In a typical ad hominem rant on Truth Social, Donald Trump attacked George Clooney, who recently joined the “Dump Biden” team with an op-ed in the New York Times calling on the President to step aside.
“So now fake movie actor George Clooney, who never came close to making a great movie, is getting into the act,” Trump wrote. “He’s turned on Crooked Joe like the rats they both are. What does Clooney know about anything?….Clooney should get out of politics and go back to television…Movies never really worked for him!!!”
As is so often the case, the former President doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Clooney can legitimately be criticized for his part in deceiving the public about Biden’s disabilities; as Christian Toto recently pointed out, Hollywood power-players—like Clooney—were despicably complicit in hiding Biden’s real condition from the public. However, claiming the Clooney “never came close to making a great movie” is unfair, uninformed and ignorant, and saying that “movies never worked for him” is just silly.
George Clooney is the closest thing Hollywood has had to Cary Grant since Cary went to the Big Red Carpet in the Sky. Blazingly handsome, radiating screen presence, likability and sex appeal while able to do both drama and comedy with skill and brio, Clooney has had an extraordinarily successful film career. Unlike Cary (whom no contemporary actor can be compared to without coming in a distant second), Clooney also enhanced his acting credits with strong work as a director and screenwriter. Clooney earned my respect, like Tom Hanks, for leveraging his considerable star power and popularity to get substantive, serious, arguably non-commercial history-based projects produced.
So Clooney is a knee-jerk Democrat like just about everyone else in Hollywood, indeed in show business generally. As Joe E. Brown says at the end of “Some Like It Hot” when the woman he has just proposed to (Jack Lemmon) reveals that he is a man in drag, “Nobody’s perfect!”
However, the part of Trump’s attack I want to focus on particularly is his claim that Clooney has never come close to making a great movie. First, I very much doubt that Trump has seen all of Clooney’s movies, and I know he lacks the perspective, training and experience to tell what movies are “great” and what movies aren’t beyond what he personally happens to like.
I have seen almost all of Clooney’s films. My own assessment is that two Clooney films can be fairly called “great”: “Michael Clayton” and “Good Night and Good Luck.” If you don’t want to go that far, the two are certainly close to great. Also falling short of “great” in my estimation but certainly close are “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” (almost all Coen Brothers movies are at least close to great), as well as “Up in the Air” and “The Ides of March.” There is also the guilty pleasure that is Robert Rodriguez’s bonkers vampire romp “From Dusk Til Dawn” that has justly become a cult horror classic. (Cary Grant never made a cult horror classic.)
Trump can trash Clooney’s politics with some justification, but saying he’s a failed movie star discredits Trump as much as as if he had said that John Wayne was a lousy actor.
Well, maybe not quite that much…
Ethics Alarms 
Never liked George Clooney since ER, I always thought he was a pretty boy without much substance. It probably didn’t help that the character of Dr. Doug Ross on ER was an arrogant, insufferable twatwaddle. I thought he was ok in “Peacemaker” waaay back in 1997, but beyond that I haven’t seen many of his movies other than the Oscar bait “Good Night and Good Luck” with him playing Fred Friendly opposite David Straithairn’s Edward R. Murrow. I lost interest in him completely after he became a tiresome anti-war activist and married Muzzie “human rights attorney” Amal. The man’s 63 and his leading man days are over, and his opinions on politics mean nothing. As far as his opinions go, if you’ve seen Amal, you’ve seen George. 😀
Well, he cashed out, and that’s too bad. Now he just does star turns like the blah “Ticket to Paradise,” which was a success at the box office only because he and Julia Roberts starred in it.
Yup. Maybe when Phil Murphy’s term taps out here and he moves to Italy full-time George and Amal can have him over their place for wine, canapes, and Trump-bashing.
I find Clooney (and his trust fund baby and gold-digging, publicity seeking, antisemitic wife) insufferably smug and condescending to the extent I could give an absolute rat’s ass about anything he’s done. I can’t even stand looking at him, even in a coffee commercial.
Frankly, this is nutso over the top, but I think an argument can be made that the pathetic leftism of Hollywood has put the entire cinematic project at risk. Why even go to the movies anymore? They’re mostly just comic books anyway, and I didn’t even like comic books as a kid.
If you’re going to let political activism and opinions spoil your appreciation of performance art, you’re going to end up with some awfully mediocre options.
There’s a level of activism and opinion and a tone of activism and opinion that I can stand. George goes past those levels. Admittedly, this is subjective.
Can’t argue with that, Jack. But it’s okay, I’m still trying to get through my high school summer reading list. Just finished “Two Years Before the Mast” a while ago. A fascinating book. Jeeze, those 19th century people could write elegantly. Dana went on to become a famous international lawyer. We rented a house on the Gold Coast that was on part of what was previously to Dana family estate. Right on the water. A really indulgent treat for the family.
Totally agree, you have to see the art beyond the artist, otherwise, you can’t enjoy a large part of TV, movies, and music. I enjoy Clooney’s performances, “Michael Clayton”, “Up in the Air”, “Oh brother where art though” were great. Though he is obnoxious in his personal life. Because actors and performers have been exposed to be the midwits in all that is outside of their sphere of competence, I absolutely ignore any of their proclamations. Regarding Clooney, there was a 2006 South Park episode, where at the Oscars, Clooney is giving a speech, that creates a cloud of smug, that puts everybody in danger. Still relevant!
When it comes to an actor’s (or writer’s or director’s) politics I turn to this quote:
“Trust the art, not the artist”. –Ernest Hemingway
(Ernie was, allegedly, not that admirable a person himself.)
Really! I would have never suspected that!
Hah!
I think Hem was also a closeted homosexual and very close, shall we say to F. Scott Fitzgerald. At least somewhat to their respective wives’ annoyance.
I have to say, I’ve become much more understanding of guys staying in the closet in earlier generations. After all, coming out of the closet could lead you right into jail or worse.
If I let actor politics get in the way, I couldn’t watch any movies. That doesn’t mean there’s nothing an actor could do that would make a movie less pleasant. It’s mostly ick factor, and may be a little unfair. I’m less than enthused with Woody Allen for instance.
On Clooney in particular, I mostly like the things I’ve seen him in, and he’s done some odd roles. I don’t think he made a good batman, but I can’t think of anything else that struck me as bad, and that may have been the movie rather than an actor. The monuments men was good, and I like Tomorrowland.
Batman was a disaster, but that was the director’s fault. My wife objected to The Monument Men, being a WWII buff, because it reduced a large and important effort by Ike to a small group mission, but she appreciated Clooney telling the story, which was not generally known.
Grace absolutely refused to watch any Woody Allen movie on moral and ethical grounds.
Batman was ok, but no better than ok. I was much younger when it hit, and I was a fan of Ah-nuhld in pretty much any form. I was not a fan of Woody Allen’s material even before there was any behavior issue, it just wasn’t my thing.
Woody Allen was one of those artists who are so original and quirky they become famous for being the best at what they did. No one was as good as Woody Allen at making Woody Allen movies. No one. I loved his take-off of Russian novels.
His casting for Batman and Robin was half-inspired, half-insipid. Clooney was the perfect actor to play Bruce Wayne at the time (only comparable actor who could have pulled that off is Pierce Brosnan at the zenith of his Bond period), but he lacked something when he put the costume on. Had someone else of the same build played Batman it would have made from a very interesting performance – unlikely to save the movie, but it would have been an improvement.
As for my favorite Clooney role, it’s in The Men Who Stare at Goats.
Joel Schumacher is (well, was) a total hack. The film was full of gratuitous gay imagery and vibes (Nipples on the Batman costume? Seriously?), and campy almost to the extent of the TV Series, because that was Joel. Arnold was a great Mr. Freeze: the casting wasn’t the problem.
Not sure I’d call Arnold a “great” Freeze. It would’ve been fine if his character was made up in “ice-olation” (sorry), but the movie Mr. Freeze was loosely based on the reinvented character in Batman: The Animated Series. Even as a kid I liked the cartoon version better because ironically, the cartoon version was more serious. Arnold was clearly having fun in the role, but I don’t think he fit with the tragic backstory of the animated Freeze.
All I had as a reference point, having not followed either the comic book character or the animated version, were the two Freezes in the silly TV series, a phoning-it-in George Sanders and a “Who Cares?” Otto Preminger. Ahnold was easily superior to either. His under-rated talent was always comedy, and I felt he was the only one in the movie who escaped without having embarrassed himself.
You never watched Batman in the animated series? And you talk about being culturally literate. (Just kidding, but watch the episode “Heart of Ice”).
One of the reasons Batman & Robin was so despised, especially by Batfans, is because the animated series was going on at the same time, and it kept mostly the same tone as the Tim Burton movies. The late Kevin Konroy was Batman in this series, and is considered the definitive Dark Knight by most Millenials. Both he and Mark Hamill, who was Joker, played their respective characters longer than ANY other actor, live action or animated. The show broke ground on how heavy a cartoon could be and still be family-friendly, and it branched into other shows, creating an animated Justice League universe that was better than live-action one we got.
I can’t prove it, but I think there wouldn’t be any Nolan Batman movies if the animated series didn’t keep the “serious” bat-signal on. A lot of what those movies did, the cartoon series did first, in some cases better.
This is weird… Clooney is perhaps the highest profile Hollywood supporter to see the light and publicly turn face.
Criticizing him just weakens him as a catalyst of his peers following suit. Even De Niro might have followed, but damning if they don’t and also when they do, then nobody does.
and I’ll agree Trump knows nothing on the subject, and agree with all the above citations and also present into evidence the Oceans films, and The American.