Cup o' George

I'm surprised Ian Parker's fawning profile of George Clooney in The New Yorker makes only a passing mention to the Cloon' best roles in ages—in European commercials for Nespresso. They're so popular in France that a friend once asked me if I wanted a "Clooney coffee."

The first one ("What else?") is from 2006 and perfectly shows off Clooney's jokey self-deprecation, while "George Who?", from 2007, costars Camilla Belle.

And there's so much more! Check out Clooney in this pair of early ’00s Spanish ads for Emidio Tucci, or shilling for Martini Bianco, or hawking Toyotas. After all that, I don't want to hear anybody questioning his range!

While I actually do love Clooney—one of the very few exemplars of adult masculinity among American movie stars—it would have been nice to see Parker analyze that lucrative and most image-sensitive sideline. He writes about "Clooney’s assured trade in the commodity of fame," but it's hard not to wonder about the actor's trade in the fame of commodities as well.