CLINT EASTWOOD

Seemingly objective in it's narrative, but on a re-watch is slyly manipulative and powerful. Big kudos to Clint Eastwood.

Even though Eastwood nobly attempts to show us the Japanese side of things in the battle for Iwo JIma, I felt like it was still too much of an American film to really get inside the head of the soldiers and officers and provide insight into what these men might have thought in their final days. Tremendously directed though, I'm more impressed by Eastwood with each film I watch and re-watch, and even though I thought this film was too long and didn't quite accomplish what it set out to do, it is definitely essential viewing and was one of the best of 2006.

While not as empty and cold as I remembered it, Mystic River is still a film lacking in any narrative whatsoever, and refuses to allow the audience into the experience. It's a very theatrical experience in the sense that we just kind of sit there and watch it all happening, indifferent. The acting's top notch though, and the film works best when considered a simple murder mystery.

A film that touches on too many issues and themes to give one area enough focus to be at all powerful. While at times quite successful, Changeling continually ruins itself by following each effective scene with an equally ineffective one. Resulting in an overly long, unfocussed and flat historical drama. Angelina Jolie I begrudgingly admit was excellent, and the supporting cast is also strong. Clint's direction is a little uninspired though, but perhaps I've just gotten my expectations up too high following Million Dollar Baby and Letters From iwo Jima. It didn't feel like he was very emotionally connected to this one, and it showed in the inconsistently played scenes and unoriginal visual look of the film. I still enjoyed this piece though, mostly because of the fascinating story that's told. Might be a good video rental.

The terribly cliched script has a good story underneath all it's superficiality, and Eastwood's direction is quite good. But the absurdity of the some of the forced twists soil the experience of the murder mystery, and a lot of the movie doesn't even make any sense. Most of the acting is crummy, with the exception of the always great Jeff Daniels, but the one who stood out the most was the excruciating Latino detective character. Who would not shut up and was constantly yammering about something that made no sense at all. A big stupid black mark on an other wise okay mystery.

I understand that there is a certain sentimental and blissfully ignorant population of movie goers who probably really enjoy this film. But make no mistake filmgoers, in objectivity Gran Torino is a very poorly made film. Every character is underwritten, every action they undertake is ludicrously unbelievable, and the movie has so little narrative the only way it gets through the first 70 minutes is by utilizing a very thick thesaurus of racial slurs. You may like Eastwood's character and empathize to his feelings, but his transition from bitter asshole to self-sacrificing hero is so ridiculous I am still in doubt the movie was meant to be taken seriously. The drop dead awful supporting actors don't help things, neither does the gag inducing dialogue, nor the two dimensionally drawn characters they've been cast into. Even the technical elements that we've seen at such a high caliber in previous Eastwood directorial ventures are shoddily done. The composition of shots is random, the editing careless, and the music, particularly the end song, is terrible. This movie isn't excruciating to get through though. It's a very effective comedy for the first hour or so, with constant giggles arising from loosely tossed off racially based insults, over the top Eastwood growling, eye-roll inducing acting, misplayed scenes, and pathetic attempts at character work. And lesson number two for you sentimental chumps out there. Clint Eastwood is a fantastic director (well usually anyway), and a tremendous screen presence. He is not a good actor, and any attempt to claim he is is poorly informed. He's all over the place in this film, not consistent with his reactions, and there was one scene where I wasn't even sure if he was in character for the dialogue. The single tear roll? Nicely cut scene, I could barely imagine the bottle of crocodile tears being pulled out of frame. I'm really disappointed in the film community for how well they received this piece of trash. This is haphazard filmmaking, and people should've been able to step back and recognize it.