George Clooney

[meatball]

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind was better than I expected. What do you think about Clooney's direction and do you think he should direct again?

[mutinyco]

Um, I thought this was supposed to be the director's forum...

[aclockworkjj]

I have not seen Confessions yet...but one thing about this guy.  I respect him as an actor, and love the idea of him directing.  Lame in my ideas, I like him mostly for no other reason than he makes tons of 20's, 30's, 40's, 50's , and etc. aged women mushy in their panties.  He has yet to settle down with a girl, and even won a bet with some fine hunny co-stars....I envy him like no other, and he seems to keep his cool...reguardless of the few lame movies he as been in.  Shit, I even liked One Fine Day.

Clooney is sweet for no other reason than Out of Sight...as that has me sold on him.  I would like to see Confessions as well as more of what he brings to the table....

[Alexandro]

I was also took by surprise with Confessions...I expected an average "actor turned director" film, with no visual style and just good acting. But I'm impressed, actually, specially with the dark humor in the film, I laughed a lot.

The film is really entertaining and has a kind of social commentary about America, which is pretty cynical and smart. I don't understand the criticisms agains the visual style of the movie. What's wrong with cool camera takes if they help to tell the story?? It's more entertaining than just seting up the camera and roll, right???

And the "I can't help falling in love with you sequence" is fucking brilliant.

[mutinyco]

The problem here was that the visuals didn't help to tell the story, they were a distraction. They were totally at odds with the tone of the material and the comic timing of the writing.

[Alexandro]

The problem here was that the visuals didn't help to tell the story, they were a distraction. They were totally at odds with the tone of the material and the comic timing of the writing.

I didn't felt that at all. And the people in the theatre were so receptive to the film's comedy and visual style that I was surprised by that also, since most of them seemed to be george clooney and julia roberts fans who just picked the film because of it's stars...

But why do you think that the visuals are at odds with the tone???? what's so dispar about them???

[ElPandaRoyal]

I think Confessions was a good film. Visually great, fantastic performances but suffered from a bad final act. I mean, I think the last 20-or-so minutes of the film weren't nearly as great as the rest. Still, it was great for a first time director.

But I'm impressed, actually, specially with the dark humor in the film, I laughed a lot.

It didn't really surprise that much. If you read any interviews with Clooney you'll know he has a great sense of humour. Also, the script was Charlie Kaufman's...  

[mutinyco]

I think the movie would've been better served with a naturalistic tone. That's the trick -- when shooting absurd material, especially material purported be be "true", it works better to play it straight. Spike Jonze gets it, so did Kubrick. Clooney shot it like a music video, and I never bought anything that was happening in it. I kept watching it feeling that the timing of the script was at odds with the timing of the direction and editing. There were beats that seemed so obvious to hit that it was missing. Just basic comic timing that's inherent to successful film comedies. Knowing how long to hold a moment, knowing how to build a punchline, etc. Just wasn't there. It never gelled.

[RegularKarate]

He directed one movie and it's got two threads already...

http://www.xixax.com/viewtopic.php?t=260&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=confessions+dangerous+mind&start=0

and

http://www.xixax.com/viewtopic.php?t=1041&highlight=george+clooney

[aclockworkjj]

like a music video

as good or as bad as it may be...I think a lot of the general movie going public want to see this kinda stuff, so it makes money.  Granted I am not able to give a valid opinion on Confessions, but I just mean in general.  

Look at something like The Cell...it did pretty well and liked by a lot.  
....But, don't even get me started on how believable JLo is as any character havin' a doctrine in anything.  

Are Clooney and Soderbergh still in business together?

[mutinyco]

Yeah, it's called Section 8. They're doing Ocean's 12 now.

But truthfully, if there's such an audience, why was Confessions such a flop?

[MacGuffin]

He directed one movie and it's got two threads already...

Richard Kelly has about eight threads.

[aclockworkjj]

But truthfully, if there's such an audience, why was Confessions such a flop?

I just ment along the lines of...a lot of people have pretty short attention spans.  And enjoy fast-paced, music-video type eye candy.  Versus, say a long 3 1/2 hour Magnolia type.  ya know?  I haven't seen Confessions, so I dunno if this is the case here.  Sorry for strayin' from subject, but thou I enjoy some music video style films, it kinda gets under my skin when it's replacing things like good dialogue, content, development.  It's just sounded like that's what you didn't like about Confessions.

[Gold Trumpet]

I thought Clooney's direction was the best part of this movie. I understand what mutinyco is saying, but I disagree with it. I think Jonze is the filmmaker of the two hindering the material while Clooney is giving it its just deserves.

Jonze goes about it wrong in that he brings up all the performances to weirdness. He shoots the scripts straight, but shooting straight never fully helps and if their is weaknesses in the writing, as is definitely with both Jonze films, the lack of invention on the director's part only makes those weaknesses more sore. Both Being John Malkovich and Adaptation are pretty poor scripts in trying to ride feature length movies based on a few cute ideas and bragging about them. With Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, a better script, the comedic aspect of the film is raised because the performances are much more natural and believable while the directing identifies the movie as comedic in its continuous invention of situation upon situation scene as an act of comedy. The performances don't give away the obvious because they could easily be hammed, but the situations are so absurd that they really can't be taken serious. A masterful comedic film did this back in 60s, "How I Won the War", in that it saw the material as stupidity but played it with a tone of unfunny in the performances and kept continuously being inventive in the same tone through out the movie. No one shot or sequence really felt like a repeat, but the tone was the same through out that you felt nothing was out of place and it came from the same idea of thought in concept.

Clooney directs the film as a comedy, but doesn't dress the performances as merely parody. It gave believability to the characters while addressing their situation as comedy in an absurd story and finding an odd, but effective tone it in all.

~rougerum

[RegularKarate]

once again, you make absolutely no sense sometimes...  not just your frenzy of disconnected thoughts, but your inconsistent new opinions on films.