The Good The Bad and The Ugly

(Repost from Sep 2003) If there ever was a competition for a poetic western, this Sergio Leoni spaghetti western will win hands down. Spaghetti westerns were low budget westerns produced by Italian directors, shot extensively in Europe(Italy,Spain etc) and aimed primarily for Italian audience. Leoni was one of the few such directors who rose to fame in Hollywood. The behind the scenes disc is as interesting as the movie itself.

The film stars three protagonists - Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach and lee Van Cleef, riding across the arid west and the American civil war in search of a loot of money buried in a grave someplace hard to say which of them is better than the other. As a typical western there are lots of gunshots, slick tricks, dirty cowboys and an all pervading machismo, but what sets it apart is the direction - almost operatic, the camerawork - sweeping landscapes jumping in to the close up of expressive faces, poster perfect and finally the music by Ennio Morricone- which was so unique at the time of its release and which has been copied million times over since it was first made - in other movies, TV serials, commercials and what not. This is one Western every one should watch(the other one is Unforgiven).

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True Crime

True Crime

A film from Clint Eastwood, a Hollywood persona who I've no qualms about placing in my personal pantheon. An innocent on deathrow and an aging casanova news reporter is the only one who has some clues about his innocence. Will he be saved or won't he? It is a tight film, in usual Eastwood style and is guaranteed to keep you at the edge of your seats till the end. Good one.

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Million Dollar Baby

If I am asked to pick a director from Hollywood, just one, the one I like the most, I'd pick Clint Eastwood. His latest offering Million Dollar Baby starring Hilary Swank is a gritty tale of a female boxer. Eastwood himself plays the main male lead in the film as the experienced trainer, Frankie Dunn.

Photography is remniscent of Eastwood's last movie(the one he directed before this), Mystic River, dark, grainy, closeups with ample play of shadows. As a director this film shows yet another stage of maturing of Eastwood, from the westerns of his early days which culminated in the masterpiece,The Unforgiven, to the crime dramas of his later stage like Blood Work and Mystic River and the romances like The Bridges of Madison County and The Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil(which in a way is a crime drama too), in Million Dollar Baby, Clint Eastwood, the director takes on the gritty realities of life in an intense character drama. I wish he was getting younger, so we would have an endless string of movies from this talented director-actor.

Hilary Swank has lived the life of the boxer, Maggie Fitzgerald. One of the most dedicated and true actresses to come out of Hollywood in the recent past, Swank put on 20 lbs of muscle and trained boxing to play the part. The film does not rely on an epic story but rather on the struggles, triumphs and tribulations of its characters, their fights in the ordinary world. Morgan Freeman plays an important supporting role. It is one of the few serious movies to come out of Hollywood in the recent years which has an indie-quality to it, but is a perfect piece of work nevertheless. Only someone like Clint Eastwood, experienced, talented and with a strong foothold and a voice in Hollywood can make such a gem of a movie.

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Sweet and Lowdown 

Yippeee...Sean Penn made the Oscars worthmy watching! If it had been another year, my favorite director Clint Eastwood have won too. Anyway yesterday saw another movie which had given Sean Penn and Oscar nod few years back - Sweet and Lowdown. Directed by Woody Allen, this film tells the story of life and times of 30s jazz guitarist, Emmet Ray. Penn is funny and charismatic as Emmet Ray. The movie also stars Samantha Morton and Uma Thurman.

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Unforgiven 

The first real good western I have ever watched, thats what Unforgiven is to me. I have decided to watch every movie Clint Eastwood has directed or will ever direct. May his tribe prosper. Its unforgiveable that I had not watched Unforgiven till now, so if you are movie buff and if you are yet to watch it, the only way can redeem yourself is to seize the earliest opportunity to go watch Unforgiven. Let the movie speak for itself, I am not sayin' anything.

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Blood Work 

A Clint Eastwood movie again, where Eastwood himself is the hero as the retired FBI man, with a newly transplanted heart. The movie begins with Eastwood being approached by the sister of the his heart donor, who is a murder victim. Although he has said goodbye the crime solving business, tugging at the 'heart strings' of his borrowed heart, is the question, "who killed the real owner of my new heart?" So our man plunges into unravelling what seems to be a murder during a convenience store heist. The story is good, the pace is fast, there are not many unwanted scenes in the movie, its pretty much tightly packed as the boat which serves as Eastwood's home in the story. A good murder mystery and I have finally decided I should watch Unforgiven after years of exercising restraint, thats says something about this movie, I guess.

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Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil 

This is a Clint Eastwood movie, one I saw as a part of my initiation towards knowing Clint Eastwood, the director, after being bowled head over heels by his latest film, Mystic River. Midnight in the Garden... is set in Savannah, Georgia, suffused with the old world charm and mystery of the South, feels like it is a different continent out there. Starring Kevin Spacey and John Cusack this is a murder mystery, seems like Eastwood is quite a reader, this one too like his other directorial ventures is an adaptation of a novel. Cusack is John Kelso, the big town reporter who comes down to Savannah to write an article about a society party held each year on Christmas by Jim Williams( Kevin Spacey), a prominent Savannah businessman. The photography is soothing, there are some interesting characters like Lady Chablis - the transvestite, Minerva - the voodoo woman etc, though the murder is not much of mystery. Kevin Spacey plays a charcter very different from his usual roles. A lazy afternoon movie, in Southern accent that is.

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Mystic River 

Its a wow! all the way. Where has the director in Clint Eastwood been hiding all this time? Or was it me who missed out on him? Whatever it is his latest directorial offering, Mystic River, has definitely made the cut and I can confidently say that it will be one of the top five movies of 2003. While reading Mystic River, I knew it was the right Hollywood material, the question was who'd grab it first? It was one movie I had been waiting to see since I heard that it was being made into one, if only they'd release it.

Everyone did great in this movie, Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Kevin Bacon, Marcia Gay Harden, Lawrence Fishburne and Laura Linney, but the its the first two, Penn and Robbins who have really done some stellar performing. Do I smell an Oscar here? The story is about three childhood buddies, their pasts connected by an abduction and their futures connected by a murder. As Eastwood's Dirty Harry says, "go ahead, make my day" what more can I say, make his day, its worth it!

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