MICHAEL CLAYTON: George Clooney with a Twist

MICHAEL CLAYTON.

Not exactly a movie title that enthralls, excites, and gives you a cool shiver of anticipation. The movie poster even screams boring with George Clooney sporting a ash grey suit looking slightly distressed. But once you get past the bland exterior, you uncover an enjoyable legal thriller with twists that can be anticipated if you've read any John Grisham novels.

George Clooney plays an intelligent, quirky Everyman with a chiseled jawline and a disarming smile named Michael Clayton. If this description sounds familiar, it's because HE'S PLAYING HIMSELF!!!! Except he gets to wear a smart business suit and pretend he's a lawyer. And Clooney does play this character extremely well. So much so that you can't distinguish where Clooney ends and Clayton begins. (Hint: they're one and the same) What boggles my boggler is how Clooney ends up getting a Best Actor selection for playing himself. He didn't put on a prosthetic nose to look ugly (the Academy eats the Attractive-Person-Plays-Ug

ly-Person up like Chiclets). He didn't put on an accent or try to overcome a delibitating disease.

Unlike the other Best Actor nominees, Clooney doesn't even stretch himself outside his comfort zone. He wasn't a sadistic barber (Depp), an eccentric oil tycoon (Day-Lewis), a Russian immigrant caught up in crime (Mortensen), or...er...Tommy Lee Jones (ok I don't know what his character is all about but if Clooney and Jones are acting like themselves in an Acting War, I take Jones any day.) Bottom line, Clooney can act but I would've expected more from a Best Actor nominee.

Karen Crowder (the amazing Tilda Swinton of indie films like Thumbsucker and Broken Flowers) is a high powered corporate executive looking to protect her company's best interests at all costs. This puts her in direct opposition with Michael Clayton's crusade to fulfill his dead friend's mission to overthrow her company.

Who succeeds in the end? Therein lies the twist.

This is a good movie to sit down with your favourite copy of "Federal Jurisdiction in a Nutshell" by David P. Currie...or some other cozy legal read. If you like a smart thinking thriller, this tort's for you.


7 colour copies of damning evidence out of 10

THERE WILL BE BL-AAAAH....

THERE WILL BE BLOOD is an Academy nominee for Best Movie of 2007. Now, I trust the Academy on some movie choices and a lot of time I give them the benefit of the doubt...but too often they throw in the compulsory Epic nominee. That one movie that spans in inordinate amount of time and is given a free pass to be less than perfect because it is so difficult to pull off a truly great epic. Truly great ones like Gandhi, or Lord of the Rings. THERE WILL BE BLOOD is the token epic that gets the nod solely upon the excellent acting of Daniel Day-Lewis, some clever cinematography, and shocking scenes.

The reclusive Daniel Day-Lewis pokes his head out of the ground to play lead character Daniel Plainview, an obsessive oil tycoon bent on doing anything to earn a buck. Plainview is remorseless in abandoning his own son, taking on a religion he didn't believe in, and even murder to own the land covering an oil reserve. And Day-Lewis morphs into the character as seemlessly as Johnny Depp.

He duels morals with the young naive town priest (Paul Dano). This becomes a battle of religion versus money. Plainview compromises himself to win over the town by aligning himself with the priest with the sole purpose to take advantage of him. The problem with this battle is that the poor priest is greatly overmatched by a master of the game.

The rest of the movie is entirely forgettable unless you dig epics (the movie clocks in at about 2 and a half hours...and it feels like it). The concerto of violins used as background music are meant to be artsy but come off as forced and cheap...something you'd hear in a B horror movie and not an Oscar nominee.

THERE WILL BE BLOOD echoes a much better epic done 67 years ago called CITIZEN KANE (*SPOILER* instead of an oil tycoon, it's a newspaper tycoon!). For Day-Lewis, who pulls off a barely likeable character, and for the movie itself, THERE WILL BE NO OSCAR.

6 dry oil beds out of 10.