Okay, But Was Trump Right About George Clooney?

On Clooney's NYT op-ed

Whether you're sick of his inaction when it comes to Gaza or how he looks like a melted Diptyque candle these days, it seems like everyone's tired of Joe Biden these days. You can add George Clooney to his list of detractors as of yesterday, when he penned an op-ed for The New York Times titled, "That Old Bitch Gotta Go." Actually, it was called "I Love Joe Biden: But We Need a New Nominee." In the op-ed, Clooney wrote, “It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe ‘big F-ing deal’ Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.” First of all, writing an entire op-ed is a bit extra. Whatever happened to giving TMZ a sound bite as you're exiting Cipriani?

At any rate, some people are none too happy with Clooney's op-ed. Biden, for one. Via a source familiar with the event Clooney attended that turned him off Biden: “The President stayed for over 3 hours, while Clooney took a photo quickly and left.” I'm not sure someone bouncing from your event after a photo op is the flex Biden thinks it is. That makes it seem like your party was a flop, baby! I do that with birthday parties I don't want to attend.

Joy Behar even accused Clooney of airing out Democrat dirty laundry on today's The View, as if we can't see Biden with our own eyes. But the most surprising response came from Donald Trump, who's been mostly quiet amidst the whole game of Biden replacement nominee roulette. But it's obvious he rather Biden be the nominee than someone he's not prepped to fight in an election. And that's why Trump went for his usual tactics in trashing Clooney. He didn't attack the merits of his op-ed, he attacked Clooney's film career. 

On Truth Social (I love that he is like, the only person who uses that site), Trump wrote, "So now fake movie actor George Clooney, who never came close to making a great movie, is getting into the act. He’s turned on Crooked Joe like the rats they both are. Clooney should get out of politics and go back to television. Movies never really worked for him!!!” Okay, first of all… I assume Trump is talking about Clooney's acting career, which means that he's talking out of his ass because what we won't be doing today is besmirching Clooney's work in Out of Sight, the Ocean's movies, or the best film of the 2000s, Michael Clayton.

But! If we were to assume that "never came close to making a great movie" is a very specific drag about the films Clooney has directed… then maybe Trump spilled a bit! Because aside from Goodnight and Good Luck, which some people love but I don't (and I'm not looking forward to the stage adaptation, because why??)... has Clooney ever directed a good film?

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind is a solid debut thanks to Sam Rockwell's portrayal of game show host Chuck Barris. But then there's the uneven comedy Leatherheads and the political thriller Ides of March (which I love Ryan Gosling and the G.O.A.T. Philip Seymour Hoffman in, but it’s all over the place). The Monuments Men is a WWII movie that your grandfather probably likes. Suburbicon is lucky that Kathryn Bigelow's Detroit was released the same year, otherwise it would be the worst film about race in America from 2017. The Tender Bar put me to sleep. The Boys in the Boat looked too boring to even waste my AMC A-List membership on.

The one thing that unifies Clooney's films is that they don't even seem remotely fun. They're always so serious and a bit full of themselves. Kind of like writing an op-ed to tell Biden to drop out of the race.