Tag Archives: George Clooney

Hail, Caesar! review — Drop By The Coens’ Hollywood party

February 8, 2016 flawintheiris

Written and directed by Joel & Ethan Coen | 106 min | ▲▲▲▲△ Once again the Coen Brothers celebrate their love of Hollywood's golden age with a knowing comedy in the spirit of The Hudsucker Proxy and Barton Fink, though lighter and sillier than both. Set largely at Fink's Capitol Pictures studio in the early 1950s—complete… Read More

Top 10 of 2005 and 2006

August 24, 2015 flawintheiris

In a couple weeks this blog will be five years old. Accordingly, through the coming fortnight I'm gonna be taking a few looks back. As I've done before, I've stumbled upon some material from the vaults: My list of the best movies of 2005 and 2006, a list I put together for my four year movie broadcast… Read More

Tomorrowland review — They promised us jetpacks

May 26, 2015 flawintheiris

Directed by Brad Bird, written by Bird and Damon Lindelof from a story by Bird, Lindelof, and Jeff Jensen. When I was a kid, I remember picture books that prophesized the future: everything from flying cars to nuclear fusion, monorails to space colonies—great wheels in the sky. We'd all have robot helpers, and with so… Read More

The Monuments Men review

February 7, 2014 flawintheiris

Directed by George Clooney Written by Clooney and Grant Heslov, adapting a book by Robert M. Edsel and Ben Witter I get that George Clooney has a love for some old-timey movies, the sort that move at a more leisurely pace and rely a great deal on the charm of the actors. He showed that… Read More

Gravity review

October 3, 2013 flawintheiris

Directed by Alfonso CuarónWritten by Cuarón and Jonás CuarónThe first thing I thought of after seeing Gravity: "I wonder what Chris Hadfield would make of this movie?"Now, I've gone on record saying I'm not being the biggest fan of computer generated imagery. In fantasy and action movies too often it reads as substandard animation, taking away… Read More

The Films of Steven Soderbergh

February 4, 2013 flawintheiris

One of the biggest disappointments of 2013 (so far) is what appears to be Steven Soderbergh's (seemingly) serious intent to retire from directing movies. Soderbergh is consistently one of the most interesting American filmmakers. He's not often the screenwriter of his projects, but he's certainly an auteur in every other way I can think of.… Read More

2012 Oscar reaction

February 28, 2012 flawintheiris

Well, what can you say about The Oscars? When they go with a new idea for hosting like Franco and Hathaway last year, they get shit on. When they go with the safe choice of Crystal, they get shit on. John Doyle in the Globe & Mail said this was the worst Oscars ever. I… Read More

“Shame and snickering” from the AV Club, George Clooney

January 16, 2012 flawintheiris

I saw Shame in December, and had the pleasure of interviewing the screenwriter, Abi Morgan, who had a pretty great 2011—she also wrote The Iron Lady. I haven't reviewed Shame yet here, wanted to let it percolate a bit, though it did feature in my Best of 2011 list, as a runner-up. I'll post a… Read More

The Descendants review

December 3, 2011 flawintheiris

Directed by Alexander PayneScreenplay by Payne, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash from a novel by Kaui Hart HemmingsGeorge Clooney is Matt King. Matt is the trustee of a large parcel of land in Hawaii, a place that seems a whole lot like paradise despite Matt's voiceover telling us that everyone's life has rough patches, even… Read More

The Ides of March reviewed

October 20, 2011 flawintheiris

Directed by George ClooneyWritten by Clooney, Grant Heslov andBeau Willimon, based on the play Farragut North by WillimonLet's start by talking about Aaron Sorkin.Maybe that's not fair. Because, lets face it, Sorkin is the king of political thrillers. Even when they're actually about sports, like Moneyball, or about crazy zeitgeist-chasing technology, like The Social Network,… Read More