planetdan

Tuesday, January 25, 2005 :::

I woke up mad at Clint Eastwood this morning.

I'm crabby today, and for some reason Clint Eastwood is the object of my anger. The Oscar Nominations were released today and he was nominated not only for Best Director and Best Picture, but Best Actor for Million Dollar Baby. Now I understand Best Director even if I don't agree with it, because he seems to be able to get good performances out of his actors, and I haven't seen Million Dollar Baby yet, so I'll reserve judgment on the Best Picture nomination. But Best Actor?

His greatest accomplishment as an actor seems to be that he's the kind of guy that macho men can idolize without feeling too gay. Besides that, all he does is grunt in a low voice through his clenched teeth without ever inflecting, turning his head, or revealing any undercurrent of emotion. Then he raises an eyebrow. Performance complete. So he took off his shirt in Bridges of Madison County. Big deal. He's a wooden board on screen. A granite sculpture. He's not an actor.

Mystic River sucked. It was a second-rate mystery thriller unfairly disguised as a loftier morality play. It betrayed itself unforgivably in the end. If it wasn't for Sean Penn, nobody would've given that crap a second glance.

Then a few weeks ago, Clint Eastwood threatened to kill Michael Moore. Sure, he was half-kidding, but that "go ahead, make my day" macho mentality crap was past its prime decades ago. I'm not the hugest Michael Moore fan on the planet, either, but that idiotic stunt put Clint Eastwood in the dangerous position of usurping Charlton Heston's current post as America's biggest insufferable old curmudgeon.

Now Clint gets nominated at the expense of Paul Giamatti from Sideways and Jim Carrey from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind or even Topher Grace from In Good Company. I guess it's not his fault for being nominated. There's nothing he can do about the fact that he's earned more respect than he deserves in Hollywood. But like I said, I woke up crabby today, and he's really bugging me.

::: posted by dan at 10:13 AM :: [ link ] :: (7) comments

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7 previous comments:

Accept that some days you're the pigeon, and some days you're the statue.

Don't be crabby Dan!

S

By

Anonymous, at 11:46 AM

I'm SO very sad about both the Giamatti & Carey snub. Sideways and Eternal Sunshie were hands down the best movies to come out last year.

Eh... all I can say is:
"Right Turn Clide"

By

KarenE, at 12:43 PM

Hasn't he already won the Cecil B Demile (sp?) award for life time achievement.

Does hollywood still need to continue to suck his dick with these perpetual nominations.

By

BigDubb, at 2:24 PM

I'm with you on the best actor thing - I can't be-lieve they snubbed Paul Giamatti. Especially given the fact that Thomas Haden-Church got a nomination on what I would call an okay but much weaker performance. Okay, I feel a little bad for Jim Carrey too.

I didn't see Mystic River or Million Dollar Baby, and I was kind of charmed for a while with Clint Eastwood getting better with age, but if someone's got to go to make room for Paul, kick the guy out - I'm sure he's prouder of his directing anyway, right? Geez.

By

Christine, at 4:54 PM

Dude, are you surprised? This is "The Academy" a/k/a "the establishment, the man, the conservatives, the right, etc, etc, etc. It's not worth the emotion.

By

pierre, at 12:21 AM

Mystic River, I saw, and I thought it was a pretty good movie up until the last five minutes, when the movie suddenly becomes what appears to be another movie starring the same actors. That OTHER movie was a piece of crap.

-pc

By

Anonymous, at 12:30 PM

Well, I had to go see what all the hype was about with Mr. Eastwoods nomination for Million$Baby. From soley an acting perspective

Pros: It was a good performance. More emotional than he has ever been in a movie. I also think that the fact that C.E. is machismo personified lends a certain subtext to the performance that most other actors can't bring with them.

Cons: I think you could have substituted Harrison Ford, Bill Macy, Tommy Lee Jones (apparently he has been busy making Man of the House) or any of the other masculine, accomplished actors. His chemistry with Mr Freeman was totally fake and did not carry well to the screen.

Overall the movie was pretty good. I am still waiting for Hilary Swank to play a role where she is pretty. But she is very good in this film, nonetheless.

BD

By

BigDubb, at 12:46 PM

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