How To Tell the Difference Between A Three-Star Movie and a Four-Star Movie

So, I went to see "Michael Clayton" the day it opened, and I was jazzed. I am mostly immune to Mr. Clooney's man musk (except possibly in "Out of Sight," and you know the scene I am talking about), pluswhich, as we say in Pittsburgh, I thought the beautifully frigid "Goodnight and Good Luck" was far too inside baseball. It assumed a thorough knowledge of the blacklist that I think turned off the people it could most have helped--young people who didn't know McCarthy from Cohn. Not that a movie has to help people, but Clooney's reverence for Playhouse 90 got in the way of his righteous rage. He is so smart, George Clooney, I wish he were a little less smart.

But I digress, when I want to be talking about naked people.

I liked big old chunks of "Michael Clayton," which is set in motion when ace litigator Tom Wilkinson, representing an Evil Fertilizer Company, goes off his bipolar-suppressing meds, sheds his clothes at a videotaped deposition, and begins hinting that he favors the small farmers he's supposed to be crushing. George Clooney plays the firm's fixer, who's supposed to rein Wilkinson in, but instead gets infected with his speaking truth to power virus.

Tilda Swinton, representing the Big Evil Fertilizer Company, takes matters into her own hands. We know she's a bad person because she has no family, has a Condoleeza-size crush on her boss (Ken Howard, large/scary) and when she rehearses her speeches she sweats a lot.

Plus, she has back fat. In a man, that's Academy Award nominee territory. In a woman, TMZ.com has killed you for less.

But...it perks along. And I was liking it and liking it, until I realized that the major question in my mind was not, "Holy god, how will Michael Clayton/George Clooney get himself out of this moral dilemma?"

It was, "How much of naked Tom Wilkinson will we get to see?"

And setting aside the fact that I've had a thing for naked Tom Wilkinson since "The Full Monty," I realized that was what was going to make this a three-star movie, not a four-star flick. When you're thinking more about the Nudity of the Film's Catalyst than The Heroic Journey of the Protagonist, something's off.

And, sadly, there was not all that much naked Tom Wilkinson--though it is clear that his abs remain impressive.

Comments

[Martha]

I can have more than one object of obsession...and I do!

[Lynn Haraldson]

Cheating on Jon Stewart, eh? LOL At your recommendation, I must see this movie now. And I had no idea Pittsburghers say "pluswhich". Hmmmm....I'm just north of there. I'll be there tomorrow. I'll listen for it.