Consider George Clooney‘s ceiling stare in this newly revealed still (lifted from Rope of Silicon) from the Coen Brothers’ Burn After Reading (Focus Features, 9.12). You can see in a second that he’s “playing” stupid. Only dumb buys look like George Romero zombies during post-coital meditation. You can pretty much gather what his performance will be from this one shot. I believe it’s very hard to play a dumb-ass as if you really are one, instead of just appearing to be pretending.
This is apparently the moment of discovery when Frances McDormand and Brad Pitt, playing health-club employees, realize they’ve gotten hold of a copy of some very hot memoirs from an ex-CIA guy (John Malkovbich). Big deal, right? Well, it seems that way because there hasn’t been a decent still selection from this film in months…ever.
