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Holiday Movies 2002

Find out about ''The Two Towers,'' the new ''Harry Potter'' and other winter flicks
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Clooney and Soderbergh dish on upcoming projects | 17259__oceans_l
'ELEVEN' HEAVEN Clooney, with Brad Pitt in the Soderbergh-directed ''Ocean'''s -- one of the teams more commercially succesful ventures
Ocean's Eleven: Bob Marshak

Soderbergh and Clooney met while working on 1998's ''Out of Sight.'' They became fast friends. In 2000 they formed Section Eight to develop projects for themselves, and as a means to champion and protect the work of filmmakers they admire. Case in point: ''Far From Heaven.''

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY There are nine producers on ''Far From Heaven.'' You guys are two of them. How did you hook up with Todd Haynes?
SODERBERGH ''Safe'' [Haynes' 1995 indie drama about a woman for whom living in the world becomes physically toxic], to me, is just one of the best films made in this country -- a quintessential American film. When we first got up and running, we went over to the agents at CAA and said, ''We're a director-driven company; give us the list of people you're handling.'' Todd's name was on the list. He was trying to get ''Far From Heaven'' made, and they said, ''Why don't you jump on?'' It was a tough movie to make for the money -- just under $15 million, though it looks like it cost $50 million. There's no way to have a movie made under those circumstances in which you're not always being asked, ''Do we really have to spend money on X, Y, and Z?'' Our job was to go --
CLOONEY and SODERBERGH ''Yeah!''
SODERBERGH So much of the aesthetic of that film really came to play in postproduction. So it was really crucial that yes, we do need the titles to look like those Douglas Sirk movies, and yes, we do have to spend the money to get Elmer Bernstein to do the score, because he is the guy.... Boy, did Todd deliver.
CLOONEY And that Julianne Moore -- boy, is she going to do well.
SODERBERGH She's an up-and-comer, that one. What's she done?
CLOONEY She was on a soap. I hear that these days, it's verrrry easy to go from TV to film.


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