Million Dollar Bigot
Here is the new trailer for Gran Torino…
I hope it’s great… but I wonder how big the story can be… and I now know where Chris Nolan got the sound design for Christian Bale in the Batman suit.
April 28, 2024
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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?
So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.
And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.
There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.
I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.
So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.
But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”
My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher
“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.
~ David Simon
Perhaps it’s a generational thing. the Boomers who grew up watching the tough guy Eastwood take on punks in film after film. I did not grow up with Eastwood. He was already a very old man by the time I started paying attention to movies.
This looks god awful to me. The voice, the look, the simple-mindedness of the story, the gun finger visual. The “get off my property”. Yeesh.
After Changeling, I was really looking forward to this but the trailer makes it look like The Brave One with Clint in the Jodie role…vigilante justice, blah blah blah. I hope he delivers, but this does not stoke my confidence.
I’ll beat Lex and say this looks AWSOME, if a little simple and predictable. And Clint looks like he just stepped off the latest Romero movie.
(A) Would anyone be touting this as an Oscar contender if it weren’t Eastwood?
(B) Is he working on a second film telling the story from the gang’s point of view?
Childress FTW.
HOLY SHIT THIS IS GOING TO OWWWWWWWWWWWWN.
I am a lifelong Eastwood fan — grew up on the guy starting in the late 70s/early 80s with the ape movies and Dirty Harry and Bronco Billy and Alcatraz.
And yet, I can kinda sometimes see what someone like Hopscotch is saying; Sometimes I’ll catch, say, THE ENFORCER or SUDDEN IMPACT on AMC and think, man, if I was a kid today, or didn’t grow up on this stuff, it WOULD seem kinda cornball, this gruff middle-aged/older dude throwing out these tough guy lines in extreme closeup with exaggerated facial expressions.
Kinda like how it took me some time to get into The Duke, who I guess was kind of the predecessor and as a student of Clint, seemed kinda corny and antiquated to me, in much the same way.
But if you check out the body of work, I think it all still holds up. But again, just one of those things where I or others grew up seeing it like others see Star Wars, and it’s kinda hard to impress the awesomeness of that (as with anything) on a new viewer some 30, 40 years on when they catch it ONE TIME ON DVD with kind of a chip on their shoulder.
And I think all younger viewers of each successive generation kinda fall into that trap, especially in the DVD age.
Anyway, GET OFF MY LAWN, BITCH = OWNAGE.
Wow. Who would’ve guessed that only in a few short months something would come along to make Harrison Ford’s last go at Indiana Jones look positively spry. What on god’s green earth is next? Diana Rigg doing an Avengers sequel? A remake of Emmanuelle with Cloris Leachman in the lead?
Jesus H Christ…I love the man, but the sight of him kicking a teenage gang member’s ass null and voids every chance this movie had to be a serious Oscar contender. For anyone who thought “Falling Down” would’ve been a hundred times better with a grumpy old man bench-warming a porch swing, bow down to your GOD!!
Only Clint could make an old guy yelling “Get off my lawn!” into something totally badass.
Love it.
As for Erik’s question: “Would anyone be touting this as an Oscar contender if it weren’t Eastwood?”
Answer: Could anyone BUT Eastwood possibly make something like this work?
“Only Clint could make an old guy yelling ‘Get off my lawn!’ into something totally badass.”
Yelling – or rasping? John McCain should’ve dived onto this script like a live grenade.
Come on! This is the kind of movie that should be starring Hal Holbrook with a graphic in the corner that says “Coming Up Next – Army Wives”
I’m with Childress….that trailer looks ludicrous and if it were anyone BUT Clint, would be viewed as such.
Will I be there opening day though? Damn right.
“(B) Is he working on a second film telling the story from the gang’s point of view?”
Yeah. All of the same footage, except it has a laugh track playing throughout.
From seeing DIRTY HARRY when I was 7, I am a lifelong fan of Clint. Can do no wrong for me.
But GRAN TORINO looks like some utterly misguided vanity project from Callahan. It makes PINK CADILLAC look like TWO LANE BLACKTOP.
What a fucking embarrassment that trailer is. It’s a throwback all right – thrown so hard its gone to Brian Dennehy territory.
If he dies and this piece of shit becomes his swan song, then thats all the proof I need that there is no God.
I watched the clip. I’m guessing Korean War vet, probably saw a few Chinese Red Army soldiers over there.
The beatdown part actually worked for me-why do the gangstas always drive Hondas?
That trailer makes the film look like a straight to DVD DIRTY HARRY movie.
Ha, ha, Hallick and J-B-D, your ageism is hiLARious!
If you can’t imagine how easy it is to kick the shit out of a teenager when he’s isolated from his gang, it’s because you simply don’t know how gang violence works. The idea that a teenager has some inherent advantage over an old man with military training who keeps himself in shape and actually knows how to use the weapons he owns is as ludicrous as you seem to find this trailer.
And for all the smug, self-righteous patronizing of LexG and his depression that goes on regularly on this site, he’s the only one who makes a point about these kinds of movies that’s informed and sensitive rather than simply ad hominem and downright mean.
But go ahead and ignore Lex the next time he posts an all-CAPS rant about how Clint OWNS and HE IS YOUR GOD and you are all DOUCHEBAGS who wish you could be him.
“If you can’t imagine how easy it is to kick the shit out of a teenager when he’s isolated from his gang, it’s because you simply don’t know how gang violence works.”
I’m guessing the initiation process involves a sustained beatdown from a seventy-NINE year old man, so getting taken by a seventy-eight year old Eastwood now makes perfect sense. Sorry about that NDB. I don’t know where my head was at last night.
Here’s an informed point about this movie: a film about an old bigot warming up to the asian family moving in next door may indeed be heartwarming, but it’s still almost a bigger throwback to a bygone mentality than all of the episodes of “Mad Men” combined.
I’m on tenterhooks in waiting for Clint’s next film where his character learns that you can teach a black man how to read. A douchebag on tenterhooks, all drippin’ and leakin’ every which way…
Now get own my lawn, you LexG buttboy.
correction: Now get OFF my lawn, you LexG buttboy.
Oh, I f*cked that one up…what’s new…
“for all the smug, self-righteous patronizing of LexG and his depression that goes on regularly on this site, he’s the only one who makes a point about these kinds of movies that’s informed and sensitive”
And I think most of us agree that he should spend more time writing informed, sensitive comments and less time indulging in his alcoholism and depression. Few things would make me happier.
Dirty Old Man Harry…