I don’t always like Clint Eastwood’s movies– the ones he directs. I leave with a feeling that there was less to the story than the weight it is being given. Of course, I have only seen a few (out of his 30+ features)– Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Unforgiven, Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby, Letters from Iwo Jima and now Gran Torino.
Of which, I thought Mystic was okay, Midnight and Million Dollar were no good and Unforgiven took too much time to tell too little. But I loved Letters from Iwo Jima, it’s one of my favorites of all time.
I liked Gran Torino quite a bit. Most of all for Eastwood’s own performance, the gruff grizzly old widower who finds more in common with the Hmong family next door than with his own kin.
Also, Eastwood sings a song in the credits.
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Eastwood’s Invictus comes out this week, with Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela and Matt Damon as the captain of the rugby team. Freeman as Mandela has been rumored for years, but as Ebert said this week, this rugby-themed Eastwood movie is not what I would have expected.
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Of course, my favorite movie where the main character is called Clint Eastwood is still Back to the Future III.
Things 
Though that was John Wayne?
Nope, he’s Eastwood. Clint Eastwood. At the end, when they return to 1985, the ravine that their train drops in to has been named “Eastwood Ravine”.
Touche
I loved the “Flags of our Fathers” and “Letters from Iwo Jima” series (to be honest though, I read the book so I was a bit biased). Very well done. I shunned “Unforgiven” for a long time. Watched it a few times, but it never connected. Then one day I actually decided to sit through the whole thing and something clicked; I think it’s one of the finer westerns around. Anchorman had the same effect on me in the comedy genre – it grew on me after multiple viewings. I really can’t pin it down and say why, but oddly both did.
Yeah, I have a theory about movies that you like after the first time: the first time, you’re trying to follow the plot. And the plot is no great shakes. But every subsequent time, you know the plot, so you can appreciate everything else– the jokes/Will Ferrel (in Anchorman) and maybe the acting/cinematography/style/other of Unforgiven.