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Film: Ides of March

Afterwards, the person I watched the movie with asked me "what do you think was the worst part?" My response, "Worst how? Like worst technically from a craft perspective or worst from a 'most tasteless perspective'?"

If there was a subconscious contest going on between Brad Pitt and George Clooney to see who could better use their movie star status to make great films, Pitt devoured Clooney this year. Ides of March is a negative point for Clooney - a really tasteless, borderline repugnant film that casts an eerie cloud over Clooney's intellectual chops. Is it possible the guy is not very bright? His early directoral efforts were impressive - Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, and Good Night and Good Luck. Both modest movies, smart test-the-water-see-if-i-can-do-this-directing-thing efforts. Then comes Leatherheads and Ides of March. Leatherheads was just forgettable and lazy, but Ides of March is unskilled, tasteless, and faux intellectual. Clooney is not a writer, that is for sure. And he and Heslov don't have a very good track record of producing - look at this list since 2005 - Men Who Stare at Goats, The Informant, A Scanner Darkly, Syriana, Leatherheads, Ides of March - these are really, really bad movies - like terrible movies. I left off Michael Clayton, which they did produce, and is an excellent movie, but that's hitting 1 for 7.

On the flipside, Pitt obviously had a hand in getting Moneyball and Tree of Life made this year. And although I'm not a fan of Tree of Life, it is hardly an embarrassment, and Pitt's performance is quite good. I hate to link to this article, because I don't like it, but I got a kick out of the Tree of Life section (from Grantland).

Under the section -

Successful movies we will be embarrassed that we liked in five years

Amos Barshad: It's Malick so no one will actually turn on it, but I nominate The Tree of Life. At some point in the middle of this (was it the 100th shot of Brad Pitt clenching his handsome jaw? The 1,000th of sunlight breaking out from behind leaves? Maybe just that one of Jessica Chastain floating?) I had resigned myself to the fact that this movie would never end, that I would live out the rest of my life in that theater, watching pretty scene after pretty scene that I did not understand. More dinosaurs plz.

Nevertheless, other films Pitt helped get made or produced: Assassination of Jesse James, Kick Ass, Eat Pray Love, Benjamin Button, The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, A Mighty Heart, Babel.

Note: I'm not counting movies like Burn After Reading, Inglorious Basterds, Up in the Air, Fantastic Mr. Fox - all pretty good movies - but clearly filmmaker stuff that could have gotten made without Pitt or Clooney.

In any case, Pitt's movies in the past six years or so, seem to me, much more respectable than Clooney's. Even his failures like Benjamin Button are respectable failures whereas Clooney's are more pie-in-the-face failures.