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.