Nice that he can laugh at himself (and make a ton of dough in the process).  But don't you have to admire that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are actually engaged in creating a family and raising children?  (I know, Bella—to each his or her own.  I'm single!  With grandchildren.)

But, then, there's Clooney's humanitarian work.  Actors' involvements in helping people used to mean making PSAs—30 second TV spots—on behalf of some good-sounding charity.  Clooney has been among a group of current actors (including Pitt and Jolie) who have gone well beyond this.  They put themselves on the line for something broader than their own careers and social lives—they seem to care.  And creating organizations to assist famine/violence-stricken parts of the world is not a photo op, to wit.

George Clooney seems to have one of the most charitable hearts in Hollywood, and, alongside his current mission to stop the human rights atrocities in the Darfur region of Sudan, he focuses much of his energy on helping those suffering from poverty.

Clooney famously founded Not On Our Watch with his Ocean's 11 co-stars Don Cheadle, Matt Damon, and Brad Pitt, and producer Jerry Weintraub. The organization's main goal is to stop the genocide occurring in Sudan. Clooney has visited the area personally, and spoken with victims of rape and torture.

But George Clooney is known primarily for his film work—he will go down in history as among the most prominent filmmakers in our era, including directing and producing movies as well as starring in them.  Like everyone in such a position, Clooney worked to get there: after dropping out of college as a journalism student (his father was a prominent local newscaster), "he moved to L.A. in 1982 and tried a whole year to get a role while he slept in a friend's closet."

How's he doing in this realm?  I'll reference one magazine's commercial-artistic assessment, and then my personal appraisal as someone who follows movies.  Recently, Forbes called Clooney and Ryan Gosling—with whom Clooney appeared in The Ides of March—"two odd movie stars." 

Of course, putting these two actors together in the first place is. . .bizarre: "Between the two of them they've been nominated for seven Academy Awards and earned $3.6 billion at the box office.  Granted most of those nominations (six) and most of that money ($3.1 billion) was earned by Clooney."

But that's not the point of the Forbes article (which actually, believe it or not, focuses more on Gosling): "Both have fame that overshadow [sic] the actual box office performance of their films." (In this and the previously quoted sentence, has Forbes given up the idea of subject-verb agreement?)  The article notes that Clooney has rarely entered the box office stratosphere—other than for Ocean's Eleven (and Ocean's Twelve, Thirteen, et al.) which is kind of the screen version of the antic Clooney bachelor personality.

At the same time, the author claims,

Clooney used to have a strategy of "one for them, one for me" where he would star in one big studio film for every smaller, more personal movie he made. Lately it seems his film choices have been all for him, none for the studio. Clooney directed and co-wrote Ides. If Gosling follows Clooney's lead he's sure to maintain his reputation as a stellar actor. He just might not rise to the payday of the biggest movie stars.

Among these personal films have been the strange Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002) and the idealistic Good Night, and Good Luck (2005), both of which Clooney directed, and in neither of which did he star.  And neither is a great film.

But I'm more interested in Clooney films that are offered as mainstream entertainments.  As I said in PT, I found Up in the Air (2009) fake.  I was much more intrigued by his appearance in The American (2010), a small film in which Clooney plays an isolated individual, a hit man, which is intriguing simply for portraying the life of a lonely man in a foreign environment—a small Italian village.

Which brings us to Clooney's current film, The Descendants, set in a decidely non-paradise-like Hawaii.  Directed by Alexander Payne, the movie was selected by A.O. Scott as a NY Times Critics' Pick:

Payne proceed(s) to shake up our expectations all the same. The way Matt's predicament plays out is surprising, moving and frequently very funny. Mr. Payne—immeasurably aided by a dazzlingly gifted, doggedly disciplined cast—nimbly sidesteps the sentimental traps that lurk within the film's premise.

I admire a person who takes his work seriously.  Keep on pushing, Mr. Clooney.

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