Clint Eastwood

I love watching movies. I can watch movies of almost any genre as long as they're good. And for me, "good" usually means above 80% on Rotten Tomatoes or by Roger Ebert's recommendation. I'm much more lax on the RT rating for Superhero movies and certain comedies, but rarely will I watch a movie under 60-70%. That said, each year there are a few movies that really get my attention. So far this year, I'd say I was pretty obsessed with Iron Man, Indiana Jones KotCS, and Quantum of Solace.

There's always a bit of "gearing up" before the release of each movie. I read a lot of Iron Man comics leading up to the movie. Prior to the fourth Indiana Jones movie, I rewatched the original trilogy, changed my ringtone to the Indy theme, and decided to get a fedora. For Quantum, I almost changed my ringtone to the Bond theme and heavily considered carving a Bond pumpkin (did Megaman instead), but ended up just rewatching Casino Royale.

Now, my current obsession is with Gran Torino. I've never been a big Clint Eastwood fan, but I have seen a few of the movies he's directed: Absolute Power, Mystic River, and Million Dollar Baby. I have trouble watching old movies, which means I have never seen his Spaghetti Westerns or Dirty Harry movies. However, after watching the Gran Torino trailer, I decided I wanted to witness the badassery that is Clint Eastwood. To prepare, last week I watched a couple Dirty Harry movies (Dirty Harry and The Enforcer), as well as Unforgiven (which won Oscars for Best Picture and Director).

Gran Torino stars Clint as a Korean War veteran whose wife has just passed. I'm still going to refer to Clint's character as Clint, since I don't know off the top of my head what the character's name is. So Clint lives alone in his house, when a Hmong family moves in to his displeasure. He's supposedly racist or something, so he's all like "grrrr." The son of the Hmong family gets in to some shenanigans and tries to steal Clint's Gran Torino (like the movie title! coincidence?), but gets caught. Clint is like "grrrr, oh no you di'nt." Apparently some Asian gang is trying to recruit this kid and stealing Clint's car is part of the initiation process or something, but Clint is like "grrrr, get off my lawn" and is prepared to teach those hoodlums a lesson, in pain. So I guess the movie is part after school special, part old man Dirty Harry, 'cause you know Clint is going to kick some Asian pigu, while he teaches his neighbor about life and stuff. And Clint will just be "grr" instead of "grrrr" by the end of the movie 'cause he'll grow to appreciate his new neighbors and their oddball culture.

In conclusion, you should all go out and watch it. The movie has a still limited but wider release starting today! Other movies I hope to watch this holiday season are The Wrestler and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Ok well, Merry whatever holiday you celebrate!