Clooney Drops the Screwball

Is it wrong that I'm happy about the failure of George Clooney's latest directorial effort, Leatherheads? Because I am. If that's wrong, then I don't want to be right. Take that, George Clooney! Ahem. I know I already used that picture of Clooney in another post, but it's just too priceless to pass up. He looks like such a bloody fool. And he is SO trying to be Cary Grant in it. Ugh. Blasphemous. Anyway, not even my love for John Krasinski can make me feel any pity or sympathy for the movie or Clooney. Leatherheads only made $12.7 million at the box office, coming in THIRD after 21 and Nim's Island. It made less money than Nim's Island! And it got slammed by critics. Like, REALLY slammed. Mmm...sweet.

At least for the time being, smug George Clooney has been put in his place. I love it. Your cocky charm didn't cut it this time, bucko! Bucko? I don't think I've ever said that in my life. I must mean business. I feel sort of evil for being so happy about this, but I just really don't like Clooney. He irks me. Leatherheads looks stupid and smug, so I take a lot of pleasure in the fact that smug Mr. Clooney's smug, self-congratulatory project failed.

That's what happens when you take on screwball when you have no business doing it. The only semi-recent 100% successful screwball venture was served up Coen-style in 1994 with The Hudsucker Proxy. I think Judd Apatow incorporates some screwball elements into his films, and there are definitely screwball characteristics still floating around, but Joel and Ethan Coen proved that they were the only people capable of making a full-fledged, totally devoted, all-encompassing screwball comedy in decades. I realize that might be a controversial opinion, but so be it. I know film history, and I know screwball. The Hudsucker Proxy is a brilliant film, a loving throwback to yesteryear, and an homage to the masters. The Coens got it totally right. But, as a rule, if your name isn't Howard Hawks, Frank Capra, or Preston Sturges, back away from the screwball! Don't even try it.

And no matter how many times people compare you to Cary Grant, Georgie, you are NOT Cary Grant. Got it?

I think I've gotten most of the gloating out of my system, for the moment, except for a couple final jabs (I have to go out swinging, don't I?), so it's time to just kick back and bask. Let me enjoy this rare Clooney failure. Like Daniel Plainview with a milkshake, I want to drink it up.

That poster of George Clooney's grotesquely self-satisfied mug used to make me sick to my stomach from contemptuous disgust. Well, it still makes me sick to my stomach...only now it's from vindictively vindicated laughter. "The Brains"? Man, irony's a bitch.