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PRIDE EXPRESSED
George Clooney is proud:
Actor and director George Clooney says he is proud to be denounced as unpatriotic for questioning US policy because he wanted to be on “the right side of history”.
George, if you hadn’t won the genetic chin lottery, you’d be on the serving side of a McDonald’s drive-thru. You ain’t in the movies for your mind, boy.
yes, these lefty actors/comedians often have this distorted view of their own importance and relevance…. and its usually in inverse proportion to what they have actually contributed…
of course these people who often barely made it through drama school and spent long times waiting tables in cafes have the real skinny about how the world should be run, and bravely confront all the terrible plots and machinations to give us their 20 cents worth, while being paid millions into the bargain….
perhaps george needs to talk to Traceeeee about all those tremendous film ideas she had recently…. he may not get the big burgeois (is that how its spelt??) bucks he demands for each job in the US, but he can go back to his Latte set and crow about how fearless he was in stirring up the reactionaries, while insomniacs will have something to cure their ills….
No, the altered, distorted, and misrepresented side of history.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2006 02 28 at 03:03 AM • permalink“That’s really petty, you should be above remarks like that. “
so you actually believe Mr Clooney isn’t employed purely for his looks? that his intellectual achievements have played a significant role in his success?
do tell…
Posted by Harry Buttle on 2006 02 28 at 03:20 AM • permalink1. Good call, Tim! :-D
2. Poster #1 - I hope you’re joking. It’s not petty, it’s the plain and simple truth. George Clooney is a dumbass.
3. Poster #2 - Very true, Casanova!
4. Poster #6 - Adding in Clint Eastwood, I can think of three (along with Reagan and the Governator). Are you somehow implying that being a successful politician means that you have a mind? ;-)Posted by Mr Snuffalupagus on 2006 02 28 at 03:27 AM • permalinkSorry, on a daily basis Tim and other conservative comentators’ (and most of us here) games are well above these bleeding heart lefties…. nothing has to be proved to anyone….
Fudge, they do this by applying logic and common sense to the world’s problems and issues, rather than parroting failed remedies and theories and living noxiously hypocritical lives despising and undermining the countries that they live while enjoying all the benefits they have to offer…
that is why some conservative actors have been able to talk the talk and walk the walk in real government positions, while the overpaid lefty prima donna’s such as Penn, Fonda, Clooney, Sarandon, etc just keep preaching from the sidelines, or else like Sheen, star in their own contrived little pretend presidency where they can come out with the right answer every week and solve all the worlds problems….
as for all the plaudits clooney might get for his tremendous work, he’s preaching to the converted… mike moore won that stupid date palm award at cannes a few years back and he wrote and starred in that sack of distorted shite as well, but don’t hold your breath waiting to hear me sing the praises of that garbage bag either….
Seriously though, ya think Clooney will actually wise up at some point in the next 20 years or so and realize he wasn’t on the right side of history after all? I ain’t gonna hold my breath.
Most actors’ default leftism reminds me of 85-year old retirees who think they’re still voting for the party of FDR when they pull the D lever. There’s no there there, as they say. The retirees at least have old age to blame, what’s the actors’ excuse?
I can think of two former actors who’ve been successful politicians.
Three actors made 2 & 1/2 successful politicians. (Clint was only local so doesn’t fully count)
Their secret of success? They didn’t pretend to be something more than they were. If Clooney stood for office he’d get the votes of the readers of Who Weekly and No Idea & that’s about it. Why? Because he’s got his head up his arse and anyone with an IQ of 50+ knows he’s a self absorbed no talent!!
Posted by Mikie Slats on 2006 02 28 at 04:09 AM • permalink#17 well that ungrateful ass Fonda apologised to the nation and its fighting men for sitting on the NVA anti aircraft gun, so that might lead you to believed they are not without hope (not that i think that excuses what she did but at least she admitted it)...
but then as soon as the US is involved in another war, wasn’t she wanting to get in her bus and go touring around the country speaking out against it again??? so no, i’m not holding out a lot of hope for old George….
They have the money.
They have the solutions.
They have the international standing.
F.A.G. are go !!!Matt Damon…
Why dont they fund Hamas?
Slightly O/T but the ABC is reffering to hamas as a “political organisation” over at 4 corners.Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2006 02 28 at 04:26 AM • permalinkyou have to hand it to them, they’re ingenious in being able to keep coming up with new titles so as to call them anything but what they truly are…
just as long as they don’t call them freedom fighters… they can think it in their cubicles, but just don’t refer to them on air as that… it would be enough to make me gag….
What a peculiar comment from Clooney, purely on the basis that no-one can know which side of history is the “right” side until long after the historical event in question. And even then some little buggers will always pop their heads up to argue the toss on historical interpretation, thus making it so topsy that if you didn’t have your head screwed on straight you wouldn’t be able to figure out what the hell had happened in the past.
Still, ain’t it grand that someone already knows how history will be interpreted and has taken his spot on the correct side.
Hope he’s not too pissed if historians decide otherwise.
I suppose they think they’re all going to be remembered like the intellectuals who were supposedly persecuted during the McCarthy witch hunts of the 1950’s… brave individuals who tried to stand up to government and wouldn’t submit to being told what to think or say no matter the pressure, tried to defend their freedoms under the US constitution… real patriots one and all…
i guess the thought hasn’t crossed their mind they could turn out to be like Charles Lindbergh or like all the nazi sympathisers/appeasers at the start of WW2 who tried to stick their heads in the sand and wanted to come to some accommodation and who definitely turned out to be on the wrong side of history….
The trouble with Clooney and his kind is that they are only as bright as Hollywood is, but they don’t realise it or rise above it. Chaplin was perhaps the last to do that.
So we get his ancient 50s take on Cold War politics in 2006, and he *still* gets it wrong.
And Spielberg by being morally vain and self-important, gets it wrong on Israel’s morality in a permanent war for its survival.
And Jarhead - trying to trash the amazing achievement by the USA in the 1991 Gulf War.
Need I go on?
Hollywood just doesn’t live in the real world.#22: Well, there’s a difference between the “right” side of history and the winner’s side. George seems to think the “right” side is the one that tacitly supports religiously-motivated murderers and assorted totalitarians, although I doubt he even realizes that that’s who he has thrown his lot in with.
On behalf of everybody who was born behind the Iron Curtain and had to put up with people exactly like George who were talking up the Soviets 25 years ago: Thanks for nothing, you vain morons.
If Clooney keeps practicing his politics, one day he might be as good an entertainer as Alexander Downer (It’s Now ro Never) or Colin Powell (YMCA).
Until that day - keep on trying Georgie.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2006 02 28 at 05:01 AM • permalinkHmmm, just reading Jane Fonda’s comments while down here in Oz….. part of them were…
“I have been spending time with Iraq veterans who have come back ... their voices are the most important because the Bush administration can’t say they are unpatriotic.
“We have to support the ones who have been there who say this is wrong. What they are saying is, pull the troops out now.”
Isn’t that wonderful, “have to support the ones who have been there who say this is wrong”.... i imagine its a minority??? so what do you do with all the others??? condemn them?? ignore them??? strap on a suicide vest to show your solidarity with the fanatics???
this b*tch is a realllll slow learner… why someone hasn’t gotten in her face up close and personal and explained it to her is a mystery to me….
Have any of you actually seen Syriana and Good Night and Good Luck, or are you just being reactionary?
Syriana was a heck of a more convincing conspiracy yarn than Fahrenheit 911, as was Lord of War, but as much as much as I despise Mike Moore, I would never call him stupid.
That’s exactly the kind of arrogance trap the Democrats fell into with Bush and that’s exactly why they lost the election.
Learn some humility from it.
PW - the “right” side versus the “winners” side is a bit of a slippery slope. The winner, by quite reasonable traditon, gets to write history, or so they say. I think that tradition has difficulty these days.
Still, back to the point: if, for example, Islam eventually prevails (inclusive of free veils for all), they would be the winners, but in my eyes not at all right. In those circumstances, no-one is going to give a toss that I might be on the “right” side. There’s just not a lot of glory in losing that sort of game, and being right wouldn’t exactly keep me warm & comfy at night.
Hmm, have not expressed any thought with any clarity there. Hmm. See, told you it was a bit of a slippery area. Ooooops…swoosh, there I go!
Syriana was a heck of a more convincing conspiracy yarn than Fahrenheit 911
In other words, ahistorical propaganda has value as long as it’s “convincing”? Check.
I have a stack of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion to sell you…I hear they’re taken to be very convincing in certain parts of the world.
as much as much as I despise Mike Moore, I would never call him stupid.
Fortunately, the rest of us don’t have your apparent inhibitions about saying something that may be perceived as factually-correct-but-not-nice. Though, in this particular case I actually agree that Moore isn’t stupid - the people who believe his output are.
Casanova (#27/28), I see Hanoi Jane says the Iraq War ‘makes her skin crawl’. Funny that’s the effect she’s had on me all these years.
Posted by AlphaMikeFoxtrot on 2006 02 28 at 05:23 AM • permalinkfudge - Syriana was a film of fiction, yes? I gather it’s very good, and I imagine I will see it some day. I have yet to see the other, less ficticious film either.
Perhaps I have misunderstood entirely, and I didn’t realise that other people in this thread were actually providing film reviews - but for me, well, I was commenting on Clooney’s non-filmic statements, not his script written discourse, which I’m sure is snappy, convincing, and entertaining.
Perhaps it’s a limitation of my intellect that I can separate an actor’s personal statements from his or her ficticious job roles. But I will try harder to confuse the two.
It is the blending of fact and fiction in a political spin movie that is distasteful. Then it is just propaganda, and one who produces propaganda is suspect in his private life and public comments as well. If you want to keep yourself above politics, do so. But mix the art and the politics and you will be judged on the political level, not the artistic. I am confident that ck will try harder to confuse things if it serves the cause.
If Clooney wants to be on the right side of history then why doesn’t he simply try to run for public office. If the voters love him as much as he thinks they do then he’s a shoe in. Maybe he can be another Ron Reagan on the left side of history.
Hmmm. President George Timothy Clooney….aunty would be pleased
A long held egotism amongst artists is to deny the obvious populism and commerciality of their work. They like to project their motivation as defined, instead, in terms of the pursuit of such mystical goals as artistic integrity and purity. This can lead, in turn, to a perceived imperative to continually reaffirm the idea that the artist has not lost sight of the struggling roots of his or her success. The basket weaver’s anti-capitalist reflex, perhaps.
But filmmaking is not just business, it is very big business. As they cast their shadow across the political landscape it’s as if actors, writers, directors and producers alike are trapped in some anachronistic vortex of working class self-justification.
Hmm. ‘Art for art’s sake and your chicks for free.’
#29 Oliver Kamm, a pro-war lefty, on Syriana
‘...its caricature of international politics is so extreme that it might as well have been made as a cartoon. When Michael Moore won his award for the mendacious Fahrenheit 9/11, someone termed it “Chomsky for Dummies”. Syriana is Michael Moore for those who find the genuine article too learned and allusive.’“Clooney wrote the screenplay, acted and directed Good Night and Good Luck.”
Writing and directing a hagiography of media-hero Edward R. Murrow, which credits him with a far greater role in the downfall of media-villain Sen. Joseph McCarthy than he deserves, hardly makes Clooney brave, talented, or intelligent.
In the age of the evil BushMcChimpHitler, film critics would be unlikely to criticize a film praising Murrow and attacking McCarthy, but ten years from now no one will watch it. The pacing is terrible, the black and white is annoyingly artsy and pretentious, and having actors stare at the screen commenting on real life is a conceit that doesn’t work.
The film is a mess. Example: Clooney ignores the homosexual relationship between Roy Cohn and G. David Schine that ultimately lead to McCarthy’s downfall, but takes a cheap shot at Liberace!
McCarthy’s support was bi-partisan and went far beyong William F. Buckley and some obscure columnist, as implied in the film. Sen. John F. Kennedy asked in 1954, “How could I demand that Joe McCarthy be censured for things he did when my own brother [Robert] was on his staff?” And, strange though it may seem, Roy Cohn was also a Democrat.
Syriana is a crap film, too.
Does anyone really think Clooney is getting these jobs based on his talent as a writer and director?
Posted by Bruce Rheinstein on 2006 02 28 at 08:24 AM • permalinkClooney wrote the screenplay, acted and directed Good Night and Good Luck. It’s presently rated 7.9 out of 10 on IMDB.
So he can write agitprop. Doesn’t mean he can think. Argues against it, in fact.
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2006 02 28 at 08:24 AM • permalinkI love it. Someone who admires a rich, arrogant, stuck-on-himself actor lecturing us on humility.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2006 02 28 at 08:27 AM • permalink#34It’s George’s right to criticise His comment, the subject of this post, is not a criticism but a self-serving, vain and empty boast extolling his own virtues, presenting himself, as lefties do, in the pose as victim and hero at the same time, while raking in the moola from gullible idiots.
#29, The trouble with fudge it sometimes gets icky and stuck on stupid. You actually believe the Defeatocrats lost the last election overwhelmongly because they called GWB stupid? No wonder you think Clooney has a brain!Have any of you actually seen Syriana and Good Night and Good Luck, or are you just being reactionary?
I have not seen them for the same reason I have not seen “The Passion of the Christ.” Is that “reactionary”? Or is it just not wasting your time and money on something that is made by - and primarily for - true believers and thus far more interesting to them than to you?
Syriana was a heck of a more convincing conspiracy yarn
Convincing conspiracy yarn? That’s an oxymoron, no? Conspiracy theories are a priori unconvincing to anyone with a fully-functioning cerebellum.
Syriana was a heck of a more convincing conspiracy yarn than Fahrenheit 911
So even the mouth-breathers believed Syriana?
as was Lord of War
Ah. A bit of propaganda straight from the Communist playbook of 1913. You were convinced by it?
but as much as much as I despise Mike Moore, I would never call him stupid.
Really? Why not?
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2006 02 28 at 08:33 AM • permalinkThe film is a mess. Example: Clooney ignores the homosexual relationship between Roy Cohn and G. David Schine that ultimately lead to McCarthy’s downfall, but takes a cheap shot at Liberace!
I’d bet there’s an old family rivalry there. Clooney’s aunt (God bless her) probably had a suitor stolen by Liberace.
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2006 02 28 at 08:36 AM • permalinkVisit Good Night Modern Liberalism to read a fisking of George Clooney’s deluded view of his side of history.
No doubt he believes it to be true, but that’s why most of the rest of us value conversation. Growing up means gaining enough experience to appreciate that sometimes you think you are correct when you are mistaken. It’s called humility and it’s why you don’t take offense when someone pokes fun at your beliefs in a cartoon.
#52 Sweet Fudge soured! You’ve exposed yourself (as did DBO) by the typical leftoid response to facts, throw out the “Ah’m so much bettah than yah ahre, so Ah Cahnnaht mahke response to yahr crudahties”. Worked for Bette Davis on the screen, but it doesn’t operate in reality. OOPS! Forgot, you can’t tell the difference. Well, answer my question in #46, if you can. Do you believe that the Democrats lost the last election because they called GWB stupid?
Hey people, don’t you know that every time you criticise an actor, God kills a kitten?
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2006 02 28 at 09:54 AM • permalinkClooney couldn’t hold a soiled piece of underwear of Barrymore, Tracy, Stewart, Grant, Bogart, Fonda. Oh yeah, toss in the monotone person they referred to as The Duke and a few others.
Some of the above named MAY have been, hmmm, what’s the nice word for communist…oh yeah socialist/progressive ...BUT the above named were ACTORS…Clooney while…a socialist/progressive, is damn sure no ACTOR.
I am overcome with awe!
Hanoi Jane has deigned to visit the culturally deprived peasants in Oz and shitcan our soldier’s role in the ME.Thanks dropkick, still sitting on the literary anti aircraft gun and giving aid and comfort to the enemy, I see.
I really take a whole heap of notice of what American actors have to say. They are so full of wisdom and stuff.
Posted by Pedro the Ignorant on 2006 02 28 at 10:31 AM • permalinkfudge, you’ve bought into the same claptrap that Clooney and many other denizens of Hollywood have: that being a successful actor means you are important.
Being a successful actor means you are popular. There’s a difference, and it ain’t subtle.
Actors (and actresses) are performers first and foremost. Some can sing and dance, but the majority of them stand on a set or stage, and make us believe that their lines are original and spontaneous. Add in some special effects as needed, and you have a sucessful movie. Sometimes those lines are delivered using sex appeal and little else. A good performer can make it all real.
That he has some reasonably successful films under his belt does not make Clooney a world class genius. It just means that some people like his acting. He was good on “ER”; I think he crapped out when he moved to the big screen, and started to stand out on his (limited) abilities.
It’s his personal opinion he is on the “right side of history”; his vanity prompts him to declare it in an interview like his opinion is the center of the universe. That he expresses his opinion in such an arrogant manner simply sets him up for a bigger fall.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 02 28 at 10:38 AM • permalinkClooney’s movies may be cinematic gems, for all I know, and he may be skillful at his craft. That doesn’t make his opinions on areas outside his expertise more valid than the opinions of any other similarly intelligent person. Einstein rather fatuously supported One-World government, Henry Ford was a galloping anti-semite, and Edmund Wilson was one of a huge herd of intellectuals who thought the Soviet Union was the wave of the future. People in the public eye have as much right to speak out as anybody else, but because they are, to a certain extent, provided with a “bully pulpit” by virtue of their notoriety, they should be particularly careful to show some of that humility that Fudge exhorts the rest of us to embrace.
One last point: can one ever be certain of being permanently “on the right side of history”? Does this mean the just side, or the winning side? It strikes me that the allied endeavor in Iraq is the just side, regardless of whether or not it ultimately turns out to be the winning side. If Clooney had been an American looking at the European situation in 1940, which side, by all appearances, would have looked like the winning side? Would he have supported it for that reason alone?
I suppose they think they’re all going to be remembered like the intellectuals who were supposedly persecuted during the McCarthy witch hunts of the 1950’s…
Casanova — Check out the book “Backstory”, it’s a collection of interviews with screenwriters from the 30’s and 40’s and 50’s. Interesting little reality check on those “persecuted intellectuals” by their peers…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 02 28 at 11:14 AM • permalinkI expect to see this kind of peurile bitter nonsense on Indymedia but this site.
Of course Clooney is important. He’s an A List Celebrity, and a fine actor.
There’s hardly a door in the world that’s closed to him. And your wife/girlfriend would jump into bed with him without a second’s consideration.
So frankly, all your pompous protestations that he’s not special enough for you, just make you all look a bit sad and jealous to me, regardless of his politics.
I enjoyed Syriana immensely and judged it the same way I judge any political thriller. The reason I say it’s more convincing than F 911 is because you know it’s fiction, you know it’s fantasy, but you understand the machinations are not that far removed from reality. Which makes you think just a little bit more on the subject.
And that’s all he wants you to do, not shove prepackaged dogma down your throat, ala Mike Moore.
Give him a break. Whether or not he’s wrong, or just wrong in your eyes, the bloke has class. Just ask your missus.
“George, if you hadn’t won the genetic chin lottery, you’d be on the serving side of a McDonald’s drive-thru. You ain’t in the movies for your mind, boy. “
I did not know I could spit coffee on my monitor and wet my pants laughing at the same time.
Thanks, Tim, this site is a constant journey of self-discovery for me.Exasperated with my brother, my mother once asked me to explain to him the difference between fantasy and reality. To her chagrin I replied, “Well, reality is fantasy that just hasn’t happened yet.”
The problem with Clooney’s understanding of “the right side of history” is that his recollection of it doesn’t match what happened. The problem is not his movies, but that likewise, his audience doesn’t care to distinguish the fantasy from what really happened.
Fantasy is a marvellous human escape, but if you are trying to plan a better future, it is essential to be able to distinguish that fantasy from reality. Clooney doesn’t. Do his supporters?
I already delivered a screed to Clooney elsewhere, so all I have to say is that his aunt was a superb vocalist, both in quality of voice and stylistically. I can almost hear her now:
The shore was kissed by sea and mist, tenderly
I can’t forget how two hearts met, breathlessly
Your arms opened wide and closed me inside
You took my lips, you took my love so tenderlyLovely.
(PS> anti-communist hysteria in the United States of the 1950s It wasn’t all just hysteria, ya know. There were a few beds with commies under ‘em.
Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2006 02 28 at 12:08 PM • permalinkWell, fudge, my husband’s wife would do no such thing.
Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2006 02 28 at 12:12 PM • permalink#62: A pretty brazen assumption on your part concerning the general laxity of morality in the world today, to think that anyone’s wife or girl friend would jump into bed with Clooney (“without a second’s consideration”, yet!). Sounds to me like you’ve got some kind of monumental crush on the guy that is clouding your judgement - at least on matters of taste (surely you must see the fatuity of assuming that every woman would necessarily share your views concerning his physical charms). In any event, I think the Real Jeff is right: there’s a mighty big difference between being popular and being important.
Of course Clooney is important. He’s an A List Celebrity, and a fine actor.
There’s hardly a door in the world that’s closed to him. And your wife/girlfriend would jump into bed with him without a second’s consideration.
So frankly, all your pompous protestations that he’s not special enough for you, just make you all look a bit sad and jealous to me, regardless of his politics.
Well, if you want to admire him, fine, go right ahead. Clearly your criteria for being “important” is
lowerdifferent than mine.And as for “pompous”.....well, pot, kettle, etc.
But I’m trying to figure out how him being a sex symbol makes him important. Is this an example of the Monica Lewinksy School Of Leadership?
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 02 28 at 12:19 PM • permalinkThe bloke has class. Just ask your missus.
Fudge, since I am the missus, I asked myself. I would never jump into bed with George Clooney. First of course, I have vowed to be faithful to my husband. (Some of us do that and mean it.) Secondly, GC would probably be screaming out his own name. And last of all, eventually he’d probably want to talk.
62. Fudge: Of course Clooney is important. He’s an A List Celebrity…
Let us now haze famous men.
Posted by chinesearithmetic on 2006 02 28 at 12:21 PM • permalinkOne last point: can one ever be certain of being permanently “on the right side of history”? Does this mean the just side, or the winning side? It strikes me that the allied endeavor in Iraq is the just side, regardless of whether or not it ultimately turns out to be the winning side. If Clooney had been an American looking at the European situation in 1940, which side, by all appearances, would have looked like the winning side? Would he have supported it for that reason alone?
That’s the interesting and scary part of Clooney’s statement. I’m quite sure he means “right” = “just”. (Remember, artsy liberals don’t care about being on the winner’s side if they can’t assert their moral superiority at the same time.) I guess that’s the problem when one’s moral horizon doesn’t extend beyond “WAR ALWAYS BAD!”, as is the case for most of these self-important actors.
Of course Clooney is important. He’s an A List Celebrity, and a fine actor.
Snort. He’s a dime a dozen actor who just happened to catch a few career breaks that hundreds of other, equally well qualified actors didn’t.
And I’m saying that as somebody who generally likes his acting skills. But trying to assert that a) “being an A List Celebrity” has any actual meaning whatsoever beyond the pages of the yellow press, and b) that it makes him “important”, of all things, just indicates you’re a rather shallow person with a fetish for celebrity worship.
I will say one thing in George Clooney’s favor. His beliefs are genuine and were not adopted due to peer pressure from the Hollywood establishment to conform to their ways of thinking (on politics, social issues, sexuality issues, religion, the War Against Terrorism) or suffer the consequences.
His father, Nick Clooney, is a fairly popular and well known ex-news anchorman in Cincinnati. He currently writes a weekly column for the Cincinnati Post and has written several blistering columns critical of George Bush, the invasion of Iraq, and conservatism in general.
Although I thorougly disagree with Nick and his views, I will say that they are well considered and explained. George is simply a fruit that fell from the same lemon tree.
Posted by wronwright on 2006 02 28 at 12:41 PM • permalinkI enjoyed Syriana immensely and judged it the same way I judge any political thriller. The reason I say it’s more convincing than F 911 is because you know it’s fiction, you know it’s fantasy, but you understand the machinations are not that far removed from reality.
I think that’s indicative of the real reason you enjoyed Syriana: a somewhat tenuous grasp on actual reality.
There’s hardly a door in the world that’s closed to him. And your wife/girlfriend would jump into bed with him without a second’s consideration.
Which item of furniture they will promptly vacate, shrieking, having encountered Mr. or Ms. Fudge firmly ensconced therein. It’s nice of you to offer to share, fudge, but remember not all ladies are into threesomes.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2006 02 28 at 12:55 PM • permalinkOk, I was willing to assume, for the sake of argument, that Clooney was moderately intelligent, but after reading his own comments quoted in the article linked by sbw under #51 above, I can only conclude that he’s, er, grossly uninformed on matters of historical significance about which he has decided to opine. His political posturing I take to be little more than a variation of the actor’s natural affinity for the mirror.
#1, fudge. Murdered kittens aside, are you trying to cheat George Clooney out of his hard-earned derision?
I find this whole celebrity-worship bit ridiculous. I’m certainly not going to base my political views, or any other views, on the utterances of some actor, popular or not. Actors (and sports figures, btw) are there to entertain me, nothing more, and in most cases, they’re vastly overpaid to do it.
Also, re: jumping into bed with George. Never was tempted. I found the whole “golly-gee ducking of the head, to shy to look you in the eye” persona off-putting and contrived. Clooney has too many tics and mannerisms for me even to enjoy his acting.
wronwright, didn’t Nick Clooney run for Congress in the last election? I seem to remember George imploring voters not to take any bad opinions they might have about him out on his dad. By the time the election rolled around, I had forgotten about it, but obviously he didn’t win. Oh well.
Norman Lear interviewing George Clooney. What a hoot. Clooney has some real strange ideas about conservatism (guess he doesn’t realize that modern conservatives are classical liberals). Clooney doubtlessly demonstrates a dearth of depth.
Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2006 02 28 at 01:25 PM • permalinkfudge, I am of the female persuasion, and I can assure you I would not hop into bed with George Clooney, even after a billion seconds’ worth of thought. He’s good at reading what other people write, and competent at writing. Competent. Not Shakespeare, or even Stephen King. And I just ain’t seeing that mythical charm.
Competency and a chin get you a movie deal, not a membership in MENSA.
As for being on the right side of history, I mean, is he really thinking little schoolchildren will pick up their electronic newspapers, replete with pics of Big Sister Margok, hundreds of years from now and read about his bravery in making a couple of films and bitching in interviews about how dumb Bush was? Yeesh.
#62 Fudge. Clooney important? Albert Einstein is important, Feynman is important (he made no movies, ever hear of him?), George W. Bush is important, and so on. Clooney? He’s a mediocre sespooliane who couldn’t even hold a candle to Cary Grant, who also was unimportant. Gee, Fudge, I don’t know what kind of miss-us/girlfried/bi-friend you have but if she/he/it would jump onto Glooney’s glams, think how she’d leap if she ever encountered an 25year old, sweaty, tatooed oil worker on leave from the offshore platforms, a real man instead of the perfumed, poumpaded, plastered with makeup fop you crave so longingly.
(I did ask my missus about him. Always do what I’m told. Her response. “He reminds me of those callow fresman at the University who, when coming into my office to complain, always do so with artificial charm and end up by screeching at me about how much money their parents have and they wont let the f****** university get away with dissing their young. I don’t know anyone who get close to such a swarmy thing.”)Gah! Just read the link from #51—this clodpate thinks that the people who hanged or crushed “witches” in Salem were conservatives? Read a fucking history book, George, you moron, not The Crucible. There’s such a huge difference in the thinking from the 1690’s to now…fudge, your hero has a head of clay.
#82 Kyda,
Yes, that’s right. Nick ran for a Congressional seat in Kentucky. (The Clooneys are residents of a beautiful small town in Kentucky about 30 miles from Cincinnati. A few years back I took the family on a Sunday drive to Ripley, a small town on the north side of the Ohio River. Had a fantastic meal for six for $50!!! Dessert at a malt shop down the street afterwards. Then took a ferry across to Augusta. Very friendly town. Unfortunately, on the drive back, the family car was hit by a 12 point buck deer, causing significant damage to my car. But that $50 dinner was worth it!)
What was I speaking about? Oh yeah.
Yes, Nick ran for Congress, and actually I supported his candidacy—passively: I couldn’t vote, didn’t contribute any money, but I did say to my wife one night that I hope Nick wins.
Unfortunately he didn’t. Kentucky, a formerly diehard Democratic state, is conservative and slowly turning Republican. So he was shellacked by his opponent.
Pity. I wouldn’t mind seeing Nick speaking his mind in Congress. He’s a very smart guy and a very friendly person.
Posted by wronwright on 2006 02 28 at 01:54 PM • permalinkThe reason I say it’s more convincing than F 911 is because you know it’s fiction, you know it’s fantasy, but you understand the machinations are not that far removed from reality. Which makes you think just a little bit more on the subject.
Uh-huh.
You really think the “machinations” in Syriana have any relation to the real world?
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2006 02 28 at 02:06 PM • permalinkFor the rest of you, pop quiz on politics in film: what did you think of Zhang Yimou’s Hero?
Liked the aesthetics very much (enough so that I watched it again when it made its free-TV premiere here the other day, as it happens), though the story was a bit minimalistic for my tastes…I suspect my mind just isn’t quite as accessible to the Eastern Asian way of film-making. I just presumed the entire story to be fiction, at any rate, given that it’s not exactly the kind of thing that tends to be found in historical accounts. I’m sure you can enlighten us on the finer points of it, though.
If you’re alluding to the controversy over how it allegedly promotes collectivism and “the state over the individual” attitudes, I seem to recall that Zhang Yimou and the producers expressly denied that it was supposed to be commentary (positive or otherwise) on modern-day China. Clooney, on the other hand, is making movies with the express purpose of commentating on today’s issues. And in the process he butchers historical accounts in the name of Hollywood Liberalism while pretending (certainly in a wink-wink, nudge-nudge way, if not expressly so) to historical accuracy. As does most of Hollywood, of course…would anybody like to defend the abomination that was Alexander?
Clooney important? Albert Einstein is important, Feynman is important (he made no movies, ever hear of him?), George W. Bush is important, and so on. Clooney?
Submitted: Gary Gygax has provided humanity with more hours of entertainment than Clooney. Robert Heinlein did more to further humanity than Clooney ever will.
It’s not hard to be more important than Clooney. He’s a fricking entertainer. Fame is not importance. The guys running the water treatment plants for NYC are more important, but I doubt they’ll ever be famous.
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2006 02 28 at 02:14 PM • permalinkAt any rate, I don’t consider Clooney a bad person or anything over this, just self-important and grossly uninformed. Guess he’s joining Ben Affleck on my list of “actor guys who seem nice enough but who I’d really like to get a clue someday”.
Some twits like Michael Moore and Tim Robbins can just go straight to hell, though, as far as I care.
Okay, one more post, and then I’ll shut up:
I’ve never understood exactly why GWB is so despised by liberals. He’s become an internationalist due to 9/11, he spends federal money like a drunken sailor (even on state issues such as education), he has the most minority-friendly cabinet ever, he’s not averse to getting the government involved in the economy, and he’s not particularly gungho about border security and immigration issues.
The only thing he doesn’t do is surrender America to the murderers and terrorists. The latter seems to be the one party plank that separates today’s liberals from the JFK liberals. And as I said in #17, an otherwise well-meaning guy like George still thinks he’s supporting JFK-era liberalism, while in actuality he’s unwittingly throwing his support to the enemies of everything he holds dear who have subverted the “liberalism” label.
I thought Hero was an excellent movie, myself, even with the English subtitles (which I usually find distracting). I can’t say it’s historically accurate, but certainly China has had major problems with unity throughout its bloody history, and somehow kept things moving for a very long time.
And I’d like to add my comment to PWs. I think Clooney is a clueless fool, but I don’t dislike him as a person, or an actor. I originally thought he should have stayed in TV production, but he seems to have made progress in that arena, so good on him. And he’s not a manipulative scammer like Michael Moore; he honestly believes in what he says.
But, in the end, Clooney is simply an actor with delusions of grandeur who desires adulation. If he stayed with what he knew (i.e., acting), I probably would never have thought about him again, except when a new movie of his came out. But, seemingly, that wasn’t enough for him, and he drank the same Kool-aid other Hollywood fools (Jane Fonda, Vanessa Redgrave, Martin Sheen, etc, etc, ad nauseum) have.
He has earned his ridicule, and by God, I will give it to him.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 02 28 at 02:44 PM • permalinkPW, why did you have to bring up Alexander? One of my heroes is A the Great. I’m a Classical Studies Minor—admire him for his impressive manner of warfare, his singlemindedness, his sense of his own destiny.
The movie—gay camp is at least funny. Alexander ain’t even got that. Hell, even Stone’s fanstasy machinations (cough) about Kennedy’s assassination was at least funny…
“For the rest of you, pop quiz on politics in film: what did you think of Zhang Yimou’s Hero?”
That unless George Clooney was in the movie that it’s totally fucking off-topic, and if you do it again, mhar, I’ll ban you. Try to concentrate.
By the way, here is my heterosexual female opinion on the studly good looks of George Clooney: that permanent smirk and perpetual five-o’clock shadow look never turned me on, and if I wanted someone with a big chin I’d rather take Jay Leno. At least he’s made me laugh a couple of times. By the way, I have no opinion the Cloon’s acting abilities whatsoever, never having seen anything he’s ever been in, and that includes that doctor series, but something tells me actors with real abilities don’t try to overcompensate by branching out into areas beyond their expertise. Does anyone really remember how Laurence Olivier voted? I certainly don’t recall the subject ever being raised.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2006 02 28 at 03:22 PM • permalinkAndrea, I’m surprised at your reaction to the Hero diversion; I thought the tone was conversational and not agenda-driven. What are the guidelines?
Posted by chinesearithmetic on 2006 02 28 at 03:46 PM • permalinkClooney recently had a slanging match with Russell Crowe in the tabloids. He criticized Crowe for having a rock band, TOFOG, and said that Crowe should use his celebrity for good causes, not for his personal vanity.
My thought at the time was, at least Russell Crowe knows what he is good at and what he enjoys doing: entertaining.
Vanity is believing you have been annointed to tell people how to vote.Posted by daddy dave on 2006 02 28 at 03:51 PM • permalink79
what did you think of Zhang Yimou’s Hero?
I think it disappeared from the theaters WAY too quick! Like, before I got a chance to see it, and I really wanted to.
Posted by Stoop Davy Dave on 2006 02 28 at 04:05 PM • permalinkI think it disappeared from the theaters WAY too quick!
And you guys didn’t even get to see it (or not see it, as it were) until like a year and a half after I did, too. ;) That whole will-they-won’t-they song and dance by the US distributor was a bit of a disgrace.
And none of that subtitling stuff for me, either…hurray for a well-established and very competent dubbing industry. Okay, enough O/T-ness.
I thought the tone was conversational and not agenda-driven.
It seemed to me that the agenda was to show us as hypocrites who rail against propaganda in some movies and not in others. Well, nevermind the vast difference between the two directors’ stated goals, I guess. At any rate, I’m rating mhar’s diversion a C+...bonus points for picking a movie I’ve actually seen, which isn’t exactly a given these last few years.
fudge:“Of course Clooney is important. He’s an A List Celebrity, and a fine actor.
There’s hardly a door in the world that’s closed to him. And your wife/girlfriend would jump into bed with him without a second’s consideration.”
fudge you sound like you bin bitten by the celebrity bug that’s taken over america. i know celebrities are a big deal over there and that grown men swoon and fall about in their presence, but in reality celebrities are just objects invented by the media to bring a little ray of sun shine into peoples’ dull lives.Anhyoo, Hero was nothing other than a bullshit Communist propaganda, so I am unsurprised you liked it The_Real_JeffS
Oh, still going O/T, mhar? Interesting that you think it’s Communist bullshit. Maybe so, maybe not, but it was a compelling story of unity versus chaos….which struck a chord in me regarding the Blue State versus Red State fiasco. Not “unity” = “bloody handed Communist/facist dictatorship”, but “unity” = “we have our differences and our common values”. Even a broken watch is right twice a day, y’know!
And add in the clearly faked fights, and y’know, the entire movie ended up mostly as entertainment. A political message, or at least one to be taken seriously? Only to the immature and incompetent.
Well, that’s just me talking.
As to being unsurprised…what, are you trying to set me off by accusing me of being a communist in all but name? Please! That is total bullshit. I know better, and so do you. Or should, if your acdemic credentials are genuine. After that last comment, I think you are simply trolling for a fight.
I ain’t gonna oblige you. If you can’t control your compulsion to post here, contact Bloggers Anonymous™. Or Andrea can ban your sorry intellectual ass. Macht nichts to me.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 02 28 at 05:06 PM • permalink“Hero was nothing other than a bullshit Communist propaganda, so I am unsurprised you liked it The_Real_Jeff”
Very strange thing to say; even if intended facetiously, I don’t see what point he/she was trying to make. But, while we’re on the subject, I might as well ask, Real Jeff: are you now, or have you ever been . . .
Andrea, I’m surprised at your reaction to the Hero diversion
That’s me, always full of surprises.
I thought the tone was conversational and not agenda-driven.
You have obviously not encountered mhar4 on this website before. Or perhaps you have forgotten his last comment-hijackry.
What are the guidelines?
Well, numbers 1 through 99 are “Don’t piss off the admin.”
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2006 02 28 at 05:35 PM • permalinkCan someone cite where and by whom Clooney was called “unpatriotic?”
Frankly, I don’t care if George parades naked up and down Sunset Boulevard singing “Stars & Stripes Forever.” My problem isn’t with his political ideology, it’s with the inflated ego that seems to believe anyone gives a rat’s ass what he thinks.
I didn’t see Syriana, but I did see it’s premise. Let’s see…the CIA undermines a Middle Eastern government…hahahahahahaha! Must be a comedy!
“are you trying to set me off by accusing me of being a communist in all but name?”
I hold in my hand a list of 205 card-carrying George Clooney fans in the State Department.
(sorry)
Posted by Bruce Rheinstein on 2006 02 28 at 05:59 PM • permalinkI suppose #106 provided enough evidence to answer the “conversational vs. agenda-driven” question about mhar’s motivations. Really sad, too…only the second thread he has participated in, and his shtick is already boring. Anyway…
Let’s see…the CIA undermines a Middle Eastern government…hahahahahahaha! Must be a comedy!
What I’d really like to see is a movie about duplicitous U.S. State Department officials undermining American allies abroad. Think our brave Hollywood dissenters will take on that one any time soon?
111. Andrea, thanks for clarifying.mhar4, we’ll meet again, and I won’t be so kind.
Posted by chinesearithmetic on 2006 02 28 at 06:11 PM • permalinkCool Hand Clooney:
Warden - Now why djoo go cut the heads off them parking meters? And make them commi-nist movies and such?
George - I’m on the right side of history.
Warden - The clinkin’ of them chains will remi-ind you of what arm talkin’ about. You ain’t in the movies for you mi-ind, boy.
George - What we have here is a failure to communicate.
<Shot rings out>Hamish, no, I’m not under the bed. mhar4 may think I’m in the closet, but that’s his problem.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 02 28 at 07:32 PM • permalinkI also will be witholding my final opinion on US policy until I hear what Paris Hilton has to say.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2006 02 28 at 07:39 PM • permalinkActually, I don’t mind that actors and entertainers have political beliefs and take every opportunity to express them. It’s a free world (well, except in Mohommedland). They have every right to say what they want and I will defend it till my last dying breath, as long as I don’t have to get up from my lazy boy chair, or have to do anything that vaguely hints of effort, and it doesn’t cost me anything. So, yes, basically my support is limited to me saying I support it, here, right now. But I think that makes me the Voltaire of the 21st Century nonetheless. Although I’m not a French poof, don’t wear a powdered wig, and go prancing around like the French are wont to do.
Where was I? Oh yeah.
But I do have a problem with actors, entertainers, writers, producers, and the heads of movie and television studios and production companies channeling their over-the-top biased views into movies, TV shows, and plays that completely distorts the historical facts, the background, the issues, or the context of certain topics, anoiting one side as the good morally correct side, and the other as greedy, evil, and basically, the devil incarnate.
That was my problem with CBS News Starring Dan Rather. West Wing is a close second.
Posted by wronwright on 2006 02 28 at 08:02 PM • permalinkFudge, packing it [on] in defence of Syriana:
“The reason I say it’s more convincing than F 911 is because you know it’s fiction, you know it’s fantasy, but you understand the machinations are not that far removed from reality”
...And a heroic little bit of Socialist Realism it was.
I suspect the Fudgester didn’t really intend to transmit that he considered the ‘importantly chinned one’s’ cinematic fellation of Chomsky and Eisenstein to be, in essence, fake but accurate.
What I’d really like to see is a movie about duplicitous U.S. State Department officials undermining American allies abroad. Think our brave Hollywood dissenters will take on that one any time soon?
Have you ever tried to come up with a believable plot with stuff like this in it? It’s damned near impossible, largely because the film universe has reflexively made the maverick and idealist the “hero”.
Hollywood would take that idea and make it “idealistic young diplomat takes stand against jingoistic/warmongering/fascist administration”. So what if he’s breaking the law, he’s doing it because he believes it. So what if the administration has information he doesn’t that makes his position not only a farce, but support for the wrong side, he’s the lone wolf, that makes him romantic.
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2006 02 28 at 08:52 PM • permalinkOf course Clooney is important. He’s an A List Celebrity, and a fine actor.
I thought this was said in jest but now I do believe fudge was serious!!
That’s a worry.
Posted by Mikie Slats on 2006 02 28 at 09:10 PM • permalinkAre you somehow implying that being a successful politician means that you have a mind? ;-)
Its what Im always saying about actors vs politicians : the politicos may end up still running off at the mouth and proving them to be just as stupid as any actor who just walked off the lot (Sheila “We already put a flag on Mars/this room is carnivorous” Jackson Lee, anyone?) but they have at least gone through the crucible of an election - which instantly makes them far more credible than cLooney et al.
On second thought, though, considering that Lee is consistently returned to office (I guess her constituency loves to see her hogging the isle during SOTU addresses), I may have nullified whatever point I was making…
but still - I dont care that an actor gets out there to exhibit a diarrhea of the mouth on some such subject they have little influence on. Its when they bully their way into legal proceedings (like for Tookie Williams) and try to override democratically decided laws just because they have a few “caring” celebrities who think they are more compassionate than the people who sat on the jury and heard the whole case through. Its those times that they need to be reminded that even nefarious and suspicious politicians have more credibility than they do!
Posted by Sharon_Ferguson on 2006 02 28 at 09:41 PM • permalinkJust posting this in the right thread for the hell of it…
What the likes of Clooney always forget is that many actors of opinion and political activism in the past had some genuine real world accomplishments to point to.
Reagan, for example, was a skilled union negotiator, well known even by his opponents for the ability to distill a complicated argument down to its essentials. And while everyone likes to point and laugh at his instructional films in WWII, he was also significantly involved in the program to develop the Combat Information Center concept for the Navy, a command and control system still in use sixty years later.
George Clooney has nothing comparable on his resume, nor do most of his peers.
To which I add, the ability to read a press release and respond with outrage may get you a job as a Democratic senator, but it’s no qualification to lead a country.
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 02 28 at 11:25 PM • permalinkIsn’t it a little early to judge whether one’s on the “right side of history”???
That is the presumption I find most gawling about anti-war critics. I think Mr Clooney might just find himself in some respects on the ‘wrong’ side of history. At the very least in those histories written by Kurds.
I wonder how much of a smirk would be left on Mr Clooney’s face after Hitchens has roughed him up with some well delivered arguments.
Posted by dover_beach on 2006 03 01 at 02:07 AM • permalinkAn example of inflated celebrity ego from Oz.
Peter Garrett, a pop singer with strong green/left agenda (as well as an act that strongly resembles terminal Parkinson’s Disease) was asked to perform with his band at the Closing Ceremony of the Olympic Games in Sydney 2000.
Approximately 20,000 performers in the opening/closing ceremonies and volunteers throughout the Games somehow managed to keep their political views to themselves for the duration.
But guess who thought HIS views were so important that he wore a “sorry” (that’s an anti-Howard jibe) T shirt during the performance?
Posted by Stop Continental Drift! on 2006 03 01 at 05:35 AM • permalinkClooney is important because he was an A-List actor? Come on. His aunt may have been a good singer, but no one listened to her for her opinions.
Before the overrated ER began, George Clooney was bounced around from sitcom to sitcom (he was on The Facts of Life and Roseanne, and neither one suffered once they threw him out on his expendable behind) either getting fired for being a crashing bore or the show was cancelled. Somehow, that awful NBC medical drama made him a star, but I can’t see why. The guy has no charisma, no talent, and even less sex appeal than Rosie O’Donnell. He is one of the least important people in America today, as relevant to the current world situation as a performing circus monkey. Actually, the monkey would be more interesting.
If fellow “Facts of Life” alumnus Mindy Cohn made a movie spouting the false “war-for-oil” meme, would she be getting 3 Oscar nominations, too? Would she be considered “brave” for “daring” to “ask questions” to which the answers are as plain as the nose on Clooney Tunes’s face.
Voyager 40
I still think Barbarella was her finest role…..............
The first few minutes of Kat Ballou ... it’s a cruel tease, but it allllllllllllmost looks like justice is gonna prevail there for a moment or two.
Posted by Stoop Davy Dave on 2006 03 01 at 05:37 PM • permalink
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That’s really petty, you should be above remarks like that.