A-List: George Clooney
By Josh Spiegel
November 12, 2009
Do you feel it? Can you feel the true A-List sheen, folks? Yes, this week, we're finally talking about one of the biggest movie stars in the world, somebody who's been charming his way into our hearts for years and years, and doing so almost flawlessly. And, unlike one of his famous friends, this fella's still a confirmed bachelor who hooks up with plenty of models. And he has a house in Italy. You'll either think he's cool or hate him for all that he has, but no lies: George Clooney is the epitome of the 21st century A-List. What's more, Clooney's is a face that you can't really do a good job of avoiding this holiday season at the multiplexes. Recently, he co-starred in The Men Who Stare At Goats, and next month, he's got a bona fide Oscar frontrunner as the star of Up in the Air.
But for this week's A-List, Clooney is being highlighted because of his third project, the most eclectic of all. What could be more eclectic than co-starring with a hippiefied Jeff Bridges in a movie about goat-centered psychosis? How about a starring role as a walking, talking fox? A fox married to another fox voiced by Meryl Streep? A fox whose son is voiced by Jason Schwartzman? Oh, and the whole thing, called Fantastic Mr. Fox, is in stop-motion animation...and it was directed by Wes Anderson, the auteur behind The Royal Tenenbaums and Rushmore. Though he's best thought of as a leading man, it's hard not to see George Clooney as the A-List King of Quirk, especially with these movies.
Clooney is well-respected in Hollywood partly for his unique choices in topic. His most famous directorial collaborator is Steven Soderbergh, who worked with him in quite a few films, including Solaris, The Good German, and a few other movies that may just appear in this list. Three of his most recent films were helmed by Joel and Ethan Coen, two of the quirkier Hollywood helmers. Now, with Anderson among the directors he's worked with, once Clooney works with, say, Darren Aronofsky, David Fincher, or Paul Thomas Anderson, he'll have achieved the Triple Crown, the hat trick, and other sports metaphors regarding auteur directors. Let's bask in some more Clooney glow and get to this week's list.
Out of Sight
Though it's worth noting that Clooney's career started before 1998's modern noir classic Out of Sight, his only notable performance is in From Dusk Till Dawn, a cheesy but fun horror-action movie about a couple of convicts, the broken family they kidnap, and the vampires that descend upon them in Mexico. However, his time as a movie star began around roughly the time that he walked onscreen here, as Jack Foley, a bank thief so charming and believable that he just about holds up a bank without raising his voice or using a gun. Foley, an iconic Elmore Leonard creation, ends up escaping out of prison and running into the woman who will haunt and hound him for the rest of the movie, Karen Sisco. Sisco, a U.S marshal, is played by Jennifer Lopez in her sexiest and best performance (yes, I realize the choices are few, but she is genuinely good). Their cat-and-mouse takes up the majority of Out of Sight.
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