"Michael Clayton" is over the hump
Just acknowledging what I've failed to point out (despite everyone else having done so), which is that Michael Clayton will probably break even -- made for $20 million (George Clooney took nothing), now at $37,181,284, will hit $40 million -- so that early rap of being a financial under-performer that was slung around its neck for a few weeks doesn't apply. For a smart, mildly grim, somewhat challenging film about corporate lawyers pulling this and that string, that's an accomplishment.
Pete Hammond has written about having done a recent post-screening q & a with Clooney, and quotes him as saying he "made slightly more [for Clayton] than I did on Return of the Killer Tomatoes, but not much."
I've never felt that Clayton is Best Picture material. It's a very smart, complex adult drama. It played for me a little better the second time than the first, and it's been building ever since. I wouldn't argue against Tony Gilroy's film if someone were to say to me, "No, it's sublime! It's one of the top five!" I would just say "yeah, I love it too, but do you honestly feel it's on the same level as Zodiac or There Will Be Blood or No Country for Old Men or I'm Not There?" But I wouldn't argue against it.
Posted by Jeffrey Wells on November 21, 2007 at 11:36 AM
comment #1
actionman
says ...
Agree with you all the way Wells. I loved Clayton as well, and it'll probably make my top 10 list, but in the same realm of Jesse James, No Country, Into the Wild, and Zodiac it's not.
Posted by actionman
at November 21, 2007 12:56 PM
comment #2
bmcintire
says ...
Great performances, tightly directed, but that car-bomb registers right up there with BEFORE THE DEVIL. . .'s business card plot-contrivance in a "You've got to be kidding me!" sense that keeps it from being a great or even very good film.
Posted by bmcintire
at November 21, 2007 12:58 PM
comment #3
vansmith
says ...
you need the car bomb to remind viewers that its life and death as well as rich lawyers matching verbal wits..
Posted by vansmith
at November 21, 2007 1:08 PM
comment #4
p.Vice
says ...
Of course it's not on the level of Zodiac or No Country. But it's made more money, so in Oscar terms it is a much, much better movie.
Then again, the fact that it's a star-driven vanity project without an original bone in its body doesn't hurt.
Posted by p.Vice
at November 21, 2007 1:19 PM
comment #5
RoyBatty
says ...
What is that you're saying, Jeff? That the complete financial situation of a movie shouldn't have been based on its first 2 weeks of release?
Wow - welcome to the 21st Century.
Now, if only the rest of the sheeple that make up "entertainment reporting" would do as you did here and revisit the numbers MUCH further down the revenue stream timeline then perhaps everyone would start getting their far share on these films instead of the letting the studios cry "we're barely getting by these days..."
Posted by RoyBatty
at November 21, 2007 1:37 PM
comment #6
George Prager
says ...
I'm going to write a book: "Short Bus Nation."
Posted by George Prager
at November 21, 2007 1:38 PM
comment #7
Geoff
says ...
AGREED.
Posted by Geoff
at November 21, 2007 1:45 PM
comment #8
Gordie Lachance
says ...
If it weren't for Jeff's constant championing of Zodiac it never would have occurred to me that it was even in the top 20 of 2007.
I don't get what all the fuss is about epic period docu-dramas(Zodiac, American Gangster) anyway, with their episodic run-on narratives and lack of suspense. Great acting? Yes. Great production values? Yes. But where's the story? How can anyone attack a plot contrivance in a film like Michael Clayton while overlooking the fact that Zodiac had no plot at all???
For the record, Goodfellas belongs in this group too, but it's stands out due to the fact that it was one iconic, quotable scene after another.
Can anyone quote ONE line of dialogue from Zodiac.?
ps- Clayton is still the best film of the year. It won't get nominated for BP, but the screenplay Oscar is in the bag.
Posted by Gordie Lachance
at November 21, 2007 3:09 PM
comment #9
bmcintire
says ...
Van and Gordie:
(This is a SPOILER - even though part of it occurs in the first minutes of the film)
I have no problem with the desired ends of said car-bomb, just the means. The same guys that elaborately staged Wilkinson's murder to look like an apparent suicide are then going to go after Clooney by blowing up his car? That won't arouse any suspicion!! It was a great opening (Gilroy wanted to start - too literally - with a bang) but logic didn't follow once we revisited it.
I actually did enjoy most of CLAYTON. But I guess the fact that a simplistic and lazy choice on the part of the writer/director took me out of the movie and kept me out.
Posted by bmcintire
at November 21, 2007 4:00 PM
comment #10
Chinaski
says ...
People keep pointing out the car bomb as a plot hole or something completely outrageous, but I thought it was fairly obvious that they used that to shift the blame toward to mob for that. He owed money to organized crime, so that'd be reason enough for them go after him.
Posted by Chinaski
at November 21, 2007 4:48 PM
comment #11
OddDuck
says ...
Great to see that it found some kind of audience. The movie definitely isn't perfect, but who says it has to be? It's a legal thriller morality play with some razor sharp dialogue and good character work. Overall, a fucking phenonomal "lesser" piece of cinema.
And I see it having a long, long life on DVD and cable.
Posted by OddDuck
at November 21, 2007 4:52 PM
comment #12
Jay T.
says ...
I'd like to see Michael Clayton get a best picture nod... Jeff, you're better off campaigning for it than Zodiac - it has a better chance.
Posted by Jay T.
at November 21, 2007 5:15 PM
comment #13
K. Bowen
says ...
If Michael Clayton were made by a French auteur and had a more creative title than just the name of the title character, wouldn't everybody be saying what a crisply made portrait of the moral decay of corporate nihilism? Doesn't this film, for all its potboiler excesses, have its finger directly on the pulse of the way we live?
Posted by K. Bowen
at November 22, 2007 12:10 AM