George Clooney

[6] This screwy comedy about top secret military psychics is based (to questionable extent) on truth. While the ramifications of the subject matter is provocative, the film wisely overlooks them to revel in the absurdity of it all. By its end, The Men Who Stare at Goats becomes downright whimsical. There’s a scant plot with a hazy focus, but that’s okay. The reason to watch …

[6] The best thing about Up in the Air, the new film from Juno director Jason Reitman, are the three performances by ever-reliable George Clooney, gorgeous Vera Farmiga, and plucky Anna Kendrick. But don’t see this movie expecting a comedy, because Juno it’s not. In fact, it’s pretty depressing, and not just because it’s about a man who fires people for a living. While it’s …

[6] George Clooney stars as an assassin-for-hire who’s getting tired of the job. He’s always looking over his shoulder, always afraid to trust anyone, always sleeping with one eye open. Can he turn over a new leaf, or will his past come back to haunt him? You know the answer. But don’t get the impression that The American is an action movie, because while there’s …

[6] The Coen Brothers are at it again, this time with a wonky tale of 1950s Hollywood studio politics mixed with political scandal. Hail, Caesar! is scattershot in its narrative. Josh Brolin’s character is marginally the main protagonist. Brolin plays a gruff studio executive who can barely keep all of his stars and starlets in line while another job offer tempts him away from the …

[5] George Clooney and Cate Blanchett star in Steven Soderbergh’s homage to war-time film noir, right down to the black and white 4×3 Academy aspect ratio. Clooney plays an American military journalist who tries to figure out who shot his driver (Tobey Maguire) in Berlin, after Germany fell but before the atomic bomb. Then Clooney discovers he and Maguire have bedded the same woman, a …

[5] John Toll’s cinematography and Hans Zimmer’s music will wash over you in an ecstatic kind of way in The Thin Red Line. The shots rolling over wind-swept grassy hills are mesmerizing and director Terrence Malick incorporates many other elements of nature throughout his telling of James Jones’ story centered around Guadalcanal in World War II. The biggest takeaway seems to be that we and …

[7] George Clooney stars in this thriller about a lawyer who gets called in by a major corporation to “fix” a potential whistle-blower who is losing his mind the longer he keeps his secret. I never thought I would enjoy this movie because the marketing made it look so drab and dreadful, but it’s actually a solid little thriller where one wrong move or some …

[4] George Clooney directs, co-writes, and co-stars in this examination of famed broadcast newsman Edward R. Murrow’s attempts to thwart McCarthyism at CBS. David Strathairn brings his usual nonchalance to the role of Murrow. Clooney plays his right-hand man, Fred Friendly. McCarthyism was scary and Murrow’s victories were important, but Clooney keeps Good Night, and Good Luck so restrained, it teeters on becoming a snooze …

[5] George Clooney directs this quirky tale based on the possibly true story of Chuck Barris, creator of The Dating Game and The Gong Show, and who may also have been an assassin for the CIA. That is, if we’re to believe his memoir. Confessions of a Dangerous Mind is an okay movie, anchored by a solid leading performance from Sam Rockwell. But I had …

[6] Gravity is so harrowing, I’m tempted to call it crisis porn. The movie stars Sandra Bullock and George Clooney as astronauts stranded in orbit over Earth after debris destroys their spacecraft. Director Alfonso Cuarón (Children of Men, A Little Princess) warns us from the get-go with some on-screen text that life in space is impossible, and then proceeds to throw everything you can imagine …