Year of Eastwood #24

Firefox (1982)

Starring: Eastwood
Directed by Eastwood

The 80’s were a magical time of Rubik’s Cubes, big hair, and We Are the World - but there is one figure that dominated the American landscape - Ronald Reagan. The 40th President of the United States (1980-88) blessed us with Voodoo Economics, Iran-Contra, and the End of the Cold War. Whether or not Reagan deserves the credit for the fall of the “evil empire,” he left us with the seminal sound-bite of the decade … Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall.

Clint had his own problems to worry about in the 80‘s. His status as the biggest movie star in the world had taken a beating, so he dabbled a bit in politics as well. Frustrated with the bureaucracy of his home town, Carmel-by-the-Sea, California - Clint decided he’d just take over the city. So in 1986, Clint was elected the Mayor by a whopping 72.5% of the vote. Clint ran his city with an iron fist, even repealing a controversial municipal law that forbade eating ice cream on the sidewalk. Clint decided not to seek re-election, cuz I’m sure he accomplished everything there was to do.

Firefox was released during the heyday of the Cold War. Americans didn’t know much about the Russkies, but we knew that we didn’t trust em. We were left to our own devices to imagine what they were up to over there. Planning and scheming about how to destroy our way of life. Sure, they had more than enough nuclear weapons to blow our country up, but what about those weapons that we didn’t even know about? Like maybe thought-controlled missiles…

Firefox is the codename for a top-secret war plane that travels faster than anything we can imagine - Mach 5 or 6 or something like that which means absolutely nothing to us gravity restricted folk - so why not give it unimaginable fire power? Weapons that lock on to a target and fire just by thinking about blowing it up … now there’s something that would put the fear of God into any flag-waving American. So, we have to put our best man on the job to sneak into Russia and STEAL THAT PLANE. Who possibly would be more prepared to take on such a mission but Clint?

Clint starts out the movie minding his own business … enjoying life in his secluded cabin. There’s no pigs or cows around, so Clint spends his time jogging. I’m sure he puts in about 15-20 miles a day, because anything less would be unClint-like. The government recruits Clint for this secret mission, because, well, he speaks Russian and he’ll fit into the uniform. Clint isn’t too sure cuz he keeps having trouble with ’Nam flashbacks of some really poorly edited footage of this little girl that is superimposed over a fiery background. Clint decides it’s his duty to steal that plane before some Russkie starts thinking about blowing up his cabin.

The first six hours of Firefox is a slow spy, um, thriller as Clint makes his way thru training and sneaking into the Soviet Union. He joins up with some other spies, who end up dead one by one, and Clint has to change identities a few times along the way. It’s a good thing too, cuz those sneaky Russians are always at least two steps behind although they never seem to figure out that Clint just might be there to steal this top secret plane … well not until it’s too late.

Clint steals the Firefox (after a few more spies die) and heads off into the wild, frozen yonder. Cut in between the crappy special effects scenes are hilarious “war room” scenes of English actors with really bad Russian accents arguing and other English actors (the good guys) worrying about Clint.

The final scenes come down to a smack down between Clint in his Firefox and a Russian pilot in his Firefox. The special effects were done by one of the geniuses behind the Star Wars effects and curiously the final battle takes place in a frozen ravine in the Siberian tundra with the two planes zipping around like a couple of X-wing fighters. There’s even a wise old voice in Clint’s head that advices him to think in Russian. Use the force, Clint.

taz vs. kelly

Year of Eastwood #23

Coogan's Bluff (1968)

Starring: Eastwood
Directed by Don Siegel

Hey skirt-chasers … Do you find yourself in a strange, new town and want to know the best ways to meet the ladies? In your own element, you got no problems getting action, what with your rugged good looks, fancy cowboy hat, and pointy boots. The ladies seem to moan and swoon when you walk in the room. But in the big city, those honeys are more sophistimicated and you can’t seem to get your groove on - almost like, I dunno, you’re some kind of fish out of water. Well fellers, hang on to your 10 gallons, cuz have I got a deal for you…

Clint’s Guide on How to Pick Up Chicks while Chasing Down a Felon in NYC:

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1. When meeting a sweet, professional dame, suggesting a home-made spaghetti dinner is a must. That way while she’s in the kitchen doing her thing, you have plenty of time to search thru her files to find the information you need.

2. Practice your conversation skills. It’s important to develop your own style, but staples like “Nobody calls me Mister with my boots off.” never fail.

3. Not sure if that $3 whore wants to take off your pants or take your wallet? Give her a good boot in the ass - she’s a dime a dozen in this city.

4. Meet a nice hippie chick concerned about a little green worm squirming around in her head … nothing that a good 10 minutes of hardcore pounding won’t cure.

5. Got a crazy babe knocking at your door because you’ve been screwing aforementioned hippies - tell her it’s 4:00 in the morning and you’ve got work to do in the morning … she’ll be back.

6. Got a little sweetie in your office you want to get to know better? Just grab her boob. What’s she gonna do about it anyways? Sexual harassment, that’s for ugly people. Besides, you know she wants it.

7. Don’t be afraid to show her your sensitive side. Throw her down on the couch … extra points for distance. Let her know you abhor violence against women. Punch a hole in that wall instead of cracking her in her pretty, little face.

8. A woman’s gotta know her place. If you’ve explained to her that it’s over, and she still cuts up your housekeeper and comes after you with a knife, it’s okay to punch her off a cliff (sorry, that’s an important lesson from a different movie).

9. Show your lady that you’re a big spender. She’ll be impressed by the little things like if you tip a cab driver a nickel or if you’re staying at a swanky $7 a night hotel.

10. Chicks dig the squint.

Year of Eastwood #22

The Eiger Sanction (1975)

Starring: Eastwood, George Kennedy
Directed by Eastwood

Eiger Sanction is a cult classic among the Eastwoodies out there. Difficult to take too seriously, this campy Clint classic is a whacked-out, James Bond type international thriller with so many holes in the story that you could drive an ice pick right through it. Resplendent with all the Clint swagger, he really goes all out and has a helluva good time playing a CIA agent (oops, guess it’s not really the CIA but some made-up C2 agency).

During his down-time from world intrigue, Clint is an art professor at a prestigious university. The students really seem to dig him - giving him standing ovations at the end of his lectures - of course, all the young co-eds make with the goo-goo eyes and offer to perform some extra credit after class. What with all the headlines lately with teachers running off to Mexico with students, Clint knows better and suggests that the young gals go home and snuggle up with their art history book instead.

Clint is content to be retired from the high-stakes spy game, instead enjoying life admiring his high price art collection he keeps in his basement. Well, one day a really aggressive headhunter stops by his office to recruit Clint back into his old line of work. Clint slaps him around but still decides to make a visit to his old boss, the absolute definitive albino, that heads up the C2. It really makes you wonder how this guy - who is so sensitive to light and sound that his office is a sealed chamber with ultra-red lighting - ever got to his lofty position as director of C2? Did he work his way up from the mailroom? Maybe it was nepotism ...

After some witty banter, Clint decides to take on one last sanction - an action against an aggressive move by the enemy - or in other words, assassinate the dudes that killed one of their agents. Clint infiltrates the enemy’s high security fortress (he climbs thru an open window) and kills his target. On the flight home, he meets up with a sassy, funk-tastic stewardess named Jemima - well it doesn’t take Clint long to put the wood to her. But she double-crosses Clint and next thing you know, he’s on board for another sanction. This one to take place during a mountain hike up the Eiger, part of the Swiss Alps.

I’m exhausted already and the movie isn’t even half way done yet … so Clint - who by the way also found time to be an accomplished mountain climber in his spare time - heads off to his old buddy George’s first-rate climbing facility, which due to fiscal constraints now operates as a swinger’s club. We all know there’s good money to be made from swinging. Clint and George trade quips in between training scenes with a little fitness hottie. Clint screws her and then she goes all psycho on him with an injection needle. Then one of Clint’s adversaries shows up in all his Liberace glory. Clint steals his dog and leaves him in the desert to die.

We haven’t even gotten to the freakin’ mountain yet … so Clint heads off to Switzerland with George to meet up with the mountain climbing team - one of whom is an assassin. Somehow this top-notch intelligence agency has determined that the killer is part of this team but they can’t figure out which one exactly. The only clue that they’ve been able to determine is the killer walks with a limp. For some other, no doubt, logical reason, it is determined that the only way to kill the guy is during this expedition. At one point, Clint mentions that maybe the mountain will do the job for him ... or you could wait at the bottom of the hill and shoot him in the head when he gets off the ski lift.

So Clint heads up the mountain with a German, an Austrian, and a Frenchman (no punch line coming) and after a bunch of falling rocks and sliding on ice - all of the guys end up dead and Clint is hanging off a cliff desperately clinging onto his rope. George shows up, suddenly displaying a mysterious limp, to save Clint … or will he?

Eiger Sanction is definitely from that category ... so-bad-it’s-good movie. With it’s over the top storyline and shaggy 70’s groove, the entire movie is craptacular. Keeping up with his tough-guy image, of course Clint does all of his own stunts - in and out of the bed. This might be one of the best Clint movies yet.

Year of Eastwood #21

Pink Cadillac (1989)

Starring: Eastwood, Bernadette Peters
Directed by Buddy Van Horn

Can Clint do comedy? This question seems to have mixed results. Clint had success with Hey Lookout for That Monkey but critics didn’t appreciate his down-home style of humor. The rest of Clint’s attempts at comedy follow the same guidelines … a lot of stereotypes, a few fart jokes, and Clint playing off his image as a tough, bad ass.

Action stars have a hard time making that transition to comedies, but dagnabbit if they don’t keep trying. Stallone had Stop! or my mom will do something. Arnold tried it with that one where he got pregnant. Harrison Ford did something where he was trapped on an island with a lesbian. Bruce Willis kinda flipped it by being funny on Moonlighting before the Die Hard, um, quadrology (?) - although I’m having trouble thinking of any funny movies he’s made since then.

Pink Cadillac tries to mix it up with a little bit of comedy thrown into the blender with some action. Nothing really funny to speak of in this movie, although to Clint’s credit - he is the funniest thing in this clunker. Clint is a “skip tracer” or a modern day bounty hunter. He gets to break out a few wacky characters as he fools these chumps on the run. But when his next job is to track down the bubbly Bernadette, he gets more than he bargained for … or at least I’m sure that’s what the trailer promised.

Bernadette has a lot of hair. Rumor has it that it even had its own agent. Bernadette sure is cute, but despite her place in my heart for The Jerk, she just isn’t that interesting as an actress. The movie just plods along and both actors don’t really seem that invested in making this a good movie.

Clint and Permadette ride around in the pink Cadillac running from her husband’s gang of racist baddies. Then Permadette and Clint ride around in the pink Cadillac chasing after the bad guys. Somewhere in there's some stuff about a baby that nobody seems too concerned about. A person might wonder how she got involved with a guy that hangs around a bunch of white extremists ... she says she thought she was getting James Dean but all she got was amphetamines. That's the jokes, people.

Nothing screams comedy like a bunch of white supremacists. These guys really play it out like their doing freakin' Shakespeare - digging down deep for their craft. What do you suppose those casting calls are like for roles like these? Were they really hoping to get their big break by playing a racist in Pink Cadillac? Is that a role you spend much time researching? Do you encourage family members to click on your link on imdb.com?

Looking back at Clint’s acting career, the 80’s were a pretty rough time for this superstar. It started out with Any Which Way You Can and he wrapped up the decade with this flop which ranks as one of Clint’s least successful films at the box office. One can only imagine that Clint’s career would have continued it’s downward slide if he didn’t have Unforgiven in his back pocket. But hey, Clint did get to put on a gold lamet jacket and a swanky fake mustache for this movie.

Year of Eastwood #20

Unforgiven (1992)

Starring: Eastwood, Gene Hackman

Directed by Eastwood

By the time the 90’s rolled around, Clint’s career was pretty much at a crossroads. He was still a major movie star, but it had been over a decade since he had acted in a major hit and while his directorial efforts did get the occasional notice, the films made little impact at the box office. Even Clint's bread and butter - the western - failed to bring Clint back into the limelight. Like many of the major movie stars before him, Clint had reached that age where he could appear as supporting characters in films or he could ride off into the sunset to that cowboy ranch in southern California. But the Clintster wasn’t about to be relegated to playing some young starlet’s curmudgeonly grandfather. No, he had been hanging on to a script and when just when he seemed to need it most, he decided to whip it out - and finally Clint had something to sit on top his piles of money … a bunch of Oscar statuettes - and the first Best Actor nomination of his career.

Clint starts out the movie - minding his own business, of course - rolling around in the mud with a bunch of pigs on his ranch in Missouri. He had long ago put away his past as a known thief and murderer, a man of notoriously vicious and intemperate disposition, after he came across a kind-hearted woman. So it’s the end of the line for Blondie and Josey Wales. Like many of those kind-hearted types will do, she convinced Clint to put down his guns and the whiskey bottle and start living a fine up-standing life by living dirt poor in the middle of nowhere. A few years have passed and the Mrs. has died of the fever (in my mind I like to imagine that it’s Sondra Locke buried there in his backyard) and Clint finds now the only thing he has to show for it is a bunch of sick pigs and a couple of snotty brats.

One day, a young (nearly blind) gun-slinging hot shot shows up at his door, spinning a yarn about a large reward that’s being offered for the killing of a couple of thugs who cut up a whore’s face. Seems she laughed at how small one of the guy’s Willy was and he thought she deserved a good cutting. As the story got spread around, the cutting got worse and the guy’s Willy got smaller. Clint tells the young kid to get lost, but after thinking about it overnight, he decides the one thing he can’t abide by is cutting up whores. So he leaves his kids behind and teams up again with his old shooting buddy, Morgan Freeman, and head off with the young kid to collect some reward.

The town of Big Whiskey is run by a ruthless sheriff - Little Bill played by Gene - who has quite a history of killing and thuggery as well. He isn’t about to let all this talk about the whore’s reward allow his town to be run over with a bunch of lowlifes. Richard Harris shows up as an English windbag going on about the Queen and shooting Chinamen, so Gene kicks the snot out of him. When Clint and his gang ride into town, Gene’s about had it up to here with all these gun-toating dudes showing up - so he kicks the snot out of Clint. It’s a rare scene to see Clint have to drag himself, all bloodied and beaten, across the floor just to get away from Gene.

After Clint heals up, the gang tracks down the thugs and after a bunch of complications, Clint plugs one of them in the gut. Morgan decides that killing ain’t what it used to be now that he’s got a Squaw back home. So he heads out, but while Clint and the young kid track down and kill the other guy, Morgan is strung up by Gene and beaten to death. Well, no way Clint’s gonna stand for that.

Fear is the thing that separates a cold blooded killer and a dead man. Being cool-headed in a gun fight is more valuable than being quick on the draw, because you can shoot first - but that doesn't mean you're gonna hit what you're aiming at. For years, Clint had no fear but now he’s afraid of having to pay for all the horrors he’s faced down over the years. When Clint decides to return to the life he left behind - he enters into a slow descent back into that man he used to be.

Unforgiven won Best Picture and Best Director Academy Awards for the powerful final scenes in the film. Clint, drinking whiskey as the hard rain pours down, can no longer run from his past as he rides into town to face down Gene and kill just about everything else that stands in his way.

Omaha the movie

Year of Eastwood #19

Bronco Billy (1980)

Starring: Eastwood, Sondra Locke,
Scatman Crothers
Directed by Eastwood

Clint is the fastest draw in all the land … in a traveling Wild West revue. Not exactly what we’ve come to expect from Mr. Clint, but Bronco Billy was made during the Every Which Way But Loose heyday. Clint knows when he’s got a product that’s selling so there’s no reason not to dip into the trough every now and then because it’s gold, Jerry, gold.

Clint is Bronco Billy, the leader of a ragtag group of performers going from town to town ... performing at various county fairs, King Corn Carnivals, and PaMiDa grand openings to upwards of 10-12 paying customers every night. There’s an Indian snake dancer (who gets bit a lot), a lasso artiste, a guy with hook for a hand (not sure exactly what he does for an act), and Scatman as the Master of Ceremonies. That Scatman is such a nice guy - always smiling and helping out - don’t see how it would be possible not to like Scatman, unless you were Jack and just as soon put a big ol’ axe in his chest.

Clint’s collected most of the same Loose cast here, with exception to the monkey. Would it be that hard to fit an orangutan into a Wild West show? Come on, slap a black hat on him and give him a six-shooter and he could easily be Snidely Whiplash. I heard that Clyde was extremely upset that he didn’t get a part in this movie and he was quite cold to Clint during the shooting of Any Which Way You Can, often throwing an exorbitant amount of feces even after Cut was called.

Bronco Billy’s Wild West Show isn’t exactly packing ‘em in like the Blue Man Group, but Clint isn’t in it for the money. He’s really doing it for all those little pardners out there, so they can enjoy the pleasures of watching a cowboy flip around on a horse and shoot plates out of the air. Clint isn’t even really a cowboy (actually he’s a shoe salesman from New Jersey but that would require a SPOILER alert). In reality Clint was born in San Francisco (weighing 11 lbs. 6 oz. at birth!) and worked as a gas station attendant, fire fighter, and piano player before making it big in Hollywood - but did you know that Clint Eastwood is an anagram for Old West Action?

Well, we all know that during this period if Clint was doing a movie, he was “obligated” to include Sondra - and Bronco Billy is no exception. Sondra is a high-class, snobby, allegedly hot little number. She’s abandoned by her husband on their honeymoon and through necessity of plot continuation, she ends up joining Clint’s sideshow. At first, she is disgusted by Clint (say what?) but she realizes this man, who always stops to give free performances to orphanages and insane asylums, has a heart of gold and before you can say Eddie Rabbit, Clint has turned this cold fish into one hot potato. Now, it might not make much sense to allow emotionally disturbed inmates to see a show involving guns, knives, and rattlesnakes - but then that wouldn’t allow for the story resolution in the final act.

Bronco Billy is like comfort food. There’s something relaxing about the mindless entertainment of the films of the late 70’s and early 80’s. It’s nostalgia for a time when car chases and bar room fights were harmless fun. And dammit, sometimes it’s hard to always be such a cynic ... I liked this movie.

MCA Denver

The Museum of Contemporary Art - Denver set out in 2004 to build a world-class museum with the mission to create 'a place where architecture supports rather than defines the museum's mission.' With the Denver Art Museum addition, designed by uber-architect Daniel Libeskind, dominating so much attention - it isn't hard to figure who exactly the MCA was taking shots at.

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The selection committee chose David Adjaye, an architect on the rise with recent projects in London, to design the museum to be located in Denver's urban center. The location in LoDo rests against 15th Ave. - a high traffic route - with increased pedestrian traffic from downtown attractions and a metro station east of the site.

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The exterior wall system of the museum consists of double-glazed panels with grey-tinted glass on the outside and clear glass on the inside. Between the glazing is a translucent platic which provides thermal insulation. The "Box" style of architecture has become quite popular in different locations lately - it's effectiveness usually dependent on the elements surrounding the site. In this context, the museum succeeds in standing as a clean, dignified building without distracting from the other buildings in the downtown area.

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The entrance to the MCA is a large opening that has no doors - meant to serve as a transition from the urban environment into the contemporary art displayed inside. The interior consists of three separates stacks for exhibition enclosed by circulation spaces. Above the three storey circulation spaces is a T-shaped rooflight to flood the space with natural light. The MCA has no permanent collection, relying on temporary exhibits to move in and out of the museum. The exhibition areas serve as receptacles for the variety of contents that will be on display.

Year of Eastwood #18

Joe Kidd (1972)

Starring: Eastwood, Robert Duvall
Directed by John Sturges

After all these high-falootin’ Westerns, Clint stars as Joe Kidd (that's Kidd with an extra D and that rhymes with T which stands for Trouble, right here in Dusty City). This time around Eastwood isn’t some angel of justice or ghost of vengeance, he’s just a semi-retired gunslinger minding his own business. He gets arrested for shooting a mule deer on a reservation (kind of like OJ going to prison for stealing his own memorabilia) and is sentenced to 10 days of cleaning up the town - not with his own special brand of justice ... but with a broom. Like most of these Westerns, Clint’s not looking for trouble, but it has a way of finding him.

First up, a band of bandito revolutionists raid the town and want to kidnap the Judge. Clint was in court at the time and has no choice but to get involved. No sooner does the dust settle from these dudes when Duvall rides into town as a wealthy landowner looking to do some high-end game hunting ... maybe a couple of bison, an elephant, a prairie dog or two. He wants to hire Clint to be his guide, but turns out what he's really hunting is the Mexicans. Clint declines but when he returns to his ranch to see that the banditos ran off with his horses, now he’s got reason and his name is Luis Chama. That's a great movie name, kinda rolls off the tongue - Bring me the head of Luis Chama.

Clint doesn’t trust Duvall but hey the guys signing the checks so what you gonna do? When Duvall starts killing people right and left to track down Luis Chama, he decides Duvall’s methods don’t quite jive with Clint’s own ethics of pushing a guy down the stairs or smacking him upside the head with a clay pot. So Clint decides to organize his own strike against his employers, kinda like a western version of Norma Rae. But Clint does all his protesting with his fists. There’s a standoff in a small village between Duvall's men and the Mexicans but Clint sneaks around and picks off most of Duvall’s men and then convinces Luis Chama to turn himself over to the authorities. You see, Clint is a gun slinging killer with scruples.

Maybe it wasn’t such a great idea to watch all these Clint westerns in succession at this point in YOE (Year of Eastwood). It’s really gotten to a point where it’s a struggle to write much new about western after western. There is definitely themes that begin to emerge...

Clint really just wants to be left alone and then someone (or more likely a bunch of someones) has to come along and shoot his horse, or kill his family, or wrap a noose around his neck. But Clint can only takes so much and then he pushes back. And when you make Clint angry, you end up dead.

Lady-types don't play a big part in most Westerns. But if there's a lady within a few miles, trust me, Clint will have her swooning soon enough. Clint ain't much one for talking, so usually he'll just grab himself a handful of woman and start smooching. Hell, not even a nun can resist the wiles of the Mysterious Stranger. JC's got nothing on Clint.

Clint never wastes a bullet. There isn’t a single time he misses his target (except when he’s drunk). Clint always ends up the last man standing at the end but more often then not it’s somewhat of an empty victory ... unsure if the town was worth saving or if all that money is really worth it ... as Clint jumps on his only true friend (his horse) and rides off into the sunset.

OK, sometimes he'll ride off with a chick by his side, but seriously we know he's going to be pretty sick of hearing her nag by the time they reach the next town.

Year of Eastwood #17

Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970)

Starring: Eastwood,
Shirley MacLaine
Directed by Don Siegel

My dream job would be making up titles for movies. It takes a real skill to come up with the right combination of words that will not only drill a spot in the public’s mind like a bad TV commercial - but also create enough interest to draw in a crowd to plunk down $10 to take a seat in the theatre (or in this case, add the movie to my Netflix queue). There’s a few tried and true strategies to coming up with a winning title. There’s the old stand-by literary trick of alliteration: Leaving Las Vegas or Bedtime for Bonzo (just try to name another Reagan movie). Or mixing together a few words in an unexpected way: Raising Arizona or Snakes on a Plane. An online search can produce several gerund (the ...ing thing) movie titles: Being John Malkovich or Driving Miss Daisy.

Every now and then a movie title will come along that boggles the mind. Some just seem to be lacking of any effort: Derailed (what about that title will make me think of the Jennifer Aniston movie?) and some smack of effort to the point it makes people want to avoid the movie simply out of spite: the Darjeeling Ltd.

An Inconvenient Truth may cut to the heart of the matter but how am I supposed to make a connection between this and an Al Gore powerpoint presentation? (Here’s an inconvenient truth for you: If Gore would have carried his home state of Tennessee then Florida wouldn‘t have even mattered.) Nine times out of ten a good title equals a good movie: Empire Strikes Back = excellent, but Phantom Menace = wtf?

Song titles are an easy route to a movie title. There’s already a connection between the song and the public ... so just throw a few scenes together and slap it up on the screen: Pretty in Pink or Stand by Me. A person could use the Cure catalogue alone to make up a whole slew of movie titles: Love Cats, Why Can’t I Be You, Pictures of You, Just Like Heaven (guess that one’s already been done), or Boys Don’t Cry (hmmm, guess someone already had my idea).

Clint’s had his share of the good: Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, Play Misty for Me; the bad: Firefox, the Rookie; and the ugly: Beguiled, Coogan’s Bluff. Two Mules for Sister Sara is promising as a movie title. Where did these two mules come from? And who exactly is Sister Sara? Is it a gift for Sister Sara or is it some kind of trade: one Sara is good for two mules? The interesting thing is there’s only one mule in the movie, so who’s the other mule? … Clint?

The pairing of Clint and Shirley had me anticipating a mad-cap romp of witty one-liners from Sister Shirley and disgruntled squints from Clint. There really isn’t much amusing in Two Mules. I guess Shirley just isn’t that funny as a nun … a lesson apparently ignored by Burt while he was driving around in his Trans Am dreaming up Cannonball Run II. Turns out Shirley isn’t really a nun, just a Mexican whore who must get some interesting requests if she's got to break out the nun costume every now and then. At least there’s lots of ‘splosions at the end of the movie.

Year of Eastwood #16

Pale Rider (1985)

Starring: Eastwood

Directed by Eastwood

Life in a gold mine town is pretty sweet livin. You spend most of your day playing in the dirt. You get a steady diet of beans, work flex-time hours, and showering is optional. In fact, if you want to take a day off and get drunk - that’s ok because really all you need to do is find one good-sized nugget and you’d be set for the whole winter. Then there’s all that singing and dancing in the mud. But once in a while a pack of thugs will ride into camp and stake their claim on your land and shoot your dog.

Most of the prospectors pick themselves up, dust themselves off (why bother) and start panning for another day. Some dude named Ulrik decides he’s had enough and packs up his sleepin mat and heads for the hills … those Ulrik’s have a tendency of being kinda flaky when the going gets tough. A young girl, who had to bury her dog, prays to God to send down an angel to protect them from danger. Enter Clint - the Pale Rider himself.

That’s a heck of coincidence - or is it? Is Clint a do-gooder Preacher who happens to ride into town to save the day or is there a higher power at play here to exact vengeance for this girl’s dead dog? Well it’s up to you to figure it out because Pale Rider doesn’t provide the answers. There’s no back story for this Mysterious Stranger, oddly enough, he doesn’t even seem to have a name.

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There is a quick glimpse at a possible clue, Clint’s back is splattered with bullet hole scars that would have killed any normal man. But Lesson 1 of Eastwood 101 is that Clint is no normal man. He can wield an ax handle like a Samurai and he can smack a giant in the berries with a sledge hammer and still have enough oomph to crack a large boulder in two.

Into town rides the crooked Deputy and his gang of six gunslingers. The Deputy and Clint have a history, but don‘t expect the movie to tell you what it is. Maybe he’s the guy that put those scars on Clint’s back? Well the Deputy seems to be under the impression that Clint is dead. I have a sneaky feeling he was the one that done done the killing, so needless to say, he’s a bit surprised when Clint puts a bullet in his head.

Pale Rider has an ambiguous style that is more successful than the actual execution of the film. By the time the late 80’s rolled around, Westerns were pretty much a dead horse. Pale Rider was hyped as the great return of the classic American cinema style … it didn’t turn out to quite be the savior that Clint was riding in on his spotted white horse.

Denver Churches

Year of Eastwood #15

High Plains Drifter (1973)

Starring: Eastwood
Directed by Eastwood

Clint is the Stranger in town. The townspeople of Largo don’t take too kindly to strangers. Something about outsiders makes them nervous. Clint drifts by after a long day of riding across the high plains and all he’s looking for is some whiskey and a hot bath, and maybe some munchkin to light his cigar. Three guys from the Welcoming Committee stop by to greet Clint, but he ends up shooting them. Turns out the guys were the goons the town hired for protection against the bad guys. So the town decides since Clint killed their protection, he's qualified for the job.

The women in Largo (both of them) are wild - kinda like those stray cats you find out in the barn. They scratch and claw, but after a tumble in Clint’s bed, he tames them but good. The men in the town are yeller and they promise Clint anything he wants in return for his protection. Clint takes them up on their offer which equates to a handful of cigars, fried chicken, and some gumballs and blankets for the town Indians. Clint's always nice to them Indians. Clint trains the men to fight the bad guys - which involves some target practice and painting the town red. When the moment of truth arrives, the town rolls over like a sack of potatoes, so it’s Clint to the rescue.

High Plains Drifter, like many of the American Westerns, is a version of the morality play. The perils that can be faced in the undiscovered country, where pioneers looking to lead their own way of life end up paying a high price for making up their own rules. The townspeople are trying to cover up a dirty secret and Clint is part of that past. In the same way that High Noon, starring Gary Cooper, involves the sheriff protecting a town that doesn’t deserve his help - Clint gets involved with a town that clearly doesn’t deserve saving. But he does his duty, leaving the town in shambles, and off he goes into the sunset. I’m sure the next town he stops at will be glad to see him.

Go Rockies!

In one of the most amazing story in sports, the Colorado Rockies will be playing in the 2007 World Series. The Rockies have been in existence for little over a decade and have spent many of those years near the bottom of the league. Even this year, the Rockies struggled to play .500 baseball. Then in an amazing run to end the season, the Rockies won 13 of their last 14 games to force a one game play-in game for the wild card spot.

In that game, the Padres took a 2 run lead in the top of the 13th inning - and the Rockies scored 3 runs in the bottom of the inning, in what should be considered the greatest play of the year as Holliday took a face plant into homeplate as the catcher blocked the plate and then dropped the ball. Then the Rockies carried that momentum into sweeping the Phillies and the Diamondbacks.

What has made this season even more amazing is that this team that is pretty much ignored by all MLB media - and the team may end up not only as World Champs, but also the NL MVP (Holliday), Rookie of the Year (Tulowitzki), and Manager of the Year (Hurdle). Go Rockies!

Year of Eastwood #14

Paint Your Wagon (1969)

Starring: Eastwood, Lee Marvin
Directed by Joshua Logan

Three words that will instantly divide the legions of die-hard Clint fans: Paint Yer Wagon. Love it or hate it - it’s seemingly impossible not to have a strong opinion on this musical Western. Some fans proudly declare Paint Yer Wagon as the best Clint movie ever with a kick ass soundtrack to boot and others will spit in your eye if you start singing a few lines from Wand’rin’ Star. The film has even so inspired some middle school English teachers to sing a few ditties from the Wagon during class.

Clint is Pardner with Lee Marvin, searching for gold and escaping all those pesky social norms of livin‘ with the civilized. They strike it rich and life is high - living with hundreds of other men, dancing in the mud, and singing about beans. But when one of them there Mormon travels into town with his two wives, the men suddenly remember the one thing missing from their Utopia … the friendly comfort of the female persuasion. Marvin (playing the same drunken character that won him an Oscar in Cat Ballou) outbids all the other fellas for one of the Mormon’s wives. When he sobers up, Marvin angers up his blood over the lusty way all the town folk look at his lovely, young bride. So the men decide the only thing better than a mining town in the hills full of hairy men is to build themselves the best little whorehouse in Gold Country.

Paint Yer Wagon is really a feminism picture at heart. Sure there’s all that prostitutin’ and ownership of women’s mineral rights - but when Marvin’s wife falls in love with both Clint and Marvin, she reckons there ain’t no reason she can’t be married to two men. While the threesome lives in marital bliss, the town of No Name (nudge, nudge) prospers with it’s gambling, drinking, and gold dust women. But when the townsfolk start meddling in the trade of fighting bears against bulls, the town sinks into the mud … same thing happened to Michael Vick.

The 1960’s saw the rise of gritty, auteur-style film-makers creating realistic dramas, but the box office records rolled in by the 99 44/100% pure Sound of Music opened the eyes of Hollywood producers that there was still buckets of money to be made with musicals, so they were slapping together anything Broadway had to offer. By the end of the decade, the public’s interest in musicals began to fade, but not until there was one colossal failure to put the nail in the coffin … enter Paint Yer Wagon. Over budget, over schedule, and over the top - Wagon was a complete flop when it was released.

The measure of any musical’s success is its hummability. There ain’t much to hum about in Paint Yer Wagon. Most of the songs are sung by a men’s chorus with a dull collectiveness that might play well in bingo halls, but for the rest of us it signals a good opening for a bathroom break. Yes, Clint does all his own singing and he certainly doesn’t embarrass himself what with the squinting and singing despite the fact that he’s singing about talking to trees.

Clint’s covered just about ever genre: action, comedy, romance, western, and musical. A few years ago there was even a techno dance tune called Clint Eastwood by the animated hip hop group Gorillaz. You pretty much know you’ve made it to icon status when a group of cartoon rock stars sing about what a bad ass you are … unless of course it’s the Banana Splits.

Year of Eastwood #13

A Fistful of Dollars (1964)

Starring: Eastwood
Directed by Sergio Leone

Clint starred as the Man with No Name in a trio of Spaghetti Westerns for director Sergio Leone. Fistful of Dollars was the first of the trilogy but there isn’t much of a connection between the films. Clint wears a poncho and squints a lot but since his character doesn’t even have a name, it’s hard to really create much of a character development.

Actually, there’s some debate on Man with No Name topic. In the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Wallach refers to Clint as Blondie, but that seems more like a nickname. And in Fistful, there is a guy that calls him Joe a couple of times, but there really isn’t any basis to think anyone in town checked Clint's ID.

Just like how many of these films start out, Clint wanders into a mysterious town and quickly learns the townsfolk ain’t too friendly to strangers. Some thugs insult Clint’s mule and after they refuse to apologize, Clint’s shoots them. Clint had no idea that shooting a bunch of guys would get him into so much trouble. The men he killed were part of a ruthless family that runs the town of San Miguel. Clint is immediately a hero to the other ruthless family that runs the town. (The town seems pretty small so I’m not sure how it exactly can support two ruthless families, but I’m sure they put their differences aside every year during the holidays.)

Clint soon realizes that neither family is worth spit, so he begins his scheme to pit the families against one another so he can take his rightful spot as the main man in town. Actually, that wasn’t his plan. How about Clint realizes if he can destroy both families he can make off with the booty of gold. No, I guess that’s not really the plan either. To be honest, I was pretty confused with most of what was going on in this movie. There was some lady who was with some guy but she was being forced to be with some other guy, but I couldn’t really tell the two guys apart, so it was hard to know who to root for. There was some scenes with a couple of dead guys in a cemetery but Clint kept telling everyone that they were alive - and then some guy shot them again. It was even difficult to tell whether it was night or day in some of the scenes.

In the end both families were dead, some guy rang the church bell, and Clint rode off in the sunset.

Leone considered several actors for the role of the Man formerly known as No Name. Among the actors who turned down the role - Henry Fonda, James Coburn, and Charles Bronson. After Richard Harrison declined, he suggested that Leone check out Clint, the rising star of the TV Western Rawhide. After being turned down by pretty much every star in Hollywood, Leone offered the role to Clint and the rest - as they say - is history.

Initially the film was called The Magnificent Stranger, the title wasn't changed to A Fistful of Dollars until just days before the movie premiered in theaters. In fact, nobody had bothered to inform Clint of the name change, and as a result Eastwood wasn’t even aware of the positive buzz surrounding the movie until an agent pointed it out to him in Variety three weeks later. A few years later, the producers of Rawhide tried to cash in on Clint’s popularity by releasing a compilation of a couple of Rawhide episodes as a theatrical release, naming it The Magnificent Stranger … real original guys.

Fistful of Dollars is raw, gritty, and definitely violent. The film was produced on a much lower budget than Good, Bad, and Ugly - but the film also lacks in other areas, mainly the infusion of comedy into the storyline. Fistful doesn’t really stand as one of Clint’s most entertaining films, but holds a special mention as the film that helped Clint transform into a superstar for the next decades to follow.

Year of Eastwood #12

Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)

Starring: Eastwood, Chief Dan George
Directed by Eastwood

The first question that needs to be answered … so who is this Josey Wales and why is he an outlaw? Well, let me tell you, the film begins with Clint minding his own business when a group of ne‘er-do-wellers ride up and are fixin‘ for trouble (this seems to be a theme in many of these Westerns) - this time Clint is working the land on his small plot of dirt in Mizzoura. From what I can tell, the gang is from the Union Army going around the country at the end of the Civil War to restore a sense of order to the nation. By this I mean they burn up Clint’s nice little shack and kill his wife and son. In some scenes that I’m sure were cut out of the final edit, Clint’s wife must have been some kind of rebel mixing up a bunch of trouble - so I’m sure she got what she had coming to her. Clint disagrees.

Clint joins up with a bunch of Confederate separatists seeking revenge against the Union. The men are tricked into surrendering and pledging their allegiance to the Union - Clint, of course, declines this offer - and the men get more than they bargained for - namely a bunch of bullets about the head, neck, and body region. Clint rides in and starts shooting up as many Army men as he can. Now, Clint is an outlaw and the most wanted man in all the Southwest.

Outlaw Josey Wales is really a road picture (back when there weren‘t any roads). Clint, who likes to spit on anything that moves, teams up with a wise-cracking old Enjun who wouldn't surrender to the Union either, but they did take his horse and the horse surrendered. Later a feisty young Squaw joins the fun as they ride south thru Texas to get to Mexico where they hear lots of like-minded folks have gathered. Along the way they run into bounty hunters and law officials but Clint shoots them all. In one of the films funniest scenes, Clint tries to ditch the Enjun telling him that when he gets to likin’ someone they ain’t around long - Enjun replies that he noticed that when Clint gets to dislikin’ someone they ain’t around long neither.

Clint and his tribe come across a family of settlers and rescues them from a pack of thieves. Grandpa is dead, but the old granny and a pretty young thing join Brother Clint’s traveling salvation show. The young gal who has her eyes set on Clint is played by none other than Sondra Locke. Josey marks the first pairing of Clint and Sondra, so now everyone out there who's had to listen to her sing in Every Which Way But Loose can blame this movie. Clint and the gang finally make it down to a ranch in Texas, and after a night of whiskey and banjo playing in front of an open fire, everyone decides that this is a nice place for settlin. Clint, of course, still has a few loose ends to wrap up.

Outlaw Josey Wales is one of those films that I’ve come across during this year of Eastwood movies that I wasn’t really aware of before hand but I was impressed at how entertaining the movie was. Clint’s life is destroyed in the beginning of the film and he is a dangerous man because he has nothing left to live for, but during his journey he unexpectedly begins to find new people that he starts to care for and he discovers new meaning in his life. Josey was a big step in Clint’s skill as a director as he refined his talent at Westerns - a journey that would eventually lead to multiple Oscars of his own.

Prince

Planet Earth
Prince

Ah, Prince - where did it all go wrong? Back in the day, Prince was always my favorite artist. Sure there were others that would come and go, but the latest Prince album would always get the most time on my record player. The first Prince album I bought was 1999 (it’s essential that any geek feels like they got in on their favorite before the masses) - then came the Purple Rain explosion and the whole Minneapolis Sound. I bought them all - Sheila E, Morris Day and the Time, Vanity/Apollonia 6. There were a couple of terrible movies along the way, but there was also Sign o’ the Times - which I still consider my favorite all-time album. There was even a Batman soundtrack, which I always considered kinda disposable, but it was a huge seller.

The decline really started with Diamonds and Pearls released in the early 90’s. Listening to the CD, you could almost feel that Prince was trying to make a hit record. The funky tunes started to lose their edge and Mr. Nelson began a long string of sappy, almost intolerable slow jams. Those might work getting the ladies between his purple satin sheets, but who wants to listen to it? That was followed by over a decade of record label fighting, name changes, and inconsistent music. I continued to buy new releases, usually expecting only a couple of enjoyable tunes on each CD - then I quit buying his new stuff all together.

Prince pretty much fell off the map. A few years ago, Prince performed at the Grammy’s as a celebration of the 20th anniversary (yikes) of Purple Rain. Prince started to get some attention again. He released a couple of CD’s that got pretty good reviews and decent sales. He performed at the Super Bowl half-time - it was no Nipplegate, but still pretty entertaining. With each release, I’m hoping that Prince will once again be inspired to create a set of classic songs.

Planet Earth definitely is a step in the wrong direction. Released a few months ago and then completely ignored shortly after that. The title song received some attention as Prince returning to form - eh, it’s not a bad song but nothing I find myself wanting to listen to over and over again. The second song Guitar is more of a return to the guitar funk that made me such a Prince fan to begin with. Somewhere Here On Earth is the obligatory slow jam - not as bad as Arms of Orion. The One U Wanna C feels like a Sheryl Crow song. Future Baby Momma - the title says it all. Mr. Goodnight has the smooth rap style that Prince was criticized for in the 90’s, but I liked those songs. Like other recent Prince efforts, the final songs on Planet Earth really drop off. Chelsea Rodgers is kind of a funky disco song that feels sterile compared to the funk on 1999. Lion of Judah feels like Prince is working on some kind of crappy rock opera. And Resolution falls flat. Well, the good news is Prince usually releases a new CD every year, so only 9 months to go…

Year of Eastwood #11

Hang ‘em High (1968)

Starring: Eastwood
Directed by Ted Post

Clint is at the other end of the noose at the beginning of Hang ‘em High. Clint is just minding his own business, helping out some calf stuck in the mud - when a posse jumps him and strings him up for cattle thieving. Clint tries to explain that he bought the cows fair and square with the money his gammy sent him for Christmas. But the posse came all this way and they want to do some hanging, so they put the noose around his neck and mosey on down the dusty trail. Not sure why they didn’t stick around to make sure Clint was dead ... maybe they had a tight schedule to keep and they were already late for a good tar and feathering.

Of course, Clint isn’t going to die in the first scene in any movie (it‘s in his contract). Luckily, a deputy just happens to be traveling by and he cuts Clint down from the hanging tree. But Clint can’t seem to catch a break and the deputy puts him in a paddy wagon and hauls him off to jail. He ends up in a small town in the Oklahoma Territory that enjoys a good public hanging like it’s the annual Tulip Festival. Judge Wapner checks out Clint’s story and offers him a job as a deputy. The pay is pretty good and offers some good benefits, mainly that Clint can chase down the guys in the posse and show them his shiny new badge.

Hang ‘em High was the first Western that Clint starred in following his success with the Spaghetti Westerns. It’s clear to see why American Westerns had become somewhat stale and the welcome edginess that the European film-makers brought to the genre. This effort is a by-the-numbers Western, the action lacks in suspense, and the music is plain lousy - although few soundtracks can compare with Morricone’s work in the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. The film was directed by a director that had worked with Clint during his Rawhide days and the movie actually feels more like a TV production. There’s even a scene where Clint is riding across the open plains and the shadow of film crew can be seen riding alongside.

Whenever you go back and watch some older films it’s always interesting to see who might show up in some bit parts that went on to greater fame. Hang ‘em High has a few. First off, there’s the Skipper from Gilligan’s Island as a member of the posse. Bruce Dern is a cattle rustler who comes up on the short end of the stick when he messes with Deputy Clint. But the real find is a young Dennis Hopper chewing up just a few seconds of screen time as the Charlie Manson of the Old West. He gets shot. The film also features a couple of scenes of Ben Johnson as another deputy. Johnson is a staple of classic Westerns and went on to win an Oscar for his portrayal of Sam the Lion in one of my favorite films, Last Picture Show.

Hang ‘em High is pretty standard stuff and has not gone on to become one of Clint’s better known films. The film begins to touch on an interesting topic of revenge and justice. Clint questions the logic of bringing men to justice only to hang ‘em the same way of the posse mentality. Judge Wapner responds that if you think someone has done you wrong don't take the law into your own hands: you take 'em to court.

Adv Studio 01

Finally, the home stretch. Advanced Studio 01 was the first of the last two studios needed for graduation. This studio was definitely the best experience of the many studios I had to navigate my way thru. The atmosphere was more relaxed and we were able to spend the entire semester concentrating on one project.

The program for this project was the Denver News Agency headquarters in downtwon Denver. The project was interesting because the actual building was being built at the same time we were creating designs on the same site. This allowed us to really examine the site and observe the construction being done.

The location of the site is at the intersection of Colfax and Broadway. Across from the Civic Center Park which sits between the Capitol Building and the Denver City and County Building. The north end of the site anchors the 16th St. Mall which is a high-traffic pedestrian street.

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The challenge was to design a project which addresses the many adjacent forces. The concept for my design was to create a pedestrian-friendly street front and civic minded presence that fits in well with the other buildings surrounding the Civic Center Park.

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Year of Eastwood #10

il buono, il brutto, il cattivo (1966)

Starring: Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef,
Eli Wallach
Directed by Sergio Leone

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly is the classic Spaghetti western that made Clint a movie star. Produced by an Italian film-maker and filmed in Spain, the film was an unlikely follow-up to the success of the TV series Rawhide, but Clint wasn’t offered many other roles. Unsure at the time whether to accept the part - the Man with No Name has become iconic with the image that is Clint Eastwood.

Clint is the Good … squinty-eyed bounty hunter in pursuit of money above all else. Van Cleef is the Bad … fellow bounty hunter competing with Clint at every turn. Wallach is the Ugly … Tuco Benedito Pacifico Juan Maria Ramirez, a comical, fast talking bandit who is wanted by the authorities. Good and Ugly form an unusual bond - Clint turns in Wallach (wanted for murder, armed robbery of citizens, state banks, and post offices, theft of sacred objects, arson in a state prison, perjury, bigamy, deserting his wife and children, inciting prostitution, kidnapping, extortion, receiving stolen goods, selling stolen goods, passing counterfeit money, using marked cards and loaded dice, assaulting a justice of the peace, and derailing a train in order to rob the passengers) to collect the reward - only to stick around to save him from hanging by shooting the noose and then shoots off a few hats for fun.

Meanwhile, Bad is trying to find a fortune in Confederate gold buried in an army cemetery amid the chaos of the Civil War. Ugly learns the location of the cemetery and Good finds out the name of the grave where it’s buried. The climax finds the three gunslingers face to face to face for a final showdown for the buried treasure.

Spaghetti Western is a nickname for a sub-genre of Western film that emerged in the mid-1960's, so named because most were produced by Italian studios. Dismissed by critics at the time for its ultra-violent nature and cheap production values, these European Westerns developed a cult following and reached mainstream audiences with director Leone’s trio of “Dollar” films released in the late 60’s. Leone’s gritty style and use of sweeping widescreen cinematography and extreme close ups presented a skewed view of the West, making his films different from any Western that had come before. Spaghetti Westerns demythologized the conventions of American Westerns. The U.S. frontier was dirty and bloody, even the heroes were flawed, and justice didn’t always prevail in the end. The films redefined the entire idea of the Western up to that point.

Spaghetti westerns are known as Macaroni Westerns in Japan and have led to other Western sub-genres such as Burrito Westerns, Pad Thai Westerns, and Sake Westerns.

The film has a hip, cool style and the humor creates a good balance with the serious, intense gunbattles. Perhaps what best defines this film is the outstanding musical score by legend Ennio Morricone. His hoofbeat rhythms, whistling themes, and the use of the human voice as an instrument became the standard for the scores to follow. The main theme, resembling the howling of a coyote, is a two-note melody that is a frequent motif, and is used for the three main characters, with a different instrument used for each one: flute for Good, ocarina for Bad, and human voices for Ugly. Morricone's theme is so recognizable, it has been used numerous times to underscore showdowns of one kind or another on many TV shows, with those scenes mimicking Leone's visual style.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly is the quintessential Spaghetti Western. The combination of a cutting edge director, distinctive score, and the image of Clint Eastwood mixed together perfectly to create film history. Quentin Tarantino has called it "the best-directed film of all time.”

Year of Eastwood #9

Heartbreak Ridge (1986)

Starring: Eastwood
Directed by Eastwood

Ughh, this is not one of Eastwood’s finest couple of hours. Heartbreak Ridge plays more like a rip-off of some of the 80’s blockbusters than the distinctive films of Clint’s career. There’s some Top Gun, some Officer and a Gentleman, and some really lame, lame music video like crap thrown in for good measure. Never before in my life have I wanted to hear some Danger Zone, dammit Maverick.

Clint is the grizzled Gunnery Sgt. Highway. He’s a veteran of the Korean and Vietnam wars and now he spends most of his spare time drunk or detoxing in jail cells. He’s about to be forced out from military service when he gets his last shot to whip a group of rowdy Marines into shape for duty. There’s the usual head-butting, pranks, and fisticuffs - before (big surprise) the guys come around to respect and admire the old battleaxe.

“I've drank more beer, pissed more blood, and banged more quiff than all you numb-nuts put together,” Clint introduces himself to his new recruits. Never mind the medical concerns from Clint's urinary problems ... what the hell is a quiff? I mean, I know what a quiff is, but I think one way to make sure you’ll never see any more quiff is to use words like quiff. I wasn’t even sure how to spell quiff. The movie is full of classics just like that one. Hard to believe that it didn’t become part of the American lexicon like “Go ahead, make my day.”

The big finale culminates with Clint’s recon platoon being called into duty to kick some ass in a real-life military action … in Grenada. Grenada? Is that the best they could come up with? Our country sure was desperate for some kind of real combat back in the 1980’s. I could be wrong but I think the actual maneuvers took less time than the two hours it took to watch this movie. For dramatic effect, some guy dies but the rest of the squad seems so unaffected by it that I’m pretty sure they just left him there cuz hey there was some celebrating to do … we just kicked Grenada’s ass.

Clint doesn’t so much as act in Heartbreak Ridge as he grumbles his way through it. His performance is pretty much Brando quality compared to the rest of the actors. Stereotype doesn’t even begin describe the group of misfits that make up the Marines troop. There’s some muscle head that seems like he would make some easy target practice out on the battle field. There’s some dork in Aviators that might as well have Tom Cruise written on his t-shirt. And then there’s Mario Van Peebles as the ultra smooth, rocka-wannabe. I’m sure Mario was really disappointed that this movie didn’t make him into a superstar. He’s lucky he ever got another job. I found myself rooting for those Grenadines to pick off a few more of those lousy punks.

The ending of the movie kinda implies that this victory in Grenada is somehow supposed to make up for all the missteps in America’s recent wars. Grenada? I just don’t get it. When the troops bust in to rescue the students being held captive, they walked in on some young co-ed getting out of the shower. Rule #1 if you ever have the misfortune of being a prisoner of war - gotta keep that quiff clean. Same goes for spring break.

Turns out that the actual Grenada incident was handled by the Army - but they wanted nothing to do with this movie, so they just used the Marines instead. Smart move by the Army. I’m sure Clint won’t want Heartbreak Ridge listed in his profile of Who’s Who In Movie Superstars. Ughh, let’s just move on to next week…

Modern Art Museum of Ft Worth

Located near the Kimbell Art Museum, The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth is an impressive response to Louis Kahn’s classic building. The museum was completed in 2002 and appears to be a modern variation of the Kimbell’s more traditional, elegant presentation.

The Modern Art Museum was designed by the Japanese architect Tadao Ando. Ando's design, which embodies the pure, unadorned elements of a modern work of art, is comprised of five volumes of glass, steel, and exposed concrete. These rectangular blocks are arranged in succession similar to the barrel vaults in Kahn’s design.

The massive planar walls are capped at the end by 40-foot-high transparent walls of glass framed in metal, providing magnificent public circulation areas from which to view the surrounding building and site, as well as creating tall display areas for dramatic items of Modern art.

Supporting the concrete roof slabs are five forty-foot-tall concrete Y-shaped columns, which allows visitors to appreciate the art of the building itself as well as the collection contained within. I wasn’t as familiar with this museum as the Kimbell when I was planning my trip. The collection of art was quite impressive. Usually when I'm walking around these museums, I'm focused on the architectural features, but there have been a few displays that have caught my eye as well. There were a few Warhols and definitely some intriguing sculptures. The building was an effective showcase for contemplation of these pieces.

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Year of Eastwood #8

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974)

Starring: Eastwood, Jeff Bridges
Directed by Michael Cimino

Clint Eastwood is Thunderbolt in one of his few movies where Clint plays a criminal. In the tradition of other 70’s anti-hero flicks, Thunderbolt is a con-man and bank robber but he is also the hero of the movie. As the movie begins, Clint is a preacher in a small Montana church, interrupted mid-sermon by a gun toting assailant. On the run, Clint meets up with car-thief Lightfoot (Jeff Bridges, not of Madison County) and an unusual friendship begins. They do some crimes, but of course there’s a price to pay in the end…

The anti-hero genre grew out of the rebellion against the system of the 60’s. Politicians were corrupt, Vietnam was the first American war that brought out large protests at home, and hippies were told to cut their damn hair. Cinema became enamored with characters that would stand up to the Man (meaning whoever’s in authority). Some of the many classics include Cool Hand Luke, Dog Day Afternoon, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and Taxi Driver. Audiences rooted for these underdogs as they battled to express their individuality - but in the end the lesson is always the same (dead, dead, dead, and dead). It wasn’t until the late 70’s that audiences cheered as plucky Rocky rose up from the dumpsters and won the title - wait - I guess Rocky actually lost that first fight. Umm, how about Star Wars then? Yea, those Rebels blew up that Death Star but good.

The first half of the film hits all the bases of 70’s standards - fast cars, loose women, Olympia beer, and a deranged fella with a trunk full of bunny rabbits. George Kennedy and Geoffrey Lewis (an Eastwood 70’s staple) provide comic relief for the film when they chase down Thunderbolt and Lightfoot in one of the movies funniest scenes in a riverside brawl. Unlike most movie fights (Clint included), this bust up has the guys worn out and in pain from beating the crap out of each other.

The foursome join forces to recreate a bank heist which involves ice cream trucks, drive-in movies, and Bridges in a dress. This film demonstrates Eastwood in his full 70’s swagger which made him the biggest star in America. During this time, Eastwood made several fluff entertainment films that featured lots of action and short on plot. The film was a hit during its day, but looking back on it now - the film falls squarely in the middle of Eastwood career highlights, but it’s got a catchy title, Thunderfoot and Lightningbolt.

Comp. Studio

I survived the first rounds of Studio, now it was time to tackle Comprehensive Studio. This was the one that every architecture student fears. Comp. Studio combines everything we've learned up to this point and throws in some pretty intensive focus on details just for an added sense of torture. On the plus side, projects were worked on in pairs - so at least I had some help. The final project included drawings, details, a scale model and slice model (a detailed portion of the project).

The project for Comp. Studio was a community library. The site for our project was East Colfax which is Denver's highest traffic corridor but has sections which are not considered pedestrian-friendly. A city initiative, the East Colfax Plan, describes plans to improve the mixed-use development all along this strip. One area to check out is the new Tattered Covered location which is in a remodeled movie theater, along with Twist n Shout next door.

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The approach to our design featured the duplexity of the project. We focused on the urban nature of the front of the library and the residential access from the neighborhood behind Colfax. Combining the technology associated with urbanization and the ecology of the Colorado environment, the project featured two sections - an organic community area composed of natural stone and a high-tech area consisting of glass and steel.

Technology has made a big impact in architecture over the last decade. I suppose the same could be said about any profession, but architecture relied on sketching, hand-drawing, and hand-crafted model building. Now, of course, computer programs allow plans and details to be created in a few days what used to take months. This was a major factor in my decision to pursue architecture when I wanted to change careers. Before, architecture wasn't really something I considered because to be honest I can't really draw well. But after years in graphic design, I have become comfortable with most computer software so a few years ago, I decided perhaps architecture was something I could study.

My logic was really put to the test when the first few semesters of school, most projects required hand-drafting. By this time, everything in studio was on the computer. There is even a laser cutter, which allows users to program a machine to cut materials for model assembly. We decided not to use the laser cutter and build our slice model (1/2 in. = 1 ft. scale - it's big) by hand. The last week before the final jury was quite a scramble - but at least we got the model finished.