The Descendants

[diggler]

HA Margo Martindale plays the villain?  I'm officially dying to see this.  I bet it just aired.  I'm going to have to wait.

She's really good in it.

As for this movie, I think everything Payne does is worth seeing. I'm also curious as to why he went with Clooney.

edit: awesome sandal run

[The Perineum Falcon]

Margo Martindale as Carol was great casting.  She has so many endearing moments ... asking the lady where to eat in French, to practice, but the French lady speaking back in English, and the little face of disappointment Carol makes for a tiny moment ... trying to pop her ears in the elevator ... and the final moment with her on the bench in the park with the pond in front of her.  She eats a sandwich and looks around the park, seeing kids play, elderly couples together on benches, people spread out on the lawn, she's seeing all this and says "It was like remembering something I'd never known before or had always been waiting for, but I didn't know what."  Payne pushes in for a close up:  "Maybe it was something I'd forgotten or something I've been missing all my life.  All I can say is that I felt, at the same time, joy and sadness.  But not too much sadness because I felt alive.  Yes, alive."  Payne pans out over the pond, a few city buildings in the background, and Carol ends, "That was the moment I fell in love with Paris.  And I felt Paris fall in love with me."  So good.

This sequence/line/moment always breaks my sentimental and nostalgic heart. The 14th was where I studied for a Summer, and that line was exactly how I felt by the end of that trip.

[Pozer]

I'm also curious as to why he went with Clooney.

he originally considered Cloons for Thomas Haden's role in Sideways but ultimately realized he was wrong for it. bit of a charity role perhaps.

[Stefen]

Clooney is the man. Why all the hate?

[Gold Trumpet]

Clooney is very good. He was up for Sideways, but Alexander Payne ultimately thought he was too famous for the less than famous role. Now I think George Clooney has become our Marcello Mastrioanini. He's an actor who has used his good looks to transition from playing characters of just good looks to playing characters of faulty and dissembled morals because of years of better looking days. Clooney uses his natural likability to add different textures to that persona. So far, it's been a very good ride for him.

[Mr. Merrill Lehrl]

Mastrioanini never had Clooney's Kentucky boy halfgrin that's all about having ice cream after the drama's over.  He's smarmy, and I can always see him acting.

[polkablues]

Closer to Cary Grant, then?

[Gold Trumpet]

Mastrioanini never had Clooney's Kentucky boy halfgrin that's all about having ice cream after the drama's over.  He's smarmy, and I can always see him acting.

He never a grin? The comedies he did in the late 60s and beyond play him mocking his good looks. While all comps are a little fraudulent, it's there more than you think.

[Mr. Merrill Lehrl]

Mastrioanini never had Clooney's Kentucky boy halfgrin that's all about having ice cream after the drama's over.  He's smarmy, and I can always see him acting.

He never a grin? The comedies he did in the late 60s and beyond play him mocking his good looks. While all comps are a little fraudulent, it's there more than you think.

There's definitely something to the comparison.  I know this sounds weird but I didn't mean what I said.  Or rather what I said doesn't illustrate the point I meant to make.  It's more that Mastrioanini never had Clooney's roles, and while Mastrioanini worked well in his time and in those movies, and Clooney would have worked well in those movies and that time, I find it difficult to see him in the everyman roles that Payne favors.  When Mastrioanini played an everyman he did it well, but in a romanticized way, as a movie version of the everyday man.  Because Clooney carries this same type of attractive actor baggage is why I think he's a curious pick.

Nicholson worked because he'd been Robert Dupea, Buddusky, R.P. McMurphy, etc.  Payne brought him back to his roots.  Clooney's roots are shit, a whole bunch of tv shit, and some good movies after his career took off due to Batman & Robin.  Payne's movies are set in the real world, and I have a hard time accepting Clooney as real world material.

[Gold Trumpet]

I think your star perception of Clooney is clouding your judgement a little. He isn't embellishing his good looks in this film or a film like Up in the Air. He's actually playing to his age more and trying to get you to think less about what a film like Ocean's Eleven wants you to think about. Instead of deny his gray hair, it's there. Instead of kill all his wrinkle potential, he looks older in his new movies. For me, right now, Clooney looks like a lot of good looking older men. Of course what separates him is his famous charm the way Humphrey Bogart had his Bogie edge, but both actors were willing to age quickly and play to different kind of roles. You're just hard press to lose enough sight of Clooney's star quality. For Mastrionianini, he was fighting the same "too attractive and famous" branding during his day. The way both him and Clooney were earmarked for their looks and charm, I still believe they're more comparable than you are willing to grant.

[polkablues]

George Clooney = Cary Grant. Other arguments will not be entertained.

[Gold Trumpet]

George Clooney = Cary Grant. Other arguments will not be entertained.

Cary Grant was trying his absurd best to hang on to every inch of his Hollywood leading man qualities. He was good at what he did, but he was entertaining young man roles well past his prime. If producers were willing to just let him do one film, he would have been the first James Bond in Dr. No. I don't think Clooney has that kind of belief he can do any attractive role the way Grant was conditioned to believe he could in those days.

[Mr. Merrill Lehrl]

Yes, my perception of Clooney as a matinee star clouds my judgment.  That's what I'm saying.  I wonder how Payne will use him.  I've never been very impressed by him has an actor, and acting isn't just how old you look and what your grey hairs are up to.  You already like Clooney so you're curious in a positive way.

[Gold Trumpet]

I've never been very impressed by him has an actor, and acting isn't just how old you look and what your grey hairs are up to.

Yea, that's what I said.... The two measures are just elements of challenging his perception. Like Mastrioniani, his better acting flair has been in his comedic exploitation of his perception. It began with Out of Sight and continued with movies like Welcome to Collinwood and others. Also, I thought he was fine in Solaris. He consumed a purposely empty role with a grieving and concerning disposition that seemed never ending. Since he filled up the role and I never looked past his character for more (I had other problems with the film), it was good for me. Also, his work in Michael Clayton is mastery of restrained realism. The film is still an underrated great film for me.

[DocSportello]

Anybody seeen this yet? Going to see it tonight so i'll be back to discuss. Some folks on the interwebs are underwhelmed by the picture it seems but I'm not convinced.