George Clooney: Boy in the Bubble

Peggy Noonan calls George Clooney the Boy in the Bubble. I laughed out loud. What an apt name! Even ABC questions, Clooney's theory that The Academy affects social change. Ha! After the article in LA Times or some such West Coast daily gushing about Clooney's "availableness", his "humility" (only in Hollywood could such a pompous, self-important ass be called humble) and hotness in his seven-year-old Armani (see, he is like so down to earth! his Armani isn't even from the latest runway!!! What normal mid-Western man even owns a tux, much less an Armani?).

But there is even a funnier expose on Mr. Holywood (he's the latest god) from Miranda Devine down under in the Sydney Morning Herald called, "By George, Hollywood is Out of Touch":

Golden George was the hero of the night, feted by all, his ample charms and enviable sex life mentioned several times by the host and various hoofers on stage, his smiling visage bobbing up on the red carpet, in the opening spoof, as a presenter, flirting with our Nicole, and "speaking truth to power" everywhere.

Clooney, 44, was nominated for three awards for two movies - for best director and best original screenplay for Good Night, and Good Luck, his McCarthy-era period piece, and for best actor in a supporting role, for the anti-American oil industry flick Syriana, which he won.

Such was his ubiquity this year the awards could have been renamed the Clooneys, or the Clowneys, after his nickname in the right-wing blogosphere.

Thank God, you could almost hear Hollywood sigh, we finally found a replacement for that hirsute, four-eyed, frumpy fatso whatshisname. That would be Michael Moore, 51, who made a spectacle of himself at the 2003 Oscars when Bowling for Columbine won for best documentary: "Shame on you, Mr Bush! Shame on you! Your time is up," he cried, to scattered boos. Much as the bejewelled luvvies agreed with Moore's far-fetched left-wing conspiracy theories, in a town famously obsessed by appearances, they just couldn't abide his look.

But Clooney is the scrumptiously palatable face of Moore, who was last seen in Team America as a tomato sauce-covered suicide bomber with a hot dog in each hand.

Much has been made of the fact that the five contenders for best picture this year - Crash, Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Munich and Good Night, and Good Luck - were slow-boilers at the box office, message movies with a combined audience smaller than that of the Chronicles of Narnia.

Read the whole thing.