Gran Torino

[Johny Cee]

Not the best movie Eastwood has done in the last few years, but that isn't saying much considering the quality of his output.  I think it's worth seeing,  if for no other reason than it's probably going to be Eastwood's last performance (or at least his last great performance) in front of a camera.

[Velorath]

I thought Eastwood did a great job for the most part.  The racist schtick got a little old after a while though.  That and I thought the actors that played Thao and Sue really sucked.

[Ookii]

This movie is also unintentionally hilarious quite often.

[schild]

Like Wicker Man?

I don't like Clint Eastwood.

[Velorath]

Like Wicker Man?

I don't like Clint Eastwood.

[Johny Cee]

I thought Eastwood did a great job for the most part.  The racist schtick got a little old after a while though.  That and I thought the actors that played Thao and Sue really sucked.

Agreed.  The editing was problematic, as well.

[sidereal]

Get Off My Lawn!, The Movie

I look forward to

Get Off My Lawn! 2: Pull Up Your Goddamn Pants

[Johny Cee]

Like Wicker Man?

I don't like Clint Eastwood.

I'm not sure how you can't at least like some of Clint's body of work....   I can understand not liking a portion of it.  I don't like the whole gruff cop/Dirty Harry thing, or anything with a fucking monkey.

The Man with No Name?
High Plains Drifter?

Even if you hate the very idea of Westerns,  then Unforgiven should appeal since it's one of the great deconstructions of that genre.

His work as a director has been pretty consistently good.  Mystic River? Million Dollar Baby?  The two Pacific war movies?

[Margalis]

Warning: I am a total Eastwood nut.

The Man with No Name trilogy is awesome, especially compared to other westerns at the time. Great characters, great shots, great music, orders of magnitude less corny than it's peers. And Unforgiven is a great rebuttal to those movies.

The first Dirty Harry is outstanding with a great villain, awesome music and really alive with the spirit of the 70s and San Fransico. The later Dirty Harry movies were pretty formulaic but Sudden Impact (number 4) has a pretty unique angle and the "don't make me beg" scene in the garage is the best scene in any of the films.

In The Line if Fire is a superior conventional thriller.

As far as directing goes don't forget things like Bird and White Hunter, Black Heart.

I would also point out that Eastwood has been far more willing than most major male actors to be silly or fallible onscreen. The aforementioned ape movies are a good example, as is Unforgiven.

[Righ]

I haven't seen this film yet, but reading about it made me look up information about the Hmong, so its already helped educate me.

[Yegolev]

Unforgiven is a classic piece of cinema.  If you spent any time watching westerns, you must watch Unforgiven.

[Moaner]

I loved the movie.  It was easily my favorite in several years.  I loved old Clint (reminded me of my Vet patients in the VA hospital I worked in) and I thought Sue and Toad were great.  Sue =  .

I think what I liked most about it is that it hit me as a modern urban fairy tale.  It wasn't especially realistic but I don't think that what he was going for. 

[DraconianOne]

Generally love Eastwood stuff.  Absolutley concur about Unforgiven but he also starred and directed both The Outlaw Josey Wales and High Plains Drifter are worth watching too. High Plains Drifter is one of my favourite westerns of all time even if it is more than a little dated these days.  Kelly's Heroes is definitely one of my favourite WW2 films but that probably has as much to do with Donald Sutherland being in it.

Still, for every film of his I've liked there's been one or more that wasn't very good.  Not sure I'll go out of my way to see this or The Changeling.

[Evildrider]

I'm not a big Eastwood fan, but I liked this movie.  Some of the conversations are classic, like the barber shop scenes.  And yes Sue was quite cute 

[ghost]

I finally got around to watching this one.  It was more Ulee's Gold than Dirty Harry, but it was quite good nonetheless.  I would recommend watching it simply because it is a pretty decent acting job by the old man.  And it can be very, very funny.

[Kitsune]

I was quite satisfied with sitting down and watching a movie full of Clint Eastwood being the awesomest crazy old man EVER.

[Polysorbate80]

And it can be very, very funny.

Toad's line in the barber shop forced me to pause the movie while I got my cackling under control

[NiX]

I liked it. Agreed on Toad and Sue's acting being iffy, but not to the point of me disliking the movie.

[Musashi]

I really don't understand how you can not appreciate Clint at least on some level.  There have been a couple films I didn't particularly care for - a couple of the Dirty Harrys.  But overall, if he doesn't get recognized as one of the best things to ever happen to American cinema, there's something wrong.  I know the big criticism is that he doesn't really 'act' in as much as most of his characters are pretty similar.  So I can understand if that character isn't your thing.  But completely writing him off, I think, misses the point of why he's so great.

In a time when The Western format largely died, Clint kept making them by writing his own ticket.  People criticize him for being the same character, but that was his intention.  People wanted that character.  A whole bunch of us still want that character.  It's most definitely a throwback, but a glorious one.  It's the popularity of that character which allowed him to do what he did.  He got to make the movies that he wanted to make.  Nobody gets to do that.  Maybe Kubrick did, but only because he was crazy.   

[Mattemeo]

Great little movie by Eastwood with a lot of pathos and heart and some horrifyingly hilarious cantankerous outbursts that simply no one on earth other than Clint's character could ever get away with. I liked Thao and Sue, the kids acting were naturalistic and believable - but Eastwood believes in giving people breaks and letting a sense of atmosphere set a scene more than wringing gutwrenching performances out of non-actors.

A million miles better than the mawkish crap of Million Dollar Baby and the overwhelming worthiness of Iwo Jima/Flags. I've yet to see Changeling, mind you.

[Kitsune]

Clint's role in westerns is as delicious as Toshiro Mifune's character in Kurosawa's samurai flicks.  Given that in one case they're playing the same character in the same movie that isn't much of a shock, but both men brought a very different feel to their character despite the mirrored plotlines.

[ghost]

I liked it. Agreed on Toad and Sue's acting being iffy, but not to the point of me disliking the movie.

The acting was a bit iffy, but I actually thought it made things a bit more realistic of how those folks would really be.

[Mrbloodworth]

Like Wicker Man?

I don't like Clint Eastwood.

The original or the remake? Because the remake... Missed the entire point.

[Evildrider]

I liked it. Agreed on Toad and Sue's acting being iffy, but not to the point of me disliking the movie.

The acting was a bit iffy, but I actually thought it made things a bit more realistic of how those folks would really be.

[Furiously]

I think this would have been a great comedy if he had done a few key scenes differently.

[Teleku]

Anyways, I really liked this movie.  But as I've mentioned in the past, I actually grew up around Hmongs myself, so its always cool to see their story/culture getting mainstream recognition.

[apocrypha]

Quite enjoyed this too. Not amazing but better than mediocre.

Up until Clint Eastwood singing over the end credits. Echoes of William Shatner 

[NiX]

I don't get the hate for him singing the first verse of the song. Shatner did much much worse to your ears.

[apocrypha]

Oh agreed Shatner was worse, much much worse, but that doesn't make Eastwood's singing good.

Hate is too strong a word for it anyway, I thought it was funny and cringeworthy more than anything.

[Musashi]

Think he's supposed to be singing in character.  Not that I think he could actually sing.

[shiznitz]

The ending of this movie does not have to spoilered after all this time.

I liked this movie quite a bit. The ending did surprise me. And no, that priest had no idea what Clint really planned to do. And then there was the look on the granddaughter's face...

[Furiously]

She wouldn't have wanted a shitty Gran Torino.

[chargerrich]

Love Clint Eastwood... best quote in a movie ever is from one of his westerns (high plains drifter I believe), he is talking to the bandits who are chasing him in the saloon (cast in a shadow) and they tell him they are here to collect his bounty, that its a living and Clint responds casually "Dying aint much of a living".

Anyway, liked the movie, loved the ending, but the car should have been a 70 Barracuda but then the movie would have been called Barracuda and everyone would have expected Ann and Nancy Wilson to make an appearance.

[Johny Cee]

Love Clint Eastwood... best quote in a movie ever is from one of his westerns (high plains drifter I believe), he is talking to the bandits who are chasing him in the saloon (cast in a shadow) and they tell him they are here to collect his bounty, that its a living and Clint responds casually "Dying aint much of a living".

I think that's The Outlaw Josey Wales.  There's a bunch of great lines from that movie, many of them by the old Indian chief.  That, and spitting tobacco juice on everything....

I say again:  I would kill a man to be able to see The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in a movie theater with a decent sound system....

[Margalis]

The week I was moving to LA from Boston they were showing Once Upon a Time in the West at Harvard, the full version. It killed me that I couldn't make it.