It's been a long time since I started writing movie reviews, and what really started it all was my desire to review every film in the 39-film boxset of Ingmar Bergman films that the Criterion Collection released (I think I still haven't reviewed A Ship to India). It's not a complete set of his whole… Continue reading Face to Face
Category: 1970s
The Gauntlet
#32 in my ranking of Clint Eastwood's films. Clint Eastwood seemed very self-aware of his image, and The Gauntlet feels like an attempt to subvert the image he had cultivated through the Dirty Harry series of films, which he thought was over after The Enforcer. Warner Brothers would come to him a few years later… Continue reading The Gauntlet
The Enforcer
#3 in my ranking of the Dirty Harry franchise. The script for the third outing of Inspector Harry Callahan feels like several scripts smooshed together with just enough connecting tissue conjured up out of thin air to keep the thing afloat for its relatively brief running time. There are ideas about women in the police… Continue reading The Enforcer
The Outlaw Josey Wales
#5 in my ranking of Clint Eastwood's films. This is one of those movies where there really should be a co-directing credit. Phillip Kaufman co-wrote the script, went through all of the pre-production, and then filmed about the first two weeks of the shoot before Clint Eastwood convinced the producer, Robert Daley, to fire Kaufman… Continue reading The Outlaw Josey Wales
The Eiger Sanction
#39 in my ranking of Clint Eastwood's films. This feels like another effort to create an American James Bond, this time from director and star Clint Eastwood, and I think he fumbles it. Eastwood's cool directing style seems ill-fitted for an international espionage thriller, especially when he prefers to keep a languid pace throughout the… Continue reading The Eiger Sanction