...if I have any virtues, which are probably not many, I get fairly decisive about things. When I find something I like, I usually know it pretty soon and I don't have to talk myself into much.
...when I was growing up, Howard Hawks and Raoul Walsh and all those directors made several pictures in one year. There's no big deal. Nowadays, everybody makes a deal that you can't do it, it's an impossible feat. It wasn't an impossible feat. Some of those B movie guys would get the script on Friday night and Monday morning you're starting and here's your cast. They just went with it. It's like being a musician. If you play every day, your embouchure is strong. If you play once every two years, you have to build up all over again.
I gotta tell you I love that mindset. I wish the directors I think are as talented as everyone else thinks Clint Eastwood is would immediately adopt his decisive workaholic 'let's go!' approach. [src: movie city indie]
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Agreed. It seems most of my favourite directors (Lynch, Luhrmann, Malick) are guys who take their time between movies. Me no like it that way.
If Flags of our Fathers had actually gotten awards tractions I would be very angry, but Letters from Iwo Jima getting it doesn't phase me at all. And I really quite liked M$B and Mystic River.
agreed. I thought Iwo Jima was good. not top five good but certainly not something to be horrifed that people love (i.e. Flags ...what on earth did people see in that?)
but anyway --this wassn't about hating!
tarantino, p.t.anderson, fincher, lynch, luhrmann, campion, etc... so so long inbetween movies. argh
Great. Great. I get pissed about Coppola's 10 year vacation. How can you not work in ten years? I know he's been producing lots of movies... but, come on!
On Clint: I still think someday you'll see how great his movies are. Or maybe it's just different kinds of sensibility. The same reason that makes western the most misundertood genre. It's not about shooting Indians, you know?
I just love his stoic and discret approach to these subjects of violence, lost time and regret. When he's good, the movies are heartbreaking.
I really would like people to see some of his early efforts - not Play Misty For Me, of course - to see this not about some recent movies. Go see Bird, A Perfect World, The Outlaw Josey Wales, and give second viewings to The Bridges of Madison County and his most beatiful movie, Unforgiven. You all really should!
- cal roth
i may actually challenge myself to see the older stuff. but i have so many projects. always so many projects
Play Misty For Me is just sooooooooooooooooo good...
A Perfect World really is a lovely movie. You should see that one, Nat, for sure.
But I'm far from being an Eastwood defender; M$B was just okay, a solid little movie that should never have gotten the sort of hype or attention it did, while Mystic River had a fantastic final 20 minutes but everything before that made me want to claw my eyes out.
And whaddya mean, anonymous, by "not Play Misty For Me, of course"??? Jessica Walter is a GENIUS.
I agree that Play Misty For Me was dreadful. So terribly boring.
Ja, funny you should say that because I don't remember the end fondly, but the rest very much so. I think it was the whole Kevin Bacon storyline tie up. That was ridiculous. But, in retrospect, I loved Linney's big moment and Harden's search through the crowd. Hmm. I dunno.
I actually quite want to see Bird.
Anon, I believe that once Coppola's production company went broke after the financial disasters like One From the Heart (fact: that movie is 20 bajillion kinds of awesome) he spend the next 20 or so years trying to work it back up by doing director-for-hire work (The Rainmaker, which is actually quite good) and working his vineyard into a big business.
Now he has the means to produce and, at least partially, finance his own films which is what I likes to do. More control.
...or, I could be entirely wrong on that stuff. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.
Woody Allen has a similar work ethic, although, sometimes to lesser effect. He might benefit from another collaborator like Marshall Brickman, and using music from sources other than his record collection.
Of films directed by Eastman, let me recommend Bird, Breezy, and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.
>>There are people out there -- you know who you are -- who paint me as a flat out Clint Eastwood hater, when in truth this "hatred" is not hatred at all.
Nah, it's just immature idiocy mixed with the arrogant condescension of a dumbass kid. You can't help being a fucking idiot.
Agreed it seems most of my favourite directors he is good man
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