Movie thoughts and fiction updates.
#16 in my ranking of Clint Eastwood's films. This feels like a fairy tale. Born of Morgan Freeman's desire to play Nelson Mandela in a film about the South African leader's life, it is a celebration of the man and his triumph in bringing the embittered, divided nation together through bread and circuses. It's ultimately… Continue reading Invictus
#14 in my ranking of Clint Eastwood's films. Following up a grand, period piece, Clint Eastwood gravitated towards a much smaller script by Nick Schenk (based on a story that he and Dave Johannson came up with) that feels like Eastwood just playing himself. The last time a role so fully felt like Eastwood playing… Continue reading Gran Torino
#3 in my ranking of Clint Eastwood's films. A period piece about a single mother looking for her lost son? This couldn't possibly be a Clint Eastwood film, could it? Well, if you've been paying close attention to what Eastwood's been trying to say over the previous several decades, it'd be easy to see that… Continue reading Changeling
#23 in my ranking of Clint Eastwood's films. The second half of Clint Eastwood's Iwo Jima epic, Letters from Iwo Jima is the first film in his career that I'm tempted to label as mawkish. I think it may be the music. Wonderfully acted with a much clearer narrative throughline than its predecessor, it's the… Continue reading Letters from Iwo Jima
#20 in my ranking of Clint Eastwood's films. This might be the most ambitious project that Clint Eastwood ever took on as a director. It was so ambitious, actually, that it became two movies. He wanted to show both sides of the fighting at Iwo Jima, but there was simply too much material and the… Continue reading Flags of Our Fathers
David Vining, Author 