clint eastwood

Big Screen

September Is The Month To Make Bad Oscar Predictions

4:22AM Richard Rushfield | Over the next weeks Hollywood gets its first look at many of the Oscar heavyweights at the Toronto, Venice and Telluride film festivals. But that doesn’t hold back the pundits from weighing in today on who owns this race. More »

Keanu Reeves Devastates ‘Doubt,’ ‘Che,’ Rest of Earth

1:45AM STV | Welcome back to Defamer Attractions, your regular guide to everything new, noteworthy and/or Keanu-rrific at the movies. This week: Earth is doomed, Clint is done, and Che is looooonnng. More »

Clint Eastwood’s ‘Hereafter’ To Gloss Over African-American Ghost History

4:38AM Seth | DreamWorks is in talks with Clint Eastwood to direct ghost movie Hereafter, which Spike Lee will later decry as featuring only white ghosts. (”Where are the black spirits?! You mean to tell me sheets don’t come in brown? Another chapter of African-American afterlife history whitewashed by The Man.”) [Variety] The 18th Environmental Media awards (first we’re hearing of them, but we’re usually tied up this time of year at the Tire Fire Honors) singled out Into the Wild and 30 Rock, the latter commended for “its great strides in recycling older, less-overhyped sitcoms.” [Variety] Because there’s no better way to kick off the weekend than a gloomy economic prospectus, enjoy this collection of downward trends and projected fat-trimmings sure to make 2009 your liquor-store-robbingest best! [THR] After the jump: What surely-no-longer-virginal Disney Channel star is about to get her own show on a tanking network? More »

Clint Eastwood Revisits His Fascist Avenger Glory Days in ‘Gran Torino’

3:20AM STV | Here’s your first look at what is expected to be Clint Eastwood’s last performance, as a grizzled racist widower taking on an Asian gang in his forthcoming drama Gran Torino. The catch: He’s defending an Asian family along with the rest of his quiet, diversifying neighbourhood. At first rumoured to be the capstone of the Dirty Harry franchise, Gran Torino’s trailer instead hints at a kinder, gentler vigilante — a surly old coot whose prostate enlargement defers only to the growth of his chosen weapon from finger-pistol to rifle to the titular automobile itself, a washed-and-waxed piece of vintage American steel not so unlike the growling icon behind its wheel. Which isn’t to say Gran Torino looks like it will make anyone forget the rogue San Francisco cop (though after 37 years, “Get off my lawn” is a clever enough permutation of “Do you feel lucky, punk?”), but it may provide just enough nostalgia to bring bullet-riddled closure you didn’t even know you wanted. Check all the feel-good fascism after the jump. [YouTube] More »

EXCLUSIVE: Clint Eastwood Likens ‘08 Election to Oprah Car Giveaway

7:40AM STV | Clint Eastwood took himself and his new film Changeling to its US premiere last weekend at the New York Film Festival. Just like we had for our audience with Mickey Rourke, we sneaked in via a film canister to check out the scene and lob a question his way; still, as lovely and reliably austere as Changeling is, we had more pressing issues on our mind than how little Eastwood rehearsed with Angelina Jolie (answer: hardly at all). To wit: How is a long-time conservative, former elected official and John McCain supporter like Eastwood getting his head around the Celebrity Election of ‘08 — Sarah Palin’s candidacy in particular? Was this a circus anyone could have foreseen 57 years ago when he joined the Republicans? More »

Nobel Hopeful Steven Spielberg Brokered Fragile Peace Between Spike Lee and Clint Eastwood

8:10AM STV | During this year’s NBA Finals, a courtside power summit at Staples Centre provided stirring insight into the intimate camaraderie between Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Eddie Murphy. (You might recall Sylvester Stallone joining in when Katzenberg visited the men’s room.) We’re learning even more today about that alliance, which, in addition to Spielberg’s orotund ref-hating, influenced detente in ways not seen since Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill converged at Yalta. The stakes: Peace between directors Spike Lee and Clint Eastwood, who had feuded over representations of African-American soldiers (or the lack thereof) in Eastwood’s films. Lee remembers it like it was yesterday: More »

Today in Cannes Hell: Spike Lee vs. The World, ‘Che’ Unveiled and Mouthbreathing Over Penelope Cruz

2:55AM Defamer Hollywood | Only a few days remain before Cannes ends and we can roll our bleary eyes from the backs of our heads. In the meantime, the rubbernecker in us can’t help but take an interest in Spike Lee’s latest sortie against the Hollywood establishment — this time as personified by Cannes darling Clint Eastwood, whom Lee railed against while promoting his upcoming Afro-centric World War II drama Miracle at St. Anna:

Shocker! Clint Eastwood and Angelina Jolie Make Oscar-Bait Drama Everybody Loves

2:00AM Defamer Hollywood | Ho-hum. Clint Eastwood went to Cannes and all he got were more late-career raves, award mentions, his star Angelina Jolie on his arm and perhaps the most meta title switcheroo in Hollywood history: The Exchange (née Changeling) has all kinds of fans at the festival, where the child-disappearance drama premieres today in competition and already has Variety’s Todd McCarthy running back at his hotel room to change his pants: The intercutting of two heavyweight proceedings, a murder trial and a landmark City Hall hearing, provide the story’s dramatic crescendo, although even greater tension stems from what comes thereafter. In the end, Changeling joins the likes of Chinatown and L.A. Confidential as a sorrowful critique of the city’s political culture. More »