Well, the last thing the world needs is more Academy Awards blather. As usual, I’m ready to fill the need. But just to say this:
I confess I don’t know much about the Life of Clint Eastwood. Maybe a little bit about the arc of his career — TV cowboy (“Rawhide”) to spaghetti western idol (“A Fistful of Dollars,” etc.) to lone-wolf cop (“Dirty Harry,” etc.) to more westerns (“High Plains Drifter”) to odd self-directed semi-comedic turns (“Every Which Way But Loose”) to seriously violent and introspective western (“Unforgiven”), concluding with a couple of modern tragedies: “Mystic River” and the one he one an award for tonight, “Million Dollar Baby.” Then there are a couple harder-to-classify roles in there, too — “The Beguiled” and “Play Misty for Me.”
All of which is to say: Who would’ve thought that the same guy who rode his Dirty Harry one-liners for so long (one per movie: “Feel lucky, punk?”; “A man’s got to know his own limitations”; “Go ahead, make my day”) would turn into what he has — some kind of sensitive Hollywood-type master of cinema (yeah, I know about contradictions in terms)?
Now I need to confess: I haven’t seen “Million Dollar Baby.” Or “Mystic River.” From the reviews I’ve read, they both sound extremely wrenching emotionally, and I actually haven’t been able to bring myself to watch them. Yet. (It’s happened with other movies, too; such as “Saving Private Ryan.” It took me about a year to see that.)
If you were about to insult Robin Williams, we’ll wait.
Now, I like Clint Eastwood for the most part. In fact they recently played all the Dirty Harry movies on TV over here and I enjoyed watching them (however I thought Clint’s direction of number 4 was about the worst of the bunch, maybe 3 was worse). But when comparing Mystic River and Million Dollar Baby there is one thing that made the first better. Clint wasn’t acting in it. He has become this sort of dottering old man who can only act with one emotion (and no I don’t think that the fact the character was simple emotionally is an excuse). I agree it was well directed, moving and well acted by Swank and Freeman, but I don’t think it deserved best film. Of course the Acadmey has often gone the way I wouldn’t have. They probably could have done worse this year.
I’m a Martin Scorsese fan myself. I really loved The Aviator. It was another of Scorsese’s grand visions, beautifully realized. His movies are really great cinema. Raging Bull is still one of my favorites. He has never won for best director even though he has been nominated several times. I haven’t seen Million Dollar Baby or Mystic River for that matter, but will eventually get around to both. I’m a big fan of Clint too. I just thought, this year it was Scorsese’s turn. Anyway, he is working on something new right now. We’ll see how that goes.