Perhaps these movies didn’t make big bucks, but Clooney was very good in ‘O Brother’, ‘Burn Before Reading’, ‘Leatherheads’ and one of the most underrated movies of the last 15 years IMO ‘Intolerable Cruelties’. True all of those save one were directed by the Coen Brothers, but still he was very good in all of them.
On a side note, IMO the Coens and Wes Anderson IMO are the best directors out there. No Country for Old Men is a modern classic that ranks up there with any of the old time classics. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen a Coen or Wes Anderson directed movie and thought that’s lousy.
I agree with you on the directors. When I watch a Coen brothers movie, I get the sense that there is nothing else these people would rather do than make really strong detail-oriented movies.
My ultimate dream is to have the Coen brothers direct a Godzilla movie.
I couldn't finish Leatherheads -- nice concept, but too dumb, too much Clooney, too much Zellweger and Krasinski for that matter). Can't say I liked Intolerable Cruelty either -- the Coen brothers' movie I liked least.
Burn After Reading wasn't awful, but it's reminiscent of those political pictures he's always making. The serious ones, like The Ides of March, Michael Clayton, and Good Night and Good Luck weren't so bad if you could put up with the politics, but the "funny" ones, like Men Who Stare At Goats didn't go down well with me.
Monuments Men was a monumental snooze, but The Descendants was very good when Clooney was a hopeless sap (and not so good when he got all noble and idealistic). Three Kings -- going back to the 90s -- was very good. Syriana not so good (from what I remember of it).
Just my opinion.