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I've been waiting for somebody to say it. That's what it all comes across as (and: roller skates?!!??).

Eastwood is a consummate professional, but I think his recent work is overpraised.

Gran Turino doesn't promise much more.

Angelina is karmic poison to any movie.

I was actually thinking of asking in BYOB what the score was on this...

Enormous, nearly lifelong Eastwood fan... but noticed even CLINT SUPERFAN #1 KENNETH TURAN seemed just slightly pained trying to work up a trademark feverish rave in his Cannes report. And 142 minutes? Not really a surprise there, but if D-Po's mini-blurb above is true... oy. (I liked FLAGS a lot but consider Poland's review one of his finer recent moments, a piece I've come back to several times since it's original posting...)

I can't really bring myself to criticize Clint (The Master) in any way shape or form, but I will ask, is Clint going to shoot every film now in that inky, desaturated, stencil-shaded gray-and-white with the creamy flesh tones?

It's a handome enough look in small doses, but if we're being honest, it's so muted and drab, it kind of makes my eyelids droop.

And his first 25 YEARS of directed films looked NOTHING like that, all sunny with big blue WB skies and reddish interiors... I always like when an old pro changes up his style to keep with the times, but I'm wondering if it isn't becoming TOO patented now.

(Sorry, Jeff, that was maybe too color-timey obsessed, but in this case it would be pretty hard not to notice the 180 from BRONCO BILLY to LETTERS FROM FLAGS OF CHANGELING BABY.)

Shame. And it's weird, All the Cannes reviews were awesome.

"Letters From Iwo Jima" and "Mystic River" are the only two good movies Clint has been involved with this decade.

Even eight years later, I still remember the decrepitude of "Space Cowboys" and how my friend and I dropped our jaws when his - at the time joking - prediction of them showing the carcass in space turned out to be the actual ending of the movie.

Well, this is one where David and I are going to disagree, because I don't think the film is quite as bad as all that, although it is one of those films I've grown more lukewarm on over time. Jolie's performance is basically fine, though I'm getting a little tired of her in "woman in peril" roles, but it's not an Oscar-worthy performance, especially this year against so many stronger challengers. I wouldn't call it Lifetime-movie level bad, certainly; it's a melodrama, and it's overwrought, but that's as much the subject matter itself as it is how it was put together. Overall, though, I thought Straczyniski's script was pretty solid, with the exception of what is quite possibly the worst closing line ever in a film.

From a feminist standpoint, the real story of what Christine Collins went through at the time is infuriating, and I wrote when I saw the film at Cannes that it's the kind of story that, if it were purely fictional, would be unbelievable -- women being locked in an asylum for diagreeing with The Man and all that -- but it's certainly a case where real life was stranger than any fiction that could be dreamed up. I thought the conflict between Collins and the corrupt police chief was alright, my biggest beef with the film was, and is, the way the twitchy freak of a bad guy is played.

I don't think Changeling is brutally bad, just that it overreaches too obviously for Oscar turf and misses. There were plenty of people at Cannes who hated the film, the buzz was mediocre there at best, but a lot of those negative takes didn't get written up into reviews, I guess.

The fleet and enjoyably, knowingly hokey Space Cowboys is a better movie than either Iwo Jima (which has some great stuff but features a framing device just as hokey as Saving Private Ryan's, and less effective) or Mystic River. I don't know how a well-reviewed box-office hit like Space Cowboys has gotten this reputation as a movie no one much likes.

Also, Million Dollar Baby is terrific, far more interesting than Mystic River, a pretty good movie filled with many varieties of overacting, and which was outpaced once Gone Baby Gone came out.

The one that always gets forgotten is "Blood Work," truly one of the worst movies Eastwood was ever a part of - just a lazy, by-the-numbers procedural with ridiculous plotholes. There's even a scene that feels like a mistake (or a Corman moment) where - upon a second viewing - you'd be like, "Wait - now that we know that X is the killer, how was he in two places at once? Great red herring/drive-by shooting attack to amp the action, but you established the guy who turns out to be the bad guy is miles away!" "Space Cowboys" was lightyears better.

But then a year later, Team Eastwood/Helgeland pull out "Mystic River."

I am going to write more about it, but...

Eastwood's last great run was 4 movies (Bird, Unforgiven, A Perfect World, Bridges of Madison Ccounty). This one has been, to my eye, Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby, and Letters from Iwo Jima. I will say, however, that I am a lot more likely to sit and watch the first four films when they pop up on TV than the more recent trio.

The movie isn't brutally bad, Kim. I agree. But it was a brutal movie experience for me, sitting there watching a complex, compelling story get soft like cereal that is in the milk for too long. It's a classic example of a real story being destroyed by trying to tell the ENTIRE story... which makes it a perfect companion with Flash of Genius.

What got me was watching Ms Jolie taken so far out of what she does and not finding anything really interesting to play, almost waiting for her moments to emote big. (And I think she is a top notch acress when in the right role.) Malkovich was reduced to nothing at all, playing very little and against type, but offering little except for a few Malkovichian screams. The kids were given more than enough time to go from being niteresting to looking like kid actors auditioning for Annie. And I have been a proponent of Eastwood's scores, but here... like fingernails on a chalkboard...

The Eastwood I love would tell the modern story that happens to be in period. Every period cab or location in this feels like he is pausing so we can appreciate how expensive the rental was.

Like I said... for me... brutal.

Defending Million Dollar Baby? Good grief. Easily one of the worst sports movie or related sports movies ever made. Nevertheless; if the Changeling can get Jeffrey Donovan more work. I am all about that flick.

Jeses: It's because "Space Cowboys" is embarrassing. I knew it would be terrible from the beginning, when the young versions of the four main characters spoke with the old men's voices. If I wanted knowingly hokey Clint Eastwood, I'd take "The Rookie."

And IO, I'm right there with you on "Million Dollar Baby."

M$B is not a sports movie.

And Changeling, unfortunately, may be the end of Jeffrey Donovan's movie career for a while... except for playing mean pitbulls.

I'm seeing Changeling in a couple hours. I seem to remember the notices from Cannes being positive, but this discussion makes a little anxious. Although, I have not been a fan of any of Eastwood's recent films. The last film of his that I really loved was Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, which most people hated. So, I guess we'll see...

Sorry. I meant to write "Jesse," not "Jeses."

Heat: Million Dollar Baby is a fucking sports movie. It's low-rent and the worst freakin Oscar Winning film of all-time. It's tripe. The fact that it's a staple of used DVD bargin bins everywhere... fills my heart with love!

Donovan can also play any damn roll Heat. We also need a good heavy in films. So here's to Jeffrey becoming this generation's HEAVY.

"I knew it would be terrible from the beginning, when the young versions of the four main characters spoke with the old men's voices."

For real? You mean they cast young lookalikes and then dubbed in their voices?

Now I almost wanna see it, or at least those scenes. Wonder if it's on Youtube.

Yeah, Eastwood is a "consummate professional." So was John Badham. (I was gonna say Peter Hyams, but that's a bit harsh.)

What does that even mean? It rings of damnation by faint praise. I suspect it really means "he makes a good movie when he has a good script; otherwise, at least the boom mic isn't in the shot."

Yes, Frank. That's exactly what they did. One of them was Toby Stephens, who went on to play the villain in "Die Another Day." Here's a very small sampling:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e46H1KS59Pk

WHOA, I can't believe this negative blasphemy.

THIS IS CLINT EASTWOOD, people. Guy is a LEGEND, both as an actor and now (perhaps especially) as a director. Can't believe people are mistaking his subtle craftsmanship for journeyman hackery. The man has spent over 30 years playing with and subverting the image and thematics of his early roles... and now he's 78 and still cranking out world-class, wide-canvassing epics with 78 times the ambition of almost any Sundance up-and-comer.

He's a lot more than a "consumate professional." Even those above-lambasted minor works like "Blood Work" and "True Crime" and "Space Cowboys" are completely pleasant in a relaxing, old-school cop show kind of way... "The Rookie" is fucking hilarious (perhaps unintentionally so) in a "Tango and Cash" way. Yeah, maybe those specific flicks aren't the works one would expect from a HERALDED AUTEUR, but ever checked out the lesser half of Hawks' resume? Siegel's? Ford's? Even modern blood-and-sweat auteurs like Lee or Scorsese or Altman had "minor works."

And I thought the major critical consensus was that he was hitting this awesome late-career surprise stride. Yet I keep seeing this backlash, not just here but everywhere. Seems at the time of its release, MYSTIC RIVER was considered an insta-classic and the major critics were falling all over themselves to praise. Now it's dissed left and right on movie blogs for alleged histrionic acting and plot coincidences. Was it OVERRATED THEN, or is the backlash just about perceived awards pandering?

Same thing applies to M$B... Four years ago the critical big guns like Ebert and Turan hailed it as essentially cinematic perfection... most important critics hailed it too... Now it's a divisive blog punching bag?

Are these particular films just not aging well, are the old-school critics too enamored of Clint's classicism, or is it a little bit of bitterness that this old pro, this AWESOME LEGEND, kinda seems to swoop in at the last moment every other year and instantly grab a lot of awards consideration?>

I won't deny that his post-03 flicks all seemed to go after the gold pretty hard, but that shouldn't really cloud one's opinion one way or another about the work itself. And I'd sit here and list all the AWESOME movies that more than qualify Clint as one of the ALL-TIME GREATS, but you might as well go to IMDB and just read down the entire list, because almost all of them FUCKING OWN... Maybe it's blind allegiance having pretty much grown up on the guy's stuff like others feel about Star Wars or Harrison Ford or Spielberg... But the scope of his stuff is amazing and I persist in thinking his thematics were a lot more layered or complex than even his ardent supporters give him credit for.

I JUST WISH HE'D STOP SHOOTING ALL HIS NEW MOVIES THROUGH BRIQUETTES OF CHARCOAL.

THEY'RE CALLED PRIMARY COLORS, CLINT. You remember them from EIGER SANCTION.

Sometimes LexG turns away from the Dark Side and produces stimulating movie analysis.

Why can't it always be like this, love?

Lex hits the nail on the head - as for M$B and Mystic, just because they were overrated before doesn't mean they have to be underrated now.

Yeah, but Clint's movies have no scenes with hot babes that give me a boner, and he's old, so fuck him.

Clint is great at filming interiors, escpecially kitchens. Bridges, Mystic, Honkytonk Man and a few others, I watch them and I swear I can feel the formica on the table, the tile beneath my feet and I can smell the remenants of the roast from the night before.

I actually don't think "Mystic River" is overrated. It's really quite something that movie.

And to a point made by LexG, yes, Eastwood is being treated with a certain reverence these days - that "late-career surprise stride" - but I agree with his assertion that he's been doing it for quite some time, just with more misses.

Go before 1990 - before "Unforgiven" - and you've got classics in there with "The Outlaw Josey Wales" and "High Plains Drifter," two of the best westerns of the seventies. I find "White Hunter Black Heart" interesting to watch (though it kind of goes nowhere), but as far as an actor turned mainstream director, "Firefox," "Sudden Impact," "Pale Rider," "Eiger Sanction" and even the bizarre, but still watchable "Play Misty For Me" all show off somebody who is a pretty solid director.

That said, once someone is anointed with that late career reverence, he's almost not allowed to make a simple commercial film anymore. Look at the befuddlement people have towards Oliver Stone's work on "World Trade Center" or "W." It's expected that every time he makes a movie, it's meant to enter the "Stone canon." When he makes a movie like "World Trade" that feels like any number of directors could've made, it throws the legend a bit.

See also (kind of) "Bringing Out the Dead."

Hell, I even think there's a lot of good to be found in "Heartbreak Ridge."

Mystic River = Wildly overpraised at time of release, remains so today

M$B = Same, but a better movie IMO

Flags of our Fathers = Perfectly respectable TV episode

Letters From Iwo Jima = Surprisingly conventional American war movie that just-so-happened to feature Japanese guys

I agree, I was mystified at how much people seem to like Mystic River, a movie with some good performances but a very shaky dramatic underpinning.

Letters from Iwo Jima is a decent enough movie, but watch Fires on the Plain or The Burmese Harp and you'll see what they stem from.

I did like Space Cowboys' ending though.

"Honkytonk Man" is probably one of Clint's best from its era, and certainly among his most underrated... but one of the few movies that's so sad (at least the last third), I can hardly watch it. ("Deer Hunter" is an example of another such movie. The filmic equivalent of sitting through a wake.)

That bit at the end when Clint finally makes it to the Opry and can't finish the song... so depressing the first time around that a DECADE later I saw a clip of it on TV and still got choked up like a douche even thinking about it. Doesn't help that the song he's singing is such a downer to boot, and won't get out of your head for weeks.

I'm kind of on the fence about the one-two of "Honkytonk Man" and "Bronco Billy" as I see them very much cut from the same cloth. Agreed that the ending of "Honkytonk" is sad as hell, but I thought Eastwood tackled a lot of the same themes much better in "Bird."

"Bronco Billy," I feel, just kind of goes nowhere.

I still haven't caught up with Clint's WWII flicks, but I'm thumbs up on all his recent stuff. Yes, including True Crime, Space Cowboys and Blood Work. Mystic River is quite good, but I didn't quite get why is was considered so much better than Blood Work. Both are fairly standard procedurals to some extent, but Blood Work is unpretentious, like a Don Siegel or Phil Karlson movie. M$B has its flaws, but it;s rich and there's greatness in it. The man's made a few duds, but most prolific filmmakers have, as Lex pointed out. The negative buzz on The Changeling is disheartening, but as we can see in this thread, even Clint's most honored films have haters, so I'll still check it out.

'Scuse the typos. The I.T. guy is on his way over and I've got to log off. :)

Anyone ever seen "Breezy"?

The only Clint-directed flick I've never seen, starring William Holden and Kay Lenz, from the same year as "High Plains Drifter."

Maybe I should sheck it out.

Just got back from the screening of Changeling and I gotta say, I'm in complete disagreement with David on this one. Aside from a last reel that drags on a bit, this is Clint's best movie in a while (I wasn't a fan of Mystic River or Million Dollar Baby). It IS a melodrama, but there's nothing wrong with that and it's done quite effectively with a wonderful performance by Jolie and a terrific one by Malkovich. I'll be writing more about it next week.

Lex: Breezy is excellent, with one of William Holden's best late career performances (maybe it doesn't hurt that he's my favorite actor). The film was an early hint that Clint wasn't gonna typecast himself behind the camera. It's a contemporary character piece, nary a thriller element in sight, and certainly not a Western.

My one caveat: the theme song is about as treacly and wussy-fied as a theme song can get. But it can't sink the movie. My opinion of course -- your OWNAGE may vary. :)

Whether or not "Million Dollar Baby" is a sports movie, those condescending, trite, mean-spirited scenes with Swank's family are just godawful.

"Mystic River is quite good, but I didn't quite get why is was considered so much better than Blood Work."

I'd suggest the fascinating acting trifecta of Penn, Bacon and Robbins. On top of that, Laura Linney turns out to be a pretty solid Lady Macbeth.

Though Eastwood is kind of "fine" in "Blood Work," Jeff Daniels going from stoner, Jimmy Buffett-type to "serial killer with a machine gun" was pretty camp.

Jeez, Lex, you'd better watch it. You're in danger of being earnest about something.

By the way, I think that Eastwood is a great star, a true icon (if a very limited actor). Just try to imagine Dirty Harry with one of the other people they wanted to cast, Wayne or even McQueen. Wouldn't have been the same at all. That was a perfect match.

But then compare the original to one he directed, Sudden Impact. The former is dark, disreputable, politically suspect -- but undeniably exciting. If you forget about the complexities of reality and allow yourself to enter a reptile-brain fantasy world, it gives vent to what many of us feel when we read crime horror stories in the paper. It's a thrilling fascist fantasy.

The latter is a murky, leaden, dingy-looking and genuinely unpleasant action flick, obviously cranked out for the money. Eastwood could make great pulp -- he's got the background -- but he's gotta convince us he has things on his mind and take the fun out of it. It's guilt-ridden pulp.*

I can't help conflating him with Woody Allen, another supposed master who plays to his weaknesses because he finds comedy somehow beneath him and wants to be Strindberg or Bergman. And like Clint, Allen has goodwill with critics because they like his persona and confuse it with the actual artist.

*The reason Unforgiven worked so well was that this played right into the theme of the movie.

Frank, I think Dirty Harry is a more interesting film than you're giving it credit for. Yeah, it has a kind of pandering quality to it, but I've seen reviews of it that go so far as to tease out the Christian iconography and formal qualities into something not quite as thuggish as one might think.

Good point on Unforgiven, by the way.

I routinely hear people mention Swank's family in M$B as a big issue with the movie. The sad thing is that I have to deal with people like that on a daily basis and there are indeed people like that in the real world.

Nevertheless, the reason why the movie got good press in Cannes was because it's Clint Eastwood and everything he does gets treated with rose-tinted glasses. Flags of Our Fathers was hailed as a masterpiece by some, yet that feeling quickly disappeared once the thing actually got released.

Take a look at Gordon Douglas' "The Detective" if you want to see what "Dirty Harry" would look like if they had gotten who they'd initially wanted to cast. Or, well, "Tony Rome," "Lady in Cement" or "The First Deadly Sin."

And for anybody here talking about Eastwood, I gotta recommend - if you haven't read it - Don Siegel's autobiography, "A Siegel Film." It's one of the best showbiz autobios you'll ever, ever read.

Just be ready as you'll immediately head out and re-watch "Charley Varrick" and "Riot in Cell Block 11" when you're done.

nicely put, frankbooth. i like your use of the asterisk/footnote combo, very scholarly.

speaking of dirty harry, i was zoning out watching the boob tube the other night and happened to catch 'the dead pool', man that's a shit movie. but i must say the bit where jim carrey dances/lip syncs to 'welcome to the jungle' in the 'making of the music video' scene made me laugh really hard. geeze, you'd think a movie with clint, clarkson and neeson might have some redeeming qualities beyond laughable 80's hockum, but no.

say what anyone will about 'million dollar baby', i still love maggie, she tugged at my heartstrings. and morgan freeman's turn was terrific, right up there with his brilliant down-beat performance in 'se7en'.

If anybody's fuckin' scholarly, it's Frank fuckin' Booth!

(Or it could be that I just had to shoehorn that thought in somehow, without stopping my post dead.)

Jeff,

I come to praise Harry, not to bury him. But come on -- "Christian iconography?" Why, because there's a big cross on Mt. Davidson? Harry is a martyr?

Hey, I've got the perfect director for the inevitable remake -- his name is Mel, and this time, Scorpio will actually crucify Harry on that venerable S.F. landmark.

Like I said, it's a great movie, but compare Eastwood to Popeye Doyle. Doyle is a dirty cop,and it's a thrill to watch hm break the rules. But we don't really identify with him -- or if we do, we feel some ambivalence about it. Harry's a superhero, the guy we want to be, and he has GREAT hair. I think sometimes we geeks can over-intellectualize these things to justify our baser impulses.

Acknowledge your bloodlust! RECOGNIZE!

SJR: A big ditto to your reco of the Don Siegel book. Charley Varrick is probably one of my ten favorite movies, and it killed me to miss it on the big screen a week or two ago at the New Beverly (double featured with Sargent's great The Taking of Pelham One Two Three -- damn!).

Frank, I don't remember the review - I think I found it online somewhere as basically a counter-intuitive response to Kael et al. on that film, but it was more than just the one cross, but stuff peppered throughout - basically making the claim that Siegel was doing a more thoughtful, less hacky job than one might believe. I don't disagree that, on the most basic level, the movie is a revenge fantasy wish-fulfillment thing, but (a) it's very good at that, and (b) it's not _just_ that.

And as far as bloodlust goes, surely you must know by now that I exercise that by masturbating to the films of a certain Mr. Roth...

Oh, and I was there last week for Pelham 123, which I had never seen before and was terrific. Had to duck out early for Charley Varrick though, oh well.

Glad you dug Pelham, jeff. Sucks you had to miss Charley though. The DVD is not in proper aspect ratio (criminal!), but if you can find a dub off Turner Classics or something, don't hesitate.

I figured they would have re-released that 4:3 DVD to be proper - if not, I'm sure they will before too long.

I also missed a screening of Charley Varrick recently (though I have seen it, on broadcast TV and VHS) and I refuse to rent or buy it until a decent DVD comes out. Dammit!

It would be cool if the TP123 remake was good, but I won't hold my breath.

...or maybe Eastwood just sucks because he endorsed Palin...somethin' like that.

That's the cost of creating a political blog.
I have not seen the film. Maybe it's as bad as you say...or maybe you are letting your political biases get the better of you.

As I said before...all of the overtly political films bloggers need to know that it does come at a cost, which is credibilty to be seen as even vaguely neutral about these things.

Sadly Dave, that used to be your strong point and I say this as a reader of 5 years.

Nicol, go sell that crazy to your pals on that limp dick Bitch-Ass Dirty Harry's blog.

Okay, so I googled 'Eastwood Palin' and saw that, very sadly, he said something positive towards the pathologically lying, totally unqualified, extremist candidate for VP.

But, I have a very strong feeling that nobody, including David Poland, knew of this bizarre quasi-endorsement until Nicol "have I mentioned my friends all hate me?" DuMoulin mentioned it just now.

Nicol, you have zero credibility. You are the blogging equivalent of a guy in a cave.

Universal is making sure "Changling" self-destructs in the theatrical run. Just look at the trailer ...

Academy Award Winner Angelina Jolie

OMG MY EYES THEY HURT

Academy Award Nominee John Malkovich

TASE IT TASE IT KILL IT WITH FIRE

Funny, Nicol... Eastwood's politics have never been an issue or an interest to me.

If you can't separate movies from real life, it's your problem not mine. People who want to try to find some other answer to my positions exist and will always exist.. and some times it's lefties enraged that I supported something like We Were Soldiers or didn't fall in line behind something like Brokeback Mountain and sometimes it's a silly idea like you just had... That I would pan a filmmaker I have admired for a long time because of his politics.

Nicol you love to rant and rave about the intolerance you see in the "left," but is anyone more intolerant than you? Automatically you assume a negative review of The Changeling is likely due to political bias. We all know DP has been outspoken lately when it comes to the presidential race, but can you honestly say that he has without a doubt ever been unkind to a film because of political bias? If the answer is yes, why have you read him consistently for five years? Hasn't be been clear in his admiration for Eastwood the filmmaker?

Hey, Chucky, coulda been worse:

Four-Time Academy Award Winner Clint Eastwood

And more proof of that ol' debbil Hollywood (and Europe) elite liberalism is their eternal love for All Things Clint. Proof that right-leaners don't stand a chance in this town!

And can I say I've never cared for DIRTY HARRY? Outside of Clint's iconic portrayal and Siegel's raggedy edge, I've always felt about it the way Pauline Kael did. I'm politically offended by the movie and its stupid plot machinations to blame "Berkeley" and "Miranda" for the faux-Zodiac killer.

I never even liked the big shootout in the beginning, watching this tall overpowering white cop with a gun shove it into the face of a black man and lecture him about the power of the gun. An ugly scene all around.

Just call me Dirty Hippie.

Gimme Charley Varrick any day. Or give me death.

Hey, we never did get Poland's complete take on "Changeling."

Usually no one is entertained by making fun of Old Man Kenneth Turan as I am, but his LAT review today is typically embarassing and fawning:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-changeling24-2008oct24,0,5909897.story

I love Clint as much as the next guy, but in recent years he seems like the ONLY director Turan can abide by; When K.T. goes into reverent, unironic fanboy mode like he does above after being a surly grouch the other 99% of the time, it makes me wonder if Clint might wanna look into a restraining order.

Settle down, Kenny. There ARE other movies and directors out there you can like.

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