Clint Eastwood

I had to look up the last time that Clint had acted in something he didn't direct - turns out to be this, which I'd never even heard of before (don't think it got a UK release):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trouble_with_the_Curve

My guess also is that Clint probably swore to himself long ago to never ever return to TV.

unless he talks to a chair

Eastwood's box office record is startling. I might be wrong, but he's quite along among filmmakers approaching 90 whose movies still make a tidy proit.

*profit

his return to TV for the RNC was a good appearance

in what sense are you using "good"?

yeah, but it's not tv, tho, it's HBO?

Had somehow not seen this playful image of birthday boy Clintus Eastwood until today! pic.twitter.com/gkwdoWFuAN

— 𝖇𝖚𝖒𝖕 𝖘𝖙𝖔𝖈𝖐 1776 (@NickPinkerton) May 31, 2019

Doug McClure?

yes it is! wow, "The Virginian" ran for 9 years.

I watched "Coogan's Bluff" a few weeks back. I know I had seen it a couple of times as a kid as it is a classic Eastwood marathon afternoon movie.

Coogan's Bluff has some interesting how things change scenes dealing with the police therapist character that caught my attention. The whole sequence with her starting in the squad room with the perp on to when she goes on a date with Coogan is darkly hilarious to watch with modern eyes as it is so sexist.

well this could be innnnteresting

https://collider.com/richard-jewell-trailer-new-clint-eastwood-movie/

Hmm. Wrongfully accused middle aged white dude vs. the government *and* the lying media. Seems likely to make everyone mad.

Thankful it's not a McVeigh movie

How did Magnum Force get a vote in this poll, but not Sudden Impact?

I wondered why Jewell was trending.

It gets a little sappy near the end, and the big interrogation scene where Jewell pushes back isn't really credible, but I thought this was pretty absorbing for the first hour-plus. I say that as a non-fan--first Eastwood film I've seen since J. Edgar, which was a complete waste. I see Kathy Bates got an AA nomination...as such things go, surprised Rockwell and/or Paul Walter Hauser (Jewell) didn't get one. Liked John Hamm, too, even if (or maybe because, I don't know) he turns into Don Draper now and again, especially when he asserts control right after the bombing.

Certainly could have done without all the Confederate flags, a reminder that this is chair guy, after all.

The level to which Eastwood clearly believes the script's worst tendencies is properly balanced by just how far Hauser goes toward making Jewell a credibly unlikable, suspicious person. This is likely Eastwood's best since Iwo Jima.

Not surprised or even particularly disappointed it went nowhere at the b.o. tho.

Finally watching The Mule, enjoying myself more than anticipated.

Hmm. Keeping us on our toes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcRFKdLZ0e8

Macho!
Macho!

*Waits*

I hope the real score is less overbearing than the trailer music.

I hope Clint does a duet on the soundtrack with Yoakam like he did with Merle back in the day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPvfQukNgx8

Parents making me watch Space Cowboys rn. Very silly.

It’s a real “validate the oldies” trip that I imagine was meant to make lots of aging boomers feel better about the advent of their later years.

Macho, what did you do with my Gran Torino this time?

have been watching some of the early films he directed and starred in - Play Misty For Me, High Plains Drifter, The Gauntlet. They had a very 70s macho mindset, but he was hot

Play Misty is hilarious and Jessica Walter just does that performance for the next 40 years (and it rules)

I really liked Richard Jewell

pretty impressive he directed and starred in a movie at age 90 something

Paint Your Wagon must be the most embarrassing Hollywood movie of the 1960s.

I liked The Outlaw Josie Wales

pretty impressive he directed and starred in a movie at age 90 something

― treeship.

American Soldier made $547 million. I mean:

American Sniper grossed $350.1 million in North America and $197 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $547.1 million, against a budget of around $58 million.[4] Calculating in all expenses and revenues, Deadline Hollywood estimated that the film made a profit of $243 million, making it the second-most profitable film of 2014 only behind Paramount's Transformers: Age of Extinction.[37] Worldwide, it is the highest-grossing war film of all time (breaking Saving Private Ryan's record)[38] and Eastwood's highest-grossing film to date.

people like sniping

https://tenor.com/view/stinky-clint-eastwood-coffee-gif-4550317

Breihan's piece on the film in his Popcorn Champs series is worth a read:

https://www.avclub.com/american-sniper-fought-a-culture-war-on-the-box-office-1847138948

(Said film is also the last non-franchise number one of the year in the US; ever since then it's been Star Wars or Marvel or -- per his next entry -- Bad Boys, thanks to last year's, how to put it, abbreviated schedule.)

Indeed. This is otm:

I don’t think American Sniper glamorizes Chris Kyle, but it definitely valorizes him, which isn’t quite the same thing. The movie’s depiction of Iraqis is deeply fucked. The enemy sniper, for instance, gets action-movie gun-preparation scenes, with ominous supervillain music. Another Iraqi figure, a made-up character known as The Butcher (Mido Hamada), uses a power drill to torture a little kid to death in front of his family. When Kyle says, “They’re fucking savages,” the movie seems to agree. That could just be the nature of its subjective approach, but it’s those moments where American Sniper feels most consciously political. Maybe Eastwood is making a point about how war flattens things out and forces people to force each other into clear-cut friend-or-enemy categories. Or maybe Eastwood really is depicting Iraqis as savages. He never makes this stuff easy to figure out.

Eastwood, like John Milius or early Oliver Stone, dresses liberal empathy in right wing drag.

the Cry Macho trailer had my gf and me rofling p hard yesterday when we went to see Pig (which was also very funny—some parts intentionally, some almost certainly not)

anybody have any strong opinions whether A Perfect World holds up? I think I liked it at the time but haven’t seen or even really thought about it since its late 90s frequency (iirc?) on basic cable

I saw it again a couple years ago. Poky in places. The interplay with Laura Dern's a bit tired in its Eastwoodisms (In the Line of Fire, by contrast, remains fresh).

Watched Unforgiven for 1st time this weekend. Hackman was great, Eastwood was just sorta…there. I'd heard his performance was well-regarded but don't know why. And I kept expecting his character arc to be something other than the very predictable one it wound up taking. It's more than 2 hours long but not much happens. A decent western overall but not one of my favorites.

The Richard Harris section is dead. And loooooong.

I'd heard his performance was well-regarded

probably a halo effect from his also being the director and the film being a critical success. I thought the production design was the star of that movie and the script was pretty poor stuff.

xpost It's not terribly necessary, but I didn't mind it that much on recent rewatch, and it's an important way to underscore the different degrees of ruthlessness the movie depicts.

Clint himself has gotten lots of mileage out of depicting himself as vulnerable, or incapacitated, from the spaghetti westerns on up. Unforgiven was one of a few more obvious apotheosises (is this a word?) of this.

Yes. I liked his performance as well, but kept waiting for a payoff or twist that never came. Meanwhile the transformation of Schofield Kid (also very predictable) occurs in like one shot of his face and one line.
It's pretty fucked up that the only westerns to win best picture are Cimarron, Dances With Wolves, and Unforgiven.

Xp to Alfred

I also found it deeply weird that neither Eastwood nor writer David Webb Peoples once mentioned Ned's race aloud, nor was it commented on when the sheriff and his people lynched him.

xps some also count No Country among the westerns that won BP but I'd beg to differ

and fwiw the Academy doesn't have a much better track record when it comes to nominating the best westerns either...

In Old Arizona (1929)
Viva Villa! (1934)
Ruggles of Red Gap (1935)
Stagecoach (1939)
The Ox-Bow Incident (1943)
Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
High Noon (1952)
Shane (1953)
Friendly Persuasion (1956)
The Alamo (1960)
How the West Was Won (1963)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
True Grit (2010)
Django Unchained (2012)
The Revenant (2016)