Escape from Alcatraz is an all around entertaining suspense-thriller, pretty simple and straight forward though enough character development to get the viewer to care about these men.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is a great western-thriller thanks to a wonderful core cast with Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef and Eli Wallach and even for those not inclined to enjoy westerns, like myself.
Richard Jewell, based on the true story about the 1996 Olympic bombing, is director Clint Eastwood’s latest and stars Paul Walter Hauser, Sam Rockwell, Kathy Bates, Jon Hamm and Olivia Wilde.
The Mule isn’t some profound film and even as a character drama, not terrible exceptional, but seeing Clint Eastwood back in front of the camera and delivering a great performance is well worth the cost of admission.
The 15:17 to Paris is easily one of the worst movies of not only this year, but the past few years, and just a complete misfire for the usually great Clint Eastwood. While casting the real life heroes as themselves was a mistake, there were numerous other issues at play.
The Witches is certainly a odd Italian movie for sure but not entirely engaging despite its weirdness and as an anthology, never really found a balance, though it was fun seeing a young Clint Eastwood starring in one of the anthology shorts.
Unforgiven is probably one of the best westerns ever made and it’s a movie that transcends audiences so if you’re like me and don’t normally watch those kinds of movies, give this one a shot: it features fine performances, fine direction and a story that is compelling from beginning to end.
Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil is a nice inclusion in Warner’s Archive Collection and while I didn’t particularly think very much of the movie, there’s at least some good elements headlined by another masterful performance from Kevin Spacey and even John Cusack contributes well.
Not quite as powerful as it could have been, Clint Eastwood’s True Crime at least offers a couple fine performances and has a compelling enough of a story, though the screenplay could’ve used more work.
Escape from Alcatraz is one of my personal favorites from Clint Eastwood and although it’s hardly perfect, it is efficient in both its story telling as well as character development giving us just enough to care about the outcomes.
Jersey Boys is clearly a passion project for producer/director Clint Eastwood and although the cast perform admirably enough, I never quite found the feature that engrossing but admittedly, I also don’t have much of a connection with the music or the group, so those who do (older crowd) might get more out of the movie than others.
Twilight Time’s release of Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, a long ignored title within the MGM catalogue line, is a fun flick featuring excellent performances from Clint Eastwood and Jeff Bridges set against the beautifully photographed backdrop of the Midwest.
The praise for Million Dollar Baby might have waned over the years and upon its release got its fair share of spoofs, but 8 years later I still loved just about every minute of it even if it’s as depressing as all hell.
J. Edgar is one of those films that you can see the passion be it from the costume design, production design and the cast. It’s unfortunate that the screenplay never quite gives the viewer a reason to care either way. Worst still, the movie plods along at a slow and arduous pace and although I appreciate the non-linear storytelling (it worked for Scorsese in The Aviator after all), it doesn’t do any justice for the character in the long run.