Two More Preview Clips for George Clooney's The Ides of March
Posted 09.06.11 by Ryan
George Clooney began his directing career with 2002's Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, which explored the wild claims from Chuck Barris' autobiography that, outside of being a known game show host and producer, he worked as an assassin for the CIA. Clooney followed his directorial debut with two distinctly different movies — the 2005 Academy Award–nominated historical drama Good Night, and Good Luck. and the 2008 comedy Leatherheads.
Clooney's latest, the political drama The Ides of March, stars Ryan Gosling as an ambitious press secretary who becomes involved in a scandal while working for a potential presidential candidate (Clooney). The movie recently premiered at the Venice Film Festival, which has led Clooney to open up about the movie, telling Flicks and Bits why he felt The Ides of March was an important story to tell.
We want to do stories that ask more questions than they answer, we want to do things that have people involved in a discussion after the movie — I like that, I’ve always like that. I grew up as a child of the 70’s film culture that had some of the great filmmakers making some of the great films, in arguably one of the most turbulent times — with the civil rights movements, the women’s rights movements, the drug counter culture, anti-war movement. We have another time now in the US and in the world that is very turbulent, I think it’s always good to talk about issues, and not necessarily be able to provide those answers.
After receiving some mostly positive early reviews from the Venice, Columbia has been slowly releasing several preview clips from the movie, starting with a more whimsical moment that showed an awkward moment between Gosling and a beautiful young intern played by Evan Rachel Wood. The second clip got back to politics, including a rant from Phillips Seymour Hoffman's campaign manager character.
The latest clips continue with the political angle and involve the political scandal Gosling finds himself in during the movie. In the first clip, Gosling and Clooney have a healthy debate of over military service.
In the second clip, Gosling tries to do damage control with a rival campaign manager (Paul Giamatti) after an ambitious reporter (Marisa Tomei) decides to run with a story that Gosling would not like to make public.
Based on Beau Willimon's play Farragut North — which was loosely based on the 2004 Democratic primary campaign of Howard Dean — Clooney also co-wrote The Ides of March with Grant Heslov. Jeffrey Wright co-stars.
Next Showing: The Ides of March opens October 7