tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256060.post1732223059680457731..comments2024-03-17T10:11:46.952-04:00Comments on Film Experience Blog: Best Pictures... "Play it Again, Clint"NATHANIEL Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11597109147678235399noreply@blogger.comBlogger35125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256060.post-45176824393614803442009-12-31T00:28:51.824-05:002009-12-31T00:28:51.824-05:00Glenn is here all week.
:)
(at any rate it's...Glenn is here all week.<br /><br />:)<br /><br />(at any rate it's worth watching. like we said a few times in the discussion... we were foregrounding our issues with it but we all would give it the thumbs up)NATHANIEL Rhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11597109147678235399noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256060.post-16793957837506134632009-12-30T23:53:17.552-05:002009-12-30T23:53:17.552-05:00Superb as always. I've still never seen Unforg...Superb as always. I've still never seen <i>Unforgiven</i> which is... wait for it... unforgivable! Boom!Glenn Dunkshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05424659636310160482noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256060.post-57962122178189851452009-12-30T20:37:37.207-05:002009-12-30T20:37:37.207-05:00(For the record, I had that same feeling; I just d...(For the record, I had that same feeling; I just didn't want to presume to speak on your behalf.)NicksFlickPickshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04607501848596529493noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256060.post-76872882149349049212009-12-30T15:06:41.744-05:002009-12-30T15:06:41.744-05:00Steve --i'm not saying i think M$B is great. I...Steve --i'm not saying i think M$B is great. I'm just saying i prefer it. But it's kind of a silly argument for me to make because I feel the same about both of them: good with great moments but not great classics.<br /><br />but as to a clear preference I do think Eastwood's performance in M$B is much stronger than his performance in Unforgiven.<br /><br />Cal --- Nick --- I am the person who raised the DDL/Beatty performance for a comparison point but I was not referring to any specific method or school of acting and did not mean to imply that any one "type" of acting is better than the other. I brought them up to refer to the way I felt watching certain moments of the film which is this: I am scared of this person right now. this person is monstrous. <br /><br />I kept hearing that Will Munny was a monster. I never felt it. And what else could I blame other than acting choices (since the script is pretty clear on the before/after which is still before point)NATHANIEL Rhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11597109147678235399noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256060.post-62349056068811429482009-12-30T13:34:26.378-05:002009-12-30T13:34:26.378-05:00...which for me goes back to an earlier claim in t......which for me goes back to an earlier claim in the conversation. I get that this is a "classical" Western in conception, and that it's under that aegis that <i>Unforgiven</i> wants its details to be evaluated, and that for lots of viewers <i>either</i> the claim takes care of itself and overrides some uneven delivery on that stylistic, generic, and enacted promise <i>or</i> they really do see everything in the film as resonating perfectly with Eastwood's aims. I don't agree, specifically insofar as no manner or amount of conception can make up for moments when the film seems to fall short of its manifest ambitions toward the "classical," and/or to pull in confusing elements of 70s skepticism or invocations of naturalism that it doesn't always own up to, in structure, theme, or performance.<br /><br />As for performance: I didn't bring in the DDL/Beatty point, so I'm not going to speak to that, but if Eastwood's projection of character were as simple but as palpably clenched and monstrous as what the notoriously anti-Method Wayne found in <i>The Searchers</i>, even though the William Munny I keep hearing about is, if anything, an even nastier piece of work than Ethan Edwards, most of my particular concerns about Eastwood's performance would go away. I think you hear "acting with your body" as though I necessarily mean a whorl of Method tics and febrilities, but I'm talking just as much about basic, pre-Method postures and physical attitudes. It's clearly one thing to "be" rather than "reveal" the character, though I admit that I think Munny has been written as someone who could stand a little "revealing," and the fact that other actors in the piece (Hackman, Harris...) seem to be on a post-Strasberg wavelength makes it stranger to me that Eastwood either won't or can't go anywhere near there. In any event, it's quite another thing for the script to keep speaking about this legendary beast of a person and let that rhetoric fill in the holes of a performance that sometimes gets in touch with that sense of outsized violence and resurgent pasts (the first scene in the bar, the learning about Ned's death, the speech over the rifle) but in other scenes isn't anywhere near it.<br /><br />To quote a character whose movie we really did bash in BPFTOI, that's all I have to say about that.NicksFlickPickshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04607501848596529493noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256060.post-72046441874578938552009-12-30T11:45:19.059-05:002009-12-30T11:45:19.059-05:00But conception defines how we can look the executi...But conception defines how we can look the execution in detail: some of your reservations are like calling A Streetcar Named Desire over the top, ou Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon irrealistic. <br /><br />I'm not escaping from scene level talk: I was focusing on this last scenes because Nathaniel first said one of the main reason he didn't love the film was the way the movie returns to a, I'll repeat that, "old fashioned consequence-free blood spilling". My point is not how this scene qualifies as a happy ending or not, but how it's not "old fashioned consequence-free blood spilling", and how this misreading (IMO, of course) shouldn't determine how great this movie is. <br /><br />If you're saying this movie is not great because of its "backing away" and going into supposed "old fashioned consequence-free blood spilling", I have to say I consider this a unsatisfying argument. <br /><br />And it's not I think you understand genre acting, but I've read here comparisions with Daniel Day-Lewis acting in There Will be Blood and sentences about how Clint doesn't reveal the character and how he can't only project his own persona. Yes, he can, with voice and gaze. Maybe you don't think his persona is as great as John Wayne's, but the concept of his acting here is not wrong. <br /><br />Note that I don't think it is a great performance like the one we saw in The Bridges of Madison County or Million Dollar Baby, but I think it's a very very good one.cal rothnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256060.post-84876869846432723452009-12-30T10:17:23.668-05:002009-12-30T10:17:23.668-05:00@Cal: Fine, then, different strokes, but your defe...@Cal: Fine, then, different strokes, but your defense really reads to me as if Eastwood's <i>conception</i> of <i>Unforgiven</i> as a primarily Ford-influenced movie and classically rendered genre piece automatically dignifies every single aspect of his <i>execution</i> of the film, since you're steering pretty clear of engaging scene-level details. You also keep refuting a point about "happy endings," a phrase nobody used and that Nathaniel specifically disputed as a characterization of his point about how the film hustles to a coda.<br /><br />I recognize you'll still think that we just don't "get" Westerns, just like I still think you can't just map a "delicate and realistic 70s" style onto a Ford morality and genre-template (with elements of Mann, Hawks, etc.) without accounting for some of the implications of that kind of cross-pollinating of influences; and that you think we don't understand genre acting, even though I think John Wayne in <i>The Searchers</i> roundly out-acts Eastwood here, and this does arrive in the same post and comment-thread where we praise the studio-era, convention-bound acting of a 40s film.NicksFlickPickshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04607501848596529493noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256060.post-57467274825681031882009-12-30T10:09:27.632-05:002009-12-30T10:09:27.632-05:00Nat -
Re: Tea and Coffee
Certainly didn't me...Nat -<br /><br />Re: Tea and Coffee<br /><br />Certainly didn't mean to imply that some kind of Anti-Eastwood bias excludes you from the debate. On the contrary, I was suggesting that while you, Nick, and I all make valid arguments I think a lot of comes down to what reaches you on a gut level. And rather than go through all the arguments point by point it seems to me that to my recollection Eastwood has never been a guy to provoke that reaction in you.<br /><br />I have a similar reaction to Baz Luhrmann. And I could come up with a lengthy essay on what I consider Moulin Rouge's flaws, but I doubt I could put a dent in your love for that movie. It reminds me of what an English professor once told me about Death of a Salesman, "Greatness and perfection seldom go hand in hand." <br /><br />I wouldn't argue for Unforgiven's perfection but for me it crosses the threshold into greatness. For you guys it doesn't. Simple really. You could argue its flaws until your keyboards fall apart and I don't think you could diminish my love for it. <br /><br />PS - Comment du Jour. My Mom's gonna be so proud.Michael C.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256060.post-49867468973692614522009-12-30T09:11:01.612-05:002009-12-30T09:11:01.612-05:00thanks..thanks..sinema izlehttp://www.hd-filmizle.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256060.post-46392170181367201842009-12-30T08:35:30.880-05:002009-12-30T08:35:30.880-05:00It is seriously, seriously worrying that you found...It is seriously, seriously worrying that you found the awful MILLION DOLLAR BABY better than UNFORGIVEN, especially coming from you Nat who was one of the rare sane people who didn't rave it on release.Stevenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256060.post-80044061940525690652009-12-30T06:07:25.376-05:002009-12-30T06:07:25.376-05:00One word on Casablanca: Claude Rains gives the mos...One word on Casablanca: Claude Rains gives the most effective supporting performance ever.cal rothnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256060.post-28695752372876560402009-12-30T06:05:12.592-05:002009-12-30T06:05:12.592-05:003) Eastwood dedicates this movie to his masters Do...3) Eastwood dedicates this movie to his masters Don Siegel and Sergio Leone, directores he worked with, but, in fact, Eastwood as always a John Ford guy. He tried only once go the operistic way of Leone in HIgh Plains Drifter, but that is really something outré if you look into his whole filmography. His sense of morality is absolute Ford, and his style is more like a delicate and realistic 70's, only without grandiose moments of "coreographed violence". I don't see anything bad about it. Ford, if directed movies till the late 70's, would do it the same way.cal rothnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256060.post-24102771318817486222009-12-30T05:53:42.984-05:002009-12-30T05:53:42.984-05:001) This catharsis feeling and accusations of coreo...1) This catharsis feeling and accusations of coreographed violence really read like unfamiliarity with western as a genre. A final duel is a given, something banal even when the protagonist kills everybody and doesn't get shot. It's just a convention: you root for Munny, but it's more of a over and over again ritual than a "kick ass" ending. The ending really feels like a routine ("old fashioned consequence-free blood spilling"), but that's what's so disturbing! <br /><br />The supernaturalness of it all is not the impossibility of our "hero" to get shot, but what you feel about the whole scene, and this is not supernatural like a really ending with catharsis, like Once Upon a Time in The West. If you know western, it's really timid and low-key, and reads much more like the "happy endings" of Anthony Mann's movies with James Stewart - a new breath just after our hero meets violence again.<br /><br />2) Voice and gaze are really ok for such a complex character when you think this is a genre piece and not some Elia Kazan drama adapted from Tennessee Williams with method acting. As a convention, as pure cinema, Eastwood's performance here works the same way the great John Wayne performances: he doesn't have to reveal the character. He just is the character. You can find the same kind of performance with basically the same impact in, for example, Alain Delon's movies with Jean Pierre Melville. It's another kind of performance, this one. The less the actor tries to act, the better.cal rothnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256060.post-38878354781694579782009-12-30T02:35:25.535-05:002009-12-30T02:35:25.535-05:00I completely agree that Bergman was nominated for ...I completely agree that Bergman was nominated for the wrong movie, and not just because she seems so at a loss for how to play a Spanish revolutionary of the mountains in <i>For Whom the Bell Tolls</i>. But it's not just a dig at the other film: her Ilsa is pretty phenomenal. "Layers" is definitely the word.NicksFlickPickshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04607501848596529493noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256060.post-20843771170081238702009-12-30T01:52:46.793-05:002009-12-30T01:52:46.793-05:00anon 12:51 oh that! i didn't look up what won ...anon 12:51 oh that! i didn't look up what won and I thought 'must'a been Howard's End (my pick of the Oscar nominees that year. so brilliant)<br /><br />kent -- yeah we focused on the lead men this time. Ingrid is fab in that movie. but she wasn't nominated because she was instead nominated for "For Whom The Bell Tolls" so perhaps casablanca (released in January) boosted her nominatibility for 'Bell' (released in the summer)NATHANIEL Rhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11597109147678235399noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256060.post-24582797787768283692009-12-30T00:51:12.855-05:002009-12-30T00:51:12.855-05:00That inexplicable screenplay lost can be summed up...That inexplicable screenplay lost can be summed up in three words: Crying Game twist.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256060.post-4464797086846383932009-12-29T23:55:37.337-05:002009-12-29T23:55:37.337-05:00no word on ingrid bergman's performance here? ...no word on ingrid bergman's performance here? i'm still pretty angry that she wasn't nominated for this. so many layers she gave to ilsa lund.kentnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256060.post-6458020797483836052009-12-29T22:04:52.567-05:002009-12-29T22:04:52.567-05:00* That this film's evocation of period feels a...* That this film's evocation of period feels awfully thin, though that's not necessarily a pivotal point;<br /><br />* That Eastwood the Actor goes through a whole lot of scenes without his body expressing <i>anything</i> of the character, not even his flares of temper or his alleged past as this pitiless monster, and that you can't compose a whole performance, particularly of such a complex character, while relying <i>nearly</i> exclusively on voice and gaze and holding impressively still (especially when Eastwood's voice has never been a flawless instrument); <br /><br />* That the musical "Claudia" theme is as grossly sentimentalizing as music cues in Eastwood pictures often are, but is leaned on quite heavily, not least in the almost irrecuperable four minutes spent between Eastwood and the "cut" prostitute;<br /><br />* That the scenes of Morgan Freeman's sudden inability to fire his gun and his eventual death are treated much more as plot points than as rounded beats in the story that the film really <i>enters</i>, largely because Eastwood holds himself so far away from creating any subjective POV or individuality for Ned in the early scenes, and because he weirdly avoids a more direct confrontation of his death;<br /><br />* If there's anything, anything at all to be said for Jaimz Woolvert, <i>please</i> let me know...<br /><br />* Maybe most importantly, I feel as though claims for <i>Unforgiven</i> based on style often hedge back to classical and revisionist Westerns of the 30s, 40s, and 50s, and that claims based on what Eastwood imports via his persona and filmography lean necessarily and primarily on <i>very</i> different films of the 60s and 70s, which had a totally different ethos and style and set of philosophical ground-rules... and it's exciting that <i>Unforgiven</i> wants to synthesize those two legacies, but surely there's some burden of proof on critics to account for the nuanced ways in which those highly disparate legacies are meant to overlap? Especially with the third element of <i>Unforgiven</i>'s relative naturalism of lighting and design thrown into the mix? This is <i>not</i> a movie with a uniform style, "classical" or otherwise, and while the frictions among its influences are sometimes quite transfixing, at other times, they feel cacophonous. At least, I experience them that way. Why is this <i>impossible</i> as a reaction to the film?<br /><br />I'm not at all claiming to be "right" about the movie, but I do feel that some of the most emphatic claims on its behalf feel suspiciously more straightforward than this hugely ambitious and multiply pressured movie allows. And that it's somehow taken shape as the kind of film that is automatically a masterpiece until proven otherwise, so I want to hear a fuller case for why exactly Nathaniel and I don't just have a difference of opinion from the main critical line on this film (because we <i>like</i> it but don't <i>revere</i> it), but that we're actually completely, unaccountably, don't-know-what-we're-talking-about <i>wrong</i>.NicksFlickPickshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04607501848596529493noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256060.post-70962535731644601172009-12-29T22:00:00.915-05:002009-12-29T22:00:00.915-05:00Well, it's lovely to be back and be told that ...Well, it's lovely to be back and be told that we don't have any idea what we're talking about. Thanks, Cal!<br /><br />Again, I'm very aware of having emphasized my misgivings about the movie because so many of its virtues have been so canonized, but I agree that the photography is often very handsome, the overall approach to the filmmaking has a welcome and often very evocative stripped-down quality (although it's hardly free of hand-tipping rhetoric, and "classical" is not a bandage to cover all sins), Hackman and Harris are quite good and Rubinek is more effective and more crucial than I'd remembered him, there's some admirable anger and, yes, some pointed counter-mythology in the film (which is hardly the sort of thing one drops entirely as a project or a theme just because Anthony Mann &c. made skeptical Westerns in the 50s)... I don't even think the counter-harmonics of romanticism are totally disallowed in a movie that's as dark in tone and subject as <i>Unforgiven</i> often is, so if there's a little bit of gratuitous Beauty of the West and some palpable affection for Eastwood's own persona at moments in the film, so be it. I notice that I even described a whole scene whose toughness and detail I admire, when Hackman and Eastwood first meet in the bar, and Clint's performance seems especially strong, so it's hard to hear accusations of "<i>Unforgiven</i> bashing" and not think that anything short of an outright subscription to this movie's exceptionalism would have passed muster.<br /><br />The movie's good, but I don't think it's great. I think Eastwood's filmmaking style has worked much better, much worse, and about the same in other projects, so without speaking for others, I don't have some kind of position about his style as a whole that's dictating my reaction to this one. But I do still feel: <br /><br />* That the film's aphoristic notion that a violent past cannot ever fully be disavowed, or prevented from re-consuming the life of the onetime killer, is not in itself <i>so</i> profound or unusual as to automatically recuperate some of the weaker scenes or shakier gestures by which the film speaks to that point;<br /><br />* That Janice makes a perfect point about the unconvincing, incongruously one-sided, and Eastwood-flattering logistics of the climactic shootout, which is what I took Nathaniel to be getting at with his point about "catharsis," and Mike with his point about the "super-Munny";...<br /><br />(to be continued, because my reply is already too long...)NicksFlickPickshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04607501848596529493noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256060.post-62542638813565792009-12-29T20:26:01.549-05:002009-12-29T20:26:01.549-05:00Wow! Some controversy visits the BPFTOI! I'm g...Wow! Some controversy visits the BPFTOI! I'm glad to find myself on the right side of this one. <br /><br />Cal, even as a defender of <i>Unforgiven</i>, I can't buy the ending as something as simple as you've proposed--that "He just had a day like his past everydays." Eastwood spent much of the film showing that he's not the killer he used to be. (Meaning that his skills have become rusty. I obviously agree that he's still the same guy inside, even if he doesn't want to be.) He can't hit targets in the beginning, and he's not so great with the rifle in the middle. Something changes in that last scene. I described it as supernatural, like he's turned back into the angel of death/chaos he used to be, but supernatural is probably going too far. But he's a different man than he was in earlier scenes.Mikehttp://goatdog.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256060.post-30287695011527693762009-12-29T19:42:35.031-05:002009-12-29T19:42:35.031-05:00happy birthday seekingamy! glad you agree with the...happy birthday seekingamy! glad you agree with the dry-eyed assessment. Though Ingrid Bergman's liquid closeups are just too beautiful for words, are they not?NATHANIEL Rhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11597109147678235399noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256060.post-13584880111176918032009-12-29T17:40:06.115-05:002009-12-29T17:40:06.115-05:00A fascinating article on two wonderful and endless...A fascinating article on two wonderful and endlessly fascinating films. On Unforgiven, I feel similarly to Mike and Michael C. I think Clint's terrific in it. In fact, his is, for me, one of the best performances of the 1990s. I do have sympathy for the view that the film reverts to a more standard shootout ending: I can go with Michael C.'s interpretation, but a tiny part of me regrets that the film took the route it took. But I do think it conveys the tragedy of Clint's gunslinger act, and, for me, the formalism of the crawls bookending the film is really moving and sobering.<br /><br />The only real problem I have with Unforgiven is (and I hate to say this) Gene Hackman. I usually love Hackman, but I have never been fully convinced by his Little Bill. His feels like the one performance that isn't in period, and I don't buy his sudden explosions into violence (such as when he beats Richard Harris in the street). Sorry Mr. Hackman and everyone! (I like him far more in The Quick and the Dead.)<br /><br />And Casablanca - yes, excellent, and I think you're all absolutely right that the film gets more romantic the more it shows how selfish and destructive and full of compromise love can be. And, while the entire cast is superb, Claude Rains is priceless.Edward L.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256060.post-75787602712127993642009-12-29T17:35:05.826-05:002009-12-29T17:35:05.826-05:00Michael regarding Eastwood not being my cup of tea...<b>Michael</b> regarding Eastwood not being my cup of tea? Definitely. I prefer coffee. However, that doesn't remove my qualification to chat about the flavor ;) FWIW i did try to give some credit to the movie. It's absolutely a GOOD movie. and some of it is great as I said. I just don't accept it as an unimproveable classic is all. And like Nick (we agree a lot less than people think we do actually) I prefer Million Dollar Baby.<br /><br />i don't think it's "pandering" so much as not as disturbing as it wants to be when it comes to the theme of violence, because of this avenging super human massacre as <b>deborah</b> reminds. But... i do think it's very weird that the screenplay (which is the best part of it) is the thing that didn't win the Oscar.<br /><br />and <b>Tim</b> glad to hear that the Casablanca amnesia is not fully shared by all. In truth maybe I just need to watch it more. I watched it twice for this dialogue and loved it enormously both times (and I hadn't seen it in years so that brings on the forgetfulness)NATHANIEL Rhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11597109147678235399noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256060.post-62996125005723326272009-12-29T16:51:49.848-05:002009-12-29T16:51:49.848-05:00Imagine Clint as a stage actor. He would be horrib...Imagine Clint as a stage actor. He would be horrible. I veto my feeling of his film acting [sure, I do :)], but his voice really is too non-expressive. He reminds me of John Wayne in that way, though he's better.<br /><br />Good call on that chilling Bugsy scene. I don't why, but I'm willing to forgive that film so much that sometimes I wish it was named best picture of the rare. Sorry, Silence of the Lambs lovers. Only <b>sometimes</b><br /><br />Anyhow, back to Unforgiven. "I think that's why the super-Munny who emerges during the shootout at the end didn't throw me very much, because I saw that underneath the surface the whole time." <br />Mike is right. Obviously.Andrew K.https://www.blogger.com/profile/01104647944747041277noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256060.post-6602607734118878322009-12-29T16:27:18.872-05:002009-12-29T16:27:18.872-05:00Me again.
Since you asked:
First I don't th...Me again. <br /><br />Since you asked:<br /><br />First I don't think you can blame Eastwood for what "a lot of people" do. I remember PT Anderson saying how he cringed when a lot of people cheered when William H Macy shot his wife in Boogie Nights. Not the director's fault when the audience willfully ignores the complexities they present.<br /><br /><br />As for those complexities, if you feel Eastwood and Peoples leaned too far into making Munny sympathetic you must also acknowledge that they put the same wrinkles into Little Bill. He's certainly no simple villian in a black hat. Bill is very likable, certainly more so than William Munny, especially in his dealing with the writer. Little Bill has a sense of justice, however warped, and his transgressions are in the service of keeping the peace whereas Munny and Ned are hired assassins.<br /><br />The biggest knock against Little Bill is the sickening violence he uses to his purposes, particularly in his beating of Ned. But aside from being paid killers, Peoples and Eastwood make a point of emphasizing that Munny was no mere <br />hardened gunfighter but in fact a merciless murderer of women in children with Ned as his willing accomplice. No bones about it, Munny is the most evil man on screen. Hell, he almost shoots the writer out of pure orneriness. So who exactly is the good guy here?<br /><br />And who for that matter can cheer when Munny blows away poor, inept Fatty? Eastwood and Peoples supply a whole scene where Little Bill's deputy frets about how much it will hurt to get shot and there he is at the end taking one in the chest before he can even aim his gun. Hardly a glorious catharsis. <br /><br />For that matter Munny comes out and tells Little Bill that justice has nothing to do with anything. Ned had it coming. Bill's got it coming. They all got it coming. <br /><br />I don't see how you can fit Eastwood for the label of action pandering, which seems to be what you're edging towards.<br /><br />I think you're really selling this one short, Nat. As a faithful reader may I suggest that Eastwood's style, be it good or bad, just isn't your cup of tea?Michael C.noreply@blogger.com