Resolution 9 - Clint Eastwood Quest - 100% Complete

With only a day to spare of 2013, I have finally vanquished the 10th and final film of the Clint Eastwood collection with the 2006 classic, Letters from Iwo Jima (trailer). This is the second film of the collection of which Eastwood only directs and not stars in, with the other being Mystic River. This is the third World War II movie of the collection. However this one was made a few decades after Where Eagles Dare and Kelly's Heroes, and takes place on the Japanese front.

Eastwood makes it pretty clear the Japanese are done for, as the first act of the movie is the troops preparing fortifications and defenses on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima. The troops know it, the officers and commanders know it too, yet the film is also clear of them dying for honor of their country, and conveys this through various letters from the featured officers and soldiers throughout the film. The main soldier featured goes by Saigo (Kazunari Ninomiya), and I could not help but grieve for him throughout the film as island of Iwo Jima falls and the film fills out Saigo's backstory.

The other main featured Japanese actor is General Kuribayashi (Ken Watanabe). Him and Saigo have a few brief encounters sporadically throughout the film, but they are extremely well done exchanges for as brief as they are, especially in the film's closing moments. I did not see this as a politically driven "why did we invade here" movie, like Green Zone, but more of a empathetic look at what it is like to be from the soldier's perspective of going into a battle you know they are going to lose, and what they are laying on the line and why they are doing so. It reminded me a bit of the last battle in The Last Samurai, but this was far more well done.

This was probably one of the few movies I can think of only watching and having this emotion of nonstop sadness throughout from beginning to end. I know what is coming, it is bleak, and the film pulls no punches. I hate to recommend watching a heartbreaker of a film, but there is a part of me that loves powerful movies, and this one is incredibly powerful. As with all the Eastwood movies I have covered here, Netflix has the disc, but it is not up on streaming, but if you want to follow along on the Clint Eastwood collection fun with me, here is a link to the box set I have off Amazon.

Thanks again to everyone for joining me throughout the year as I reviewed almost one Clint Eastwood movie a month for 2013. Going by my traffic stats, this was the most popular resolution by far on the blog. Even one person recently got me two more Clint Eastwood DVDs for Christmas last week in the form of Blood Work and Paint Your Wagon (Thanks John!). I have no idea if I will review those ones, but I have been bouncing around the idea of reviewing one Star Trek film a month next year since there are exactly 12 of those in existence as of this writing, so we will see where 2014 takes me! Shoot me a tweet on Twitter @Gruel if you have any requests!

Past Eastwood Collection Blogs

Million Dollar Baby
Unforgiven
Trouble With the Curve
Mystic River
The Rookie
Absolute Power
Dirty Harry
Kelly's Heroes
Where Eagles Dare
Gran Torino

Resolution 9 - Clint Eastwood Quest - 90% Complete

I originally bought the DVD for today's Eastwood Quest entry, Million Dollar Baby several years ago but it unfortunately sat in the backlog forever. I eventually sold it to the local used movie and game shop in town after I picked it up as part of the Eastwood BluRay collection last year. Today I finally got around to watching it. You can ask me a million times why I let the 2004 Oscar Winner for best picture and 175/250th ranked best movie of all time from IMDB.com sit in my collection forever without viewing and the best response I could muster would be to just stare at you blankly and state "I have no idea." I should KO myself for committing such a sin.

Million Dollar Baby features late boxing bloomer, Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank) trying to win the respect of and gain the tutelage of long time boxing trainer Frankie Dunn (Clint Eastwood). Dunn is adamant about not training girls, but after showing enough fortitude and determination, and after the encouragement of his associate Eddie Scrap (Morgan Freeman), Dunn takes her under his wings and works her up the ranks of the female boxing world to a prestigious WBA title fight where the unthinkable happens and the film takes on a whole new turn.

Swank is fantastic at portraying the good 'ol southern girl from Missouri who refuses to quit, and scrape and claw her way from the bottom rungs of life to become a top ranked contender. The whole time I was rooting for her to win over Eastwood's character. Eventually it happens, and Freeman and Eastwood are amazing at being the old wise guard that provide her the knowledge to make her an amazing fighter. The three of them just jive together perfectly.

I feel this blog about the film is going awful because I simply am at a loss of words at how to go about the unexpected turn this film takes about 70% in, and how it plays out following it. It plays out unbelievably well, and I love how the final act is pretty damn rare out of sports movies, and it just goes to show the risks Eastwood took with this film instead of going with the cookie cutter sports film ending. Do not be an idiot like me and wait nine years to watch this classic, it does not matter if you are a fan of boxing or not, you will undoubtedly love Million Dollar Baby. As with all the Eastwood movies I have covered here, Netflix has the disc, but it is not up on streaming, but if you want to follow along on the Clint Eastwood collection fun with me, here is a link to the box set I have off Amazon.

Past Eastwood Collection Blogs

Unforgiven
Trouble With the Curve
Mystic River
The Rookie
Absolute Power
Dirty Harry
Kelly's Heroes
Where Eagles Dare
Gran Torino

Resolution 9 - Clint Eastwood Quest - 80% Complete

After watching the latest Clint Eastwood collection film, the 1992 academy award winning Unforgiven (trailer), I still love it for the fact that I am still so flummoxed at who to root for in this film. I have no idea if that was by design or not, but I applaud it for showing that everyone in this film has their positive and negative qualities, take 'em or leave 'em.

Unforgiven takes place in the fictional Old West town of Big Whisky. It starts off with a couple of cowboys who got a little too rowdy and roughed up a prostitute and essentially went away unpunished by the town sheriff(Gene Hackman). The hoes decided to take revenge into their own hands and put a $1000 bounty on their lives. Aspiring bounty hunter, The Schofield Kid (Jaimz Woolvett) tracks down legendary, but retired outlaw Will Munny (Clint Eastwood) to lure him back for one last job. Munny brings along his old partner Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman) for the journey, and the three make haste to Big Whisky.

I find it a little amusing that Clint Eastwood has been portraying an over the hill old guy for over 20 years now. Unforgiven gets that point across from the start where Munny just does not have that good of a shot as he use to, and even has trouble saddling up onto a horse. Logan is the same way, both former criminals have cleansed their past and moved onto better lives, but take on this final job to set things right forever for them, but have many problems bringing back their old selves to get the job done. Eastwood gets this point across masterfully throughout the film.

Watching the behind the scenes documentaries on the disc, I guess I should find it as no surprise they constructed this set from scratch. Eastwood set a rule to have no cars out there and made the entire cast and crew report to duty via wagon and horse. I love how Unforgiven portrays its version of the West. Especially when Munny, Schofield and Logan are out riding the trails in the country and making it feel like you are free out there to do whatever you desire.

One other thing that got to me from the behind the scenes features is that Eastwood made it sound like the protagonists and antagonists are pretty black and white. As I alluded to in the intro, I could not disagree more. The antagonist is town sheriff Little Bill. The film does portray him in quite the negative light as taking the law into his own hands, and even more so as making his deputies look like absolute cowards and petrified of outnumbering one gunmen 10-to-1 in a couple of scenes. I get it, Little Bill is corrupt and sadistic, but he is the town sheriff, and he has the town's best interests at stake, right? Ok, so Eastwood and gang are the heroes right? Well, both Logan and Munny are former notorious outlaw who murdered countless innocents, and are now out at it again as assassins, so why should I root for them? In the end, I found myself rooting for who Eastwood wanted me to, and again I tip my hat to him for making me question the moral compasses of the main characters. It just goes to show you that everyone has their light and dark sides, just that Unforgiven is one of those few films that has the guts to show the extreme sides of both.

My favorite scene in the film is when one of the prostitutes takes her time to ride up to a meeting place with Schofield and Munny. Schofield goes on a rambling diatribe talking himself up, then loses it all while Munny just stands there and nods along like it is another day. The scene proceeds to knock it out of the park when the prostitute, delivers some unsettling news to Munny, and the way Munny digests the news in his calm, collective manner let's you know that it is on, and the table is set for the final showdown. Of course I am going to provide you a YouTube link to this legendary clip so you all can take it in again, just be forewarned I danced around some major spoilers in the scene so you may want to hold off on watching it if you have not seen the film yet.

Unforgiven netted Eastwood two Oscars, one for Best Picture and another for Best Director. Yesterday was the second time I saw it, and it still holds up amazingly well today. It is far and beyond the cliché wild west genre film, and of the last 25 years it ranks right up there with Tombstone and Django Unchained as my favorite westerns. As I mentioned before in these blogs, my first memories of Eastwood were for the many westerns he did in the early stages of his career, but of the ten film collection in this set, this is the only western to appear in it, and they easily made the best choice. As with all the Eastwood movies I have covered here, Netflix has the disc, but it is not up on streaming, but I give this one of my highest recommendations yet to track down and add to your film library. If you want to follow along on the Clint Eastwood collection fun with me, here is a link to the box set I have off Amazon.

Past Eastwood Collection Blogs

Trouble With the Curve
Mystic River
The Rookie
Absolute Power
Dirty Harry
Kelly's Heroes
Where Eagles Dare
Gran Torino

Resolution 9 - Clint Eastwood Quest - Bonus Installment

Clint Eastwood. Baseball. That is all you need to know, watch this film now.

I loved baseball movies as a kid. From 1989-94, there was a flood of them in my impressionable years that left many lasting memories. Some of them I still love and re-watch to this day like the Major League trilogy, Field of Dreams, The Scout and The Sandlot. While others probably hit at the right age for me and I refuse repeated viewings of them because I just know in my gut they will not appeal to me the same way they did back then with prime examples being Little Big League, Angels in the Outfield and Rookie of the Year.

In more recent years however I strayed away from baseball flicks, or not many have stuck out to me. This last year saw two films with Moneyball and the film that is the focus of this blog, Trouble With the Curve (Trailer) make an awesome return to baseball movie greatness. For the first time in 20 years, Clint Eastwood got out of the director's chair and back to just being an actor. The director here actually is a longtime assistant director of Clint's who is making his directorial debut, Robert Lorenz.

Clint plays elder baseball scout Gus, whose age is rapidly catching up with him, and is early in the film diagnosed with glaucoma when he realizes his vision is betraying him. His doctor advises him to get it checked out, but Gus has to be on the road to analyze the latest hot prospect so his best friend and fellow associate Pete (John Goodman) convinces his daughter Mickie (Amy Adams) to accompany him for this last trek of the season to make sure he still has his eyes in check. They run into former top prospect Johnny Flannigan (Justin Timberlake) who flamed out early in The Show and is now a scout himself.

Eastwood is sublime at playing old, cranky and stubborn, and that is exactly the persona behind Gus as he keeps brushing aside his Glaucoma issues and ignoring his daughter trying to get the truth out of him on why they grew so apart over the years. Watching Eastwood and Adams overcome the hurdles of their character's relationship was a battle I enjoyed. Their conflict keeps building and building, with Adams especially doing an awesome part in showing how Gus's stubbornness rubbed onto her as she holds her own whenever Mickie and Gus go at it. Justin Timberlake is spot on in his supporting role, full of determination of rising through the scouting ranks and landing an announcing gig, but the inevitable feelings he has for Mickie throws a wrench in his scouting plans.

The only part of the film I thought that could have been done better was there really was no resolution to Gus's glaucoma, as it more or less takes a backseat in the film's final act where the film turns into whether or not their team makes a move on the hot prospect at the upcoming draft. I like how they handle the draft and the fallout from it, but the film gets you feeling for Gus and his failing vision and to see how that issue gets brushed to the side in the final half hour is kind of disappointing. Luckily all of the other issues explored in the movie are dealt with properly and have a gratifying sense of finality.

I really enjoyed Trouble With the Curve for the same reasons I enjoyed Moneyball. While baseball may appear to be the focus of both films, it is not of the actual game itself but more of the behind the scenes office/scouting shenanigans that are used to enhance and develop the characters and had you rooting for them until the end to see if they overcame their conflicts and find that lasting resolve. Moneyball has awesome, strong characters, but obviously with its connections to the book that changed the sport forever it keeps more of a focus on the game. While I will give the nudge to enjoying that movie as a whole more, I cannot deny that Trouble With the Curve does a better job at developing their characters and having me stick with them and care about the individuals more.

Trouble With the Curve is not part of the Clint Eastwood collection of movies I am covering. It is the only Eastwood movie I own that is not part of the 10-film collection I am working on reviewing, but I am going to a Twins game this weekend, the last game of the season as a matter of fact and really wanted to get in the mood for baseball, so here is a free bonus Clint Eastwood film review for you this month! If you want to follow along on the Clint Eastwood collection fun with me, here is a link to the box set I have off Amazon.

Past Eastwood Collection Blogs

Mystic River
The Rookie
Absolute Power
Dirty Harry
Kelly's Heroes
Where Eagles Dare
Gran Torino

Resolution 9 - Clint Eastwood Quest - 70% Complete

So the seventh film in the Clint Eastwood BluRay Collection I am choosing to watch, is 2003's Mystic River (Trailer). This is the first film in the collection I have seen thus far that does not star Eastwood, but he is the director of this film. Only other movie I can think of I saw that just saw Eastwood directing only was Invictus from a few years ago. I am not even a rugby fan, but I loved that movie so much I went out and tracked down a Rugby game for my PS2 immediately afterwards.

Mystic River starts off with three friends growing up in Boston playing street hockey, when a horrible incident occurs that puts them on their separate paths until one of their children is abducted a few decades later and the three of them unintentionally wind up mixed together in the thick of it all. Jimmy Markum (Sean Penn) is the unfortunate one with his daughter gone missing. Sean Devine (Kevin Bacon) is the detective leading up the case to find her along with his partner Whitey (Laurence Fishburne). Finally we have Dave Boyle (Tim Robbins) who is still feeling the side effects from that horrible aforementioned childhood incident and happened to be at one of the places where Jimmy's daughter was last seen.

The film takes the next two hours to unravel the crime drama from all angles. The whole time it keeps dangling nuggets without directly saying who the culprit is, but it keeps nudging you into thinking it is one of two candidates. I love how this film is paced, and for being over two hours it never felt it overstayed its welcome because there is such a diverse cast where every character seems to have their moments. While Penn, Robbins and Bacon are the major players, even most of the supporting roles manage to get a scene or two to call their own. Boyle's wife Celeste (Marcia Gay Harden), has no idea what to make of her husband after the incident and does a tremendous job looking as perturbed and troubled as he is. Brendan Harris (Tom Guiry) is the now widowed boyfriend of the missing daughter, and just like Boyle, you never know what his true motives are until the very end cause he so brilliantly manages to stay in the shades of gray throughout the entire film.

I kept thinking throughout the movie when things finally come to a head, I will not see what is coming and sure enough I did not. Perhaps I am horrible for predicting twists, but I enjoyed how the final moments played out, and I can safely say Mystic River did not have an awful twist for the sake of just having a twist like in films such as Hancock. The twist here made total sense, and the way they explained it too should have had me guessing about it earlier.

If you like your crime dramas/thrillers then you will definitely enjoy Mystic River. Eastwood redeemed himself from the last film I blogged about in this collection, The Rookie. I do not see it up on Netflix instant streaming, but the disc is there for rental. If you want to follow along on the Clint Eastwood collection fun with me, here is a link to the box set I have off Amazon.

Past Eastwood Collection Blogs

The Rookie
Absolute Power
Dirty Harry
Kelly's Heroes
Where Eagles Dare
Gran Torino

Resolution 9 - Clint Eastwood Quest - 60% Complete

We are now past the halfway mark of the Clint Eastwood film review quest resolution. 1990's The Rookie is where I start off the second half of the ten film BluRay collection of Eastwood's finest. This is very familiar territory compared to the last two Eastwood flicks I covered, Absolute Power and Dirty Harry. By similar I mean a cop drama chock filled with one liners up the wazoo.

Instead of being the sympathetic cat burglar like Clint was in Absolute Power, he is now on the side of the law as veteran detective Nick Pulovski, and at the beginning of the film he loses his partner when an attempt to bust a car heist goes horribly wrong. Pulovski is teamed with new partner David Ackerman (Charlie Sheen), a detective coming up the ranks who has rampant parent issues that the film throws in your face constantly throughout.

Ackerman and Pulovski play the odd couple as they attempt to take down a gang headed up by Strom, who is masterfully portrayed by one of my favorite Hollywood antagonists, Raul Julia. I remember around this time I was a big Charlie Sheen fan, and loved him in other late 80s/early 90s films like the first two Major League movies, The Chase and Terminal Velocity, but he felt completely miscast in his role here. Right from the get go of The Rookie they make it seem like this is his very first day in any type of role for the law, but Sheen seems about 10 years older for that type of portrayal here and I just do not buy him as the incompetent rookie like the film wants me to. I have seen other films cast this role far more effectively like with Joseph Gordon Levitt's character Blake in Dark Knight Rises.

At least Eastwood and Julia nail their performances. Eastwood is a slightly toned down version of his antihero character from Dirty Harry and plays a little more by the rules. He is still full of one liners, and actually I think they went way overboard with the one liners from all characters here as it seemed they were trying a new one every few minutes. One that did stand out though that cracked me up was when Ackerman's dad was trying to give Pulovski a big sum of cash to guarantee his son's safety and Pulovski responded with, "If you want a guarantee, buy a toaster." Julia is awesome because he goes balls to the wall over the top as the antagonist. You cannot help but hate him in here as the slimy gangster. I have not seen too many Julia films, but I do love his performances as the over the top villain in here and in another early 90s cheesy action classic, Street Fighter.

This is probably the weakest of the bunch of films I have seen so far in the Eastwood collection. It is still all right, but Sheen's performance in here really hurts it. There are a couple of bright spots from him here though, with him going crazy and kicking ass and tearing apart a bar in one of the most interesting bar fight scenes I have seen since Dirty Work. The pacing also seems a little off, the chase to get to Strom and some of the other supporting actors along the way drag the film down a little. There is the standard final chase/action sequence with Pulovski and Ackerman going after Strom and his heavy, and while it gets the job done, it did not have me on the edge of my seat like the final sequences in Dirty Harry and Absolute Power.

Unfortunately it looks like The Rookie is the first movie I am not recommending as must see viewing out of the Eastwood collection. For crime dramas there are far better ones out there, especially the aforementioned Clint Eastwood films. If you want to follow along on the Clint Eastwood collection fun with me, here is a link to the box set I have off Amazon.

Past Eastwood Collection Blogs

Absolute Power
Dirty Harry
Kelly's Heroes
Where Eagles Dare
Gran Torino

Resolution 9 - Clint Eastwood Quest - 50% Complete

I never heard of today's film, 1997's Absolute Power, I am covering for the Clint Eastwood resolution blog entry today before buying this BluRay collection it was a part of. Not even two minutes into it I was hooked as I was introduced to Eastwood's character, Luther Whitney, a retired Korean War vet turned cat burglar vet. Whitney is in a routine heist when someone with....absolute power (Gene Hackman)....stumbles in and becomes part of a greater crime right in front of Whitney.

Of course, the movie turns into an edge of your seat mystery thriller where I was just jonesin' to see which direction it would go in next, and I was constantly kept guessing on every twist and turn the mystery took. Would Whitney break the perfect cover for his heist to expose this crime, or would vice versa happen upon him, or would ace detective Seth Frank (Ed Harris) manage to figure it all out and bring everyone to justice?

Eastwood is once again outstanding. Of course I am biased towards him, but the man is just so damn convincing with every line of dialogue that trickles out of him. Do not mess with Eastwood or he will seek revenge! When the bad guys try to mess with Luther, you cannot help yourself but to get behind the antihero. Like the last film I covered here, Dirty Harry, there are several standout quotable moments, but this time delivered in a far less hokey and quite deadly serious type of way that really made an impact with me at the film's pivotal moments.

The last time a mystery/crime film had its hooks in me this good was The Town, and exactly like that film I just loved how this kept me on my toes on how everything unfolded and played out. I cannot think of a single role that was miscast, as everyone brought their A game, especially with Eastwood, Hackman and Harris being absolutely amazing in their roles. For a little while I was surprised to see 24's Mr. and Mrs. President Palmer (Dennis Haysbert and Penny Johnson) in this film in supporting roles I never saw them in before, just a few years before they were brought to the mainstream as the first couple in one of my all time favorite cable dramas.

As if you could not tell already, Absolute Power is an easy recommendation! Especially if you find yourself craving a good mystery/crime drama, then go right this instant add this to your Netflix Queue now! It is not on streaming unfortunately, just the disc, but if you want to follow along on the Clint Eastwood collection fun with me, here is a link to the box set I have off Amazon.

Past Eastwood Collection Blogs

Dirty Harry
Kelly's Heroes
Where Eagles Dare
Gran Torino

Resolution 9 - Clint Eastwood Quest - 40% Complete

I have always been aware of the legendary Dirty Harry line of films and their classic one-liners but have never seen one. That changed today as the original Dirty Harry movie is the next part of the 10 film Clint Eastwood collection I will be covering today. It is also the only Dirty Harry movie that is part of the collection.

The original Dirty Harry came out in 1971 and features Clint Eastwood as inspector Harry Callahan. Early in the film Callahan is assigned a new partner Chico Gonzalez, played by Reni Santoni and the two continuously have exchanges throughout the film as to why his nickname is "Dirty Harry." Essentially it all boils down to that Callahan is a badass that plays by his own rules to get the job done, no matter what side of the law it falls on.

On my last Eastwood blog covering Kelly's Heroes, I kept comparing that film to my favorite crime drama series, The Shield, and I will do the same here for Dirty Harry. I can easily see how the Harry Callahan character is the inspiration for Michael Chiklis's Vic Mackey character on The Shield. Callahan is not afraid to bend the law and rough up suspects to get the intel he desires as well as uttering a few stereotypical awesome one liners along the way. Vic Mackey is the exact same way, except a little more modernized and believable with slightly less hokey one-liners, and has a bit more of a sinister side to him. I have no idea if Callahan's character goes down that path in the later Dirty Harry films, but they certainly lay down the foundation for it with this film.

It was great to finally see some of the classic scenes this film is notorious for. I am of course referring to the "Do you feel lucky" quote early on in the movie where Callahan breaks up a bank robbery in the midst of eating a hot dog. Even after 40 years, that scene holds up and Eastwood pulls it off to perfection. There are also several other classic one-liner delivered throughout, but I do not want to give them all away in case you have yet to see this.

Chico and Harry spend the film chasing down the dreaded "Scorpio Killer" played by Andrew Robinson. This androgynous looking fellow is the perfect foil for these two as he is absolutely bonkers and I loved watching the wild goose chase he sends Callahan on tracking him down in his latest crimes throughout the film. When watching the behind-the-scenes feature for this afterwards, Robinson was not so sure about why he was chosen to be the antagonist until the director told him he wanted someone with the face of a choir boy.

Another thing I got out of watching the extras was that Dirty Harry was the launch pad of Clint Eastwood into Hollywood superstardom. With this film being packed with intriguing characters and well delivered one-liners and all over the place action, I can see why it became a successful vehicle for the career of Eastwood. I do not think I will track down the rest of the Eastwood films as the extras probably spoiled me a little too much and were packed with plenty of clips from the other Dirty Harry movies, but much like the other films I have covered in this collection, this one is a definite must see. It is not available on Netflix streaming, but they do have the disc on hand, or if you want to follow along with me, here is a Amazon link to the collection I am watching off of.

Past Eastwood Collection Blogs

Kelly's Heroes
Where Eagles Dare
Gran Torino

Resolution 9 - Clint Eastwood Quest - 30% Complete

Remember THE television drama of the 2000s, The Shield? In case you are not familiar with the show, it casts Michael Chiklis and Walter Goggins as the two main members of a Strike Team that is filthy corrupt, but you cannot help yourself to root for them because beneath all the shades of gray and money they put off to the side, they are still cops at heart and looking out for the greater good, no matter which side of the fence they may fall on. Kind of also like Dexter.

Bringing this back to Clint Eastwood, the third movie of the ten I am covering in his BluRay collection, Kelly's Heroes from 1970 (trailer) reminded me quite a bit of the central plot that ran across the second season of The Shield. In the second season, the Strike Team are making a routine bust on a gang of Armenians when they stumble into plans of the Armenian's legendary "money train" making a upcoming stop in the area. The whole remainder of the second season is the Strike Team setting up a private operation on the side to rob the money train in the heist of heists, and by the time of the season finale you could not help but be on the edge of your seat to see if they pulled off the heist. If you have not seen The Shield yet, I just saw all the seasons on sale at Best Buy for $10 each, go buy them now!

I can see where the writers of The Shield may have been inspired, because at the beginning of Kelly's Heroes, Eastwood's character, Kelly is interrogating a captured Nazi colonel. Kelly gets him drunk to the point of spilling the beans on a relatively weak division guarding a bank that contains over $14 million in gold. And this is in the 1940s, so who knows what inflation brings that up to today, I am abysmal in math so I will not even attempt to figure it out. Obviously you see where this is going as Kelly assembles a ragtag bunch of soldiers in a private operation of their own to rob the bank!

Kelly leads quite the cast of misfits featuring Don Rickles as Sgt. Crapgame who is always second guessing Kelly's commands and Donald Sutherland as Sgt. Oddball, who is quite the peculiar character to say the least, and Sutherland is a riot to watch in this type of character I have never seen him portray before! The film is quite long at nearly two and a half hours, but the setup and journey they go on for building up to the heist is well paced, and much like the second season finale of The Shield, I was completely glued in by the time they were ready to start the raid on the German bank. It brought back memories as a kid watching old World War II movies and getting all psyched up whenever a battle would break out, hey I guess that is what Kelly's Heroes is, but it is a damn good one to say the least.

This came out only two years later the last Clint movie I covered, Where Eagles Dare, but it holds up much better. I am no film expert, but compared to the previous film, I really like how this is shot and the overall cinematography is better all together, and I rarely seemed to be pulled out of the movie with dated special effects and camera tricks like I was a few times with Where Eagles Dare. It is weird, I always remember Eastwood as having a rep for his older films being classic westerns, but the oldest two movies in this collection are awesome World War II films, with at least one more to come later on with Letters from Iwo Jima. Of course I highly recommend this film, it is on Netflix, but through disc rental only. Amazon has it available in a ton of various collections on DVD and BluRay for pretty cheap as well. If you want to keep along with the same collection I am watching, Amazon has the 10 film BluRay collection going for $40 right now.

Resolution 9 - Clint Eastwood Quest - 20% Complete

The second of ten films on the Clint Eastwood BluRay Collection I watched is the oldest one of Eastwood's featured in this set with 1968's Where Eagles Dare. The first film I blogged about in this collection was Gran Torino, click here for said blog in case you missed it. I was a little trepid going into this film, mostly due to it being 45 years old and thinking it would not hold up with today's standards. Thank goodness that is (mostly)not the case.

Easiest way to explain this film is a tamer, less crazy version of Inglorious Basterds. Eastwood is not the lead in this film, that goes to Richard Burton who is the major of a squad of allied troops infiltrating a Nazi base to rescue a POW. Eastwood is a Lieutenant from America in this rescue squad, and he plays well off Burton. The first 40 to 45 minutes seemed standard fare for WWII films. Rescue squad lands in Germany disguised as Nazi soldiers, and the rest of the film is them trying to keep their cover while pursuing their mission. Things take a major turn when Eastwood and Burton get separated from the rest of the squad early on and sneak into the base where they believe the POW is residing.

This is where the film transforms into all kinds of crazy. In one extraordinarily long, but entertaining scene, Burton's character goes on a crazy long diatribe exposing agents, double agents, maybe even triple agents....I lost track. The scene goes on forever, but it was instantly go down as one of the all time classic scenes in cinematic history. After this awesome expose, the last 45 minutes of the film is another drawn out, but equally entertaining escape the hell out of Nazi Germany before everything goes to hell act. And in the end, to top off an already delicious cake, Burton's character exposes one more traitor for good measure in the closing minutes.

Not until about a half hour to 40 minutes in did Where Eagles Dare have its hooks in me. Only parts of the film that took me out of the moment were some extremely outdated gunfights during the escape scenes where Eastwood and Burton seem to have a little too easy of a time against vastly outnumbered Nazis that make the unbelievable one many army Stallone and Arnold 80s action films seem realistic by comparison. That aside, this was a blast to watch. Eastwood may take a bit of a backseat in this film, but he has a great supporting role and provides a powerful badass presence behind Burton's quick wit. In case you are wondering it is only available on Netflix through disc, and not streaming.

Resolution 9 - Clint Eastwood Quest - 10% Complete

I have only seen two Clint Eastwood films, but I respect the hell out of the guy. I tried to make it a point over the last year to get a list of some of his best films from a few friends and track them down through Netflix to catch up on his best work. I gathered a list of recommendations, but always neglected to add them into my Netflix queue. Inexcusable, I know, then about a month or two back I ran across this great deal of 10 Clint Eastwood classics on BluRay going back to the 60s to as recent as a few years ago for only $30. I could not pass that up, and it finally gave me the swift kick in the butt to watch some of Clint's best.

Buying it was one thing, letting it just sit there on my shelf collecting dust is something I simply cannot allow. Thus, Resolution 9, watch all 10 movies in the Clint Eastwood collection before the end of the year! I decided to watch them in the order they were placed in the BluRay casing, and at the front of the case was one of the two Eastwood films I have seen, Gran Torino.

I absolutely adore this film, and could not resist skipping over it. It is easily one of my ten favorite movies of all time. This is my third time watching it, and it still is as instantly memorable and quotable as the first time I have seen it. In case this one slipped by you, Clint stars as Walt Kowalski, a Korean War vet too set in his ways and growing increasingly perturbed as his neighborhood diversifies over the years. He forms an unlikely friendship with his Hmong neighbors after breaking up some gang violence and takes their neighbor's son Thao under his wing after he attempts to steal Walt's prized Gran Torino.

I never did develop a knack for reviewing movies, so I am going to avoid trying to turn this into a traditional film review and just gush over why I love this. Clint Eastwood absolutely nails the role of the stereotypical over the hill racist. He makes drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon seem like the most badass thing ever, a feat that only he in all of Hollywood is capable of. I was stunned at how brazen the dialogue in this movie is, and I think Clint Eastwood is the only one who could get away with it or else it would have been drastically scaled back for anyone else. Clint naturally overcomes his prejudices, and watching him bond with Thao over the duration of the film and teaching him to man up and constantly telling a helping priest to screw off throughout had me in love with what should be a very unlovable character.

There is no big budget special effects, as a majority of Gran Torino takes place in Walt's neighborhood. So it has a very down to earth, real feeling to it that resonated with me. Every single actor nails their part, and I cannot think of a single actor I disliked in their role in this film, nor can I think of a single scene I would change or remove after seeing this my third time. I take that back, there is one scene later in the film where Eastwood lies to his dog, Daisy that he is smoking in the house for the first time when there is a scene just several minutes earlier of Walt puffing on a cig. Do not lie to dogs Walt, they are your best friend! I would flip those scenes around, that is all. I can go on forever about why this is one of my all time favorites, but I do not want to talk this up to death for those that have not seen it.

Ironically enough, this was the first Eastwood film I remember seeing, and it is only appropriate it starts off this collection. Next up, well you will just have to wait and see the next Eastwood Quest blog entry to find out. I will try to knock out one of these a month, so please keep checking back and feel free to comment below if you want to gush (or hate) on this film with me!