Daily Dose of George Clooney! Clooney News 8

DGA sets Host, Presenters for 55th Annual DGA Awards Dinner

2/25/03

Carl Reiner will return as host for the 55th Annual Directors Guild of America Awards, DGA President Martha Coolidge and Awards Chairperson Howard Storm announced today. This year will mark the seventeenth time Reiner has hosted the DGA Awards, which will take place on Saturday, March 1, 2003 at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles.

Coolidge and Storm also announced the slate of presenters for the DGA Awards, including Academy Award® nominees Kathy Bates (About Schmidt), Adrien Brody (The Pianist), Salma Hayek (Frida), Daniel Day Lewis (Gangs of New York), Julianne Moore (The Hours), John C. Reilly (Chicago) and Renée Zellweger (Chicago).

Director Steven Spielberg will be presenting Martin Scorsese with the Lifetime Achievement Award, which honors distinguished career achievement in motion picture directing, and is the Guild's highest tribute. Spielberg, the most recent recipient, received the Award in 2000.

Following is the list of presenters, in alphabetical order: Alan Alda,Kathy Bates,Cate Blanchett, Adrien Brody, LeVar Burton, Gil Cates, George Clooney, Leonardo DiCaprio, Michael C. Hall, Salma Hayek, Cheryl Hines, Ron Howard, Michael Keaton,

Peter Krause, Daniel Day Lewis, Julianne Moore, John C. Reilly, Rob Reiner, Martin Sheen, Steven Spielberg, Renée Zellweger

The DGA Awards will begin with a cocktail reception at 5:30p.m. on Saturday, March 1, 2003, at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles.

Stars cross oceans for sequel

Anita Singh

2/25/03

Hollywood heart-throb George Clooney has confirmed he is on board to star in a sequel to the hit movie Ocean's Eleven.

He will reunite with co-stars Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and Julia Roberts to film Ocean's Twelve.

"Everybody's down to do the movie and we have all set aside schedules for it. I'm really looking forward to doing it," Clooney said.

He refused to reveal any plot details but director Steven Soderbergh hinted that the film, due to start filming in March next year, may be set in Europe. Soderbergh also directed the first film, in which a gang plotted to rip off three Las Vegas casinos.

Clooney has recently been promoting two films: the sci-fi drama Solaris and his directing debut Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, a biopic of legendary 1970s American TV producer and The Gong Show host Chuck Barris.

Confessions, whose supporting cast includes Roberts and Drew Barrymore, is based on Barris's autobiography in which he claims to have led a double life as a CIA assassin, fronting game shows by day and murdering government targets by night.

Clooney, 41, was coy about his latest movie. Asked how he rated it, he said: "I can't have an objective viewpoint. I don't know if I'm a good boss."

On his plans for the future, the former ER star, who makes an appearance in his new film as a CIA agent, said: "I'll direct again if something interesting comes along."

But he has put a new spin on his career, revealing that he is considering ending his acting career to concentrate on full-time directing because he feels that no one will want to look at him when he gets old.

According to entertainment website imdb.com, Clooney said he would consider life as a director when his looks began to fade.

"Eventually, my looks will fall apart and I'll have to give up," he said.

"You direct to have some control over your career when people say, 'I don't want to see you act any more'. Paul Newman is acting almost into his 80s, but name another one.

"Robert Duvall? Fine. But he's Robert Duvall! He did ToKill A Mockingbird. I did Batman & Robin. He did Network. I did Battle Of The Network Stars. There is a difference."

In Confessions, Sam Rockwell, who appeared in Charlie's Angels and Welcome To Collinwood, plays Barris.

Rockwell described Clooney as "a fantastic boss" and "a really clever person".

Clooney's Ocean's Eleven co-stars Damon and Pitt have cameos as contestants on a Blind Date-style game show in Confessions.

Barris is regarded as one of the most influential figures in TV entertainment. He created seminal game shows including The Dating Game and The Gong Show and is regarded as the forerunner of talk-show hosts such as Jerry Springer and shock jock Howard Stern.

Clooney was well-qualified to direct the film about TV game shows - his father was a former host of the 1970s quiz The Money Maze. -PA

Desert Island Clooney Tunes

2/22/03

MOVIE heartthrob George Clooney has a surprise in store for Desert Island Discs presenter Sue Lawley today. Instead of choosing a favourite record on the Radio 4 show he picks one he hates. He says: "If you play William Shatner singing Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds then you will hollow out your own leg and make a canoe out of it to get off the island.

Confessions of George Clooney

Victoria Lindrea

BBC News Online

1/19/03

At 41, actor George Clooney may not be able to open a movie single-handedly or guarantee box office success, but he is undoubtedly a significant presence in the film industry - and one of Hollywood's most popular players.

The son of a news presenter and nephew to the late singer Rosemary Clooney, the former ER star gained an early insight into the trappings of fame.

"She was a huge influence on me," he says of his aunt, with whom he spent his early years in Hollywood.

"She was famous and then not famous, but she didn't become any less of a singer - things change that you have absolutely nothing to do with."

The nature of celebrity is one of the themes in George Clooney's directorial debut, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.

It tells the story of TV personality Chuck Barris, who claims he led a double life as a CIA assassin while hosting game shows in the 1970s.

"I wasn't looking to direct, but I felt like this was a screenplay where I knew how to tell the story," says Clooney, who grew up on TV sets during his father's brief career as a game show host.

Curtis Hanson, David Fincher and Bryan Singer were among the directors who briefly took and relinquished the film's helm.

By 2000 so much money had already been spent in pre-production costs that it looked certain never to be made.

"My pitch to Harvey (Weinstein) was that I could do it $20m cheaper than anybody else," says Clooney.

Taking advantage of social standing in Tinsel Town, Clooney easily persuaded stars like Julia Roberts and Drew Barrymore to work for lower salaries.

"They weren't calling because they wanted to work with me - these were great parts," he says.

Some stars did not receive any payment at all. "It was a pure and simple favour," he says of Matt Damon and Brad Pitt's cameo appearance.

"I still can't believe they showed up for a shot that we didn't even stop the camera on. That's what great friends they are."

'Bad marketing'

It may sound conceited, but in a profession replete with warring egos, Clooney certainly appears to be one of the good guys.

"He is unbelievably generous, always putting everybody else before himself," says Natasha McElhone, Clooney's co-star in the upcoming film Solaris.

Solaris, a new version of the sci-fi classic by Andrei Tarkovsky, marks Clooney's third project with director and friend Steven Soderbergh, who wrote the screenplay.

A slow, cerebral film, Clooney calls it "a polarising film that was not designed to be a blockbuster" and blames its poor reception in the US on bad marketing.

But then, Clooney is accustomed to poor receptions. Among his early big screen outings was the comic book sequel Batman and Robin, which made a spectacular nosedive at the box office.

Father's advice

In fact, the actor did not have a box office hit until 2000's The Perfect Storm and, despite critical acclaim and a Golden Globe, the Coen brothers comedy O'Brother, Where Art Thou? was only grudgingly received.

"The trick is that you can't spend all your time trying to correct the things that are said about you," says Clooney equably.

He claims the best advice came from his father who told him to "do it, and be willing to fail".

"The best part of the fame is being able to make the films that you want to make. Films that will last longer than an opening weekend," he says.

It is all a far cry from flirting with Nurse Hathaway across the operating table as Dr Ross in hospital drama ER.

Solaris opens on 28 February and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind opens on 21 March.

'Boy wonder' wields his powers

The Age

2/17/03

Being acclaimed as a boy wonder can be something of a albatross. How do you ever recapture that sense of gilded, gifted youth? What do you do for the rest of your life? Steven Soderbergh joined the boy wonder club in 1989 by winning the Palme d'Or at Cannes with his debut film, Sex, Lies and Videotape. He was just 26, and acknowledged the problem even as he accepted the award: "I guess it's all downhill from here," he said.

For almost 10 years, his prediction seemed spot-on. Critics grudgingly respected his films (Kafka, King of the Hill, The Underneath, Gray's Anatomy and Schizopolis), but audiences stayed away.

Even Soderbergh wasn't surprised: "When I look at The Underneath now, it's just so sleepy," he tells me. "It was a broken-backed idea to begin with. There should be some cultural police force that arrives when you say: 'I want to make an armoured car heist movie, but have it be like (Antonioni's) Red Desert.' Someone should chain you up and carry you off.

"But I learned a lot from making that film, if only that I needed to change course. It was the first time I'd been on a film set and wondered whether I wanted to continue."

His turning point came in 1998 with Out of Sight, a stylish, romantic thriller that marked his first collaboration with George Clooney. It was a big hit, and Soderbergh admits: "The experience loosened me up a lot. It was based on a script that was already written. It was my first film that wasn't all about me."

With Out of Sight, Soderbergh found his niche. He now operates within Hollywood like a loyal opposition, making genre films with a grace and flair that eludes most directors employed by studios. He is not above a trivial caper movie like Ocean's Eleven, but invests it with such elan that it becomes pure pleasure to watch. In lesser hands, Erin Brockovich would be a routine true-story TV movie; but Julia Roberts's performance won her an Oscar, and the film was nominated for four more.

That same year, 2000, was Soderbergh's annus mirabilis; his film Traffic, about the drugs war in America and Mexico, won four Oscars. He was back.

At 40, he has gathered around him an informal repertory company. It helps that they include some of Hollywood's biggest names: Clooney, Roberts, Brad Pitt. Intriguingly, Soderbergh uses them strictly for specific, even small, roles rather than casting them for star value. He now wields subtle but huge influence in Hollywood.

In 2000 he and Clooney formed Section Eight, a small production company with a plain philosophy: "If we can be lean and mean, get some interesting movies made and work with really good filmmakers, it's worth doing."

Section Eight (it's a US military term, meaning a discharge for physical or mental unfitness for service) is based at Warner Bros, and already making its presence felt. Two of its films have opened in America: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, based on the memoirs of eccentric TV game-show host Chuck Barris, directed by and starring Clooney; and Welcome to Collinwood, a comic remake of the burglary caper film Big Deal on Madonna Street, with Clooney in a minor role.

I spoke twice to Soderbergh about his recent work and Section Eight - first at the Venice Film Festival, then recently over informal drinks one evening in London. He is good company: witty and gossipy about Hollywood, and occasionally forthright about other filmmakers.

He now commands such respect that he is one of few directors who can be equally candid with studio bosses. He and Clooney were executive producers of Insomnia, Al Pacino's recent hit, but Warner Bros fretted about the young Englishman Christopher Nolan directing it. "I went in and told them, look, Chris will deliver the film on time and on budget," Soderbergh recalls. "And he'll give you an interesting movie too. You'd be fools not to hire him."

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind was made for Miramax, whose boss, the notoriously volatile Harvey Weinstein, was nagging a stubborn Clooney to cut the film by a few minutes. "I told Harvey, 'Look, I think you'd want to be in the George Clooney business for a few years. But right now he's so pissed off he never wants to work with you again. Where's the sense in that?' I think I got him to back off a little."

Section Eight were also executive producers of Todd Haynes's acclaimed new film Far from Heaven; Haynes told me Soderbergh "helped navigate us through some points of budgetary tension. More than once, he offered to help us cover some overspending out of his own pocket. He was just there for us."

And when Britain's Ken Loach was in Los Angeles making Bread and Roses, about striking office workers, Soderbergh volunteered to find him a local crew for the low-paying shoot. None of this virtue or influence makes Soderbergh immune to box-office failure. In America, he has had two recently. Critics panned the experimental Full Frontal, a self-indulgent film with an insider's view of Hollywood types; it was shot in 18 days for just $US2 million ($A3.4 million).

"Columnists attacked me on the leader pages," he sighs. "You'd think I was a serial killer. If it had cost more than $2 million, I'd be worried. But I wanted to make something that wasn't immediately digestible, which was partly why I made it cheaply." He made his latest film, Solaris, for Fox at a far higher price. A radically different version of Tarkovsky's 1972 classic, it stars Clooney as a psychologist in space, visiting a space station where astronauts' dormant memories are revived; in his case, this brings him face to face with his wife (or a semblance of her) who he knows committed suicide.

It is a film of great fluency and beauty, and may be Clooney's best performance yet. But American critics helped bury Solaris at the box-office; it does not conform to Hollywood ideas of a neatly resolved story or a happy ending.

Yet he is quick to defend his film, and his lead actor: "Solaris is unlike anything George has done. I benefited from him having just directed a movie. He was tired, and open to doing things he might not have been a year before.

"There are abstract emotions in this movie, hallucinogenic fever dream sequences where he thinks he's in the moment of his own death. That was difficult for George to portray with a camera four feet from his nose." As for the commercial failure of Solaris, Soderbergh is insouciant: "I'd rather it was a real flop than just a minor hit. I'm fine about it. It only cost Fox £30 million (A$82 million). They'll make it back on video and DVD eventually."

He says that, yet in the next breath complains about Hollywood's waste and excess: "I hate it. It drives me nuts. That's what bothers me about the place. That it's driven by money is no surprise. But I hate the indulgence it provokes in people. It's tied into the films they make now. If you make a $US50 million movie that should cost $US30 million, it won't be as interesting. The pressure to be appreciated by a mass audience has a real impact on the quality of films."

He admires two young American directors, Wes Anderson (The Royal Tenenbaums) and Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights), but cautions: "It's time they grew up a little. They need to start making films about things more than 10 feet from their nose." Could the boy wonder be experiencing the onset of middle age?

Did Clooney's hand move 'Heaven'?

Andy Seiler

USA TODAY

2/16/03

Here's a real-life movie mystery: Does an Oscar-nominated script have a secret Clooney connection?

George Clooney might have helped make his father's dream movie — completely by accident.

In The Movies That Changed Us: Reflections on the Screen, author Nick Clooney — George's father and brother of the late singer Rosemary Clooney — determines 20 movies that changed American culture and American society.

But there was one movie the elder Clooney, a longtime journalist best known as a host on American Movie Classics, looked for but couldn't find. Clooney was sure there must have been a Hollywood film dealing with race relations that helped spark the civil rights movement. He couldn't find one, so he ended up devoting an entire chapter to "The Movie That Never Was."

"I went into this assuming that that would be the easiest chapter to write," Clooney says. "But Hollywood was shy on that one, big time."

The nonexistent movie Clooney describes, however, sounds strangely similar to a movie that really exists — and that George Clooney executive-produced.

That movie is Far From Heaven, starring best-actress-Oscar nominee Julianne Moore and Dennis Haysbert as a black man who catches Moore's interest and ignites neighbors' prejudice.

Though the film doesn't predate the civil rights movement, it looks as if it does. Writer-director Todd Haynes filmed the entire movie to look exactly like a glossy Hollywood melodrama from the 1950s. (Think director Douglas Sirk's Imitation of Life or Written On the Wind.) It's as if Todd Haynes went back and made the great '50s movie that Clooney believed should have been made but wasn't.

But no. Clooney hadn't even gotten to that chapter when Far From Heaven was conceived.

"I love the book, though I haven't finished it," says George Clooney, whose directing debut, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, also is in theaters. "Movies were a huge part of our lives. When you're in a little town in Kentucky, a lot of your entertainment is movies."

"I love this idea," says Haynes of the Clooney/Clooney connection, but he adds that, sure enough, he wasn't aware of Nick Clooney's book when he wrote his Oscar-nominated screenplay. (In addition to the nominations for Moore and Haynes, Heaven is nominated for Edward Lachman's cinematography and Elmer Bernstein's musical score.)

"This film ridiculously includes three of the heavy-hitter topics in our society: race, sexuality and women," Haynes says. His movie does indeed address civil rights issues in a '50s style but in a way that nobody would have dared in the '50s, he allows.

But he considers that plotline secondary to the other story line: the marital troubles between Moore's character and her sexually confused husband (Dennis Quaid).

As for Nick Clooney, he says that George helped improve the book — but mostly by suggesting films from recent years that his father would not have otherwise thought of. Still, says Clooney, it's not a coincidence that his son became involved with a movie that sounds so much like the one his father wished for.

"Nothing is coincidental," says Nick Clooney, who in addition to writing books is a radio disc jockey in Kentucky, a newspaper columnist for The Cincinnati Post and a TV host for Goodlife TV (formerly the Nostalgia Network).

"The fact that George would have an interest and a feeling for this kind of film is not coincidental," he adds. "When he was growing up, our family was always talking about political issues. The great family motto of the Clooney family is: 'You always help those who have less power than you and challenge those who have more.' "

Clooney clashes with the titans

Ashley Pearson

MSNBC

2/13/03

Feb. 13 — George Clooney seems to be losing his temper a bit lately. Clooney got a lot of ink for blasting a reporter who called his film “Solaris” “boring.” “I find you fascinating,” Clooney told a journalist at the Berlin Film Festival. “You crack me up, man. You just wanted to get up and be a rat, you know that? You just wanted to get up and say something rotten. What a jerk! I mean honestly, you know, what a s****y thing to say!”

According to “Solaris” director Steven Soderbergh, Clooney also clashed pretty badly with Miramax chief Harvey Weinstein over “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.”

Apparently, Weinstein was trying to get Clooney to edit down the flick a bit. Things got so heated, Soderbergh stepped into the fracas to cool things down.

“I told Harvey, ‘Look, I think you’d want to be in the George Clooney business for a few years,” Soderbergh told a reporter while in England. “But right now he’s so pissed off he never wants to work with you again. Where’s the sense in that?’ I think I got him to back off a little.”

Weinstein also clashed with Martin Scorsese over the editing of “Gangs of New York,” but, as one source points out, “Even his critics have to admit, based on Miramax dominance of this year’s Oscars nominees, he’s no fool.”

When asked about the clash, a Miramax spokesman diplomatically responded: “Yes, we do want to be in the George Clooney business. We were proud to work with him on his directorial debut and hope to work with him in the future.”

Soderbergh couldn’t be reached for comment, but Clooney’s spokesman wasn’t quite so diplomatic. “You guys are nuts,” he told The Scoop. “There was never a clash. . . . I don’t believe [Soderbergh] said that. If you say he did, you are going to have Steven Soderbergh up your a- — and he builds rocket ships and sends them to Solaris, so you don’t want that.”

Finding Their Voices

Newsday

Liz Smith

2/12/03

MY FAVORITE lunch companion, George Clooney, has been felled with bronchitis in Berlin. He has been forbidden to fly but needs to be in London today or tomorrow in his ongoing tour promoting both his starring movie "Solaris" and his directed film "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind." (He's already done Paris and Amsterdam. Madrid fell off the schedule when he lost his voice.)

Clooney hit the Reuters wire last weekend after he verbally attacked a reporter at a Berlin news conference when the scribe said of "Solaris" that he "found it boring." Clooney, typically, called the reporter "a -- jerk." He reacted out of loyalty to his director, Steven Soderbergh, who was also at the press conference. George says, "I did it because he was trying to embarrass Steve."

When the reporter asked Soderbergh if he were happy with his movie, he said, calmly: "Yes, I am. And thanks for the question." He and Clooney believe "Solaris" will perform well in foreign markets. (George's "The Perfect Storm" earned $182 million here in 2000.)

Conservatives like Bill O'Reilly and William F. Buckley Jr. are calling for Clooney's liberal head because the actor made fun of Charlton Heston recently.

Giving this some thought, I decided that Clooney's dis - "Charlton Heston announced again today that he is suffering from Alzheimer's" - is really no worse than Heston waving that old rifle for the National Rifle Association and shouting, "From my cold, dead hand!" It's still a free country, and we're supposed to put up with free speech now and then from liberals and conservatives. Maybe more than we are getting these days!

Gaghan 'Dead' Set on Irish Romance

Michael Fleming

2/11/03

New YorkK (Variety) - Oscar-winning "Traffic" scribe Steve Gaghan will adapt and direct "And Dead I Well May Be," based on a novel about an Irish mobster who sets himself up for retribution when he romances the boss's mistress. The Adrian McKinty book will be published next fall by Scribners.

Gaghan, who made his directing debut on "Abandon," recently did a rewrite on "The Alamo" and is now adapting the Robert Baer novel "Fear No Evil," which he will direct for Warner Bros. and Section Eight, the banner of George Clooney) and Steven Soderbergh.

Power behind the screen

Telegraph.UK

2/8/03

Berlin Film Festival

In partnership with George Clooney, director Steven Soderbergh has become one of Hollywood's top players. David Gritten meets him.

Being acclaimed as a boy wonder in the arts can be something of as albatross. How do you ever recapture that sense of gilded, gifted youth? What do you do for the rest of your life? Steven Soderbergh joined the boy wonder club in 1989 by winning the Palme d'Or at Cannes with his debut film, Sex, Lies and Videotape. He was just 26, and acknowledged the problem even as he accepted the award: "I guess it's all downhill from here," he said.

For almost 10 years his prediction seemed spot-on. Critics grudgingly respected his next films (Kafka, King of the Hill, The Underneath, Gray's Anatomy and Schizopolis) but audiences stayed away. Even Soderbergh wasn't surprised: "When I look at The Underneath now, it's just so sleepy," he tells me. "It was a broken-backed idea to begin with. There should be some cultural police force that arrives when you say: 'I want to make an armoured car heist movie but have it be like (Antonioni's) Red Desert.' Someone should chain you up and carry you off.

"But I learned a lot from making that film, if only that I needed to change course. It was the first time I'd been on a film set and wondered whether I wanted to continue. I was in danger of becoming a formalist." His turning point came in 1998 with Out of Sight, a stylish, funny, romantic thriller that significantly marked his first collaboration with leading man George Clooney. It was a big hit, and Soderbergh admits: "The experience loosened me up a lot. It was based on a script that was already written. It was my first film that wasn't all about me."

He now wields subtle but huge influence in Hollywood. In 2000 he and Clooney formed Section Eight, a small production company with a plain philosophy: "If we can be lean and mean, get some interesting movies made and work with really good film-makers, it's worth doing."

Fellow directors mention small acts of encouragement and support that seal their admiration for Soderbergh. Section Eight were also executive producers of Todd Haynes's acclaimed new film Far from Heaven; Haynes told me Soderbergh "helped navigate us through some points of budgetary tension. More than once, he offered to help us cover some overspending out of his own pocket. He was just there for us." And when Britain's Ken Loach was in Los Angeles making his modestly-budgeted Bread and Roses, about striking office workers, Soderbergh (who greatly admires Loach) volunteered to find him a local crew for the low-paying shoot.

None of this virtue or influence makes Soderbergh immune to box-office failure. In America, he has had two recently. Critics panned the experimental Full Frontal, a self-indulgent film with an insider's view of Hollywood types; it was shot in 18 days for just $2 million. "Columnists attacked me on the leader pages," he sighs. "You'd think I was a serial killer. If it had cost more than $2 million, I'd be worried. But I wanted to make something that wasn't immediately digestible, which was partly why I made it cheaply."

He made his latest film, Solaris, for Fox at a far higher price. A radically different version of Tarkovsky's 1972 classic, it stars Clooney as a psychologist in space, visiting a space station where astronauts' dormant memories are revived; in his case, this brings him face to face with his wife (or a semblance of her) who he knows committed suicide. It is a film of great fluency and beauty, and may be Clooney's best performance yet. But American critics helped bury Solaris at the box-office; it does not conform to Hollywood ideas of a neatly resolved story or a happy ending.

Yet he is quick to defend his film, and his lead actor: " Solaris, is unlike anything George has done. I benefited from him having just directed a movie. He was tired, and open to doing things he might not have been a year before. There are abstract emotions in this movie, hallucinogenic fever dream sequences where he thinks he's in the moment of his own death. That was difficult for George to portray with a camera four feet from his nose."

As for the commercial failure of Solaris,, Soderbergh is insouciant: "I'd rather it was a real flop than just a minor hit. I'm fine about it. It only cost Fox £30 million. They'll make it back on video and DVD eventually."

He says that, yet in the next breath complains about Hollywood's waste and excess: "I hate it. It drives me nuts. That's what bothers me about the place. That it's driven by money is no surprise. But I hate the indulgence it provokes in people. It's tied into the films they make now. If you make a $50 million movie that should cost $30 million, it won't be as interesting. The pressure to be appreciated by a mass audience has a real impact on the quality of films now."

Few people working within Hollywood state that case so baldly, and his candour raises the question of who might follow in his footsteps. He plans to take several months off to spend time with the creative team behind the hit television series The Sopranos, and write a book about the programme. He admires two young American directors, Wes Anderson and Paul Thomas Anderson, but cautions: "It's time they grew up a little. They need to start making films about things more than 10 feet from their nose."

Could that be the boy wonder experiencing the onset of middle age?

Section Eight on 'Nine'...Soderbergh first a.d. Jacobs to make debut on thriller

Dana Harris

2/5/03

Warner Bros. Pictures has acquired remake rights to "Nine Queens" for Section Eight Prods., the shingle run by Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney. Spanish-language pic was released in the U.S. by Sony Pictures Classics last spring.

Soderbergh's longtime first assistant director, Gregory Jacobs, will make his directorial debut and co-write the script with Soderbergh.

Written and directed by Argentine helmer Fabian Bielinsky, "Nine Queens" is a thriller that follows a day in the life of two con artists. Pic swept the 2001 Argentine Film Assn. Awards, including best picture.

Ironically, Bielinsky made his directorial debut on "Nine Queens" after serving as first a.d. on more than half a dozen pics.

Jacobs began working with Soderbergh in 1995 with "Underneath." He was a producer on "Full Frontal" and an executive producer of "Solaris."

Soderbergh and Clooney will produce, and Section Eight's Jennifer Fox and Ben Cosgrove will exec produce. Warners VP production Jessica Goodman will oversee the project for the studio.

"For years, George and I have been trying to find a project for Greg to direct, and we all feel this material hits the bull's eye: a street-level contemporary crime film with brilliant plotting and complex characters," Soderbergh said.

Pablo Bossi and Cecila Bossi for Patagonik Film Group produced the original pic.

Soderbergh on ballot for HBO series

2/4/03

Having first made his name as the director of "sex, lies, and videotape," Steven Soderbergh is moving on to the next logical part of the equation -- politics. And he appears to have found a running mate in HBO, the cable channel that has already turned shows about sex, crime and death into award-winning series. Oscar winner Soderbergh and HBO are developing a television series set in the world of political consulting, sources have confirmed. Sources said HBO is eyeing a 10-episode commitment to the project, with Soderbergh set to direct the first episode. The series will be written by filmmaker Henry Bean ("The Believer"), and it's described as being part scripted, part improv, with current events expected to be woven into the story line. The goal is to shoot each episode one week before it airs to keep the subject matter as current as possible. There is no start date for the project. Real-life political consultant James Carville, best known as former President Clinton's main campaign strategist, and Michael Deaver, former President Reagan's main media planner during his presidency, are executive producing the project with Soderbergh and George Clooney's Section Eight. HBO is no stranger to politics, which provided the setting for its 1988 miniseries "Tanner '88," a look at a presidential campaign directed by Robert Altman and written by Gary Trudeau. Soderbergh is repped by manager Pat Dollard. Bean is repped by WMA. HBO declined comment on the project.

Celebrity Chatter: Up-Close With George Clooney

Michelle Solomon

Staff Writer

2/3/05

George Clooney looks thinner than usual, but he still looks good.

He's wearing a black shirt and black pants and has a small brace on his foot. He said he injured himself playing basketball at his home. He's still determined to do his job and that job is to promote his new film "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind."

Clooney, 41, isn't shy. He's willing to talk to you frankly about anything you want to bring up. He'll talk about his acting, his writing, and what it was like directing his first picture. He'll talk about the controversial stuff, too, including his alleged swipe at Charlton Heston and his outspoken candor about how he feels about America engaging in a war with Iraq.

There has been much talk about the biopic "Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind," the movie based on the book by "Gong Show" game host and (maybe) CIA operative Chuck Barris. Clooney co-stars in the film and makes his directorial feature-film debut behind the camera.

Questions surround the film and the book on which it is based as to the truth or fiction of Barris' fantastical story.

Is it real or imagined? Was Barris really a trained assassin?

"I don't know," Clooney said. "I have an opinion on that I won't tell you. (Barris) titled his book, 'An Unauthorized Autobiography,' so I think you can get some hint of what he was doing from that. I felt it was important that I never asked him that question because I didn't want him to tell me 'I was going through a nervous breakdown and I made it up.' This way I could tell the story sort of with the idea that if it was true it's wild, and if it isn't true why would someone like Chuck make that up," he said.

Clooney said he didn't set out to direct "Confessions." In the beginning he was attached to it only as an actor, but when the movie was close to being abandoned, he swooped in and rescued it.

"It's a great screenplay. I didn't want to see it not get done and that's where it was heading," he said.

Clooney's father, Nick, had a game show called "The Money Maze," and as a boy the young George used to hang around the set.

"I grew up on game shows so I thought I had an idea of how to tell the story."

Stars such as Julia Roberts are attached to the film, and so are other Clooney cronies including Matt Damon and Brad Pitt, who appear in cameos as "Dating Game" contestants. Clooney admits it was a bit intimidating directing his colleagues.

"When you're acting with someone, no one is questioning your intellect, but when you're directing you're constantly asked 'why'? It can be intimidating when you're working with people you respect," Clooney said.

On the same day we spoke, headlines had just broke that Clooney was at a film awards dinner and made what some people perceived as an inappropriate remark about Charlton Heston. As first reported by syndicated columnist Liz Smith, Clooney was speaking at a National Board of Review event and said: "Charlton Heston announced again today that he is suffering from Alzheimer's."

"It was a joke," Clooney said. "They got the quote wrong. What I said was 'The head of the NRA announced today...' (Filmmaker) Michael Moore had just gotten an award. Anyway, Charlton Heston shows up with guns over his head after a school shooting and then says in the documentary it's because of ethnic diversity that we have problems with violence in America. I think he's going to have to take whatever hits he gets. It was just a joke. That was someone else trying to make a bigger story."

When I first ask him about the news story, he believed I was talking about the headlines he's been making for being an outspoken opponent of an imminent war with Iraq. He took the opportunity to present his views on this as well:

"I am just looking for someone in the news like Murrow did with McCarthyism, like Cronkite did with Vietnam and like Bernstein and Woodward did with Nixon. I'm just looking for someone in the news to ask difficult questions of this government. It's not my job to do that. I'm not intelligent enough to do it," Clooney said.

By this time, our interview is over. We've covered some ground, but not all. We've talked about the important questions. I realize that Clooney isn't just flash. He's an interesting guy. And not bad looking, either.

http://www.theomahachannel.com/entertainment/1951923/detail.html

Swords-and-Sandals...Films about ancient Persia

The Iranian

Darius Kadivar

1/30/03

The Gates of Fire, a remake of the 300 Spartans based on the novel of Steven Pressfield, is to be directed by Michael Mann (Heat, Ali) with George Clooney (Oceans Eleven, Solaris) as producer and Bruce Willis (Die Hard, Armageddon) is said to be interested in playing the title role. Who will be cast in the role of King Xerxes is still unknown, and no production date has been announced yet.

Read review of Gates of Fire Script.

Damon, Soderbergh Wired for 'Informant'

1/29/03

Cathy Dunkley and Jonathan Bing

Hollywood (Variety) - Matt Damon (news) will star in the feature adaptation of "The Informant" for director Steven Soderbergh (news), who last worked with the actor in "Ocean's Eleven."

The Warner Bros. project is based on a book by New York Times investigative reporter Kurt Eichenwald.

It centers around the story of Mark Whitacre, a high-level mole at the self-declared "supermarket to the world," Archer Daniels Midland. Whitacre wore an FBI (news - web sites) wire for more than two years to uncover a major price-fixing scam with ADM's Japanese competitors that brought the company millions of dollars in profit. ADM pled guilty in 1996 and paid a $100 million fine.

The studio bought feature rights to the Broadway Books tome in a high-six-figure deal last February for Soderbergh to develop at his Section Eight shingle. Scott Z Burns is penning the adaptation of the book.

It is unclear when the picture will start shooting, as Soderbergh first will direct "Ocean's Twelve." The sequel to "Ocean's Twelve" is targeted for a March 2004 start date. Soderbergh, star George Clooney (news) and producer Jerry Weintraub are locked in. Some other original cast members will return, accompanied by new actors for the second picture.

Clooney on the Dole?

BBC Radio

1/23/03

George Clooney reckons his A-list career has ground to a halt - the Hollywood hunk admits he hasn't been offered a good movie role for a year.

His latest film 'Confessions of a Dangerous Mind' - which he directs and stars in with Drew Barrymore - goes on US general release tomorrow (Friday). He also has another flick in the bag, 'Intolerable Cruelty', out later this year, co-starring Catherine Zeta Jones.

But despite all that, the star admits he's being overlooked these days:

"Weird thing… you get into the position I'm in and you think all of a sudden it's just gonna be pearls. And the truth is it's one or two scripts a year - at best. It's funny, there are no original ideas. Good dialogue is hard to come by. It's really wild." "I'm gonna take a little break and figure out what I'm gonna do. I'm trying to find a job."

Lee, Clooney Films Show at Berlin Fest

Gainesvillesun.com

1/23/03

New movies from Spike Lee, Steven Soderbergh, Spike Jonze and George Clooney are among the films in competition for the top Golden Bear award at this year's Berlin Film Festival.

The festival will run Feb. 6-16. It boasts entries ranging from China to Slovenia and will feature 10 world premieres, organizers said Wednesday.

Lee's "25th Hour," starring Edward Norton, joins Soderbergh's "Solaris," Jonze's "Adaptation" and Clooney's directorial debut, "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind," for the U.S. contingent.

Britain's Stephen Daldry contributes "The Hours," co-starring Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep and Julianne Moore. Also showing is "The Life of David Gale," a U.S.-British co-production from Alan Parker, starring Kevin Spacey and Kate Winslet.

Three French films are competing: "Son Frere," from director Patrice Chereau, will make its world debut alongside Claude Chabrol's "La Fleur du Mal (The Flower of Evil)" and Pascal Bonitzer's "Petites Coupures."

The seven-member international jury will be headed by filmmaker Atom Egoyan.

Berlin Int'l. Film FestivalL Official Program 2003

The Competition:

"Alexandra's Project" Dir: Rolf De Heer (Australia)

"Adaptation" Dir: Spike Jonze (U.S.)

"Angst" Dir: Oskar Roehler (Germany)

"Blind Shaft" Dir: Li Yang (China)

"Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" Dir: George Clooney (U.S.)

"The Flower of Evil" Dir: Claude Chabrol (France)

"Goodbye, Lenin!" Dir: Wolfgang Becker (Germany)

"Distant Lights" Dir: Hans-Christian Schmid (Germany)

"Hero" Dir: Zhang Yimou's (China)

"The Hours" Dir: Stephen Daldry (U.S.)

"I'm Not Scared" Dir: Gabriele Salvatores (Italy)

"In This World" Dir: Michael Winterbottom (U.K.)

"The Life of David Gale" Dir: Alan Parker (U.S.-U.K.)

"Madame Brouette" Dir: Moussa Sene Absa (Senegal)

"My Life Without Me" Dir: Isabel Coixet (Spain-Canada)

"Petites Coupures" Dir: Pascal Bonitzer (France)

"Solaris" Dir: Steven Soderbergh (U.S.)

"Son Frere" Dir: Patrice Chereau (France)

"Spare Parts" Dir: Damjan Kozole (Slovenia)

"The 25th Hour" Dir: Spike Lee (U.S.)

"The Twilight Samurai" Dir: Yoji Yamada (Japan)

"Yes Nurse, No Nurse" Dir: Pieter Kramer (Netherlands)

Clooney isn't joining Dubya's gang

NY Daily News

1/20/03

Listen to the complete interview

George Clooney says President Bush would fit in just fine with New Jersey's favorite crime family.

"The government itself is running exactly like the Sopranos," he tells Charlie Rose tonight in a full-bore assault on Dubya's foreign policy.

The "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" director says Bush has cut deals with France and Russia so the UN Security Council won't complain when "we go into a war [with Iraq] and kill a lot of innocent people." Quips Clooney: "[Bush says,] 'France, you're getting the pipelines.'

"Are we going to try and talk [to Saddam Hussein] ... without jumping in and killing people first?" asks Clooney. "I don't believe we're going to wait until the last resort to do it. That's what bothers me."

I wonder how a war could effect Box Office Receipts.

.See related article...Box-office chill

Romance Rumors: Clooney & Zellweger?

Access Hollywood

1/16/03

"Mr. Chicago" Richard Gere and his singing co-star, Renee Zellweger, were receiving honors in New York. But when George Clooney arrived, that inevitable dating question came up, and Access Hollywood's Billy Bush got the answer...more

Clooney overthrows Becks...Two heartthrobs fight it out

1/13/03

Could George Clooney be an even bigger star than David Beckham? Police sunglasses think so,..more

Lee, Soderbergh vie for Golden Bear...Nineteen pics unveiled so far in Berlin competish

Ed Meza

Variety

1/10/03

BERLIN -- Spike Lee's "The 25th Hour" and Steven Soderbergh's sci-fi remake "Solaris" are among the U.S. pics competing for the Golden Bear alongside Teuton film Wolfgang Becker's "Good Bye, Lenin!," which is making its world premiere at the Berlin Intl. Film Festival next month.

Other U.S. pics in competition for the Golden Bear include British co-production "The Life of David Gale" from Alan Parker, which is making its world premiere, Stephen Daldry's "The Hours," Spike Jonze's "Adaptation," and George Clooney's "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind," which is making its international premiere.

Other Teutonic entries making their world premieres in the main section include: "Angst," a love story from Oskar Roehler starring Marie Baeumer and Andre Hennicke, and Hans-Christian Schmid's episodic "Distant Lights," about life along the German-Polish border; August Diehl and Maria Simon star.

Among the 19 films from Europe, Asia, Africa and North America so far confirmed for competition at the Berlinale are three French pics: "La Fleur du mal" (The Flower of Evil) by Claude Chabrol; "Son Frere" from 2001 Golden Bear winner Patrice Chereau (Intimacy); and Pascal Bonitzer's "Petites Coupures," about a notorious lady-killer who comes close to losing his own life, starring Daniel Auteuil and Kristin Scott Thomas.

Teen drama "Io non ho paura" from Oscar-winning Italian director Gabriele Salvatores (Amnesia) is so far the only competition entry from Italy.

Slovenian director Damjan Kozole's "Rezervni Deli" (Spare Parts), about refugees exploited by unscrupulous smugglers, will also see its world premiere in competition.

Also in the running is Zhang Yimou's chop socky debut from China "Ying Xiong" (Hero) starring Jet Li and Tony Leung as well as Japanese director Yoji Yamada's 19th century samurai tale "Tasogare Seibei" (The Twilight Samurai) starring Hiroyuki Sanada.

"Madame Brouette," a Canadian-Senegalese co-production from helmer Moussa Sene Absa about a single mother in Dakar struggling for her rights and independence has also been chosen.

Fest opens Feb. 6 with Rob Marshall's "Chicago" and closes Feb. 15 with Martin Scorsese's "Gangs of New York," both running out of competition.

Cooling his heels

George Clooney can kiss action flicks goodbye for a while.

The "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" director is hobbling around on crutches after rupturing his Achilles tendon. Clooney hurt himself in his regular basketball game with pals at his L.A. pad on Sunday.

"He went up for a shot and came down on somebody," according to his rep, who says doctors have told him the tendon could take between two months and a year to heal.

Fortunately, Clooney didn't injure an even more bankable part of his anatomy - his tush.

Asked if he minds audiences going to see his movie "Solaris" for a glimpse of his naked bum, he says in Germany's edition of Playboy, "If my a-- helps the film, I don't have a problem with that."

George Clooney 60 Minutes II Interview

Images

1/8/03

(CBS) George Clooney is rich, handsome, smart and funny. He has a new movie out that’s getting great reviews. But not everyone has succumbed to this guy’s charms. Dan Rather reports.

On this day, Clooney’s appeal is completely lost on his sleeping 200 pound pig Max.

“Normally, he sleeps at the end of my bed… but now he’s gotten so fat,” says Clooney. He says that Max doesn’t help with the ladies, but “but he’s my longest relationship.”

Clooney may not be known for long relationships with women, but it’s certainly not for lack of opportunity. It is Clooney’s blessing and curse to be a heartthrob. Even his best movies are built around his looks.

If Clooney takes all this in stride, it’s because he understands show business in a way most beginners don’t. He grew up watching his aunt Rosemary Clooney, a singer and actress who appeared in classic films like White Christmas.

“When she was 21, 22 years old, she was the biggest thing,” he says. “On the cover of Life magazine, and singing and everybody loved her. She went out on the road. And while she’s on the road, rock and roll comes around and all women singers are gone. And suddenly they start telling her how bad she is in what she did. So she went through a very bad period of time, of hating herself, drugs, you know lost all of her money. So by example, she was a great lesson to me about how to deal with fame. Which there is no handbook for.”

It is a lesson Clooney has heeded in his career: “You have to have control. Because if you leave it up to other people at the end of the day, it will fall apart. And I would rather, when it falls apart, it be in my hands and not in someone else’s.”

That’s why he likes directing. “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind” is the first time Clooney has called the shots. “This was a great script and I wanted it to get made," he explains. "And it seemed the only way that it was gonna get made was if I sort of picked it up and shoved it over the wall. So I did it. But directing scared me.”

The movie is a complicated, dark comedy based on the life of TV game show king Chuck Barris, who created The Dating Game, The Newlywed Game, and The Gong Show.

The movie focuses on Barris’ wild claim that he led a secret life as a CIA assassin while he was creating game shows. Clooney is cagey about whether Barris was telling the truth: “If I was going to tell the story, I had to be a defense attorney. I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to ask.

“What the film’s about was a man going through a period of really hating himself and feeling like he woke up one day and wasn’t any of the things he thought he was, any of the things he thought he was going to be.”

The world of game shows is familiar ground for Clooney. His father, Nick Clooney, was a local celebrity in Cincinnati, who for a time hosted a network TV game show called “The Money Maze.”

“There was a big maze and the husband would run through and the wife would stand above it and go ‘Go left, Go right.’ And there was a real innocence to it, it was really fun. So I wanted to capture that again.”

We may remember Clooney best for his role as a womanizing doctor on ER, or for his work on films like “Ocean’s Eleven,” “Three Kings,” or ‘O, Brother, Where Art Thou?” But Clooney can’t forget his more spectacular failures.

“I’ve done a few bad ones. It’s tough. I’m in one of the more celebrated bad films called ‘Return of the Killer Tomatoes,” he says. “I say lines like ‘That’s the bravest thing I’ve ever seen a tomato do’ with a straight face. That’s a bad film,” he says with a laugh.

Clooney loves to laugh at himself and others. He has a reputation as a world-class practical joker who’s left a long trail of victims.

Clooney has laughed all the way to the bank. He has a beautiful home in Hollywood that stretches over several secluded acres, with its own tennis court, screening room, guest house, swimming pool, and antique motorcycles. There’s plenty to keep Clooney busy. It is the kind of life most Americans can only dream about.

He lives there alone, except for his pig and two bulldogs. Clooney says his close circle of friends and his family keep him sane. He says he still has a Midwestern sensibility to a certain extent.

Do women constantly approach him? “It’s not quite I think what people think. When you are in the position I’m in there are women that approach you all the time. People in general approach you. But they have no personal connection to you. That’s very interesting for the first six months of being famous when a bunch of girls show up, and then, it becomes embarrassing. It’s embarrassing. It’s embarrassing to walk in a place and have somebody make a scene about you. You can’t help but be embarrassed if you have any sort of modicum of decency. You’re embarrassed by it.”

It’s hard to feel too sorry for him, particularly now, with good reviews for his new movie. There is a recognition that Clooney has become a creative force.

“You go from just being the guy getting the job, to those jobs happening because you’re doing them. And slowly you come to the realization that you have a responsibility with those jobs, to keep the bar high, to raise the bar.”

At some point, he knows that he may not have the same power: “It happens to everyone. Things change. The world changes. So I understand it. I’ll go kicking and screaming, but I understand it. That’s why you direct and why you produce and why you write - to try and create these other avenues that you can keep alive because you can’t stay in front of the camera all that long."

More images

Hot People: George's Bungles

GEORGE CLOONEY is so embarrassed by his early acting roles and bad haircuts that he'd like to burn all the copies. He said: "Every time I turn on TV at 3am, there I am, another dumb appearance in another dumb show."

A Closer Look: Heartthrob movie stars: The days of the pretty face substituting for talent in the public eye may be waning fast as more and more stars take on film projects that go against the grain. George Clooney's coverboy looks may have gotten him noticed, but his penchant for more arty films such as "O Brother, Where Art Thou," "Solaris" and the upcoming "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" have earned him respect...more

George Clooney says he won't be directing again anytime soon

1/5/03

George Clooney's first directing experience was fun and invigorating, but he won't be going behind the camera again anytime soon.

"I won't be directing again for a while," Clooney said Saturday at a special screening of his new movie "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind." The screening kicked off the 14th annual Palm Springs International Film Festival.

"I have to go make a living somewhere," he said.

Clooney's directorial debut chronicles the secret life of "The Gong Show" host Chuck Barris, who claimed in his 1982 "unauthorized autobiography" that he was also a CIA hit man. Barris was also the creator of the television shows "The Dating Game" and "The Newlywed Game."

Sam Rockwell, who stars as Barris, said he enjoyed working with Clooney.

"He's just an amazing guy - smart, creative," Rockwell said. "We had a great time."

While his first shot at directing was exciting, Clooney said being in the film made it more difficult.

"It was a little harder than I thought it would be," he said. "You can't yell at the director when you're acting."

George Clooney says he has no time for love

Ananova

1/5/03

George Clooney says his hectic movie schedule prevents him maintaining a long-term relationship.

The 41-year-old actor claims his workload ruined his three-year romance with French model Celine Balitran.

But he adds he has no regrets over the failed romance and will press ahead with his successful career.

He told the Sunday Mirror Magazine: "I suppose I have decided to prioritise my life in such a way that work takes precedence.

"If it means I won't be able to see someone I've been involved with for two or three months at a time, that's the kind of decision I've made regarding my life."

The actor says with shooting films sometimes back-to-back it means he often doesn't go home for six months, meaning friends and girlfriends are neglected.

"I feel driven to work and I'm not driven when it comes to relationships.

"I've never been good at it, and so my expectations are fairly low when it comes to the chance of being with the same woman over a long period of time.

"Three years has been my limit, and more lately it's been three months."

Clooney Plays Prank on Duchovny

Teenhollywood

12/31/02

Hollywood prankster George Clooney was up to his old tricks again on a recent dinner date with X-Files hunk David Duchovny.

The former ER star, who is well known around Tinseltown for his wacky sense of humour, duly obliged when two teenage fans approached him for his autograph.

The girls then asked George for his mobile phone number, and Duchovny was left open mouthed when he immediately scribbled a number down for the awestruck youngsters.

David gasped, "I can't believe you gave them your phone number." George replied, "I didn't - I gave them yours!"

Clooney to tackle Football comedy?

Empire Magazine

February 2003

With serious critical buzz surrounding his directorial debut, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, George Clooney tells Empire he may be tempted back behind the camera again. Steven Soderbergh, Clooney's producing partner, had been attached to a self-penned American football comedy called Leatherheads, but with the Oscar-winning director on hiatus, Clooney could step in.

"I think I may end up directing," Clooney reveals, exclusively. "It's about 1925 football, and it's a real Preston Sturges, Howard Hawks comedy. So, I've been boning up on Hail The Conquering Hero and Sullivan's Travels. I have to understand why those things work. People can't talk in that Hawks-style, non-stop patter anymore, because it sounds like a caricature, but there still has to be that aesthetic. So we'll see. I'm not sure at all, but I'm looking into it."

Clash of the Titans

Since the success of Gladiator, the sword-and-sandals epic has thundered back into fashion. Next year sees Achilles, Alexander the Great and Hannibal brought to life. Oliver Poole reports from Hollywood.

Hollywood is preparing for battle. Elephants are to be pitched against Amazons. Achilles will struggle with Alexander the Great. The men of Troy, Sparta and Carthage are being sent to fight it out for the biggest opening weekend at the box office.

It is a war that will feature hundreds of horses and chariots and catapults. In which battle flags will be hoisted over conquered lands and men with swords caked in fake blood will issue heroic calls to arms while dressed in sandals and pleated miniskirts.

After almost 40 years in which the sword-and-sandals historical epic languished unloved and almost forgotten by Tinseltown, the genre is back in favour. Having tired of science fiction, overdone the gangster opus and moved on from their brief obsession with World War II, the studios are falling over themselves to transport us to ancient times.

At Warner Brothers, Wolfgang Petersen, director of The Perfect Storm, is filming Troy, an adaptation of The Iliad with Brad Pitt as Achilles. Universal is sending George Clooney to lead his 300 Spartans into battle against the Persians at the Battle of Thermopylae. Sony Pictures has Hollywood's latest favourite action hero, Vin Diesel, in Hannibal, taking his elephants on a jaunt across the Alps.

James Cameron is working on a story about the Amazons and two films are in production about Alexander the Great. Oliver Stone has hired Colin Farrell for the title role, after being turned down by Tom Cruise, while Baz Luhrmann has earmarked Leonardo DiCaprio to play the conqueror of nations.

Click here for the complete article

Clooney Says No More Blockbusters

Teenhollywood

1/1/03

George Clooney is turning his back on blockbuster movie roles because the money he earns from them embarrasses him.

The movie hunk insists he'd be happy if he works with The Coen Brothers and pal Steven Soderbergh exclusively on future arthouse projects because he wants to gamble with his roles.

Clooney was left red-faced by the huge sum he received for playing a fisherman in The Perfect Storm and says he'll never make a movie like that again.

He explains, "How a film costs $90 million is insane. They'll pay me $20 million, which is dumb.

"If you're in the position I'm in, you should just work for a percentage and gamble. If the money works, I make a s**tload of money. If it doesn't, then I got the movie I wanted made."

Clooney has already starred in three Soderbergh movies, including this year's sci-fi flop Solaris, and he's working with the Coens again - after his success in O Brother Where Art Thou - on Intolerable Cruelty

George comes clean about his image as the ultimate bachelor.

For years ,George Clooney has had the rap as Hollywood's hottest commitment-phobe-the guy who told Barbara Walters he would never get married. He's the one with the string of sexy girlfriends-including Renee Zellweger, Denise Crosby and Michelle Pfeiffer's sister DeDee-only one of whom, the French law student Celine Balitran, actually got so far as moving in with him. But even Celine moved out after three years, frustrated by his inability to pull the trigger. "I wanted to have a real family with children," she told a French magazine. "But it will never be the right time for George."

Her bittersweet resignation echoed that of another ex-girlfriend, the English model Kimberly Russell, who says that when you're with George, "You just enjoy the love affair while it lasts. And you guard your heart." Or at least that's what everyone says. But lately, the 41 year old playboy has been reconsidering things. "I made a mistake when I said that [to Barbara Walters]," George tells In Touch, pointing out that he made the statement soon after the very difficult breakup of his first marriage to actress Talia Balsam, in 1992. "The truth is," George adds, "I'm not looking to be a bachelor my whole life."

Wow. George Clooney married again? Well, why not?-say some wise woman who know him well. All he needs to take the next step is the right person, says actress Bai Ling. Nicole Kidman believes in George's "marriagability" so much that she bet him $10,000 that he would be married with kids by 40. It didn't work out that way, but when Nicole sent him a check for his birthday, George sent it back with a "double or nothing" offer tied to his 50th. George might just lose that bet, and he knows it. Deep down, he believes in marriage. His parents have been married for more than 40 years, and George is an old-fashioned guy who knows how to treat a woman right. "When I go to dinner, I pay for dinner," he says. "I don't apologize for it. I can't help it." His compassion runs deep, says another girlfriend, model Karen Duffy, who suffers from sarcoidosis. The disorder causes temporary paralysis, and one time Duffy lost control of her arms during Thanksgiving dinner at George's parents' house. "I was embarrassed," she says, "but George held my hands and cut my meat with me. He was incredibly gentle."

The Family Vibe

George's marriage didn't work out because he was concentrating on his career. "I treated the relationship to cavalierly," he says. "I blew it." The memory is just too painful for a guy who cares so much about other people. Is it any wonder he's gun-shy about a second trip to the altar? Still, it's something he wants."Going out with a bunch of girls when you're 18 is kind of cute," George says. "But when you're 40, it's rather sad." Especially since most of George's best male friends, including actor Richard Kind (Spin City) have gotten married. "The Boys," as George calls them, get together nearly every Sunday at the "Casa de Clooney," his eight-bedroom mock Tudor mansion outside LA. They play basketball, ride motorcycles-and then barbecue with the wives and kids. The family vibe has definately made an impression on George. "I can see him as a father figure so quickly," said his aunt, the singer Rosemary Clooney, before her death. "He has such an ease with children." At the moment, George is busy making movies such as the new sci-fi thriller Solaris, so his current relationship with actress Jennifer Siebel,28, doesn't seem that serious. But that dynamic may flip, as George's fans see a lot less of him and some lucky woman sees a lot more. "I really don't know what's going to happen," George says. "You can't really plan it out. You just live."

"When I do get married," says Solaris star George, "It will be a very low-key affair."

Villa di Georgio

George bought a sexy getaway home this fall-the Villa Oleandra on Lake Como, in northern Italy. It's a short boat trip from Donatella Versace's mansion, but George won't be there much on his first big vacation to the lake, planned for next April and May. Says George,"I want to ride over to Harry's Bar to get some beer."

Thanks to Lynne

Most Intriguing 2002...George Clooney...Renaissance Man

People Magazine

We've heard all about his pot-bellied pig and the gang of guys crashing at his Hollywood bachelor pad. We've marveled at the gags, the girls, the way he really, really knows how to wear a suit. And yet, we've also wondered, is there more to George Clooney than the incorrigibly charming guy filling out that Armani?

Now 41, he's letting us know: Behind the eternally boyish grin lurks a grown-up's gravitas. On the heels of last year's characteristically suave turn in Ocean's Eleven came his measured portrayal of a widowed psychologist in Steven Soderbergh's existential sci-fi romance Solaris. "George is a better actor than he thinks he is," said Soderbergh. He's also a risk taker. But baring his behind for the first time onscreen ("I thought my butt would at least get an R rating," Clooney said of his PG-13 exposure) was nowhere near as audacious as what came next: making his directorial debut with this month's Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. Rather than a romantic comedy or an adventure flick he could skate through, Clooney delivered an edgy, nuanced, remarkably assured drama based on the 1984 memoir of TV game show producer Chuck Barris -- the Gong Show creator who claimed to also be a CIA assassin. With little-known Sam Rockwell, 34, in the lead and himself in a quietly menacing supporting role, Clooney the canny businessman called in pal Julia Roberts, whose smaller-than-usual turn (as a spy) played a big part in getting the $28 million film financed.

Early reviews indicate that he could soon be wielding more clout, but Clooney -- as chronically self-deprecating as he is unwilling to wed -- isn't so sure. "I always feel that the jury's still out on me," he said to The New York Times Magazine. "You know, I've never been to the Oscars. They ask me every year to present an award, but that's not right. You should go when you're nominated. Not before." Who knows? This might just be his year.

All they wanted for Christmas ...

Let's face it. Stars can buy any bauble that catches their eye. But that doesn't mean they don't cherish the pair of roller skates or bike they got for Christmas when they were 9. We asked celebrities to recall their most memorable Christmas present:

George Clooney:

"I remember a bicycle when I was like 10 that was about the greatest thing I ever saw in my life. It took my breath away. When you're a kid, coming down and underneath the tree there's a bike ... "

HIS dinner companion Rande Gerber turned beet red, but George Clooney played it cool Saturday night at Downtown Cipriani when a trashy-looking Russian woman reminded him of their brief tryst.

Clooney, Gerber and pals were chowing down at the crowded restaurant when the woman approached and announced in a throaty voice, "Remember me, George? We spent four hours together." "Sure, baby, sure," Clooney replied. "Where was it then?" she quizzed. "Um, New York," Clooney replied - to which she shook her head and clucked, "You're a very bad boy."

As diners nearby tried not to burst out laughing, Clooney placated the interloper and deflected her attempts to arrange another rendezvous.

"I'll say this for him," a diner who witnessed the incident told PAGE SIX's Jared Paul Stern, "he has b-s of steel."

Meanwhile, in the upcoming issue of GQ, the Hollywood heartthrob takes on President Bush. GQ will be available December 24th

Eminem and Britney Spears Are Most Searched Male and Female and Martha Stewart Tops Homeland Security

12/12/02

AOL's 35 million members have weighed in on the people and events that shaped 2002. Britney and Eminem, Ozzy and George Bush, Martha Stewart and Enron all made the cut as America Online, the world's leading interactive services company, today announced its "Best of AOL 2002" rankings. This annual listing is based on AOL members' online activity including searches, message boards, polls and chats.

The results of the rankings reflect shifts in popular culture and consumer interest from year to year. "The 'Best of AOL 2002' reflects the pulse of America over the past year," said Jim Bankoff, executive vice president, brand operations at America Online. "By conducting searches, expressing opinions in daily polls and interacting with other members in message boards and live chats, AOL members revealed the hot topics and key trends of 2002."

Results from this year's "Best of AOL" rankings include:

George might be the favorite Bush, but he's not the most popular George on the Internet. George Washington was the most searched George in 2002, followed by: 2.) George W. Bush; 3.) George Strait; 4.) George Washington Carver; 5.) Curious George; 6.) George Bush; 7.) George Clooney; 8.) George Carlin; 9.) George Jones; 10.) George Orwell.

'Chicago' Will Open Berlin Film Fest

12/13/02

Adam Dawtrey

London (Variety) - The 53rd Berlin Intl. Film Festival is set for an all-singing, all-dancing opening night, with "Chicago" confirmed as the curtain-raiser on Feb. 6.

The Miramax musical, starring Catherine Zeta-Jones (news) and Renee Zellweger (news), will screen out of competition.

The event will include a strong lineup of Hollywood fare, including the world premiere of Alan Parker's "The Life of David Gale," Stephen Daldry's "The Hours," George Clooney (news)'s "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" and Spike Jonze (news)'s "Adaptation."

Other pictures expected to unspool in the Berlinale selection include Michael Winterbottom (news)'s "In Our World" and Thomas Vinterberg (news)'s "It's All About Love."

The festival will also feature a retrospective of Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu's work, including "Tokyo Monogatari" (Tokyo Story), to mark the 100th anniversary of his birth. Ozu, one of Japan's cinematic giants, died in 1963.

Other works by and about the filmmaker will be featured in the Berlinale's sections and an extensive retrospective will follow in the city before traveling to other fests, including Hong Kong and New York.

Special Filmmaking Achievement

The National Board of Review of Motion Pictures named Paramount’s “The Hours” 2002 Best Film of the Year. The following honorees will be presented with awards at the annual gala on Tuesday, January 14, 2002 in New York City. The National Board of Review, made up of teachers, writers, actors and movie production workers.

Special Filmmaking Achievement:

George Clooney, Director, Producer, and Star of Confessions of a Dangerous Mind

Screenwriter of the Year:

Charlie Kaufman, Adaptation, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Human Nature

Best Actress:

Julianne Moore, Far From Heaven (Section 8 Productions)

Top Ten Films oF 2002

1. The Hours – Best Film

2. Chicago

3. Gangs of New York

4. The Quiet American

5. Adaptation

6. Rabbit-Proof Fence

7. The Pianist

8. Far From Heaven

9. Thirteen Conversations About One Thing

10. Frida

Bit Chat: George Clooney

The charming star of 'Solaris' confesses he's lost in hyperspace.

Dave Roos

"The Screen Savers" would like to extend a warm welcome to all the ladies who have wandered onto our site in search of juicy tidbits on the impossibly handsome, illegally charming George Clooney. As you may or may not know, our show is about technology, so there won't be any sordid details of Clooney's love life or casual pictures of him shirtless, just a whole lot of talk about iPods. That's almost as alluring, right?

Watch Monday's episode of "The Screen Savers" to see Kris Kosach's interview with Clooney, star of the cryptic, sci-fi romance Solaris, and find out what America's hunkiest Hollywood star wants for Christmas.

More George

Watch the entire, unedited five-minute interview by clicking on the link in the video highlight box above.

Clueless Clooney

Like many of his superstar contemporaries (Kevin Kline, Tom Hanks, Elizabeth Hurley), Clooney pines after simpler technological times. He types his scripts on an IBM Selectric typewriter (yes, the ones with the paper) and seems befuddled by the Web.

"I'm no good at it," Clooney explains. "I do the best I can, but I always download things into space somewhere and then I can't find them again." Oh, the trials of the folder-deficient.

All he wants for Christmas

Clooney got an iPod last year, which he admits is pretty sweet. We asked him what kind of tech gadget he'd like to see under the tree this year, but he drew a blank. A handsome blank, but still a blank.

"I guess a football doesn't count," he said. No, George, unless it's laser-guided.

Help George out

Clooney asked Kris Kosach if she could suggest the must-have gadget for this holiday season, but we'd rather defer to the experts: you. Rack your brains for cool tech gifts that would please even the pickiest Hollywood star, then post your gadget suggestions in the Talkback section here.

Clooney 'fesses up

Claudia Puig

USA Today

Studio City, Calif. - The other night, George Clooney awoke with a start. "I woke up at like 4 in the morning, just in a cold sweat," he says. "I dreamed that I'd outlived all of my friends. It was this horrible feeling of sitting around at like 85 years old and all of my friends and family were gone, and it was just me by myself with people that I didn't know and didn't recognize. There were people who knew me from a movie, but they didn't really know me at all."

Carl Jung might have a field day analyzing the dream of one of Hollywood's best-known leading men.

Clooney visibly shudders as he recounts the experience. "It was awful; it was a bad one." Then he deadpans, "Don't have it: Don't eat the cabbage before you to go sleep."

This may be 41-year-old Clooney's greatest charm: He has an uncanny sense of when to reveal himself and when to pull back, with humor.

Forget that he's drop-dead handsome, even better-looking in person than he appears on the screen. Those piercing dark eyes, that Ultra Brite smile. But Hollywood has plenty of hunks. It's his smarts and easy affability that clinch the deal.

On this afternoon, Clooney is making some final edits, tweaking music and sound cues, on Confessions of a Dangerous Mind at a post-production facility at CBS studios. Based on the autobiography of game-show creator and Gong Show host Chuck Barris, the quirky Confessions is Clooney's first effort at directing, and the self-described cinefile is clearly having a grand time. He raves about screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich), cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel (Three Kings) and his cast of actors, which includes Sam Rockwell, Drew Barrymore and Julia Roberts.

"I felt like if I'm going to screw up, I might as well screw up with a great script," he says. "Then at least I won't have any doubts that I can't do it."

Clooney also plays a mustachioed CIA agent in Confessions, which opens Dec. 27 in limited release. Before audiences catch him in that, they can see him as a psychiatrist sent to investigate suspicious events aboard a spaceship in Solaris, a romantic sci-fi drama that opens Nov. 27. It reteams Clooney with his producing partner and friend, Steven Soderbergh, who directed him in one of last year's biggest hits, Ocean's Eleven, and 1997's Out of Sight.

Clooney's past six months have included directing Confessions and playing the emotionally taxing role in Solaris. The Solaris shoot began only three days after Confessions wrapped.

"It's been insane, this schedule," he says. "When I was shooting Solaris, I had a golf cart right next to the trailer, and I would come out in a spacesuit, exhausted, and then jump into the cart and go edit my film - during lunch and at night and in the morning before we shot. I slept at the office a bunch. I slept in my trailer. It was literally 17-, 18-, 19-hour days, every day. It was the hardest I've ever worked.

"I looked beat, but I figured, 'What the hell if I look beat up and old? That's OK for the part' " of a tormented widower in Solaris.

And, indeed, sitting in his production office in a dark T-shirt, khakis and work boots, he does look about 10 years younger than he does in the movie.

The intense workload hasn't left any time for much of a life, let alone romance, he says.

"I'm not dating anyone," he says. "I've had a lot of stuff to do, so I haven't really had much time for that. It wouldn't really be fair to even try it right now."

Nicole Kidman, his co-star in 1997's The Peacemaker, once bet him $10,000 that he would be married again by age 40. (His first marriage, to model Talia Balsam, ended in divorce after three years.) When the time came, she dutifully paid up. "I sent it back and said, 'Double or nothing for the next 10 years,' " he says.

There's clearly a part of him that would like to lose the bet.

"I'm really not put off by marriage," he says. "I never have been. I answered a question once 10 years ago to Barbara Walters about marriage, saying, 'I've done it once and I'm not interested in doing it again,' and it sort of became another thing. I was just making a joke."

He's not a man surprised by seeing something small spiral into something bigger in the media. But five years after accusing the tabloid press of causing Princess Diana's death, he seems to have come to terms with its role in his own life. He says he laughs when he reads accounts of romances he's supposedly having or about popping into Julia Roberts' wedding to cameraman Danny Moder. He has been linked with actress/producer Jennifer Siebel, actress Krista Allen and Canadian model Maria Bertrand, not to mention that he is rumored to be the guy who broke up Roberts and Benjamin Bratt.

"I think, 'Wow, I'm living a better life than I thought,' " he says. "I think part of it is because I played this womanizer on ER. You sort of become whatever that first character that you're famous for is."

It isn't worth fighting over. "I realize that's just going to be part of my persona now, the perception of me. The only thing you can't do is try to prove them untrue, because then you just look like an idiot. Every once in a while, they'll get something right, and I go, 'Whoa. They got it! They nailed me!' But I'm not complaining. Most of the time it's harmless."

But he is always aware of the paparazzi presence. "You can't have dinner with anybody," he says. "You really can't. You can't hug anybody goodbye."

It's safer, easier, to immerse himself in work. And Solaris and Confessions presented plenty of challenges to keep a mind engaged.

In Solaris, a remake of a 1972 Russian film, Clooney has a much more emotionally taxing role than anything he has attempted before as his lovesick character must sort the real from the imagined when his dead wife appears on the ship.

"I knew he had it in him," says Soderbergh, who initially wanted Daniel Day-Lewis for the part. "I didn't hesitate (after Clooney expressed interest), because I knew it was a mental leap that he had to make as opposed to a technical one. It was extremely gratifying to watch him play this part and watch him grow.

"It's a really naked performance emotionally. I don't know a lot of male movie stars in his position who would risk that."

(Speaking of naked performances, the only nudity in the movie is of Clooney's bare bum, which initially earned the movie an R rating. Soderbergh appealed the rating, and it was changed last week to a PG-13.)

The script calls for Clooney to cry several times, a departure for an actor with such a strong masculine presence.

"I cried at Batman and Robin," he jokes. "Oh, I cried at the premiere. Actually, it wasn't the crying (that proved most challenging). It was very hard to tap into absolute fear and real dread. Steven would say, 'OK, now look right into the camera, and it's the last minute of your life.' That would happen every three days or so."

As director on the dark, complex comedy Confessions, Clooney had other worries. "We're taking a character who is so flawed that there is very little to root for, and somehow you still have to root for him. It's hard to do."

He tried to make this character sympathetic in a logical and methodical way, story-boarding each scene long in advance of shooting.

"The way you have to design it is by having other people around him care about him so that you understand that there's something in there you have to root for," he says. "You have to find small moments where you can understand him."

(As for Clooney's own confessions, he has one he'll share. At age 7, growing up Catholic in Kentucky, he went to his first confession and wasn't sure what sin he might have committed. He chose a whopper: adultery. "I thought it meant acting like an adult.")

Neither Solaris nor Confessions is considered a commercial slam-dunk, and that's fine with Clooney. He is determined not to let his star status dominate his decisions.

"If anyone actually thought of themselves as a movie star, then he'd stop being an actor, and that's no fun," he says. "The danger if you decide you're a movie star is then you start to protect an image you've created. And then all you're going to do is repeat the same parts over and over. You become a caricature, and that fan base will eventually leave you."

Says Soderbergh: "Nobody's encouraged to do anything but what they've done before successfully in this business - especially if you're a movie star. His refusal to be sucked into that is really rare."

Putting a point on it is Clooney's next starring role, which he started two days after Solaris wrapped: a wacky but ruthless divorce lawyer in Joel and Ethan Coen's Intolerable Cruelty, which opens in April.

"It's everything we did in O Brother, Where Art Thou? in terms of overacting," Clooney says. "Joel would say, 'I think you should do it like Popeye. Do it hanging upside down.' All right. Sure. Why not? My only hope is that one of these other films will be good, because that one will ruin my career."

That's just more of that self-deprecating humor, of course. On a more serious note, he continues: "The real reason to do these movies is because you sort of want to push the envelope and make things that interest you. Then at least you can wake up at 70 and say, 'Boy, we took really good swings when we had the opportunity.' "

And, with any luck, he'll have friends and family gathered around to hear him spin the tales.

Clooney Lays His Cards on the Table About Solaris, Fame and Marriage

George Clooney is a man's man. Even when he's a ladies' man. With a history of beautiful companions, a successful TV series and a string of acclaimed films, it's no wonder Clooney felt comfy stepping into the shoes of the ultimate man's man, Frank Sinatra, in the film Ocean's Eleven.

And Sinatra would probably appreciate Clooney's desire to do it his way: Next up, he's teaming with Steven Soderbergh for the sci-fi romance film Solaris. Plus, he goes behind the camera to direct Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, based on the comic autobiography of Gong Show host Chuck Barris...

Clooney sat down with host Jules Asner to talk about Julia, practical jokes and his own pack of pals. Here's a sampling of what the sexy actor revealed:

On turning 40

I was fine with it. I think mostly because everyone thought I was already that old, I didn't mind. It's certainly easier being a guy--being an actor in this business and being 40--because there are a lot of roles for you at that age. So, the only thing I don't like is that things hurt on me now. [Laughs.] My knees hurt, my back hurts. But your head still thinks you're 23...

On his friends

There's eight of us, same seven guys for 20 years, and we travel together. Every year we take a bus cross-country, or this year we went to Italy and rode motorcycles through the Italian Alps for a month. It was amazing, really one of the great vacations of our lives, and probably something we won't ever get to do again. You know, these guys are all successful in their own right. Some are real-estate guys. Some are insurance guys. Some of 'em are actors. But they are all successful...When you're famous, everyone tells you how great you are--not everyone, but a lot of people will say that, they'll just say yes, pretty much to anything you do or say. And it's great to have these same seven guys going [sarcastically], 'Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. You're great!' And y'know, you get to do it back to them. So, it's a great leveler.

On being famous

It's funny...The things you thought you'd like when you were young--like attention--you really don't want. And it's not whining or being a pain about it, because it's part of your job. But that attention can dwarf you. You sort of lose your identity. That can be strange and not nearly as fun as one would think. It would be fun to do once, but it's also fun to go back and be able to go to a movie. No complaints, that's just the way it is. [But] it's nice to be able to get movies made--that's the greatest thing in the world. The surprise, I think, was how I thought that once you got to a certain point in your film career, everything would be the greatest scripts in the world and the greatest projects, and it's pretty amazing how bad the stuff is that you get. So, that was a huge surprise for me.

On his first acting gig

My cousin Miguel Ferrer [Robocop], who is a wonderful actor, came to Kentucky to do a movie with his father, Jose Ferrer [Cyrano de Bergerac], a wonderful actor as well. And they got me a couple of lines on this film called And They're Off. It's a horse race movie--we called it The Story of a Gelding. It never came out. In fact, everything I did for a while [didn't come out]. I did a film with Charlie Sheen and Laura Dern, Grizzly II. Not only did it not come out, it was never completed, and the guy who financed it went to jail for financing it.

On a role he wanted and didn't get

Well, there was one, and it's funny...Brad [Pitt] and I tested for Thelma and Louise. And I really knew it was a star-making part, even then. Didn't know the film was gonna be as successful as it was, but it was just a great part. And I was so mad when I didn't get it, because I really thought I sort of had that one. And so I didn't watch the movie, [said], 'I'm never gonna see that damn thing.' I didn't see it for about a year. And then I saw it--I got it on tape, and I watched it, and it's a terrific film, and Brad was so good in it that I actually felt fine, because I was like, Well, I couldn't have done that. And I certainly couldn't...

On marriage

George and his ex-wife.

Well, you know, I don't know. I really don't know. I've always said probably not again, because I sort of feel that way. But I always think answering that question [that way] paints you into corners...I don't know what the scenario would be right now that I would do it. I don't see it. I've got a great pig.

Next month George Clooney will pay tribute to his late aunt, singer Rosemary

Clooney, in two distinct way. On Dec 10, the actor will speak at an L.A. gala featuring, among others, Tony Bennett, k.d. land and Diana Krall. The event, which is being organized by Rosemary's five children (including Crossing Jordan's Miguel Ferrer), will benefit the Mayo Clinic Rosemary Clooney Pulmonary Research Fund. (Rosemary died of lung cancer in June).

George will also make a more personal salute to his aunt: He has selected Rosemary's rendition of "There's No Business Like Show Business: to run over

the end credits of his directorial debut, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, a biopic about game-show host Chuck Barris due Dec 27.

Thanks to Brenda

The Associates

11/15/02

Clooney and Soderbergh dish on upcoming projects. The producing partners talk about three new movies -- and how their big-screen buddy system works -- in an excerpt from Entertainment Weekly's Nov. 15, 2002, issue by Jeff Jensen.

George Clooney is a big fat movie star with burnished matinee-idol good looks and rakish charm. Steven Soderbergh is one of those thoughtful, baseball-capped auteurs who wear thick black glasses and serious expressions. But get them together in a room to talk about their creative and business partnership, as Entertainment Weekly did recently, and both men reveal themselves to be gabby cinephiles -- whether they're ardently debating Quentin Tarantino's decision to take five years between films or divulging their must-see movies of the holiday season. ''Of course, I think 'Far From Heaven' is the best film I've seen this year,'' says the 41-year-old Clooney. ''But I'm biased.'' Soderbergh, 39, agrees. ''Yes,'' he says with a smirk. ''We ARE biased.''

Humble, too. Or at least polite. For in choosing to plug their latest producing effort, Focus' ''Far From Heaven'' -- a revisionist homage to the 1950s melodramas of Douglas Sirk, directed by Todd Haynes (''Safe,'' ''Velvet Goldmine'') and starring Julianne Moore and Dennis Quaid -- they are neglecting two other films: Fox's ''Solaris,'' a $47 million sci-fi opus directed by Soderbergh and starring Clooney, opening Nov. 27; and Miramax's ''Confessions of a Dangerous Mind,'' a loopy biopic about ''Gong Show'' creator Chuck Barris written by Charlie Kaufman (who also penned December's equally loopy ''Adaptation'') and directed by Clooney himself, opening Dec. 27.

The two sat with EW to talk about their upcoming projects.

Soderbergh and Clooney met while working on 1998's ''Out of Sight.'' They became fast friends. In 2000 they formed Section Eight to develop projects for themselves, and as a means to champion and protect the work of filmmakers they admire. Case in point: ''Far From Heaven.''

EW What was your point of view?

SODERBERGH Oh, this will be interesting.

CLOONEY ''Confessions'' is about a man who woke up one day and realized he wasn't any of the things that he thought he was going to be, or thought he was. It's also the story of a man who started blaming himself -- and was blamed by other people -- for ''the destruction of television.'' Chuck was a lot like Jerry Springer. Jerry was the mayor of my hometown, Cincinnati, where my father had a television show for about 40 years. Jerry was a Kennedy Democrat, very bright guy. My dad gave him his first break on the news. Jerry knows better. That was the problem with Chuck: He was smart enough to know what he was doing wasn't the greatest thing. And that, hopefully, comes through in the movie.

EW What was your preparation like?

CLOONEY I storyboarded every single shot in every single scene beforehand. It worked out very well because we finished way ahead of schedule and way under budget. Now, whether that preparation was the right thing or not, we'll see.

EW Because...

CLOONEY I did unfair things to actors. I would lock Sam into shots that I planned out months earlier. There's a shot I stole directly from John Frankenheimer's TV production of ''The Snows of Kilimanjaro'' in 1960. I had Sammy look directly into the camera while we spun the set and changed his clothes -- all while he did a two-page monologue. It's really a phenomenal shot, but it's not fair to do. [As an actor] I don't know how open I would have been to that.

SOLARIS Soderbergh is the second director to take a crack at Stanislaw Lem's 1961 novel about a widowed scientist (Clooney) who is sent to a space station orbiting a strange planet called Solaris to investigate a rash of deaths and freaks out when he finds his dead wife alive and well. (Russian master Andrei Tarkovsky, who died in 1986, filmed the first version in 1972.) Soderbergh, who also wrote the screenplay, doesn't claim to be a ''sci-fi kind of guy,'' but he was drawn to ''Solaris''' dense interplay of philosophical and psychological themes. ''It's conceptually the most ambitious film I've ever made. It's the film that I've compromised the least of any film I've ever made. And it was, for me, agonizing,'' says Soderbergh, who plans to take the next year off to recuperate. (Says Clooney: ''You can use my Italian villa if you want.'')

EW How is your film different from Tarkovsky's film, or even from the book?

SODERBERGH The biggest alteration that I made is that now we see the relationship on Earth that took place. I felt in order to address the question ''Are you doomed to play out the same trajectory in a relationship if given another chance?'' [it] could only be illustrated by showing the relationship as it existed on Earth. That's what intrigued me. Again, I used a nonlinear structure, though I employed a much more formal method of shooting than I've employed in a while. If I said to [Twentieth Century] Fox, ''Actually, you're paying for a $47 million Antonioni film,'' they probably would have reacted...well, the way they've been reacting.

CLOONEY Oh man. That first preview...

EW Fox wasn't happy?

SODERBERGH No, they're fine; they've been nothing but supportive. It's just... Okay, we are not putting ourselves in this category, but: Imagine previewing a movie like ''2001.'' Imagine 400 people going ''What the f--- did we just sit through?''

CLOONEY It was one of the worst-testing things I've ever seen. [To Soderbergh] Actually, you had a really smart idea. You had the audience watch the movie, then go home and answer the cards the next day.

SODERBERGH It didn't make any difference.

EW Is it true George wasn't your first choice for ''Solaris''?

SODERBERGH Well, I had been thinking about someone --

CLOONEY Abe Vigoda.

SODERBERGH -- and as it turned out, he was not even conceptually interested. [Though Soderbergh won't dish, the actor is believed to be Daniel Day-Lewis.]

CLOONEY I had to edit ''Confessions'' while I was acting in ''Solaris.'' I've done a TV series in L.A. and a movie in Arizona at the same time, but none of that was as difficult as this. So emotionally grueling, too. Every day was like ''Okay, today is the last day of your life. Okay, today your wife dies.'' All the things you never want to experience.

SODERBERGH Also, a lot of complicated abstract stuff. There's a fever-dream sequence where he's trying to stay awake by taking these pills, because if he doesn't, his wife is going to kill herself. Just this seven- or eight-minute visual sequence with no dialogue, in which he really doesn't understand what's happening. Putting yourself in those places, not only psychologically but physically, is really tricky.

CLOONEY It's not something that I'm known for, not something I've been asked to do in films. And for all of those reasons it was exciting for me to do. It's one of those times in your life where you just go, ''Well, I'm going to jump off the diving board.'' And you've got to trust that Steven has put a little something in the pool.

EW I should probably note that neither of you has allowed the press to see your respective films yet.

CLOONEY It's probably better that way.

SODERBERGH They're great.

CLOONEY They're the best.

SODERBERGH I think of the films you haven't seen this year, they've got to be right up there.

EW Let's say both of your films bomb. Does this have ramifications for what you can do with Section Eight?

CLOONEY ''Ocean's Twelve,'' baby!

SODERBERGH Put that on the fast track.

MovieLink may be the ticket for fans on the go

Dawn C. Chmielewski

Mercury News

11/14/02

Whether you give a thumbs-up or thumbs-down to the film studios' new Internet movie rental service, MovieLink, will depend, at least initially, on your expectations.

If you're accustomed to downloading movies via popular file-swapping services such as Kazaa, you'll be pleasantly surprised. MovieLink is blisteringly fast by comparison and the quality is consistent -- two things absent from the file-swapping underground.

The only quibble (beyond being forced to use a credit card) is selection. You'll find virtually any movie you could rent in the ``new releases'' section at Blockbuster, but there's not nearly the breadth of stuff you can find, gratis, on Kazaa.

MovieLink, backed by five studios, launched Monday, offering movie downloads for $1.99 to $4.95 (prices are set by individual studios). It is available only to Windows users.

If you're a fan of watching DVD movies on your laptop, you'll be disappointed with MovieLink's video quality. Think well-used VHS tape, with noticeable pixelation in action scenes, not the crisp cinematic experience of a DVD film. MovieLink sacrificed quality to achieve tolerable download speeds.

The service might nonetheless appeal to business travelers, because the movie files stay on the laptop's hard drive. Watching it consumes considerably less power than spinning the DVD-ROM drive to watch a movie on disc.

The MovieLink site (www.movielink.com) is organized a lot like a neighborhood Blockbuster. You'll find recent releases -- such as ``A Beautiful Mind,'' ``Ocean's Eleven,'' ``Changing Lanes'' and ``Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone'' -- right up front, listed as ``Top Downloads.''

MovieLink features one film on the opening Web page with a streamed movie trailer and DVD-like bonus features, with clips and promotional photos.

Some 170 other films are organized by genre -- action, comedy, drama, etc. -- and listed alphabetically. Prices range from $1.99 for classics like ``Breakfast at Tiffany's'' or ``Sleepless in Seattle,'' to $4.95 for more recent releases.

We purchased ``Ocean's Eleven,'' the 2001 remake of the old Rat Pack flick starring George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts. Our selection takes us to an ``are you sure?'' screen, that confirms we're going to rent the movie for $4.95. It spells out the terms -- we've got 30 days to download and watch the film, and, once we click play, we've got 24 hours to view the movie before it vaporizes off our hard drive.

The only technical glitch occurred when we tried to download the movie. Only after three failed attempts did we discover we are using an old version of the Internet Explorer browser with less-than-military-grade encryption. We needed to upgrade to version 6.0 of Microsoft's browser and get a patch to the Windows 2000 Professional operating system to get 128-bit encryption.

Once we tweaked the system, we went through a simple registration process that required us to provide the billing information and install MovieLink's software. The MovieLink manager controls the download process and contains features such as ``auto resume,'' which continues the download where it's left off if there has been an interruption in your Internet connection. It allows you to rearrange movies in your download queue and, here's the content management hook, it ``automatically restores disc space'' on your computer's hard drive by removing expired movies.

The download process itself was stunningly fast. It took 29 minutes to download a 585-megabyte ``Ocean's Eleven'' movie file via a cable modem, at peak usage time, 4 p.m. on a school day. Contrast that to the three hours (and counting) it took to download the same film via Kazaa, the most popular of the online file-sharing applications.

Of course, once you download a film via Kazaa it's yours to do with it as you please. You can burn it to a disc, plunk it in the DVD player in the living room and watch the movie on the living room TV. Or take it with you on the road.

MovieLink's files are locked to the PC to prevent piracy. You'll have to be satisfied watching it on your computer monitor (with our 19-inch screen, that's not altogether awful option. That's the size of the first television my husband and I owned as newlyweds).

The committed early adopter can head to Fry's Electronics and pick up a Belkin USB Video Bus (for $99) that would plug into the laptop's USB port and send the video to the television's S-video source. But this is a kluged solution that mainstream consumers would never tolerate.

MovieLink's chief executive, Jim Ramo, says that other options will emerge one day, as the service matures. And as wireless home networking becomes a mainstream reality. But that day isn't today.

The five studios that invested in MovieLink aren't willing to cannibalize billions of dollars in DVD sales and Blockbuster movie rentals by offering cheap, burnable films via the Internet for the early adopter crowd.

Who is JENNIFER GOVERNMENT, And How Does She Know George Clooney & Steven Soderbergh?!

Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.

The boys over at CHUD ran this story over the weekend, and it looks like we both got mailed the same bit of info. Funny what you learn when you read, and especially when you get a hold of material before it hits bookstores. In this case, “Cinephile” sent us the following effusively enthusiastic e-mail:

Hey there!

I got a hold of an advance copy of a book by Max Barry called "Jennifer Government." I don't know if you've already heard anything about it, but the book is simply awesome. Darkly satiric and often hilarious, with a voice much like Chuck Palahniuk at his best (i.e. not like his last 3 books). The best part is, according to a blurb on the back of the cover (and confirmed on the author's website), the film rights have been optioned by none other than Soderbergh and Clooney's Section Eight Films!

Anyway, thought it was something that was right up your alley, and you might like to know about it, if you don't already. The novel is due out in January. Below is the synopsis from the back cover, and I've attached the cover art as well (would make a KILLER teaser poster if they keep the art!)

Synopsis

"In Max Barry’s twisted, hilarious vision of the near future, the world is run by giant American corporations (except for a few deluded holdouts like the French); taxes are illegal; employees take the last names of the companies they work for; The Police and The NRA are publicly-traded security firms; the U.S. government may only investigate crimes if they can bill a citizen directly. It’s a free market paradise!

Hack Nike is a lowly Merchandising Officer who’s not very good at negotiating his salary. So when John Nike and John Nike, executives from the promised land of Marketing, offer him a contract, he signs without reading it. Unfortunately, Hack’s new contract involves shooting teenagers to build up street cred for Nike’s new line of $2,500 sneakers. Scared, Hack goes to The Police, who assume he’s asking for a subcontracting deal and lease the assassinations to the NRA.

Soon Hack finds himself pursued by Jennifer Government, a tough-talking agent with a barcode tattoo under her eye and a rabid determination to nail John Nike (the boss of the other John Nike). In a world where your job title means everything, the most cherished possession is a platinum credit card, and advertising jingles give way to automatic weapons in the fight for market share, Jennifer Government is the consumer watchdog from hell."

Author Biography

MAX BARRY is an Australian, for which he apologizes. He is the author of the cult hit Syrup, although he spelled his name "Maxx" for that novel "because it seemed like a funny joke about marketing, and I failed to realize everyone would assume I was a pretentious asshole." He was born on March 18, 1973 and lives in Melbourne, Australia, where he writes full-time, the advantage being that he can do it while wearing only boxer shorts.

I read SYRUP at the recommendation of the delicious Marla Singer, and Max Barry strikes me a lot like Ben Elton as a novelist. In particular, STARK has a lot in common with Barry’s first book. Let’s see if he can take it up a notch with this new entry.

Clooney and Soderbergh think so, and based on what they’ve got coming out this fall (SOLARIS and CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND), I’m inclined to think they know what they’re talking about.

Clooney beat fan at her own (con) game

New York Daily News

11/11/02

Don't try to play George Clooney for the fool. Recently, the "Ocean's Eleven" star met a woman through a charity organization. She told him her daughter was critically ill and that he'd always been one of the girl's favorite stars.

The former "E.R." doctor was so moved by the tear-drenched tale that he offered to call the daughter. They spoke several times. He sent her gifts, photos, memorabilia - all of which brought more phone calls from the mother.

Gradually, though, "George began to smell a rat," says a friend. "He did some investigating. He finally found out the woman didn't have a sick daughter. The 'mother' was the daughter - she was doing the child's voice."

But the woman picked the wrong guy to con. According to his friend, Clooney, who is one of Hollywood's merriest pranksters, called the woman one day and said, "Hey, I've got great news. I have the studio jet. I'm going to fly down and surprise your daughter! We'll really make her day."

Caught off guard, the woman said she needed to call him back. "The next time she phoned," says our source, "she said, 'I have terrible news - my daughter just died!' That put an end to the situation."

Clooney's spokesman, Stan Rosenfield, confirms the story.

"George hopes this aberration won't diminish people's generosity," he says. "Of the 10,000 calls people receive to help children, 9,999 are legitimate."

Clooney's story eerily resembles one Rosie O'Donnell recounts in her memoir, "Find Me," in which a mentally ill woman played the dual roles of a pregnant 14-year-old and the girl's mother.

Rosenfield didn't know whether Clooney believed the same woman conned him, or whether he planned to pursue criminal charges.

Meanwhile, director Steven Soderbergh is determined to give Clooney fans a glimpse of his glorious backside. Last week, the MPAA slapped Soderbergh's intergalactic thriller, "Solaris," with an R rating because of two scenes with co-star Natascha McElhone that feature Clooney's keister.

Fox, which wants a PG-13, is appealing the rating. "The scenes are very tasteful," says a female Fox exec. "And we don't want to cut out George's butt. It's hot!"

I've never been to the Oscars. They ask me every year to present an award, but that's not right. You should go when you're nominated. Not before."

- George Clooney in The New York Times magazine

Top 10: Man's Man Actors

Matthew Simpson

Ask Men

Motion pictures are about fantasy. They take us out of our daily lives and project us into a whirlwind of emotions we seek out at the moment. Romance, horror, suspense, and a well-made movie can make you feel all the right things. The script, the direction, production design, all these are crucial to the success of a film, but often the actors are left in charge of carrying it on their shoulders.

Being men, we usually avoid chick flicks and prefer the comfort of gunfire and the naked female form. But what really makes it worthwhile is the presence of a truly cool and virile actor with whom we can relate and even venerate. These are men we would like to invite to our homes and hang out with.

Because this is a top ten and not a top five hundred, there are names like Bruce Willis, Cary Grant, Charles Bronson, and Clark Gable that I had to omit, but deserve honorable mention. So without further ado, I present the top ten "man's man" actors, ranked by their date of birth.

Number 9

George Clooney

The hip 1998 film Out of Sight really sums up Clooney's on-screen demeanor (Ocean's Eleven, another Soderbergh picture, is a close second). After his five-year stint on ER, one of the most popular TV shows in history, this cool thespian made the jump to feature films such as Three Kings and The Perfect Storm and it has paid off. Set to earn $15 million for his next film, George is one of Hollywood's most eligible bachelors.

Inside move: 'Villagate' fallout...Carr drives off to WMA in Gruber's wake

Claude Brodesser

Helmer Steve Carr has signed with the William Morris Agency, waving "Arrivederci!" to Creative Artists Agency as "Villagate" produces still more fallout.

Carr -- who has directed pictures like "Next Friday" at New Line and "Dr. Dolittle 2" at Fox -- marks the first CAA client to leave in the wake of the recent melee between CAA, George Clooney, and Clooney's agent Michael Gruber. Gruber ankled the shop Tuesday over a spat about a finder's fee he'd discussed taking for introducing the star to the owners of the palatial 25-room Italian estate Clooney ultimately purchased for more $7 million.

Both Carr and producing partner Heidi Santelli will be repped by WMA in all areas, and will remain with manager Aaron Ray at Nine Yards Entertainment, as well as attorney Karl Austin at Armstrong, Hirsh, Jackoway, Tyerman & Wertheimer.

*****

Helmer Steve Carr has signed with the William Morris Agency, waving "Arrivederci!" to Creative Artists Agency as "Villagate" produces still more fallout.

George Clooney as Rhett Butler? Perhaps...

Associated Press

Hollywood remakes are almost as old as Hollywood. Every generation seems to have its "Little Women," its "Front Page" and its "Ben-Hur" (we're way overdue). "The Four Feathers" was made five times before its most recent release. Hitchcock remade his own movies.

Some movies that seemed beyond the process have been remade anyway, often with disastrous results -- "King Kong," "Stagecoach" and "Planet of the Apes" come immediately to mind. A few classics still seem beyond the fray. But for how long? And who would re-create their emblematic casts?

Gone With The Wind (1939)

Directors: Victor Fleming, George Cukor, Sam Wood.

Cast: Clark Gable as Rhett, Vivien Leigh as Scarlett, Leslie Howard as Ashley, Olivia de Havilland as Melanie, Hattie McDaniel as Mammy, Butterfly McQueen as Prissy.

Civil War starts. Cotillions postponed. Slaves look glum.

Gone With The Wind (2002)

Director: Steven Spielberg.

Cast:

George Clooney as Rhett Butler (having done Gable in "O Brother, Where Art Thou"), accompanied by Hollywood's Southern standard bearer, Reese Witherspoon, as Scarlett. Ashley Wilkes? Given his utter implausibility in "Titanic," Leonardo DiCaprio seems a logical choice for a period piece, opposite Claire Danes as Mellie. Oprah Winfrey (having worked with Spielberg before) enlightens Mammy, Halle Berry updates Prissy.

Clooney Zaps Agent in Italian Villa Flap

Claude Brodesser and Michael Fleming

10/23/02

See related images

Hollywood (Variety) - Call it "The Italian Job," part two.

George Clooney (news) has ditched his talent agent amid a furor over a finder's fee for a posh villa in Italy. Michael Gruber (news) in turn abruptly resigned from Creative Artists Agency, according to a terse statement Tuesday from the talent firm.

No official reason was given for the departure, but agency insiders say it stems from a dispute over a fee that Gruber was to have received -- though eventually didn't -- from a real estate transaction he helped set up for Clooney in Italy.

"This was a situation where I introduced friends to George," Gruber told Daily Variety, adding, "I was not involved in the negotiation of the transaction by any means. While a finder's fee was discussed, and disclosed to Clooney, it was never expected and it was never received."

However, the sellers of the eight-figure estate apparently assumed that Gruber would duly receive a payment of up to $250,000 for the introduction to Clooney. Sometime after this arrangement was disclosed to Clooney the actor became upset and refused to continue being represented by Gruber.

Stan Rosenfield, a Clooney spokesman, said his client declined to comment on the transaction. He said Clooney will now be represented personally by CAA managing partner Brian Lourd.

A spokeswoman for CAA would not elaborate on its one-line statement that Gruber had resigned from CAA effective immediately, saying only that "we appreciate Michael's contribution to the agency during his time here" and that "we wish him all the best in his future plans."

Gruber has not made a decision about his next move. His clients at CAA also included directors Steve Carr ("Friday") and Brett Ratner ("Red Dragon") as well as rapper-turned-thesp Ice Cube ("Barbershop").

The Cold Fax Of Life

Vogue

10/22/02

SHE may be known as one of the world's most beautiful women,but model-cum-actress Liz Hurley is leaving nothing to chance in the dating department.

On a recent trip to LA, the tenacious single mum asked her publicist to obtain the fax number of Hollywood heart-throb George Clooney so that she could contact him and tell him precisely what she thinks of him. To make her intentions perfectly clear, Hurley penned the following blandishment: "It's right what they say, you are the sexiest man alive - love Liz xxx."

Unfortunately, George's personal assistant assumed that the message was from that other famous Liz, Elizabeth Taylor, and passed the message on accordingly. "George found himself talking to the wrong Liz," close pal Tommy Hinckley reveals. "He had to chuckle when Taylor told him, 'I couldn't possibly have dinner with you - you're too sexy and way too young.'"

Thanks to Brenda

Catering To Clooney

In her Dish column in Globe magazine, Lycia Naff claims that George Clooney ("Return of the Killer Tomatoes!"), 41, may have a bit too much on his plate these days. While filming a scene with Catherine Zeta-Jones, ("Blue Juice"), 32, for their upcoming film "Intolerable Cruelty" at upscale L.A. eatery L'Orangerie, the dashing star kept flubbing his lunch order lines causing the director to yell "cut" several times. "I'm really sorry, everyone," Clooney sighed. "I'm working on two films at once and I'm a little brain dead. I don't know if I should be ordering chicken salad or chicken Cordon Bleu." What's wrong with "Chicken by George," George?

Clooney's skeletons prevent political ambition

10/18/02

There have always been movie stars who've harboured political ambitions. Most recently, there's been speculation that Arnold Schwarzenegger is lining-up a bid to become Governor of California. Indeed another actor, Ronald Reagan, made it all the way to The White House during the 80's!

However, one star who definitely won't be taking-up public office is George Clooney, who recently admitted to imdb.com that he's got a few too many skeletons in his cupboard.

"Run for office? No. I've slept with too many women. I've done too many drugs, and I've been to too many parties," the Ocean's Eleven star confessed.

'Dallas' film must upscale the TV series

10/12/02

The already larger-than-life Ewings of ''Dallas'' will be supersized to the big screen via a multimillion-dollar deal sanctioned by series creator David Jacobs.

He envisions a grand-scale feature film with a new cast and more substantive roles for the series' often underfoot women.

''Dallas,'' which ran from 1978 to 1991 on CBS, made the city an international tourist mecca and a symbol of high-handed lust and greed epitomized by Larry Hagman's portrayal of oily J.R. Ewing.

The show's ''Who Shot J.R.?'' episode, telecast Nov. 21, 1980, is still the second highest-rated program in TV history, behind only the farewell ''M.A.S.H.'' movie.

''In some ways, 'Dallas' has to be upscaled,'' Jacobs said. ''Then, we were dealing with the oil business, and now we're dealing with the energy business. But it's not as if we're going to do an Enron story. The characters have to stay essentially the same, but the people who play them have to be different.''

Tentatively scheduled for a 2004 release, the ''Dallas'' movie ''absolutely'' will be shot in Dallas - ''I don't see how it can't be,'' Jacobs said.

The film is being bankrolled by Regency Enterprises, a production company based at 20th Century Fox. Finding the right actor to play villainous J.R. will be the biggest casting hurdle, Jacobs said.

''Every actor 40 to 50 years old has been mentioned. From John Travolta to George Clooney to Harrison Ford, who I guess would be too old. Kevin Costner has been mentioned by more than a few people. The scale is bigger and the stakes are bigger.

''So you've got to have someone with great humor, a really gutsy actor like Hagman just playing the hell out of the part.''

Jacobs said he won't write the script for the movie but expects to have considerable input. He'd ''love to see more than just cameos (in the movie) by Larry Hagman and some of the others.'' And he wants a makeover of J.R.'s mother, ''Miss Ellie'' Ewing, played by Barbara Bel Geddes in the series.

''She should be a figure of more potency,'' Jacobs said. ''One of the things I'm looking forward to doing is punching up Miss Ellie, because I think she had a lot of untapped potential.''

''Dallas,'' prime time's No. 1-rated entertainment series from 1980 to 1984, was meant to be a straight-ahead drama, even if many fans came to see it as a lark.

''Part of the pleasure of watching 'Dallas' was seeing people that rich being that miserable,'' Jacobs said. ''It was fun, but it was never a send-up.

"And I don't think the movie can be a send-up. It's not going to be 'The Godfather,' but I don't think it's going to be 'Charlie's Angels' either.

After being canceled by CBS, ''Dallas'' returned to the network in two made-for-TV reunion movies. The last, ''War of the Ewings,'' premiered in April 1998 and included a cameo by Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones.

There was occasional talk of a big-screen 'Dallas' movie during the run of the series, but ''it didn't get very far,'' Jacobs said.

''The only thing I remember about it is finding out that plans were afoot without anybody telling me about it. And then getting ticked off.''

Mentor scheme helps children to help themselves

The Scotsman

10/9/02

IN THE United States, the actor George Clooney is among the huge number of citizens who have acted as a mentor to a child from a single-parent family.

The Big Brother and Sister scheme has attracted massive support across the US and become the nearest thing to a civil form of national service.

Yesterday, Jack McConnell, the First Minister, launched a similar scheme for Scotland, with the aim of young people having a friend and role model at a formative stage in their lives, when some under-achieve or go off the rails.

The Big Brothers and Sisters, whose background will be rigorously vetted, spend two to four hours a week with them, playing football or frisbee, or going for coffee or to a cinema.

Research in the US, where the scheme has been operating for 100 years, found that children with a mentor were 46 per cent less likely to abuse drugs, 57 per cent less likely to truant, 37 per cent less likely to lie to their parents, 32 per cent less likely to be violent and 27 per cent less likely to abuse alcohol.

Launching the scheme which is jointly supported by the Scottish Executive and businessman Sir Tom Farmer, the First Minister said he expects it to become embedded in Scotland. "This is not just a bright idea that someone has had," he added. "It has a proven track record. It seems to me that it can help young people get the start in life that they should in the 21st century."

Mr McConnell said he hoped the scheme would prevent some young people going off the rails and would provide "a shoulder to lean on from time to time".

He stressed that it was not aimed exclusively at children whose lives were troubled and appealed to employers to release staff to act as mentors.

Julia Ogilvie, managing director of the jeweller Hamilton & Inches, is Scottish patron of the scheme, which operates in 30 countries.

More Festival Images

Maysville's weekend of song in full swing

Ledger Independent

Carla Redden

9/28/02

Event organizers are expecting an evening nothing less than greatness when performers take the stage for the highly-anticipated fourth annual Rosemary Clooney Music Festival.

In addition to a large local crowd, downtown Maysville will host several state lawmakers and dignitaries who are expected to be on hand for the festival.

Duff Giffen, festival coordinator and Maysville's Renaissance Program manager, said among those expected to be in attendance tonight are Lt. Gov. Steve Henry and his wife, Maysville native and former Miss America Heather French Henry.

Kentucky Attorney General Ben Chandler, Kentucky House Speaker Jody Richards., Sen. Jim Bunning and Congressman Ken Lucas are also expected to attend, Giffen said Friday.

Maysville Mayor David Cartmell said Kentucky House Majority Leader Greg Stumbo is coming and Sylvia Lovely, executive director/CEO of the Kentucky League of Cities, will be there as well.

"I know (Lovely's) bring bringing mayors with her from around the state," Cartmell said. Gov. Paul Patton, who has been at the center of a sex scandal which broke last week, has canceled plans to attend.

George Clooney, nephew of the late Rosemary Clooney, will appear with the singer's son, Miquel Ferrer.

"A lot of former residents, people who grew up here and moved away will be coming back (for the festival)," Giffen said.

Maysville native Nick Clooney will emcee the evening which will also feature bluegrass music star and Grammy award-winning Alison Krauss as headliner.

Other performances will be by Krauss' fellow "Down From the Mountain" tour artists The Peasall Sisters and The Whites. Music of the tour was inspired by George Clooney's movie "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" The Blue Wisp Big Band will entertain with big band music during dinner tonight.

The evening will also include a tribute to Rosemary Clooney with treasured film clips and memories shared by Nick Clooney.

"I think it's going to be a great, great evening," she said.

Despite the rainy conditions Thursday and through most of Friday, Giffen said Jerry Lundergan's employees didn't experience any setbacks.

"They've worked through the rain and haven't missed a beat," she said.

The festival kicked off Friday night with a free performance by the Van-Dells. Today, local performers will also provide entertainment, including the Limestone Chorale and the Mason County High School Orchestra.

Giffen said tickets will not be sold for the event today. She said 1,200 tickets were sold and "we decided to cut it off at 1,200."

People without tickets can come to watch the festival in an area open for the public on middle Market Street, she said.

The Rosemary Clooney Festival was initiated to preserve and restore the Russell Theatre where Clooney's first movie, "The Stars are Singing," premiered in 1953.

'ER' Actors Talk About Changes

9/25/02

New York (AP) - ER is entering its ninth season, and the cast has almost completely turned over from its premiere in 1994.

Actors Noah Wyle and Maura Tierney talked with reporters about what it is like having so many people come and go.

Noah Wyle, the only holdover from the original cast, says he is going to miss Anthony Edwards and Eriq LaSalle, "both personally and professionally."

Wyle says that is sure he will keep in touch with Edward and LaSalle, just as he has kept up with George Clooney, but there will be changes.

"My relationship with George is radically different than what it was when we were spending 12 hours a day together 5 days a week, nine months a year," Wyle told reporters.

Still, Wyle sees the changes as an opportunity to grow professionally.

"I've spent now a third of my life on this show, and each year I've found myself moving up the call sheet," Wyle points out. "Now I'm finding myself at No. 1, it's really very exciting."

Tierney says she will also miss Edwards, the last actor to leave the hit NBC show, but she thinks the show will not miss a beat.

"It seems to have withstood everybody else's departure," Tierney says

DETERMINED: Hairy chests are back in, The New York Times reported in its Men's Fashion

supplement Sunday. Acknowledging that, according to the manufacturer of Nair, some 30 percent of the American males aged 18 to 34 regularly shave their chests, The Times nevertheless says that such smoothies as Mark Wahlberg are out, while such bears as Hugh Jackman, George Clooney and Russell Crowe are in. As for what star possesses the most iconic chest of all time: Sean Connery, who first exposed his luxuriant brush in 1962's "Dr. No." So let it grow, boys.

Thanks to Marie