HomeVideodrome: Clooney’s Political Drama, Criterion Criterions ‘Traffic,’ and The Two Coreys
by Hunter DuesingThis week on the HomeVideodrome podcast, Hunter reviews “The Iron Lady“, we talk The Golden Globes, and of course, we run down this week’s releases. Head on over to The Film Thugs to check it out!
Despite the fact that “The Ides of March” is un filme de George Clooney, which ensures that most of those right-of-center will ignore it, it’s ultimately a movie that anyone who actively keeps up with politics should enjoy, especially during the heat of the Republican primaries. Indeed, “The Ides of March” doesn’t tell you anything you don’t already know, thematically. Politics? Dirty? You don’t say, George. Please, send more of your pearls of wisdom for the masses to consume. What the film does provide, though, is a efficiently plotted, well-acted, engaging thriller, despite its cliched old-hat themes.
Clooney co-stars as a Democratic Presidential candidate in the throes of the primaries, playing as a mix of Bill Clinton’s governor running-on-his-record and Barack Obama’s cult of personality claptrap. This gives Clooney’s character opportunities to espouse what are clearly his own political views from the podium, which contain various liberal talking points and, much like our current president, promises no one could keep, including the elimination of the internal combustion engine in four years and free puppies for everyone. But Clooney wisely keeps his politics in the background for the most part, not using it merely as a vehicle for his views.
George Clooney’s active role in politics has often sparked speculation as to whether or not the actor would run for political office; after all, a handful of actors like Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger have proven that the leap from acting to political office isn’t necessarily a big one. After all, both vocations involve making audiences believe your bullshit. However, Clooney has consistently squashed such speculation by stating that his playboy bachelor reputation would make him unelectable, and “The Ides of March” seems to be an extension of these sentiments. Too bad it’s not necessarily the fact that Clooney goes through women like Kleenex, so much as his la-la-land Hollywood politics (his cruel mocking of Alzheimer’s patients doesn’t help him in my eyes either, however his humanitarian work is certainly deserving of praise).
The star of the show, though, is Ryan Gosling, who turns in an excellent performance as an idealistic young campaign staffer. His character’s bright-eyed liberal idealism gives way to cynicism and thuggery after a series of events that puts his career in a corner against the man he is working for, as he sits on top of a sex-scandal bombshell that could sink his boss’s potential presidency before it’s even begun. Between this and Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive, Gosling has had the best year yet for his career, and with a Terrence Malick film and another team-up with Refn on the horizon, things only seem to be getting better for him. The short-sighted wrote him off awhile ago, but his diversity and presence as a leading man are on display in every movie he’s done this year, forcing his critics to pay attention.
“Confessions of a Dangerous Mind” and “Good Night, and Good Luck” both proved that Clooney knows what he’s doing as a filmmaker in terms of tight storytelling. Despite slipping on a banana peel with “Leatherheads”, the man’s head is back in the game here, crafting a political thriller that is pulled tight and engrossing, and also speaks a volumes about Clooney himself and his ego. For political junkies caught up in the fever of the primaries, “The Ides of March” is a solid experience, even if doesn’t really tell you anything you don’t already know.
Other Noteworthy Releases
Courageous: A new movie from the team that made the faith-based sleeper hit “Fireproof”. Like “The Grace Card,” it deals with police officers and the challenges they face on the job and at home.
Available on Blu-ray, DVD, and Amazon Instant
Abduction: A “Bourne” knock-off starring Taylor Lautner, whose lack of credibility as an action star is such that I can only imagine that this is an action vehicle geared towards young girls. Too bad they’re too busy watching “Twilight” again.
Available on Blu-ray and DVD
The Tuskegee Airmen: HBO’s version of the story of black Air Force pilots during World War II gets a Blu-ray release, just in case that George Lucas version doesn’t deliver.
Available on Blu-ray
Belle de jour: Luis Buñuel’s film starring Catherine Deneuve as woman living a double life as a Parisian housewife and a bordello prostitute gets the Criterion treatment. Buñuel’s delicious surrealist touch as a director makes this release a must for art-house aficionados.
Available on Blu-ray and DVD
Traffic: Criterion updates their edition of Steven Soderbergh’s multi-stranded drug war tapestry to Blu-ray. I haven’t caught up with “Traffic” for a second viewing since it was first released on video, but now seems like the best time to revisit it.
Available on Blu-ray
License to Drive: A silly pleasure of an eighties teen comedy starring the two Coreys.
Available on Blu-ray
Mysteries of Lisbon: The final film of Raul Ruiz sent the director out on an ambitious note, as he adapted Camilo Castelo Branco’s sprawling novel into an mammoth four-and-a-half hour endeavor. Don’t be put off by the enormous running time, as “Mysteries of Lisbon” comes highly recommended. You just may have to schedule the time in which you plan to see it in well in advance.
Available on Blu-ray and DVD
Bucky Larson – Born to Be a Star: One of those rare films that achieved the incredibly difficult task of aggregating a whopping zero percent freshness rating over at Rotten Tomatoes. Nick Swardson is one of those comedians who can be really funny, but there’s a limit as to how much you can use him in each film before he gets irritating, hence giving him a starring role is an ill-advised move.
Available on Blu-ray and DVD
Killing Bono: The story of brothers in Ireland who start a rock band, but soon see the taillights of opportunity as their classmates rapidly grow into the biggest band in the world, U2.
Available on DVD
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9 Comments
I was dreading "Ides," and thought the first half was the usual pretentious liberal nonsense, but found the second half to be an entertaining political thriller. Ryan Gosling seemed on the cusp of tending bar until this year!
I'm just a touch ashamed that I haven't seen "Belle de jour." Looks like I now have a reason to cross that off my list.
Ides of March is on the way to me from Netflix. Gosling is the reason I wanted to check it out. Great to see him getting the accolades he so richly deserves. I've had my eye on him since 2008's Fracture, where he played an assistant district attorney who has to match wits with Hannibal Hopkins. At least worth a look if you like either on of those actors.
Having read read your review of Ides of March reminds me of a series that i have mentioned lately on the Big Hollywood comment boards and that is the STARZ series BOSS (starring Kelsey Grammar). Like Clooney's film, BOSS focuses on the corruption and amorality that surrounds politics. Grammer's series, however, specifically targets the liberal haven of the Chicago political machine. This is the very machine that gave power to Obama, Rahm Emmanual, Bill Ayers, and the Daleys. BOSS puts the politicians, media, union leaders, and even the media's whistleblowers under a microscope and exposes their ruthlessness, self-righteousness, hypocrisy, manipulations, and constant bertrayals all in the name of pushing forth a specific agenda and preserving/expanding their power over the populace that they seduce with their speeches, rhetoric, looks, and whatever else they have in their arsenal. This is a series that does not do "heroes" of the liberal movement any favors and, by affiliation, gives the audience a better understanding of the Obama Administration's tactics and mentality.
At the risk of being redundant,why would anyone give a dollar to anything that Clooney is in? Why should conservatives have anything to do with a person that mocks them at every turn.Starve the Beast.
I've fallen in love with this trailer for "Courageous". It's so stuffed with cornball values it's like a time traveler from the days of "Leave It to Beaver":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9VT_NBIVfs
SPOILERS AHEAD
I thought Ides of March was interesting in the moment but doesn't really have much lasting impact. What I found more fascinating was the way the film structured its political scenario in a way that allows viewers of different political backgrounds to perceive the film differently while reaching the same basic conclusion.
To wit, the Gosling character wears his idealism on his sleeve, stating that he only works for people he believes in. Clooney plays the candidate and there are several scenes in which he gives little speeches about his positions on the usual leftist BS such as mandatory public service, gay marriage, taxing the rich, etc. So leftists will watch the film hoping that this guy will do whatever it takes to get Clooney elected, and Republicans will watch the film hoping the guy gets his ass handed to him. And in a sense, both get their wish since he has to essentially sell his soul to achieve his goal, ultimately exposing himself and his candidate as hypocrites. Perhaps Clooney miscalculated his liberalism here (as leftists so often do when trying to make a point), and my guess is most conservatives would conclude the film demonstrates that leftists are just power-hungry hypocrites who will say anything to get elected, which is kind of what they have been contending all along.
Now, I'm sure Clooney would dispute that, being a leftist and all, and he sees it more as a character study about how sometimes the ends justify the means to serve a greater purpose, which his character no doubt represents. But I have to go back to that idea in the context of the Bush administration, since leftists would use an "ends don't justify the means" argument to dispute various Bush policies such as the Iraq war or the Patriot Act. Which leads me to the conclusion that leftists think the ends justify the means only when it pushes a leftist agenda.
Now, a lot of these themes are not specifically addressed within the film, but I think the film does encourage a broader discussion of them. Just maybe not in the way Clooney intended.
What's interesting is that if you watch the bonus materials, Clooney discusses how the film was originally developed as being about an evangelical conservative politician who gets nominated and then starts moderating his views, and the idea was that it would be a comedy about how he's pissing off the wacky Republican establishment. This idea was basically retooled into an adaptation of the Farragut North play that was written by a former Howard Dean staffer, and Clooney says how it made more sense to shift the characters to the Democrat party. Watching the film makes me understand why (aside from the source material). The main politician character has to express ideas that are considered bold and fresh enough to inspire the young political consultant played by Gosling. It's obvious that the filmmakers could not honestly conceive of conservative values being considered bold or fresh, nor young people being inspired by them. That I think is the most telling statement about Clooney, this film and Hollywood in general.
But what do they know? After all, as they basically admit with this film, they're a bunch of hypocrites.
A nice comparison, with a few key differences. "Boss" tends to keep its politics generalized, and at most on a local level. Political parties aren't mentioned and the series is more focused on the machinations of the characters than their political positions. There are a few hints here and there, such as when Mrs. Kane advocates privatizing school lunch programs, but the focus on local politics dilutes any broader political implications.
Ides, on the other hand, makes specific references to party politics and gives Clooney a chance to speechify about a few positions.
Also not a good sign for Ides of March, it basically starts off with Rachel Maddow giving a lengthy bit of exposition. That's what I want from my movies, the journalistic perspective of MSNBC.
Poor Michael Dukakis gets harangued about how he should have responded in 1988 in The American President and now Ides of March. And of all the editorial cartoonists, why feature Ted Rall, the lunatic?
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