I’ve only seen Million Dollar Baby and Gran Torino and another I can’t recall…all were fine, but rewatched GT tonight and while there’s good story telling going on, there seems a lot of homespun Americana in there too which always makes me wary. Recall MDB had similar big themes and being heavy on the sentiments and fairy tale outcome…

Thoughts? (And recommendations)

Unforgiven is the only film I need from his directorial career. Genuinely enjoy that film a whole lot.

I watched it again recently (after a decade or so). The ending still hits for me.

Haven't enjoyed nearly anything even remotely as much (that one with Kevin Costner was pretty good, though). The fake baby in American Sniper was utterly insane.

He's at the mercy of the script. He's made lots and lots of crap, and at times his direction is kind of weirdly amateurish. Unforgiven and Play Misty For Me, I both enjoy....is Mystic River any good? I don't remember it at all. He's about a million years old and has a lot of nostalgia for "Americana", but generally in a pragmatic, fatalistic, and open way...So not quite John Wayne. Huge Jazz head, and I think that also informs his auteur vibe, even when not directly making a biopic like Bird or whatever.

Very hit-or-miss, but Play Misty for Me, Bird, and Sudden Impact get him a NOT CRAP vote from me.

zorg wrote: Fri Feb 07, 2025 8:58 am is Mystic River any good?

I remember enjoying it when I saw it in the theater, though the ending was a bit confusing. FWIW, Tim Robbins won a Supporting Actor Oscar for his role.

Almost totally crap as a director, but I credit him for assembling the cast (including himself, he's a good actor) and crew to film David Peoples' Unforgiven, one of the all-timers.

It seemed like every famous actor new to working with him was moved to comment on how fast and unfussy he works. Like if no one flubbed a line the crew was ready to pack up the camera and go to the next location. This is really interesting to me it's makes me think Eastwood makes films the way Neil Young makes records.

The benefits of working as a tireless perfectionist in the arts is pretty well explored. This opposite kind of lightness much less so (although exceptions come to mind). I like the idea that some of Eastwood's successful work could have been the product of knowing how to stop working.

In reality the reason the dichotomy between spontaneity/lightness vs exacting/tireless is interesting would be because neither is a guarantee for success and making things requires an instinctual knack for knowing when to push further and when to protect magic by leaving things where they fell. Unforgiven was probably being worked on for ages in his mind before they even started shooting. The film is a meditation and deconstruction of exactly the kind of mythology he'd been used to generate as an actor. His whole career lead him to that. Flags of Our Fathers, not as much.

At any rate for his high percentage of crap films I still give him a NC for his finer works.

The guy directed The Outlaw Josey Wales and A Perfect World.

Never mind that he directed the ending of The Gauntlet.

Easy N/C

I need to watch The Gauntlet again.

Unforgiven is an all time great movie, easily one of the actual Best Pictures of the year to win the Best Picture Oscar. He'd had the rights to the script for a long time while he waiting for himself to age into the role, so he probably put more legitimate effort and thought into it than most of the films he's made.

I've only seen a handful of the other movies he's directed, but he was way up in the 90s/00s Cahiers du Cinema auteur pantheon FWIW.