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Partridge
11-27-2005, 05:20 PM
George Clooney was once famous for his party lifestyle and the beautiful women that he dated. Now it's politics that increasingly sets his pulse racing.
The Observer (http://www.observer.co.uk/)

[Partridge: Anyone seen either of these movies? Any good?]

George Clooney was adamant about one thing last week: he was not attacking the President in his gripping new film about the Middle East - he was slamming the entire geopolitical system. 'It is not an attack on the Bush administration, but it is an attack on the system that has been in place for 60 or 70 years - oil always being at the centre of it,' the actor told an interviewer.

The debonair Clooney, the playboy actor once best known for keeping a pet pig and being the consummate ladies' man, has clearly taken on an unlikely role: the new King of Liberal Hollywood.

Unseating old-time liberal 'actor-vists' such as Warren Beatty, Tim Robbins and director Rob Reiner, Clooney has now emerged as the leading political voice in Hollywood, winning plaudits from liberals and stinging attacks from conservatives.

His two most recent films have slammed a broad range of targets, including US foreign policy in the Middle East, the corruption of oil companies and the Red-baiting of the McCarthyite era. In interview after interview, Clooney has spoken out on his favourite social issues and is a senior campaigner with the Make Poverty History movement that saw him recently lobby the president of the World Bank for aid to Africa alongside rock star Bono. 'I'm an old-time liberal and I don't apologise for it,' he recently told Newsweek

It is a remarkable transformation for the man who first won the hearts of a generation of female fans in the hospital drama ER and whose early films included Return of the Killer Tomatoes. But it is a change that has won critical acclaim for his most recent politicised films and led to talk of him being rewarded at the Oscars ceremony next year.

In Syriana, Clooney's latest work, which opened last week in New York, the actor plays a world-weary CIA agent caught in a web of political intrigue surrounding control of oil in the Middle East. It is a complex story of interwoven plots which aims to expose the true realities of power in the world. Clooney was also executive producer on the film, which pulls no punches in its conclusion that the political system has become a slave to the oil industry.

'[Syriana] shakes us up and prompts us to question world policies ... We need more movies like this,' said Claudia Puig, a film reviewer for USA Today.

Clooney also suffered for his art. He gained 35 pounds to play the pudgy middle-aged spy in Syriana and hid his good lucks behind a bushy beard. He also damaged his spine during filming, which saw him in such agony that he ended up drinking heavily to dull the pain.

Syriana came fast on the heels of Good Night And Good Luck, which Clooney directed and also acted in, a portrayal of the conflict between TV newsman Edward Murrow and the anti-communist witch-hunter, Senator Joseph McCarthy. The film tells how Murrow turned on McCarthy and eventually brought him down.

Clooney portrays the conflict as a principled stance by a campaigning liberal journalist who fought injustice and stood up against big, bullying politicians. It is a compelling story in its own right, but Clooney has never hidden the fact that it draws uncomfortable parallels with a post-11 September media seemingly cowed into being uncritical of White House policy. The film has led many pundits to predict Oscars glory. Newsweek's David Ansen called it 'the most compelling American movie of the year so far'.

Both Clooney's recent films are unusual in taking on a series of controversial targets in mainstream cinematic releases. At one stage Syriana explores the motivations behind a man who becomes a suicide bomber, while Good Night uses archive footage of McCarthy to illustrate its point about the climate of fear he created. That has, in turn, put Clooney in the sights of conservative critics, who have slammed him as the latest in a long line of Hollywood liberals out of touch with the concerns of mainstream America.

Right-wing polemicist Ann Coulter has leapt to the defence of McCarthy's legacy and the blacklisting of many Hollywood artists and screenwriters. 'Clooney's movie ... failed to produce one person unjustly accused by McCarthy,' Coulter said. 'Thanks to McCarthy, and no thanks to Murrow, the worst horror to befall an American citizen in the 1950s was the dire prospect of losing a movie credit - although, since then, I suppose having to watch a George Clooney movie would run a close second.'

Clooney's rise comes as the influence of a previous generation of Hollywood liberals, headed by Beatty, appears to be fading. Beatty has flirted with running for office in a 'will he, won't he?' drama that has played out in Beverly Hills for three decades. Yet Beatty's long on-off dalliance seems to have left the public bored with the idea, even as speculation mounts once more that he will run for the governorship of California. Other liberal Hollywood figures, such as Sean Penn and Barbra Streisand, have also long been derided in the media for the earnestness and anger in their expression of political opinions.

However, Clooney comes from different stock. His engaging off-screen persona has made him one of the most popular stars in Hollywood, with men and women, Republicans and Democrats alike. In interviews he comes across as being a genuinely concerned citizen, more often making his points with the use of gentle humour rather than preaching outrage.

It is also clear that Clooney has not sacrificed any of his own legendary high living as he embarked on his quest to help save the world. He is still a man about town from London to New York to his luxurious house on the shores of Italy's Lake Como. A bevy of beautiful women still accompany him wherever he goes.

At the same time as Clooney has embarked on his political activism, the actor has also gone into the casino business in Las Vegas. He has invested in Las Ramblas, a new complex aiming to recapture the glamour of the city before Las Vegas became a mass tourism destination. However, 25 per cent of the profits he makes from his casino venture will be donated to Make Poverty History.

Clooney, unlike Beatty, is also absolutely adamant he will not run for office and is fully aware of the potential damage that celebrity endorsements of specific political candidates can do. He turned down an offer to campaign alongside John Kerry during the presidential election last year and even declined to campaign for his own father, Nick Clooney, when he ran for a congressional seat in Kentucky. Clooney contributed cash, but feared his celebrity would hurt, not help, his father's chances.

Experts believe Clooney has probably got it right in today's conservative political climate in America. 'Celebrities attract people, and their talent helps to sell tickets to fundraising events,' said Alan Schroeder, a journalism professor at Northeastern University. 'But, Hollywood is a dirty word for conservatives.'

Clooney also seems aware of the fact that his colourful private life would be ruthlessly exposed by the media were he ever to try and turn to politics professionally. In typical jokey style, he once quipped: 'I'd have to run on the "Yeah, I did it" ticket. "Did you sleep with so-and-so?" Yeah, I did. "Did you take drugs?" You bet I did.'

But that does not mean he is going to stop his activism. Indeed, his next project seems to broaden his target beyond politics and towards the nature of modern media. He is planning a television remake of the 1970s hit movie Network, a dark comedy in which cynical TV producers discover the on-air nervous breakdown of an anchorman is a huge ratings hit. They then plot for him to be killed on air in order to get more viewers. The film includes the famous line: 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this any more!' Ironically, that could now serve as a new motto for Clooney himself: the Hollywood heart-throb turned real world activist.

The left side of Hollywood

Humphrey Bogart
Deemed the Greatest Male Star of All Time, the Casablanca lead claimed to be a 'Democrat in politics, Episcopalian by upbringing, dissenter by disposition'. During the 1950s Bogart defended his peers during the House Un-American Activities investigations, contesting the communist witch-hunt.

Gregory Peck
Peck, who won an Oscar for his portrayal of incorruptible lawyer Atticus Finch in 1962's To Kill a Mockingbird, was a lifelong liberal activist, earning a place on President Nixon's enemies list. After winning the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1968, Peck said: 'It embarrassed me to be classified as a humanitarian. I simply take part in activities that I believe in.'

Jane Fonda
'Hanoi Jane' was most famed for posing in front of an anti-aircraft gun in North Vietnam in 1972. Denouncing the US Air Force as 'professional killers' and extolling the virtues of communism, pacifist Fonda spent her off-screen career pleading ad nauseam for harmony and social justice.

Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon
Hollywood's most famous liberal married couple created a stir at the 1993 Oscar ceremony by lambasting the government on its treatment of HIV-positive Haitian immigrants. Pro free-speech and highly suspicious of American overseas interests, the pair abhor the Bush administration.

Warren Beatty
The Academy Award-winning actor considered running for President in 2000. Recent recipient of Beatty's wrath is 'bombastic' Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, whom Beatty has threatened to run against in the next California State elections.

Sean Penn
The Oscar-winning actor has not held back his opposition to the war in Iraq. Penn was hailed as an 'American hero' when he rescued 40 survivors after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

Partridge
11-27-2005, 05:24 PM
Is Hollywood Turning Left?
Ed Rampell - Socialist Review (http://www.socialistreview.org.uk/article.php?articlenumber=9587) (UK - Nov 05)

LA film critic Ed Rampell argues that the movement is generating a new wave of progressive cinema.

Are the movies getting more radical? Hollywood has experienced three key progressive periods: New Deal/Popular Front films during the Depression and through the Second World War; 1960s/1970s 'power to the people' pictures; and, in my opinion, the post-9/11 era. The latter is epitomised by the anti global warming special effects blockbuster The Day After Tomorrow, a big budget studio feature; the Che Guevara biopic The Motorcycle Diaries, an indie executive-produced by Robert Redford; and Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 documentary. These are just the tip of the iceberg of a groundswell of left-leaning documentaries, features and indies.

Reds under the beds

As the Iraq occupation and insurgency continue, the progressive trend in movies is definitely continuing. Good Night, and Good Luck dramatises the epic on the air struggle broadcaster Edward R Murrow (David Strathairn) waged in 1954 on CBS's See It Now against anti-Communist zealot Senator Joe McCarthy. It is co-written and directed by George Clooney, who portrays producer Fred Friendly. Clooney recreates Cold War 'reds under the beds' hysteria in vivid black and white. The ex-ER star turns the CBS newsroom into an emergency room resuscitating democracy.

The shrewdest casting is of Roy Cohen and McCarthy as themselves. Glimpsed only in clips, the Senator's repulsive persona undid him in his attempt to rebut Murrow. The red-baiting demagogue who publicly made wild, unsubstantiated charges assailing victims' patriotism proved no match for the fact-checking investigative reporter. The newscasters became newsmakers, changing the world.

Frank Langella - best known from Dracula - depicts William Paley. The CBS chairman incarnates the network's profit-driven corporate side, in conflict with newsmen using the then-new medium to inform and enlighten, rather than merely entertain and sell soap. As Murrow/Strathairn warns at a 1958 industry awards dinner, television 'can teach, it can illuminate - yes, and it can even inspire... Otherwise it is merely lights and wires in a box.'

Good Night, and Good Luck's brilliance is making half-century old history as timely as today's headlines. Tensions between the corporate and public service aspects of TV are paramount in the 24/7 cable news age of media mergers and conglomeratisation. Networks with business before Congress and an FCC chaired by the Secretary of State's son failed to examine government untruths about going to war. 'News' is often more agitprop or tabloid than topical.

Good Night... shrewdly uses McCarthyism as a metaphor for today's Patriot Act and other homeland security measures assailing civil liberties, secretly imprisoning suspects without charges, trials or legal representation. Yesterday's Communists have been replaced by the new 'ists' du jour - terrorists.

In Lord of War Nicolas Cage portrays Yuri Orlov, a Soviet émigré whose family lied about being Jewish in order to move to the US. Buying into the American dream, Yuri gets rich by trafficking in weapons in a despotic African nation and at various hotspots. The feature shows how the USSR's collapse proved to be a bazaar and bonanza for arms traffickers. An Interpol agent (Ethan Hawke) tracks Orlov around the globe, but when he finally gets his man, Orlov is cynically released by government higher-ups who are part of the same rotten racket. New Zealander writer/director Andrew Niccol reveals the moral toll Orlov's gun-running has exacted upon him and his family.

Adapted from John Le Carré's novel and stylishly directed by Brazilian Fernando Meirelles, The Constant Gardener is likewise largely set in Africa. In this espionage thriller an aid worker (Pete Postlethwaite) in Sudan compares arms trafficking to the big pharmaceutical companies. Ralph Fiennes stars as a British diplomat married to Rachel Weisz, an outspoken activist hot on the trail of a drugs firm that literally makes a killing by experimenting on what Fiennes calls 'African guinea pigs'. The feature also discloses the collusion between the British government and pharmaceutical corporations.

Adapted from a graphic novel, David Cronenberg's A History of Violence stars Viggo Mortensen as a Philadelphia killer who has created a whole new life and identity by moving to Indiana, and raising a family with all-American girl Maria Bello. But his violent past finally catches up with the hood turned husband and father in this rumination on America's predatory predilection to use force. It's as if today's Yanks wage war on Iraqis because of their ancestors' genocide of the Indians.

On 5 October Mortensen - who has spoken at anti-war rallies - participated in a downtown Los Angeles reading of Howard Zinn's Voices of a People's History of the United States. Wearing a T-shirt proclaiming 'Impeach, Remove, Jail,' the Lord of the Rings star read an anti-imperialist Mark Twain quote condemning US atrocities in the Philippines. Other dissenting talents joining Zinn included Danny Glover (as Frederick Douglass), Josh Brolin, and Sandra Oh as anarchist Emma Goldman, declaring to rousing applause, 'Say to your masters go do your own killing, we've done it long enough for you!' My Cousin Vinny Oscar-winner Marisa Tomei closed the packed reading waving a clenched fist and quoting Cindy Sheehan to a standing ovation.

In LA other recent leftist events and artists have similarly drawn large, enthusiastic crowds. On 11 September an SRO audience packed Skylight Books for a Hollywood Activists Forum this writer moderated. Panellists included Tom Laughlin, star of the 1970s Billy Jack films, who called for impeaching Bush and immediate withdrawal from Iraq; leading Hollywood organiser Mimi Kennedy who played a character named after Abbie Hoffman on the Dharma and Greg sitcom; David Clennon of the CBS CIA series The Agency; Maori actress Rena Owen, star of the New Zealand anti domestic violence hit Once Were Warriors; Michael Shoob, co-director of the Karl Rove documentary Bush's Brain; and rapper Wil B.

Former Black Panther Party chairman Bobby Seale (who appears in the documentary Public Enemy) drew an even bigger crowd at an October speech in an LA college. On 23 September, a day after packing an LA cathedral with 1,000 supporters, George Galloway MP appeared on the HBO programme Real Time with Bill Maher in a reprise of his debate with Trotskyist turned hawk Christopher Hitchens. And of course, on 24 September masses of people marched against the Iraq war, led by Hollywood left stalwart Ed Asner, whose 1980s CBS drama Lou Grant was cancelled because Asner publicly clashed with ex-actor Ronald Reagan's Central American policies. The 'acting president', Martin Sheen - star of NBC's The West Wing series about a liberal president - delivered a rousing speech at the same peace rally, declaring:

'I think you know what I do for a living, but this is what I do to stay alive! I've always loved and supported my country, but my government has had to earn my support... This war is ill-conceived, ill-advised, illegal and a colossal mistake we can ill afford. The only clear truth about this administration is its dishonesty... Peace be with you... Let my country awake!'

Stay tuned. Progressive pictures march on with several forthcoming releases: Warner Bros' North County, directed by Whale Rider's Niki Caro, stars Oscar-winner Charlize Theron in a true story about miners battling sex discrimination. A liberal documentary with Zinn and Warren Beatty recalls One Bright Shining Moment: The Forgotten Summer of George McGovern. And there is also Marc Levin's stinging documentary exposé of anti-Semitism, Protocols of Zion.

Already out on DVD, Beyond Treason, narrated by ex-military nurse Joyce Riley, is a riveting account of Washington using its own soldiers as human lab rats and the exposure of depleted uranium in an Iraq where the only WMDs there were brought by Uncle Sam. Robert Greenwald's Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price documentary is being released in November, and Michael Moore's new doc Sicko, about healthcare, is upcoming.

Harold Pinter's Nobel Prize for Literature proves that messages and art can mix. From the screen to the streets, Hollywood activists are expressing progressive politics.

LA-based freelance writer and film historian/critic Ed Rampell is co-author of Made In Paradise: Hollywood's Films of Hawaii and the South Seas and Pearl Harbor in the Movies, and author of Progressive Hollywood: A People's Film History of the United States.

PhilosophyGenius
11-27-2005, 06:33 PM
[Partridge: Anyone seen either of these movies? Any good?]

Syriana: 80% Positive
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/syriana/

Good Night and Good Luck: 94% Positive
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/good_night_and_good_luck/

Partridge
11-27-2005, 06:41 PM
[Partridge: Anyone seen either of these movies? Any good?]

Syriana: 80% Positive
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/syriana/

Good Night and Good Luck: 94% Positive
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/good_night_and_good_luck/

Cool site! A million times more informative than the IMDB! Thanks.

PhilosophyGenius
11-27-2005, 06:57 PM
Your Welcome!