George Clooney

The Heartbreak Kid managed to grab the top spot here in Manhattan, despite being outgrossed nationally by the Rock’s The Game Plan in its second week.  read more »

He’s suave, sure—but utterly wasted in this chunk of Hollywood hokum.  read more »

Clooney is skinny and Pitt is pulchritudinous! But they bring too much man-love to the unnecessary Ocean’s three-quel.  read more »

Let the countdown begin.  read more »

We're pathetic. Brian Williams is in Africa for NBC Nightly News to report on the AIDS crisis and the focus of his piece is Bono of U2, his visit. What a great man he is, what an investment he's made in Africa. Act I. Bono in his black shirt and rockstar spectacles, thumbwrestling with an African child. Act II. Williams and British Treasury Minister Gordon Brown—whom Williams touts as the likely successor to Tony Blair—are standing around being lectured by the pierced and piercing Bono on the appeal of Islamic fundamentalism for starving Africans. Act III. Bono's black shirt now sweated through, he collapses on the plane, with just, Williams informs, three hours sleep.

This isn't about Bono. He's a good guy. More power to him. It's about Americans. Can we care about anything without a celebrity attached? Global Warming, brought to you by Al Gore. Literature, sponsored by Oprah. African Hunger, presented by Bono. And now George Clooney brings us—genocide.

When last I visited the subject, my wife had dismissed my criticisms of George Clooney's political movies, saying I was being mean-spirited. Then fate rallied to my cause. My wife went to the hairdresser and told him about her soft spot for Clooney—and he took my side, and changed her mind. You might say that he did a number on her head inside and out. She was good enough to tell me about it, and I called Kenny Parrella.

"He's like a non-person. If you took away the actor, what's left? He's just that character all the time. A goodlooking guy. George Clooney is always playing George Clooney. He's going to learn the lines, but it's the same character."

"Did you ever find him appealing?"

"Yes. I started off liking him, but I learned not to. All the way back to The Facts of Life [on television]. He's goodlooking, he's got that grin. It's the same guy."

"Aren't a lot of actors that way?"

"Not the good ones. Compare him to Jack Nicholson. The guy has a lot of other stuff going on under the performance, and he is able to draw on that as an actor. Jude Law. He's a person. He's very goodlooking but his characters from one movie to another are different. Watch 'Closer.' Or 'I Heart Huckabees.' He can play pathetic, and well. I don't think George Clooney can go there."

"What about the great work he has done on Darfur?"

"You caught me. I don't know about that."

Thank youuuu Kenny. For the record: George Clooney has shown tremendous initiative in visiting the Sudan and urging active American intervention to end the genocide and starvation. Bravo.

Stephen Colbert was asked, just after the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on Ap  read more »

In retrospect I think that I failed to understand a couple weeks back when my wife said that George Clooney was her type. My wife is good on personalities, and we were talking about actors so I started testing her on types. Spencer Tracy. "Short, angry, pugnacious." Humphrey Bogart. "Wounded. Secretive." Steve Martin. "Ironic, overly sensitive. He would be closest to you." De Niro. "Unfortunately he's become a bloviator."

George Clooney. "He's my type."

Then this week we watched two George Clooney movies. First Syriana, about which I blogged below. I think its ideas are appalling in their simplicity and uselessness. Of course my wife loved it.

Two nights ago we watched Good Night and Good Luck. I could just see my wife loving it. After it was over, she said, "It wasn't slick. It was naive in a good way. It got people to care about something they would never care about usually. George Clooney has got all this power in Hollywood now and he's using it for good things."

I really disliked the movie. It was naive and heroic about corporate life. Its manner was pedestrian and earnest. I said to her, "Why is Murrow such a hero? He isn't. The guy was mainstream, and yes a force for good generally. But when he went after Joe McCarthy it was 1954, and McCarthy was already a laughingstock. The only good thing about the movie is they didn't cast McCarthy, they used real footage. He looks like Satan and he's crazy. Other people had already taken the big risks before Murrow."

My wife got upset. She said, "You're like that gospel according to Judas but the other way: You are taking something that's good and heroic and spinning it to be bad and obvious."

I went to two encyclopedias to prove my point. They were inconclusive.

While I am sure I'm right, I don't know that I can win this fight. This morning I heard my wife talking about me on the phone: "He doesn't understand, every woman is in love with George Clooney." Later, I had to drive with her somewhere. I said, "O.K. In two words, What is George Clooney's type?"

"Not you."

I had to wheedle a while before she came out with: "Low key, cool, straightforward and handsome. And a little bit simple."

I'm counting that last adjective as a victory.

I saw the movie Syriana last night. Here are four good things about it: It is a serious effort to examine the roots of the clash between the west and the Middle East. Director Stephen Gaghan did a fine job of research and then translating that research into a dramatic story, showing that the American need for oil has helped to prop up Arab dictatorships. George Clooney is a superb actor in a moral manner. Arab men and boys were portrayed as normal, humorous, profane people.

Now here's what is wrong with it. Gaghan has completely imbibed a modish leftwing materialist take on the Arab world. Everyone on the liberal side says it; he says it, too: These Arab dictatorships were created by western imperial demands, notably the desire to keep oil flowing. Their oil-based hierarchies deny opportunities to their young people for freedom and employment. That's what is fueling terrorism.  read more »

In case you're hoping to win Gawker's contest to get a cameraphone picture of George Clooney out in the city today, we can save you some trouble:

When we reported earlier this week that City Bakery on West 18th Street would be closed for the filming of a movie, we narrowed down the possibilities to two: Music and Lyrics By (starring Drew Barrymore and Hugh Grant) and Michael Clayton (with star and producer George Clooney).  read more »

But signs posted on the partially-closed block confirm: it's not George. It's Hugh and Drew.

- Tom McGeveran

One in five people who paid to sleep in the Clinton White House are paying to send Hillary back to the senate, The Post says.

Fred Dicker notes in his column that evangelicals won't get in bed with KT's senate run. Dicker also notes that State GOP Chairman Stephen Minarik will get behind John Spencer.

While Pataki was in a hospital bed, his PAC got $75,000 in donations from groups dealing with the state, The Times reports.

And finally, what discussion of politics and beds would be complete without a word from hunky Syriana actor George Clooney, who, Daily News reports, says F#$&! You to some Democrats.

--Azi Paybarah

The 78th Annual Academy Award ceremonies started off as a standoff between “niche” host  read more »

The 78th Annual Academy Award ceremonies started off as a standoff between “niche” host Jon Stew  read more »

This weekend brings the third annual version of the New York Times Magazine's Hollywood Issue--er, ah, "Great Performers photographic portfolio." Because, y'know, it's not about cramming the magazine with photographs of celebrities; it's about cramming the magazine with photographs of artists. Or, as the magazine puts it, "Twenty-four portraits that limn the faces and bodies of 26 actors--some tabloid famous, others all but unknown--in ways that startle, seduce and reveal."

Thus the self-loathing celebrity-sniffers at the Times Magazine, following the lead of the self-loathing celebrity-sniffers at Vanity Fair, have set out to make this year's issue as icky as possible. You see, it's not really starfucking if it's kinky.

So where Vanity Fair had Tom Ford turn Reese Witherspoon into a creepy child sex-doll, the Times Magazine has Ines van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin turn Reese Witherspoon into a creepy greaseball junkie covered with fake neck tattoos. And where Tom Ford surrounded George Clooney with damp ladies in unwashed-looking underwear, van Lamsweerde and Matadin limn a subtly Manimal-ized Clooney, with cat-pupil eyes.  read more »

Now, that's the sort of startling, revealing movie-star image subversion you don't see every day...Oh, wait:

You may think Buddhists are all centered and less indecisive than the rest of us. Not so for Richard Gere. Apparently, the actor cannot make up his mind over which Hamptons mansion to take, according to the New York Post. Also, George Clooney, Ivana Trump, and Michael Jordan have trouble in Vegas.

Usher is searching for a $10 million downtown pad, according to New York magazine. Courtney Love’s Soho love nest is again on the market. And will Tom Ford ever have his “Wal-Mart on the Hill?”

Instead of looking at boring buildings this week, Christopher Gray writes about men dressed up like buildings, at the 1931 Beaux-Arts Ball. The event was billed as "modernistic, futuristic, cubistic, altruistic, mystic, architistic and feministic." The Real Estate definitely would had been there.  read more »

There’s further evidence this weekend that real estate brokers can do anything, according to the New York Times. Now, they’ll find you a condo, and a spouse to go with it.

-Michael Calderone

Celeb Xmas Luv!A heartstring-tugging family movie? A red-carpet premiere just before Christmas?  read more »

Celeb Xmas Luv!    read more »

Will Hillary's centrism alienate...Hollywood? That bastion of liberal politics, enthusiastically demonized by conservatives, came up in Pirro's latest fundraising letter, as reported by the New York Post: "Help me send our strongest message yet to Hillary Clinton, the national media and her Hollywood allies that the game is on."

But if one actor has his way, the lights of Hillywood could dim as fast as Pirro's own candidacy. George Clooney, who London's Sunday Times has anointed "Hollywood's leading liberal, " told the paper he was frustrated with Hillary's efforts to burnish her record. "I hate it when smart men and women are saying, ‘Well, if I knew then what I know now'. The fact is: I knew it then and I don't have national security clearance," he said.  read more »

He is, to put it mildly, not a fan.

Clooney's choice? Barack Obama.

The Transom has seen a whole hell of a lot of movies this year and is a know-it-all and a total busy-body and sometimes pretends to be psychic at parties. So, why not jump in the Oscar pool? Best Actress Felicity Huffman beats out Judi Dench and Reese Witherspoon and Naomi, improbably, Watts. Maybe, maybe a nom for Renee Zellweger, who was awful good in that awful bad Ron Howard movie. Best Actor Philip Seymour Hoffman squeaks past Joaquin Phoenix, with much moaning about Heath Ledger robbery. (If we're going to rob Heath Ledger, incidentally, can we also strip him and tie him up? Just checking!) The real robbery though will be of Cillian Murphy. (Amazingly, there is a tiny tiny possibility that best actor and actress could both be parts played as transsexuals. That is crazy.) There's also the whole Eric Bana non-issue that people are talking about. And sadly, Ralph Fiennes will sit nobly in the audience, waiting, waiting, anger growing.... Supporting Actor Terrence Howard, for Crash. Sadly, not superfox Craig Bierko for Cinderella Man, who probably won't even get nominated. Nominated, but: not Jamie Foxx, not George Clooney. Also not Matthew Broderick. Supporting Actress Gong! Gong Li, that is. Tilda Swinton, the White Witch, gets hideously robbed, possibly even snubbed for a nomination. That is a crime, she was amazing. Shirley Maclaine nominated, doesn't win. Catherine Keener, probably should, doesn't win. Uma Thurman, doesn't win. Best Picture Not that barf-fest Cinderella Man, praise be. Munich detracts from Walk The Line, and the large dieting segment of the Academy goes in for now-skinny Peter Jackson's King Kong, which means Brokeback Mountain wins. Director Ang Lee beats nominees George Clooney (don't laugh!) and Woody Allen and James Mangold --and maybe even Noah Baumbach. Doc Oh, Murderball beats out Mad Hot Ballroom and March of the Penguins and Enron. Cinematographer Roger Deakins beats Cesar Charlone. Screenplay The Squid and the Whale. Adaptation Well, hey, Brokeback Mountain--unless in a crazy upset, Shopgirl beats out Jarhead, both of which were fairly lovely scripts MARRED HIDEOUSLY by TERRIBLE VOICE-OVER NARRATION, particularly in the final scenes. WHEN WILL YOU PEOPLE LEARN? STOP IT. Foreign Not Paradise Now, the Palestinian shoe-in, but The Promise, instead. Worst Potential Moment Of Oscar Night? The threat of music from Rent.  read more »

George Clooney’s Good Night, and Good Luck, from a screenplay by Mr.  read more »

This week in the paper:

The Transom, as a former employee of the profile subject, will not comment on Tom Scocca's profile of Nick Denton. However, The Transom will quote this paragraph:

"I do find bizarre the level of interest in the finances of a private company," Mr. Denton instant-messaged. "A small private company.... Without an office, even." In his humility, Mr. Denton sounded like a man cruising the Jersey Turnpike on a motor scooter that appears to run on bathwater: Why are you interested in my little scooter? It doesn't carry anywhere near as many people as your gasoline-powered S.U.V.

Indeed.

The Transom, led by correspondent Brook S. Mason, postulates this week that Moscow is the New Paris. They're rich, baby! Also: Anna Wintour throws an awkward party for George Clooney, and sad-sack Gifford Miller wanders the streets of Manhattan licking candy apples.

Hey, have you been Kunkeled? So many people have these days! Matt Haber recalls life on Chambers Street where Benjamin Kunkel borrowed a set for scenes in his novel Indecision.

Thomas Krens is out, after 17 years, as director of the Guggenheim. But can museums survive his heinous legacy? Tyler Green looks back on an era, and chats with new Gugg director Lisa Dennison.

What goes on inside that hip Danny Meyer burgerstand? It's Shake Shack Confidential!  read more »

Justine Levy, glam Parisian daughter of Bernard-Henri Lévy, comes to America to dish the dirt.

Alexandra Jacobs confronts her own media-whoredom after her Jet Blue "national event."

As the "team leader" on the ABC program Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Ty Pennington, late of the L  read more »

Christine Jeffs' Sylvia , from a screenplay by John Brownlow, has been criticized for not being comp  read more »

The more complex movies become in the commitments they demand of their audience, the harder it becom  read more »

George Clooney's Confessions of a Dangerous Mind , from a screenplay by Charlie Kaufman, based on th  read more »

As bad movies go, a dismal catastrophe called Solaris can't go away fast enough to suit me.  read more »

Madeline Saves Summer Finally, a summer bonbon for imaginative moppets: Madeline , the popular child  read more »

Steven Soderbergh's Out of Sight , from a screenplay by Scott Frank, based on the novel by Elmore Le  read more »

Agnieszka Holland's Washington Square , from a screenplay by Carol Doyle, based on the novel by Henr  read more »

For actor Alec Baldwin, the response is natural.  read more »