Clooney was good in O’Brother, but he wasn’t “the” start: that movie was full of other talented actors and the real star in all Coen brother movies is the Coen’s themselves.
That being said, movies are dying, and they are dying because Hollywood pays out REALLY big bucks for “stars” and CGI, nearly entirely forgetting story and dialog.
There’s far, far more entertaining fare being streamed these days an NONE of it is Hollywood. The BBC’s “Sherlock” is a perfect example. Hollywood could learn many lessons from this show, four of which are:
1. there are thousands of great books out there that could be made into fantastic movies by imaginative and talented people (less interference by a thousand suits of course);
2. there are hundreds of talented unknown actors that would work for a pittance, and if you hire enough of those, you’ll bring the “stars” to their knees if you even care to hire them anymore;
3. story and dialog matter. A lot. Oh, and drop ALL the gratuitous “Progressive” (kommie) propaganda: Propaganda Kills;
4. finally, try something new that is old, namely bring back the serial. Produce an ongoing series with the quality (and length) of “Sherlock” and release a new episode once a month and charge $6.00 a person. You’ll be able to make money charging that low because your production costs will only have been a couple mil per episode (no CGI, no “stars”), and your attendance will be through the roof.
Heck, even make the first episode free for the sake of publicity, and besides, the theater owners make their money on concessions, so they’re not going to object, particularly since their theaters are nearly empty anyway.
O Brother was a CGI movie too. All of the landscape was photoshopped/instagrammed.
Soooooo true! Some of the best movies I ever seen had no special effects and were acted almost entirely by unknowns. People forget, classic movies in the 1970s for example, were acted almost by all unknowns or B movie actors. Nobody knew who the hell Sylvester Stallone was when Rocky came out, The Godfather, the only star was Brando. Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall weren't well known. These were all guys who did bit parts, TV work. Robert DeNiro, nobody knew who he was...Matter of fact there's a story that when De Niro was preparing for the movie "Taxi driver" he actually drove a real taxi in New York city to see what it was like, and the people he picked up didn't recognize him. The 70s to me was the best decade for movies, so many classics from that single decade it's mind blowing. Star Wars, how many 'stars' acted in that? Probably just Alec Guiness. The rest were unknown. The French connection, Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider were B movie actors before, doing cheap forgettable movies and TV, nobody knew who the hell they were. Everything is freakin "stars" today like you said, it's like the music industry, they are led by the nose on name recognition alone while the music takes a back seat, everything is about the "star" even though the star puts out utter crap, it's ridiculous.