Oct 28 2009 'Invictus' Trailer: This Would Make More Sense If I Understood Any Element of Rugby
Eat your Oscar bait: the trailer for Clint Eastwood's Invictus. Based on John Carlin's book Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Changed a Nation, it's a film that shows how a rugby game was able to unite a racially divided nation, and how, apparently, a rugby game can be won if the president tells the captain, "Come on, guys, win this rugby game!" Simple as that:
Oct 23 2009 'Invictus' One-Sheet: See the Poster Before It Wins the Oscars
Continuing the recent trend of airbrushed-on-the-back-of-a-jacket poster design, Clint Eastwood's Nelson Mandela + rugby film now has an official poster on Yahoo. I'm hoping this style eventually evolves into more of an embroidered-on-a-jacket look, so that I can have a good pattern for embroidering Matt Damon on the back of my jean jacket.
Nov 4 2008 'Gran Torino' Posters Captures a Magic Moment
I'll tell ya, is there anything more beautiful than when you manage to wake up early enough to catch that first glint of sunlight peeking over the wilting crags of Clint Eastwood's grimacing visage? I think not. This is what mornings were made for: silhouetted scowls.
Gran Torino Poster [IMPA]
Oct 24 2008 'Gran Torino' Trailer Will Growl Its Way Into Your Heart
After all the negativity I've thrown at Beer for My Horses and Punisher: War Zone, it might seem like I have a problem with vigilante justice in cinema. Well, that isn't the case. I simply like to see vigilante justice movies properly executed. No country music-laden montages; no spinning from a chandelier firing machine guns; just one pissed off old guy (preferably Clint Eastwood) snarling like an angry Muppet, waving around his finger gun, and occasionally washing his classic car. Now that's violently taking the law into your own shriveled hands!
My favorite part of this trailer is where it flashes back to a previous part of the trailer. You don't see that enough:
Continue Reading " 'Gran Torino' Trailer Will Growl Its Way Into Your Heart "
Sep 12 2008 'Changeling' Trailer Does Not Contain Awesome CGI Morphing
When the LAPD returns Angelina Jolie-character's lost son to her, she thinks it's a dream come true. That is, until she realizes, "Wait a minute, LAPD, this isn't my kid! This is a trained dolphin you've put in a special land suit and boy costume!" But, of course, the corrupt LAPD is like, "No, that is definitely your son, and even if it were a dolphin in a special land suit, dolphins are very intelligent creatures, and you should be marveling that we've found a way to make it walk on land as if it's a boy." This argument goes back and forth for the length of a movie, and that's the movie, Changeling.
Sounds good, right? Except that they took out the dolphin part. It's just a lady whining about having the wrong human son. Isn't that a let down? Even though Clint Eastwood directed this, so it will probably be decent and up for some awards, it's always going to have that "why isn't there a dolphin in a land suit?" cloud looming over its accolades. Here's the trailer:
Continue Reading " 'Changeling' Trailer Does Not Contain Awesome CGI Morphing "
Mar 19 2008 Old Former Cowboy Continues to Film His Death
Like time-lapse photography of an ox's corpse, slowly drying in the hot midday sun, the leathery death of Clint Eastwood (above, happily recharging) will be chronicled at regular intervals until we can no longer stand to look. Despite the withering actor's claims he had retired from acting after Million Dollar Baby, Variety reports he will direct and star in Warner's Gran Torino. The studio is remaining tight-lipped with details (Variety calls it "tantalizingly tight wraps"!), so I can't tell you anything about the film. But I can tell you about the Gran Torino car, a Ford model manufactured from 1972-1976. From Wikipedia:
For 1972, the Torino was completely redesigned from the ground up. The Torino's all new styling had many traits carried over from the previous generation. The 1972 Torino styling emphasized the "long hood short deck" look as well as "coke bottle" styling more than ever before. The most radical change was a large eggcrate grille in an oval opening on Gran Torinos. Tom McCahill, stated "the gaping grille looks a little like it was patterned after Namu, the killer whale," but also stated that the Torino had "kind of pleasing, no-nonsense styling."
Hmm. Will Eastwood's Gran Torino carry on the legacy of looking like it's patterned after Namu the killer whale (god, I loved that whale)? Hard to say. At least we have a title, so the Academy can start engraving the awards.
Clint to drive 'Gran Torino' [Variety]
Oct 16 2007 Angelina Jolie Being Old-Fashioney in 'Changeling'
It's common knowledge that, within a decade, Angelina Jolie will find a way to travel back to the '20s and rescue all of the little newsy-style orphan street urchins of the era, forever ending the desperate cries of "Extra, Extra!" But until that time comes, here is a teaser in the form of shots from the set of The Changeling. The Clint Eastwood picture sees Jolie as a '20s dame whose child is abducted. After its safe return, she begins to suspect the LAPD has replaced her infant with another, like a prohibition-era Punk'd.
With a name like The Changeling, is anyone else disappointed the child doesn't start morphing into different people and animals?
JOLIE DEBUTS NEW LOOK [Faded Youth]
Jun 21 2007 Japanese People Hate Clint Eastwood
Dude, we really should've brought a lighter f***in flag.
Aggrieved because the movie Clint Eastwood made about it was so goddamned boring, Japanese islanders are officially changing the name of Iwo Jima back to it's original name, Iwo To.
Before the war, the volcanic island was known as Iwo To by the 1,000 or so civilians who lived there. They were evacuated in 1944 as U.S. forces advanced across the Pacific. Some Japanese navy officers who moved in to fortify the island mistakenly called it Iwo Jima, and the name stuck. After the war, civilians weren't allowed to return, and the island was put to exclusive military use by both the U.S. and Japan, cementing its identity.
In related news, Pearl Harbor has changed its name to "Aloha Inlet", Alcatraz prison has changed it's nickname to "The Stone", and Armageddon has been removed from the bible in favor of "The Final Clusterf***" - all in response to atrocities committed by Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay.
