Jump to content
  • Sign up for free and receive a month's subscription

    You are viewing this page as a guest. That means you are either a member who has not logged in, or you have not yet registered with us. Signing up for an account only takes a minute and it means you will no longer see this annoying box! It will also allow you to get involved with our friendly(ish!) community and take part in the discussions on our forums. And because we're feeling generous, if you sign up for a free account we will give you a month's free trial access to our subscriber only content with no obligation to commit. Register an account and then send a private message to @dave u and he'll hook you up with a subscription.

Happy Birthday Clint Eastwood


Recommended Posts

Happy birthday Clint, the last of the manly men. I hope he keeps on ticking for a long while yet as once he's gone, all we're left with is Hollywood's effeminate, make-up wearing, glory-hole servicing milkylickers to be rolemodels to our kids. Sad times.

 

[YOUTUBE]5Mk_sUPtYjw[/YOUTUBE]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest davelfc

I don't think there's ever been an 82 year old that could look at you and strike terror into your soul like Clint can. Brilliant actor, director and a really great person apparently.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

His best film:

 

William Munny in "Unforgiven" (Clint Eastwood).

 

The role he was born to play, and Eastwood knew it, too, sitting on the part until he felt he was old enough to play it properly.

 

The story of a very, very bad person who has grown out of (or too old for) a life of murder, and left behind killing to marry, raise a family, love his kids. So far, so what.

 

Except Munny is, as we see early on, a fucking terrible farmer. And his wife is dead. And he's dirt-poor. So when he's offered a chance to earn some cash by taking a bounty offered by some small-town whores who want revenge on the man who cut up their friend, he reluctantly accepts; a broken-down old man who can't even shoot a pistol straight anymore.

 

What's interesting is that we slowly come to understand that "the bad guy" (Hackman) is a person who is ostensibly trying to bring some kind of justice and order to a violent frontier town. Keeping undesirables out, and using whatever methods worked at the time. And our "heroes" are all brutal killers. There are no black/ white hats here.

 

And as the film progresses, it becomes clear that Munny is almost resigned to unleashing whatever it is he's spent years trying to lock away inside himself. And it's only in the short, but apocalyptic firefight at the end that we see what Munny is: no broken-down old man, not just a bounty-hunter, or even cold-blooded murderer, more like an Angel Of Death.

 

After shooting dead the defenceless owner of the "shithole" bar ("He should have armed hisself") we get this exchange:

 

Daggett: You'd be William Munny out of Missouri; killer of women and children

 

Munny: That's right. I've killed women and children. I've killed just about everything that walks or crawls at one time or another

 

After killing everyone in the bar ("Any man don't wanna get killed... better clear on out the back"), and also executing Daggett, Munny then emerges into a night-time storm that almost seems created by Munny himself, with one final, terrible threat to the whole town:

 

"All right now, I'm comin' out. Any man I see out there, I'm gonna kill him. Any sumbitch takes a shot at me, I'm not only gonna kill him, but I'm gonna kill his wife. All his friends. Burn his damn house down. "

 

I think what I love about Eastwood's performance is that at the start we're worried about him, and sure he's riding into a catastrophe.

 

And then it becomes clear that we should be worried for everyone else, because Munny *is* the catastrophe; a man who has seemingly been put on the Earth for one reason: to kill other people

 

And the shocking, horrific banality of the atrocities he's committed as they slip out during the film; innocent men shot in the face for reasons he can't recall (or don't exist); men scared that he'll kill them out of 'meanness'

 

Forget the Terminator. Munny is the most terrible, and terrifying killing machine in film history. No bogeyman. No ghost, or spook, could be as scary.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Me and a fella I worked with in my last place managed to get the name of every single Clint Eastwood film into group e-mails which had to go to our MD who had the surname Eastwood. They couldn't be hidden in small text and the e-mail had to make sense.

 

Started off really easy with 'Unforgiven', 'In the Line of Fire', 'Firefox' etc. Eventually ended up with having to somehow get 'Two Mules for Sister Sara' and 'Lafayette Escadrille' whilst still looking like a professional e-mail.

 

Managed it in just over a year with no one twigging.

 

They never did realise that they don't actually have 4 project managers called White, Hunter, Black & Heart.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Me and a fella I worked with in my last place managed to get the name of every single Clint Eastwood film into group e-mails which had to go to our MD who had the surname Eastwood. They couldn't be hidden in small text and the e-mail had to make sense.

 

Started off really easy with 'Unforgiven', 'In the Line of Fire', 'Firefox' etc. Eventually ended up with having to somehow get 'Two Mules for Sister Sara' and 'Lafayette Escadrille' whilst still looking like a professional e-mail.

 

Managed it in just over a year with no one twigging.

 

They never did realise that they don't actually have 4 project managers called White, Hunter, Black & Heart.

 

Brilliant.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

One of my favourite scenes :

 

[YOUTUBE]SVjMzrCMW9Q[/YOUTUBE]

 

1:15 in, wow. Look out man, now that is just sheer terror. No fucker would be pinching Mr Eastwood's pension book.

 

Reminds me of what Wayne Grow says in Heat, " Death is visiting with you at this very moment."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 7 years later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...