Pitchman

One of the things that I find interesting are the American stars who would never be caught dead doing commercials in the U.S., but who do them with regularity in other parts of the world (Conan O'Brian did a pretty funny commercial parody of that one time). George Clooney is a classic example. Now, I really like Clooney, and it's not simply because of the Cincinnati connection. I like his politics, obviously, and he's certainly turned out to be a much better actor than anyone would have ever guessed. My friend David one time pointed out that if Hitchcock were still making films today he would pick Clooney to star in them, and I think that's probably a good call (think of some strange combination of Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart). Anyway, everytime I'm in eastern or central Europe I see Clooney's picture everywhere. The brand he pitches most is Nescafe, and I just saw an actual commercial that he did with John Malkevich where they're in a taxi and it somehow ends up being about Nescafe.