Product Description
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Includes Absolute Power, Dirty Harry, Gran Torino, Kelly's
Heroes, Letters from Iwo Jima, Million Dollar Baby, Mystic River,
The Rookie, Unforgiven, Where Eagles Dare.
.com
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Absolute Power
Director Clint Eastwood's 1997 box-office hit stars himself as
Luther Whitney, a highly skilled thief who finds himself in the
wrong place at the wrong time, witnessing the murder of a woman
involved in a secret tryst with the U.S. president (played by
Gene Hackman). Determined to clear his name, Whitney cleverly
eludes a tenacious detective (Ed Harris) while investigating a
corruption of power reaching to the highest level of government.
Adapted by veteran screenwriter William Goldman from David
Baldacci's novel, this thriller balances expert suspense with
well-drawn characters and an intelligent plot that's just a
pounding heartbeat away from real White House headlines. Absolute
Power features the great Judy Davis in a memorable supporting
role as the White House chief of staff who desperately attempts
to cover up the crime. --Jeff Shannon
Dirty Harry
Whether or not you can sympathize with its fascistic-vigilante
approach to law , Dirty Harry (directed by star Clint
Eastwood's longtime friend and directorial mentor, Don Siegel) is
one hell of a cop thriller. The movie makes evocative use of its
San Francisco locations as cop Harry Callahan (Eastwood) tracks
the elusive "Scorpio killer" who has been terrorizing the city by
the Bay. As the psychopath's trail grows hotter, Harry becomes
increasingly impatient and intolerant of the frustrating
obstacles (departmental red tape, individuals' civil rights) that
he feels are keeping him from doing his job. A characteristically
taut and tense piece of filmmaking from Siegel (Invasion of the
Body Snatchers, The Shootist, Escape from Alcatraz), it also
remains a fascinating slice of American pop culture. It was a big
hit (followed by four sequels) that obviously reflected--or
exploited--the almost obsessive or paranoid fears and
frustrations many Americans felt about crime in the streets. At a
time when "law and order" was a familiar slogan for political
candidates, Harry Callahan may have represented neither, but from
his point of view his job was simple: stop criminals. To him that
end justified any means he deemed necessary. --Jim Emerson
Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino, an unassuming picture during a
post-production lull on his elaborate period piece Changeling,
was quietly rolled out at Christmastime 2008, whereupon it
proceeded to blow away all the O-bait behemoths at the box
office and win its 78-year-old star the best reviews of his
acting career. Both film and performance are consummately
sly--coming on with deceptive simplicity, only to evolve into
something complex, powerful, and surprisingly tender. Just as
Unforgiven was a tragic reflection on Eastwood's legacy in the
Western genre, Gran Torino caps and eloquently critiques the
urban heritage of Dirty Harry and his violent brethren. And on
top of that, the movie becomes a savvy meditation on America in a
particular historical moment, racially, economically,
spiritually. Call it a "state of the union" message. But call it
that with a wry grin.
Gran Torino
The latest Dirty Harry is actually a grumpy Walt: Walt Kowalski
(Eastwood playing his own age), widower, Korean War veteran,
retired auto worker, and the last white resident of his Detroit
side street. It's hard to say who irks him more--his blood kin (a
pretty lame bunch) or the Hmong families who are his new
neighbors. Kowalski's a racist, because it has never occurred to
him he shouldn't be. Besides, that's the flipside of the mutual
ethnic baiting that serves as coin of affection for him and his
working-class buddies. Circumstances--and two young people next
door, the feisty Sue (Ahney Her) and her conflicted brother Thao
(Bee Vang)--contrive to involve Walt with a new community, and
anoint him as its hero after he turns his big s on some
ruffians. The trajectory of this may surprise you--several times
over. Eastwood opted to film in economically blighted Detroit--a
shrewd decision, but it's his ping of Walt's world in that
classical style of his that really counts. Every incidental
corner of lawn, porch, and basement comes to matter--and by all
means the workshop/garage that houses the mint-condition Gran
Torino which Walt helped build in a more prosperous era. This is
a remarkable movie. --Richard T. Jameson
Kelly's Heroes
This tongue-in-cheek 1970 variation on The Dirty Dozen looks less
fresh than it did in the year of its release, but it still has
some enjoyable moments. Clint Eastwood stars along with Donald
Sutherland, Harry Dean Stanton, Telly Savalas, Don Rickles,
Carroll O'Connor, and Gavin MacLeod in the story of American
soldiers who try to steal gold behind enemy lines in World War
II. Sutherland's hippie G.I. doesn't have the sardonic and timely
appeal he did during the Vietnam War, but the film's irreverence
and several of the performances are worth a visit. --Tom Keogh
Letters From Iwo Jima
Critically hailed as an instant classic, Clint Eastwood's Letters
from Iwo Jima is a masterwork of uncommon humanity and a
harrowing, unforgettable indictment of the horrors of war. In an
unprecedented demonstration of worldly citizenship, Eastwood
(from a spare, tightly focused screenplay by first-time
screenwriter Iris Yamashita) has crafted a truly Japanese film,
with Japanese dialogue (with subtitles) and filmed in a
contemplative Japanese style, serving as both complement and
counterpoint to Eastwood's previously released companion film
s of Our hers. Where the earlier film employed a complex
non-linear structure and epic-scale production values to
dramatize one of the bloodiest battles of World War II and its
traumatic impact on American soldiers, Letters reveals the battle
of Iwo Jima from the tunnel- and cave-dwelling perspective of the
Japanese, hopelessly outnumbered, deprived of reinforcements, and
doomed to die in inevitable defeat. While maintaining many of the
traditions of the conventional war drama, Eastwood extends his
sympathetic touch to humanize "the enemy," revealing the internal
and external conflicts of soldiers and officers alike, forced by
circumstance to sacrifice themselves or defend their honor
against insurable odds. From the weary reluctance of a young
recruit named Saigo (Kazunari Ninomiya) to the dignified yet
desperately anguished strategy of Japanese commander Tadamichi
Kuribayashi (played by O-nominated The Last Samurai costar
Ken Watanabe), whose letters home inspired the film's title and
present-day framing device, Letters from Iwo Jima (which conveys
the bleakness of battle through a near-total absence of color)
steadfastly avoids the glorification of war while paying
honorable tribute to ill-ed men who can only dream of the
comforts of home. --Jeff Shannon
Million Dollar Baby
Clint Eastwood's 25th film as a director, Million Dollar Baby
stands proudly with Unforgiven and Mystic River as the masterwork
of a great American filmmaker. In an age of bloated spectacle and
computer-generated effects extravaganzas, Eastwood turns an
elegant screenplay by Paul Haggis (adapted from the book Rope
Burns: Stories From the Corner by F.X. Toole, a pseudonym for
veteran boxing manager Jerry Boyd) into a simple, humanitarian
example of classical filmmaking, as deeply felt in its
heart-wrenching emotions as it is streamlined in its
character-driven storytelling. In the course of developing
powerful bonds between "white-t" Missouri waitress and
aspiring boxer Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank), her grizzled,
reluctant trainer Frankie Dunn (Eastwood), and Frankie's best
friend and training-gym partner Eddie "Scrap-Iron" Dupris (Morgan
Freeman), 74-year-old Eastwood mines gold from each and every
character, resulting in stellar work from his well-chosen cast.
Containing deep reserves of love, loss, and the universal desire
for something better in hard-scrabble lives, Million Dollar Baby
emerged, quietly and gracefully, as one of the most accled
films of 2004, released just in time to earn an abundance of
year-end accolades, all of them well-deserved. --Jeff Shannon
Mystic River
Superior acting, writing, and direction are on impressive display
in the critically accled Mystic River, Clint Eastwood's 24th
directorial outing and one of the finest films of 2003. Sharply
adapted by L.A. Confidential O-winner Brian Helgeland from
the novel ( http://www..com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0380731851/$%7B0%7D ) by Dennis Lehane, this chilling mystery revolves around three
boyhood friends in working-class Boston--played as adults by Tim
Robbins, Sean Penn, and Kevin Bacon--drawn together by a crime
from the past and a murder (of the Penn character's 19-year-old
daughter) in the present. These dual tragedies arouse a vicious
cycle of suspicion, guilt, and repressed anxieties, primed to
explode with devastating and unpredictable results. Eastwood is
perfectly in tune with this brooding material, giving his
flawless cast (including Laura Linney, Marcia Gay Harden and
Laurence Fishburne) ample rtunity to plumb the depths of a
resonant human tragedy, leading to an ambiguous ending that
qualifies Mystic River for contemporary classic status. --Jeff
Shannon
The Rookie
This somewhat desperate-looking project pairs the aging Clint
Eastwood (he also directed) with a younger actor (Charlie Sheen)
who was hot at the time this film was made (1990). There's
certainly nothing wrong with that strategy, but it would have
helped if Eastwood had a decent story to wrap around his
commercial strategy. The senior star plays a grizzled cop with a
smooth-faced preppie (Sheen) as a new partner. Their odd-couple
shtick is as predictable as one would expect, with each man
approaching the same job with a wholly different set of
convictions from the other. Inexplicably, Eastwood also hired
Raul Julia and Sonia Braga to plays Germans, but then the scene
most people remember in this movie is Braga's rape of
Eastwood--indeed an unusual moment. --Tom Keogh
Unforgiven
Winner of four Academy Awards, including best picture, director,
supporting actor, and best editing, Clint Eastwood's 1992
masterpiece stands as one of the greatest and most thematically
compelling Westerns ever made. "The movie summarized everything I
feel about the Western," said Eastwood at the time of the film's
release. "The moral is the concern with play." To illustrate
that theme, Eastwood stars as a retired, once-ruthless
killer-turned-gentle-widower and hog farmer. He accepts one last
bounty-hunter mission--to find the men who brutalized a
prostitute--to help support his two motherless children. Joined
by his former partner (Morgan Freeman) and a cocky greenhorn
(Jz Woolvett), he takes on a corrupt sheriff (O winner
Gene Hackman) in a showdown that makes the viewer feel the full
impact of violence and its corruption of the soul. Dedicated to
Eastwood's mentors Sergio Leone and Don Siegel and featuring a
colorful role for Richard Harris, it's arguably Eastwood's
crowning directorial achievement. --Jeff Shannon
Where Eagles Dare
Scorned by reviewers when it came out, this concentrated dose of
commando death-dealing to legions of Nazi machine- fodder has
acquired a cult over the years. In 1968 Clint Eastwood was just
getting used to the notion that he might be a world-class movie
star; Richard Burton, whose image had been shaped equally by
classical theater training and his headline-making romance with
Elizabeth Taylor, was eager to try on the action ethos Eastwood
was already nudging toward caricature. Alistair MacLean's novel
The s of Navarone had inspired the film that started the '60s
vogue for World War II capers, so he was prevailed on to
write the screenplay (his first). The central location, an
impregnable Alpine stronghold locked in ice and snow, is
surpassing cool, but the plot and action are ultra-mechanical,
and the switcheroo gamesmanship of just who is the undercover
double (triple?) agent on the mission becomes aggressively silly.
--Richard T. Jameson