prints of the film. (It likely would be impossible, Sancton allows, to re-edit the prints already in release – even though, it should be noted, such after-the-fact trimming isn’t unprecedented: A joke about Rev. Martin Luther King was removed from release prints of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner after MLK’s assassination.)

Ironically, George Clooney and I talked about the potential for real-world tragedies affecting audience reactions to reel-world scenarios back in 1997, when I did this TV interview with him for The Peacemaker. That movie, you may recall, dealt with efforts to prevent a grudge-bearing Bosnian from setting off a nuclear device in New York City. Clooney admitted that he and other folks involved with the production had discussed the dreadful possibility that a similar terrorist attack might actually occur before Peacemaker hit theaters. And while they ultimately decided that they couldn’t worry about things over which they had no control, that they could only hope for the best while trying to make the best movie possible, Clooney pointedly noted the box-office failure of SpaceCamp, a 1986 adventure movie – about kids at a NASA summer camp who are accidentally launched into space -- that had the misfortune of opening a few months after the Challenger space shuttle disaster.

Fortunately for all parties involved with The Peacemaker – and for even more parties who had nothing whatsoever to do with the film – no major terrorist incidents occurred in the U.S. before or during the film’s theatrical run. In 2001, however, a broadcast TV airing of The Peacemaker was cancelled at the last minute because of… well, spectacularly bad timing. You see, the movie had been scheduled to air just a few days after Sept. 11.

A few quick words from TIFF

Lightining struck twice for me today during back-to-back press screenings at the Toronto Film Festival. Joel and Ethan Coen's A Serious Man is a low-key, pitch-perfect, straight-faced absurdist dark comedy with a surprisingly affecting impact. And, better still, an ending bound to piss off even more people than the ending of No Country for Old Men. I strongly suspect it will richly reward repeated viewings. The same can be said for Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air, which may be… oh, to hell with equivocation. It is the best movie I have seen so far in 2009. If I see anything better by year’s end, I will be greatly astonished and immensely grateful. But I’ll still probably want to go back and take another look at Reitman’s film – and at George Clooney’s career-highlight performance – just to be absolutely certain the other movie really is better.

More to come...

The Lone Ranger rides again

After reviving the swashbuckler with his fabulously successful Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, producer Jerry Bruckheimer aims to reintroduce a classic Western franchise, The Lone Ranger, with Johnny Depp -- whose maternal grandfather, not incidentally, was Cherokee -- as Tonto, and, reportedly, George Clooney as the guy with the black mask and the silver bullets. Man, I am so there on opening day. My only question is, will they have someone as cool as Jason Robards to ask: "Who is that masked man?"

Batmania

I'm up to something like 15,248 hits over at YouTube for this clip of a 1997 interview I did with George Clooney. I guess everything even remotely connected to Batman is hot-hot-hot right now. You'll notice, though, that some of the comments left by viewers are... well, shall we say, impolite?

George Clooney stalls for Julia Roberts

Hat tip to that hep cat Garth Jowett for this one.

George Clooney times 3

While George Clooney continues to impress moviegoers with his masterful performance in Michael Clayton, I thought it might be a good time to exploit his popularity.... er, I mean, pay tribute to a great actor by dusting off three interviews I taped with him back in 1996-97, during my brief heyday as a Houston TV celebrity.

While discussing From Dusk Till Dawn, his movie breakthrough, he's very funny while talking about co-star Quentin Tarantino (who had directed him in an episode of E.R.). One year later, he's equally enthusiastic about Batman & Robin -- yeah, the film wasn't very good, but that wasn't his fault -- and The Peacemaker (directed by Mimi Leder, another E.R. veteran). If I had to pick a favorite of the three, it would be the middle one, for a reason that won't be readily apparent: My son George, then 10 years old, accompanied me to this taping, and Clooney couldn't have been more charming while briefly chatting with him. ("That's a great first name you got," he told my unabashedly starstruck young'un.)

By the way, you'll notice that, while I have aged considerably since these interviews were taped, Clooney hasn't changed much at all. The dirty dog.

Weekend b.o. report: $15 million for 30 Days

From Fantasy Moguls: More good news for Tyler Perry and George Clooney. From Nikki Finke: Vampires feast, New Line flops -- and The Comebacks lives down to my worst expectations.

Macho love

David Poland has an interesting thread on his blog tied to his provocative Friday column about machismo – or, more specifically, the lack thereof – in this summer’s movies. To quote Poland: “The top five movies of this year are [movies with] male leads [played] by Tobey Maguire, Mike Myers, Johnny Depp, Shia LeBeouf, and Daniel Radcliffe. There might be plenty to love or lust at for any of these men, but machismo is not a part of the equation. They might outthink you, but don't expect to see a fist from a-one of them.”

Poland may have a point (though I would dispute his take on Maguire, if only on the strength of the actor's performance in Ride with the Devil.). But if he does, I would argue that the status quo Poland describes stems from a phenomenon that’s bigger than mere machismo, or the ability to look comfortable (and, more important, effortlessly authoritative) while handling guns. Rather, I would argue that there’s a dearth of contemporary actors in their 20s and 30s who have sufficient gravitas to be taken altogether seriously as…. well, adult males. Even when -- no, make that especially when -- it comes to something as seemingly simple as conveying sufficient self-assured virility to be believable as a grown-up romantic comedy lead.

It reminds me of a conversation I had with producer Lynda Obst just before the release of her How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. She noted that, as odd as it might sound, it was extremely difficult to cast the lead role in her movie, and that Matthew McConaughey – OK, go ahead and laugh if you insist – is one of only a handful of his contemporaries who could make the part work.

Now, remember, we’re not talking about a role of tremendous depth and complexity here. We’re talking about a part that, in his heyday as a rom-com lead, Rock Hudson could have played in his sleep. (Please spare me the closeted-gay jokes – go back and look at Pillow Talk and you’ll see what I mean.) As Obst said: “These days, the hardest thing about making romantic comedies is casting the guy. Casting the woman? Easy. But you always have the same scripts chasing the same six guys – most of whom can’t do it, won’t do it, are afraid to do it [my emphasis added], or can’t get hired by the studio.”

Don’t get me wrong: I think there are plenty of young guys out there right now who can kick ass as efficiently as Humphrey Bogart and John Wayne did in their respective primes. And I've been told by women whose opinion that I respect that Seth Rogan comes across as a cuddly teddy bear. But who among The New Breed is ready to play rakish charmers like Cary Grant or Clark Gable or even James Garner in modern-day rom-coms? Who could do sensitive-yet-substantial like James Stewart? What the hell, who’s got the chops to tackle the Rock Hudson roles? Keanu Reeves made a tentative move in that direction with the unfortunate Sweet November, but he’s over 40. So are George Clooney and John Cusack, two guys who can, when the spirit moves them, do light comedy with Old Hollywood flair. But as for those guys 39 or younger? Well, there’s Will Smith (though, age-wise, he just makes the cut). And maybe (no kidding) LL Cool J, yes, Matthew McConaughey. And…. ?

Cash for candidates

George Clooney has backed Barack Obama. Oliver Stone is putting his money behind Obama and John Edwards. Steven Spielberg has contributed to Edwards, Obama, Hillary Clinton and Bill Richardson. But Jerry Bruckheimer thinks John McCain is the man. Those are just some of the revelations offered by a Wilshire & Washington report on campaign contributions by Hollywood notables.

George Clooney: Action hero

Unlike some of the snootier types here in the blogosphere, I’m not ashamed to say that I shop at Wal-Mart. Indeed, I even have a Wal-Mart credit card (though maybe not for long, if I keep forgetting to mail my monthly payments on time). And I’m positively addicted to trolling the bargain bins and display shelves at various superstores for great deals on marked-down DVDs.

All of which is explains why, while in a Wal Mart today, I happened upon a sale on “action-packed movies” that were “specially priced” – i.e., $4.88 each -- just in time for Father’s Day gift-giving. So I picked up a Two-Disc Special Edition of The Wild Bunch – for my money, still one of the greatest Westerns ever made – and Green Street Hooligans, a gritty Brit football drama directed by Lexi Alexander, the most babe-o-licious filmmaker this side of Mira Nair.

But here’s the inexplicable part: On the same shelf, I also found – and later purchased – a copy of George Clooney’s Good Night, and Good Luck, a movie that, truth to tell, I’ve never really considered “action-packed.” Nor, for that matter, would I use that term to describe Syriana, the flick for which Clooney won his Oscar as Best Supporting Actor. And yet, there it was, in the Father's Day display alongside the other bargain-priced, “action-packed” items. Maybe because of all the explosions and assassinations?