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The Boy in the Bubble (Peggy Noonan on George Clooney)
Opinion Journal ^ | 3/9/06 | Peggy Noonan

Posted on 03/09/2006 12:55:51 PM PST by blitzgig

I cannot remember a time when, in the days after the Academy Awards show, it was not criticized, and even blasted. It's an American tradition. Everyone enjoys saying it was too long and the acceptance speeches were interminable, or it was too tight and they kept rudely cutting off the acceptance speeches. Everyone has complaints about the political tendentiousness of the speeches, clips and jokes. Everyone makes fun of the vulgarity and air of self congratulation.

And everyone is right.

Which, of course, you know. In the days after Oscar, the one old saying everyone in Hollywood keeps remembering over and over is, "Everyone has two businesses, his own and show business."

-snip-

Which gets us to George Clooney, and his work. George Clooney is Hollywood now. He is charming and beautiful and cool, but he is not Orson Welles. I know that's like saying of an artist that he's no Rembrandt, but bear with me because I have a point that I think is worth making. Orson Welles was an artist. George Clooney is a fellow who read an article and now wants to tell us the truth, if we can handle it.

More important, Orson Welles had a canny respect for the audience while maintaining a difficult relationship with studio executives, whom he approached as if they were his intellectual and artistic inferiors. George Clooney has a canny respect for the Hollywood establishment, for its executives and agents, and treats his audience as if it were composed of his intellectual and artistic inferiors. (He is not alone in this. He is only this year's example.)

And because they are his inferiors, he must teach them.

(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...


TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: clooney; georgeclooney; hollyweird; hollywood; noonan; oscars; peggynoonan

1 posted on 03/09/2006 12:55:56 PM PST by blitzgig
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To: blitzgig

She put into words what i was thinking about this just the other day great read thanks


2 posted on 03/09/2006 1:01:16 PM PST by al baby (Father of the Beeber)
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To: al baby

No problem. She's great.

Peggy BUMP!


3 posted on 03/09/2006 1:02:12 PM PST by blitzgig
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To: blitzgig

George Clooney is such a tool. He's against racism! Yeah!


4 posted on 03/09/2006 1:13:53 PM PST by GianniV
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To: blitzgig; Cagey; Larry Lucido
The Bubble Boy

Donald


5 posted on 03/09/2006 1:14:10 PM PST by MotleyGirl70 (Most cats are democrats - did you ever meet a creature with such an inborn sense of entitlement?)
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To: MotleyGirl70

LOL! I loved that episode.


6 posted on 03/09/2006 1:17:25 PM PST by blitzgig
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To: MotleyGirl70
Moors!

No, sorry, it was the Moops!

7 posted on 03/09/2006 1:30:47 PM PST by Rummyfan
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To: Rummyfan

Lol.


8 posted on 03/09/2006 1:34:52 PM PST by MotleyGirl70 (Most cats are democrats - did you ever meet a creature with such an inborn sense of entitlement?)
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To: blitzgig

Isn't that what Hollywood people do?

Pretend to be somebody important and smart.


9 posted on 03/09/2006 1:43:29 PM PST by MikeHu
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To: MikeHu

Yes, it is. The sad part is they can no longer tell fact from fiction.


10 posted on 03/09/2006 2:01:52 PM PST by Constitutions Grandchild
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To: Rummyfan
yea, but they got it in the end - heh -the Good Samaritan Law.

My favorite episode is either Assman or the one with Mel Torme
11 posted on 03/09/2006 3:07:22 PM PST by Republicus2001
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To: Constitutions Grandchild

You mean they're believing their own lies?

Are they Democrats, by any chance?


12 posted on 03/09/2006 5:33:10 PM PST by MikeHu
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To: Republicus2001
My favorite episode is either Assman or the one with Mel Torme

Cosmo Kramer - Assman!

Jimmy's gonna get Kramer!

13 posted on 03/09/2006 7:09:04 PM PST by Rummyfan
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To: blitzgig
George Clooney has a canny respect for the Hollywood establishment, for its executives and agents, and treats his audience as if it were composed of his intellectual and artistic inferiors.

Well said. Maybe Peggy has stopped digging.

14 posted on 03/09/2006 10:10:30 PM PST by TChad
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To: MotleyGirl70

MEL: Excuse me, Jerry Seinfeld?

JERRY: Yeah.

MEL: My name's Sanger, mel Sanger. I drive that truck out there.

JERRY: Oh, the Yoo Hoo? I love Yoo Hoo.

MEL: It's a fine product. Anyway I saw you on the Tonight Show a couple of weeks ago. I was watching the show with my son Donald. He's got this rare immune deficiency in his blood. Damnedest thing. Doctors say he has to live in a plastic bubble. Can you imagine that? A bubble.


15 posted on 03/10/2006 5:01:36 AM PST by Cagey (You don't pay taxes - they take taxes. ~Chris Rock)
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To: blitzgig
My sister said this after she caught this latest Clooney performing his latest impersonation of statesman:

"Hollywood may have given Hattie an award but Lincoln freed them."

That says it all.
16 posted on 03/10/2006 11:10:34 AM PST by BlessedByLiberty (Respectfully submitted,)
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To: Cagey
MEL: So anyway, you're his favourite comedian. he laughed so hard the other night we had to give him an extra shot of hemoglobin.

JERRY: That's nice!

17 posted on 03/10/2006 11:30:28 AM PST by MotleyGirl70 (Most cats are democrats - did you ever meet a creature with such an inborn sense of entitlement?)
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To: MotleyGirl70

LOL @ Hemoglobin!


18 posted on 03/10/2006 11:58:03 AM PST by Cagey (You don't pay taxes - they take taxes. ~Chris Rock)
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