"The Ides of March" - George Clooney's Cynical Political Thriller With a Heart

Looks blah.

It pretty much is.

As much as I love the boy, I'm not sure I wanna watch my fourth Ryan Gosling movie in ten months.

clooney is really into american media in the eisenhower/kennedy era isn't he?

clooney is really into american media in myths from the eisenhower/kennedy era isn't he?

well yeah both.

i mean this seems like a remix of various cold-war era poltical thrillers right? the best man/advise and consent/manchurian candidate/etc. not that this is a bad thing, but honesty given the tepid mush that was clooney's last movie i am not expecting much.

he seems to think things were, like, clearer or something in the past, which is an A#1 fallacy derived from watching too many movies.

i went in with low expectations, i was only there for PSH and giamatti, but it was a little better than i expected. tonally it's kinda strange... the material itself is cynical and mean in a way that made me think of mamet, but clooney directed it like he wished it was something grander. fairly entertaining though.

As someone who like all the superficialities of politics, I expect I'll like this.

http://cache.dealbreaker.com/uploads/2010/11/drudge-siren3.gifTHIS MOVIE SUCKEDhttp://cache.dealbreaker.com/uploads/2010/11/drudge-siren3.gif

Haven't seen the movie but, weirdly enough, tonight I saw the play it's based on. (They booked the play before knowing when the movie was coming out.)

As much as I love the boy, I'm not sure I wanna watch my fourth Ryan Gosling movie in ten months.

It sucks, but this is probably the one, if any, that gets him a nod this year.

LOL @ police lights above

Thought this was basically fine. What's wrong with it is obvious. 1) 40 years ago, Stanley Kauffmann complained that The Candidate doesn't tell you anything you don't already know. Raise that exponentially several times over in 2011. 2) There are two or three lines that are laughably bad. (For me, that was all.) Giamatti's "You'll become cynical and jaded" was the worst. 3) Schizophrenia. It's an Obama film for the first half, then it suddenly turns into a Clinton film. 4) The way it makes sure to get Jon King and Rachel Maddow and Charlie Rose in there. If the incestuous Hollywood-Washington lovefest nauseates you, you'll have to close your eyes a few times. Outside of that, it held my interest and zipped by quickly. I liked Gosling's affectless ruthlessness towards the end, liked Giamatti's and PSH's rumpledness, liked the intern's foul mouth, and, as always, liked Clooney.

Sounds like I missed a great baseball game, though.

Schizophrenia. It's an Obama film for the first half, then it suddenly turns into a Clinton film

Both would be considered false prophets in this context. Though Gosling is clearly meant to be an Obama acolyte, Clooney's straight up Clinton from the start.

Maybe. All his foreign-policy rhetoric is right out of Obama's 2008 campaign, though, and his cool seemed much more Obama-like to me than Clinton's Oprahish feel-your-pain persona.

movie was just-ok/watchable but great footage of cincinnati area (hometown of Geo Clooney & yrs truly)

A film about the horse race aspect of politics = exactly what I don't ever need to see again.

Was going to sell it as "Obama youth loses faith in the system," but he only does so in the most jejune way possible.

does The Goose show his jejune in this movie?

Watched this the day ilx went down and really wanted to ask someone here to explain open primaries to me. Morbz?

You don't have to be registered with a specific party to vote in its primary. I've never lived in a state that had em, so they really don't make sense to me.

That is, you don't have to be registered with a specific party to vote in its primary if it's "open"

does The Goose show his jejune in this movie?

― lumber up, limbaugh down (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, October 21, 2011 9:28 AM (56 minutes ago) Bookmark

everybody is sensibly dressed at all times

Xps yeah I got that part, I just don't understand WHY a state would have an open primary. Like, what is the point of allowing supporters of the the opposing party to vote for your candidate? as they pointed out in the movie, R voters would vote for D candidate most likely to lose against their candidate.

ya got me! just more democratic w/ a small d?

Has there ever been a significant election that turned on that, though? I mean, I guess you never know what the voters' intentions are, but I have to imagine that most voters either don't think tactically like that or are too lazy/inconvenienced to bother.

Anyway, I admired the tight dramatic structure of this -- you could really feel its roots in a small-ensemble play -- though certain elements worked better than others.

** BEGIN SPOILER **
One thing that irked me a bit was that Morris not only stored Molly's number in his phone but associated it with her name -- which seems pretty careless to me -- but I realize that's mostly for the audience's benefit during that scene.
** END SPOILER **

40 years ago, Stanley Kauffmann complained that The Candidate doesn't tell you anything you don't already know.

I kind of don't get this criticism, which I've seen levied elsewhere (re Ides of March). Why would you expect it to deliver political insights? I do think there are some interesting echoes of recent political culture, but mostly I thought it was just good chewy drama.

More spoiler stuff...I was surprised when it was Morris's number that turned up on Molly's phone; I thought it was going to be Giamatti's number, that she was going to be like Charlotte Rampling in The Verdict, a mole from the other side.

I thought the same thing! Obviously you know she's going to be a major plot point one way or another, but even if she was a mole I dont know why he'd call there...

Overall I thought it was pretty good, first 15 minutes were boring but it picks up pretty quickly. My only disappointment (and this is sorts spoiler territory) was that I had almost preferred Clooney had just told Gosling to fuck off and that the shit really hit the fan, but I don't think it was supposed to be that type of movie

Saw this last night and liked it a lot--more than the comparable thank You for Smoking, or orther minor movies with these actors (Duplicity, etc.). Some great two-hander moments, and fun to see Gosling in this after the Asperger's character in Drive.

boy is Clooney miscast.

My wife was out of the country when this came out, so we've got the DVD at home. I liked the film, but I'm surprised at how eager I am to watch it again. Maybe because we've been watching Damages over the past few weeks, so my appetite has been properly whet for Machiavellian intrigue.

But that's the problem: I wish this thing were more evil other than inflicting Gosling-in-wifebeaters on a vulnerable audience.

The pillow talk is soooooo dull.

Clooney as director errs in even showing Clooney the actor's point of view (e.g. the Sensitive Moment between the candidate and wife in the car); for this thing to work at all the candidate has to remain in the shadows, a smirking non-entity.

Also: I would have preferred if Gosling and Clooney had switched roles.

that would've been a better usage of gosling

clooney's character was unbearable for me until the plot twists started coming, and the way the whole thing gets treated like some majestic tragedy feels so hokey and false to me

I agree that we shouldn't have even seen the candidate, as apparently was the case in the stage play.

Saw this last night and liked it a lot--more than the comparable thank You for Smoking,

thank you for smoking is fucking terrible!

this was alright.

although I keep wanting to call it Prince of Ides

lol "cynical" from a guy who think Bushama's been gr8

Written by a guy who worked on Howard Dean's campaign in '04.

Took another look at this, and had somehow completely forgotten that Hoffman was in it. Gosling's showdown with Clooney is good: "It's your call, Senator." (Also like that you never do find out if there was a letter or not.) Giamatti's "jaded and cynical" line again made me cringe--I think even Capra would have rejected that one. Nice touch with the new intern at the end.

Written by a guy who worked on Howard Dean's campaign in '04.

...who went on to write and run House of Cards.