Come anticipate "Michael Clayton"

ya i'm looking forward to this.

i'm anticipating it.

I'm a little put off by the 'A Civil Action'-ness and Grisham parallels.

I can't think of a single courtroom drama film I've ever enjoyed

I'm looking for to this and also Leatherheads. What are a Clooney going to call his own independent film festival?

So you haven't enjoyed 70% of talkies?

(xpost)

(actually, I haven't enjoyed 70% of talkies)

This doesn't quite look like a courtroom drama, but tense/paranoid Clooney Oscar bait... Armond White convicts it of imitating the "dullness" of All the President's Men (AW and jblount, sep'd at birth).

So you haven't enjoyed 70% of talkies?

? I assume you have a bit of a broader definition of "courtroom drama" than I do

Simply that a large perecentage of talking films are courtroom dramas.

Re AW: I've gotten to the point where I enjoy his work and will likely vote the other way.

of TALKY films? that aren't by Eric Rohmer or Kevin Smith?

This is out in the UK already. I quite enjoyed it, but you could tell the Clooney audience generally wasn't. Lots of people left. It's pretty dry stuff. Stylish, mind. The direction seemed fresh, but maybe didn't ultimately achieve that much.

It's not a courtroom drama, in that none of it takes place within a court.

There's a great closing shot.

It's great to have a chance to watch Sydney Pollack on screen again, too.

Fuck, I've just read that he's been diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer.

That sucks! My favorite screen lout of the last 30 years.

What a spectactularly muddled movie.

I would have liked it more without the D, E, and F plots getting in the way.

This is out in the UK already. I quite enjoyed it, but you could tell the Clooney audience generally wasn't. Lots of people left.

Well, at least they left, unlike the chorus of yappy girls who were sitting behind me when I saw it.

I thought it was good, but as good as films should be rather than completely brilliant. It has a lovely low-key seventies washed-out feel to it, and I really like the fact that it doesn't piss about much, but it was slightly disappointing.

Hmph. More thoughts here. Gilroy turned Tilda Swinton into Glenn Close in Dangerous Liasions.

this movie is okay. not great.

i couldnt believe they cheaped out the ending that way. i mean come on. how many fucking lame thrillers have ended like that. pathetic.

This was great fun!

I'm not happy with the ending either. For a moment I thought Gilroy had turned Michael Clayton into a Dick Diver sort of figure - wandering from town to town, never settling with anyone/where for too long, content to have made his mark as a mediocrity.

luvd it! details so sweet.

the "i got you to sputter out your evil plan while i was secretly wearing a wire" thing is so played... it's like a straight-to-video plot device at this point

the only thing that could have made that worse was if he had also broadcast her confession over the hotel's PA system to the shock and consternation of the company's stockholders.

The Mercedes-Benz S-Class sedan that is blown up in this film was first used in filming of The Devil Wears Prada (2006). For the earlier film it was cut in two for use in process shots featuring Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway. It was then welded back together and repainted in order to be blown up in ‘Michael Clayton’.

the only thing that could have made that worse was if he had also broadcast her confession over the hotel's PA system to the shock and consternation of the company's stockholders.

Is there time to re-edit this for wider release??

Tilda Swinton is used for her sweaty armpits and White Witch face.

I can't decide if her American accent was good or not.

tilda swinton's armpits are insured for a million dollars each

they're the most naturally sweaty in the business.

Upon reflection there wasn't anything wrong with her accent but it had a kind of mealy Canadian over-enunciated to it.

Wilkinson has a knock-out American accent though.

watch what you say about canadians.

enunciatedion

Why?

i did mostly like this movie, the ending just really rubbed me the wrong way and removed any pretensions that this was in any way a morally ambiguous or challenging film.

unlike ben affleck's gone baby gone! (srsly... it's really good!)

Why?

-- Tracer Hand, Wednesday, October 17, 2007 3:33 PM (11 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

i mean watch how you say it.

It was sort of crap that the horses were wearing bridles. Why would they have bridles on?

The confrontation between Swinton and Clooney at the end was brilliant and I wouldn't trade it for anything. What comes after that was pretty Scooby Doo though, I agree. It would have been just as satisfying and much cooler for one of the kids at that (gigantic) white clapboard farmhouse to go down to the mailbox one morning and find a spiral-bound red booklet peeking out the front...

I got some problems with some of the Peter Finch-style nonsense that Wilkinson's gotta bellow too.

But, god, Sydney Pollack is great.

always.

i wish he was my uncle or something.

I'm all excited about the Affleck movie, especially after seeing Wire-Omar in the preview.

But otherwise, yeah, I can't believe she fell for the old "recording device confession" trick. And I'm not sure blowing up George Clooney's car is Baron Von Subtelty as far as covering-up-conspiracies goes.

But yeah, this falls in the "Mystic River" great movie/shame about the ending bracket.

i do like how all the trailers paint this as really intense and whiteknuckle and everything but really leave you no clue as to what the plot setup is. CLOONEY is BARKING at PEOPLE and STUFF is HAPPENING.

Yeah, it's the same in this till about one hour through. It's the sort of movie ILX people like to call middlebrow, whatever that means (and they're probably right), but it's really not a bad effort. At the very lest, Wilkinson is very memorable, despite the crap accent.

His accent was great though?!

hey this was pretty awesome. I was completely sold on Clooney selling out at the end in pure frustration and fuckitallitude. And then they dropped the ridiculous wire thing (which was really kind of lame - she offered him money, never admits to having the other guy whacked or trying to whack him! that's like 1/10 as awful as the memo that he's already given the police.

Extremely pretty film. Love how it all seems to be shot at dawn or before morning really gets going, even the city bits. Clooney was great. Didn't think the ending was that bad, and I really liked the final shot in the cab.

Agree with nearly all that, but am with s1ocki here ... the motorola ex machina is lazy.

DP also did there will be blood

and.. gigli!!

also syriana and good night good luck - hes basically clooney's boyfriend

still have never seen, ie fuck the Oscars

― Dr Morbius, Monday, December 1, 2008 4:05 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

what does this mean?

― s1ocki, Monday, December 1, 2008 10:08 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

come on Morbs, at least take a shot at defending your nose-cutting and face-spiting.

people who liked the cinematography here will luuuuv "wallender", the new cop show starring kenneth branagh as the titular swede

on a flat screen TV the photography is so good it's almost distracting

i didn't dislike the photography, i just didn't notice it much. i'm not too into the shoehorning everything into a single aesthetic thing, tho.

When they came out I remember liking Syriana more than this, but I can't remember one thing from Syriana except George Clooney's beard and I remember most of Michael Clayton's major plot points pretty well.

This was a good movie. I watched the whole thing thinking it was about a real person :[

im not too into you, gabbneb

o dam

lol zings aside thats not really what i said anyway--nothing is "shoehorned," the movie has a unified visual aesthetic, like many fine movies

i lol'd

zings aside

gabbneb who is the michael clayton of ilx lawyers

but michael clayton fixed things--what does gabby fix

i think u misread him mr que

oh he was missing a ?

thanking u for citechecking gabby

yes and a comma technically

http://gothamist.com/2008/12/06/prominent_nyc_lawyer_arrested_in_ca.php

wish clooney sold out

It would have perhaps made for a more complex experience but it's hollywood, whattyagonnado.
Still a pretty good movie with better than good acting.

Anytime this movie is on cable while I'm awake and not at work, I find it and watch it to the end. True story.

Although I still can't figure out how this really ends. "Michael Clayton 2: Houseboat & A Fake ID Chronicles"

MC2: Claytoner

he just got in that taxi and took off into the manhattan sunset. some stay he got off in jersey, found a wife, and lived happily after, but me, well, i tend to think hes still in that taxi, circlin this little island we traded for a string of beads, thinkin on his life, and waitin, waiting till hes needed again.

i happen to think he got involved in illegal night-time car racing in downtown miami

either that or his son get kidnaped and held hostage at the top of the burj dubai

Why did Tilda win an Oscar for this? I mean, she was fine, but...... really, an Oscar?

because she validated every kneejerk stereotype of the amoral career woman, silly

The stink of her wet armpits made Academy voters lightheaded.

you're obsessed with her armpits in this movie

i dunno, i thought she was pretty brilliant -- thought she conveyed the grasping desperation and isolation concealed beneath a fastidious veneer in a very understated performance, she was the villain but quite human too

i don't know who she won out over but i love a tilda and can't begrudge her the statuette

Yeah, I've come around to the performance (and the pits).

maybe it's cause she should have won best actress for orlando so the judges were giving her a make-up win

Amy Ryan was her only real competition (and Ruby Dee's ridiculous 8-second scene).

her armpits were totally overlooked in orlando.

her role could have easily been overplayed as a campy ballbusting nightmare woman but it would have ruined the movie

sean cullen deserves a lot of credit for holding his own in his scenes with clooney, I think
I love the monologue to his kid in the car

Question: does Michael Clayton appear to get any sleep during the last two of the four days this movie takes place in?

her role could have easily been overplayed as a campy ballbusting nightmare woman but it would have ruined the movie

Faye Dunaway would've been kinda fun tho.

i love orlando but don't recall it being a command performance, she is mostly modelling as a faery waif the whole movie

i thought amy ryan should have won the award by tilda was pretty dope in this too

The extremely hyperbullshitic Mythic, Mithraic Mysticism of Michael Clayton

seems pretty airtight to me

But there is as much - if not more - mythic symbolism in Michael Clayton, which you wouldn't expect in a legal thriller of this type. Unless said thriller was written and directed by one of the primary screenwriters in yet another of my top 20 films, The Devil's Advocate.

The Devil's Advocate.

Whoa, this kicked ass.

Got this on Blu-Ray for $8 or so the other week. Liked it a lot when it was new, still like it now.

confession: I saw this for the first time today!

idk why i never saw it, i think at the time i heard the title & thought it was like a Michael Collins movie idk honestly that sounds bad i know! i didnt even know it was Tony Gilroy til today!
ugh! i fucked up

ANYWAY this movie rules, this is like god-tier Clooney & i love how he carries all the shit he’s carrying physically and behind his eyes so good i need to watch it again

(Maybe dumb) QUESTION: why were those horses wearing bridles? just hanging out in a field like that with bridles on. it was weird. is that a horsey thing that horse ppl do, like keep the bridle on so they can just saddle them right up whenever like a warmed-up car? i have only known kept horses to be unbridled unless they’re in the act of being ridden.

still have never seen, ie fuck the Oscars

― Dr Morbius, Monday, December 1, 2008 4:05 PM (sixteen years ago)

Hope he got around to it without coming back to the thread.