"CATCH YOU FUCKERS AT A BAD TIME?"

Juror #2

In Clint Eastwood’s JUROR #2, Nicholas Hoult (THOSE WHO WISH ME DEAD) plays Justin Kemp, an upstanding magazine writer in Georgia who gets summoned for jury duty. He tries to get dismissed because his wife Ally (Zoey Deutch, THE DISASTER ARTIST) is expecting soon in what he describes as “a high risk pregnancy,” but he ends up seated on the jury for a murder trial.

The prosecutor Faith Killebrew (Toni Collette, xXx: RETURN OF XANDER CAGE) and public defender Eric Resnick (Chris Messina, BIRDS OF PREY) are friends, or at least professionally friendly enough to talk to each other at the bar they both hang out in. Faith is running for district attorney and feels putting away a real scumbag like this may put her over the top; Eric insists she’s got it wrong this time, the guy is really innocent. Defendant James Sythe (Gabriel Basso, THE KINGS OF SUMMER, also unfortunately played dictator elect J.D. Vance in HILLBILLY ELEGY) is a known asshole who was seen arguing with his girlfriend Kendall (Francesca Eastwood, M.F.A.) at a bar (a decidedly different one than the lawyers go to) until she stormed off, refusing a ride home. The next day a hiker found her dead under a bridge on Old Quarry Road.

As the story is being told to the jury, Justin has a growing “oh, fuck” look on his face, and if you haven’t heard the premise of JUROR #2 you’re gonna be shocked too: he’s realizing that he was there when that fight happened. He remembers the date, because it was Ally’s due date from the last pregnancy, when they lost twins. He took his depressed, recovering alcoholic ass to the hideaway, stared down a drink but didn’t give in, then on his way home his car hit something on Old Quarry Road. He got out, couldn’t find anything in the dark, saw a deer crossing sign and hoped to God that explained it.

This could be the start of a pulpy, twisty thriller, but that’s not exactly what Clint and screenwriter Jonathan Abrams seem to have in mind. It’s more of a morality exploration. It’s pretty straight forward about what happened that night, and the suspense is about how Justin will deal with this revelation. His instincts are honorable, so he goes right to his AA sponsor/attorney friend Larry (Kiefer Sutherland in a real “shit yeah, I’ll do a Clint Eastwood movie” role) for advice on how to turn himself in. Larry tells him there’s no way anyone will believe him that he didn’t drink at the bar (he has prior DUIs) and he’ll get a long prison sentence for sure.

So instead of fessing up, Justin tries to sway the rest of the jury, who are ready to convict Sythe as soon as they start deliberating, that there’s reasonable doubt. Also difficult.

I actually have to do jury duty in a few weeks, so I watched the beginning of this grumbling “shit man, I gotta do jury duty” to myself, as well as comparing it to my previous experience (called 3 times but never on a jury). The jury selection process is obviously very streamlined for the movie – I’ll just pretend that’s how they do it in Georgia. I do appreciate that they included the detail that they make everybody watch a corny video about their duty as a juror. And one thing I found very believable is enthusiastic juror Denice (Leslie Bibb, THE MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN), who boasts about her experience on juries and sort of appoints herself foreperson. She ends up being one of the most thoughtful people, not the villain I assumed she’d be, but I still think it makes the point of how having a certain class background, economic situation and personality gives you more say in the jury system. The average person isn’t in a position to be excited to keep doing it.

In fact JUROR #2 argues that most jurors want to get the fuck out of there as fast as possible, whether for selfish reasons or the reality of having jobs and responsibilities to get back to. Standout juror characters include confrontational Marcus (Cedric “But Black Dynamite, I sell drugs in the community” Yarbrough) and retired Chicago PD detective Harold (J.K. Simmons, FOR LOVE OF THE GAME), who hides his background but then dramatically pulls out his badge and puts it on the table when people aren’t taking him seriously. For me it’s a problem to have a movie about the flaws in the justice system where being a cop means you’re one of the few genuinely trying to give the defendant a chance and fully investigate, but he does bring out some good points about why the police investigation was shoddy and the witness told them what they wanted him to. Also, he quite flagrantly disobeys the juror instructions by trying to do his own investigation. Finding things the detectives and overworked public defender missed, but breaking the law and tainting the trial to do it.

There’s other stuff that doesn’t ring true for me. It’s weird that nobody seems to think much of the possibility that she was hit by a car, when she was known to be walking home and found under a bridge! It comes down to everybody trusting the (also overworked) medical examiner who claims she was most likely killed by a blunt object, even though she was found smashed on top of rocks. But that’s okay, the drama isn’t as much about the details of the incident as this character trying to maneuver his way out of taking responsibility, while some of the other jurors, his wife and even the prosecutor start to seem suspicious of his behavior.

One minor complaint from a longtime Clint fan: too bad he didn’t get any of his jazz in this one, and the score by Mark Mancina (SPEED) doesn’t sound like one Clint or his son would’ve done. Oh well. Might be losing his piano hands at his age, hard to be as hands-on in that respect.

It continues to be amazing that Clint’s UNFORGIVEN is one of the definitive “old guy looking back with different eyes” movies, and now it’s thirty-two motherfucking years later and he’s still directing. I’m a fan of his even-older-man period (have you seen RICHARD JEWELL?) and it’s kind of sweet that now that he’s in his 90s and it’s easy to imagine this being his last I see people mostly being nice about it, praising the old fashioned simplicity of his filmmaking instead of making fun of it. It doesn’t have the scope of THE MULE and it’s not even close to a “holy shit, this old man is on fire” situation like Scorsese doing KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON, but it uses good performances and modest filmatism to tell a compelling and provocative story. And he makes a point of showing a real baby a bunch of times.

One reason for the forgiveness is that Clint has been cast as the underdog artist in a perceived feud with that no account rat-dick sonofabitch CEO David Zaslav (and/or somebody who works for him at Warner Bros./Discovery Channel Express), who decided to release what should be a no-brainer mid-budget hit in only 31 theaters with no plans to expand! That’s 20+ theaters fewer than years Clint has provided enormous hits and even best picture winners for the studio. He’s been doing proud by the WB logo since Zaslav was eleven years old, with movies including DIRTY HARRY, EVERY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE, UNFORGIVEN, THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY, SPACE COWBOYS, MYSTIC RIVER, MILLION DOLLAR BABY, GRAN TORINO, AMERICAN SNIPER (which made them $547.4 million in theaters less than a decade ago) and SULLY (which made $240.8 million even more recently and it was a drama about NTSB hearings). Since Zaslav reportedly chided subordinates for releasing CRY MACHO in theaters, saying “this is show business, not show friendship,” many of us suspect this is an ongoing grudge and attempt to put artists in their place. They’re purposely losing money on the movie to make the point. (Also they leaked a story about Clint ruining takes by chewing Cheez-Its too loud.)

For me it was worth the 50 minute bus ride out to a mall in Bellevue to see JUROR #2, but I hope Zaslav’s money caves in on him while he’s on the shitter and a succession of everyone he’s ever known individually hear his cries for help and decide it’s not worth the trouble. Or that it must’ve been a deer.

Back to the movie. Some of the characters and conflicts in the jury room get almost as broad as you’d expect in something like this, but I would describe the movie overall as one with the subtlety and ambiguity that I admire in so much of Eastwood’s work. Especially in the format of the courtroom drama it’s easy for a movie to lay it on thick about who’s right and wrong, and what to think about it. I think by the end (SPOILERS) Justin begins to unravel a little, and I believe that Eastwood considers him dishonorable for not owning up to his actions. I don’t buy, and suspect Clint doesn’t buy, the argument that James is a bad person and criminal who deserves prison for something else he might’ve done more than good person Justin deserves to be taken from his wife and baby for making a mistake. But it doesn’t come across as a completely unreasonable argument. You see him with Ally at the end, you feel the walls closing in on him, but you don’t want her to have to deal with that. I can understand why he makes those justifications to himself. I’d like to think I wouldn’t, but I’m really not sure.

Of course there’s a huge hypocrisy there. His argument for why he’s a good person is that he went to AA and turned his life around. Inherent in that is the possibility that James could also turn his life around. And maybe do it without accidentally running anybody over.

This is the first screenplay credit for Jonathan Abrams (though he was an associate producer on ESCAPE PLAN). As with all Clint movies I assume it wasn’t written or altered for him, and yet I find myself reading a million things into what he could be saying with it. He has to have been interested in its themes of guilt and accountability in modern society. Especially in Clint’s world of celebrities, so many people have some bad thing they did or stupid thing they said long ago, and they thought nothing of it at the time or got away with it and forgot about it but suddenly it comes up again. And maybe they really did improve themselves since then, or become parents and family men and shit, and maybe it’s really not worth dredging up or ruining lives at this point, depending on how bad the thing is. I came out of JUROR #2 with a strong sense that you gotta own up anyway. That might just be my own compass and response to the movie, or it might be Clint’s intense, judging glare coming through his camera. I’m really not sure, and I like that.

It works in other ways too. I’m not saying Clint had this in mind at all, but this “I didn’t know it but I wronged somebody” situation almost fits as a metaphor for historical wrongs – the legacies of colonization, slavery, segregation, or other forms of injustice, maybe smaller ones, maybe ones you weren’t enlightened enough to know about before, or see that you benefited from. Well, now you know. Is there something we should do to bring justice now, or are we unwilling to do it because of the comfortable status quo we got going on the back of not having addressed these things earlier?

These are complicated questions with uncomfortable answers. That’s why I think it’s kind of amazing that they come out of what in other ways is a very basic court room drama. Obviously my favorite Clint-directed movies are the more actiony ones where he also stars, but this is a good example of why his dramas are always worth watching too. When he’s talked politics publicly they’ve been very different from mine, and there are a few terrible stories about his personal life, but in his art he almost always expresses a thoughtfulness and sense of humanity that really speaks to me. This one is kind of the flip side to RICHARD JEWELL and SULLY, movies about people being blamed for things they actually didn’t do. I think JUROR #2 has hope for people doing the right thing, but asks them to make that decision for themselves.

 

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 7th, 2024 at 11:03 am and is filed under Reviews, Drama. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

31 Responses to “Juror #2”

  1. I unfortunately will be forced to be save this review for later. As it’s going to be 10 days until I’m anywhere near a place this is playing (maybe. I just read that WB will expanding it from 31 theaters to 46 this weekend. I don’t know if I’m currently near one of the chosen 15)

    Anyway, the sms review I got was “Very well-done preposterous airport novel fare, until the ending, which is a DOOZY” Meaning I have to go completly dark for 10 days (maybe less) to preserve said doozy.

    Given the oeuvre of the filmmaker in question, I have a feeling it’s morally ambiguous, whatever it is.

  2. Might have to wait for this one on MAX, but the themes do speak to me, and this is, as always, a deeply thoughtful review.

    Zaslav really has been a cartoon villain over at WB. There’s some stuff he’s financed that seem interesting (“Mickey17”, “The Battle Of Baktan Cross”). But the writeoffs and public comments were exactly what you DON’T want coming from someone involved in movies. I remember when he took over WB and a reporter asked about his plans, he was basically like, “IP, all day, erry day.” Which is such a phenomenally stupid thing to say because for that strategy to work, you have to develop new IP all the time. Instead, the WB heads are stiffing Eastwood, and trying to make another Matrix shortly after the last belated sequel was universally ignored by audiences.

  3. The ‘trades’ are speculating that the Eastwood stiffing may perhaps be a Machiavellian scheme by Zaslav to pinch pennies on marketing (by giving it none), while boosting MAX subs (in that, by the time it gets to MAX by Christmas, the buzz will be so immense, people will subscribe just to watch it)

    I think… that sounds real clever and cunning…

  4. This is the same WB that blew $200 million plus on JOKER 2. Same WB that almost didn’t get BEETLEJUICE 2 (one of their few hits this year) into theaters, only avoiding a streaming date because that cast/crew had to do backend gymnastics. Let’s just say the latest spin reeks of BS. Or they could’ve just said “we don’t have money!” That would be maybe more honest.

    Looking at promising foreign receipts so far, with a domestic release this probably would’ve cleared in the black.

    Then again Zaslav/WBD just re-signed AEW for $180 million something a year. They just lost head to head with NXT* on the friggin CW this past wednesday.

    *=Which CW signed them recently for a yearly deal of….$25 million.

  5. At the risk of making this sound like a Zaslav pile-on (I would really love to see this movie) I think the bizarre Beetlejuice 2 story is that they were going to make a $150 million-budgeted streaming sequel, but they thought a theatrical release was only worth a $100 million budget. If you twist your brain into a pretzel, there’s a certain bizarre sense to it.

  6. I think the bizarre Beetlejuice 2 story is that they were going to make a $150 million-budgeted streaming sequel, but they thought a theatrical release was only worth a $100 million budget. If you twist your brain into a pretzel, there’s a certain bizarre sense to it.

    Not real bizarre when you consider it will take 50 million to convince people to get off the couch and go see it. Whereas streaming = “I want to watch something. What’s on max? Oh look, there’s a beetlejuice sequel”

  7. jojo, this is very close to what a friend of mine in the movie industry told me. I was puzzled by what I had read about the Road House remake – why would Amazon offer a higher budget if it would to straight to streaming, as opposed to screen in movie theaters? Wasn’t that cutting off a potential profit stream? My friend explained that marketing for a movie playing in theaters costs basically the same again as the movie itself… whereas for Amazon, putting something on a streaming platform they already own costs nothing. So somehow we wind up in this weird backward world where movies we see “for free” online make more economic sense than movies we pay lots of money to see in theaters…

  8. My friend explained that marketing for a movie playing in theaters costs basically the same again as the movie itself…

    I mean, granted it’s not as much cost as striking prints, but creating and distributing DCPs ain’t cheap. Then there’s paying people to book the theaters, promotions is the each theater, etc, etc, etc

    Trust me, when you hear a studio person say “We love and cherish the theatrical experience” they’re pretty much lying. The sooner it dies, the more money goes into their pockets rather than those pesky middle men. Streaming is basically the old days when they owned both the theaters and the movies playing in them, all over again.

  9. Clint “one-take” Eastwood, ruining takes by chewing Cheez-Its too loud? That is one serious grudge. I guess this answers my piano-adjacent question about whether he still plays golf at this age.

    (spoilers below)

    Tracking this one down was worth it, especially today, at the end of a historically shitty week for Clint’s favorite subject, the U.S. of A. I agree that he doesn’t seem to agree with or respect Justin’s choice at the end. The ideal of justice’s supposed blindness seemed like it was at the core of the movie (so if this does turn out to be Clint’s final one, it would be a perfect note to go out on, given his thematic interests)– the first shot is of a blindfolded woman; at the end, when Justin and Toni Collette are outside the courthouse on the bench, the unspoken answer to whatever he says to her, some rhetorical-to-him question about “What would be just about punishing me,” is right there: “Justice is blind.” And we get an accompanying shot of an actual statue of justice to back it up. And Collette’s character’s name is Faith, so I guess we’re lucky they went with Justin Kemp for Hoult’s guy and not Moral E. Conflicted. For all Clint’s impressive subtlety over the years, it’s nice to know he still isn’t above taking a red paintbrush to the side of a barn when he wants to.

    Between this and the similarly excellent CONCLAVE it’s a good season for non-supernatural, non-satirical procedural dramas. The less involved jurors were indeed broadly sketched but the performances across the board were as solid as the Eastwood brand would suggest. Hoult deserves particular mention– I know I’ve seen him in stuff since FURY ROAD but this was the movie where I noticed just how much he has in common with Tom Cruise, both in terms of his appearance and his performance style. It’s almost uncanny. If he starts jumping off tall things in 10 years I think we’ll have proof that Hollywood has some skin in the cloning game. I thought his scenes with Deutsch were really well-written, too; especially at the beginning, all of their stuff felt natural and real in a way that a movie with this scale often doesn’t bother to get right.

    And Vern, I don’t envy your jury duty, but the system and your fellow jurors are fortunate to have you on board.

  10. Many years ago (and that may negate the entire point of this story) I had to take a defensive driving course, because I was a dumb kid speeding over a certain amount in a rich part of town and got reckless driving tagged on a ticket.

    I had to show up on a Saturday morning to a not-modern high school for an hour or two of basically safety videos and instruction. Except when we showed up the first time, the instructor/adult detention manager introduced himself as a retired cop and said we wouldn’t be doing all that; he would do only what was required and the rest of the time was Q&A about essentially traffic cop mentality and how not to get pulled over. It turned out to be pretty interesting, he would basically debunk people’s ideas about laws (“if I ask you if you’re a cop you have to tell me”) and lay out the thinking behind how cops would approach a traffic stop. He was remarkably candid, almost in a cliche kind of way, but he made a point to say he could believe all the stories of being hassled by cops, and told us how he had been illegally hassled by a cop out of his jurisdiction to be pulling him over. So he seemed like he was using his retirement to have a platform to complain about the “new breed” of cop on the streets that didn’t have any concern for the humanity behind the badge and was kind of stirring the shit in a subversive-for-a-cop way. But it was way better than filmstrips.

    So I actually find JK Simmons character a bit more plausible if maybe now mostly extinct type of characters, at least within the context of a movie, but especially a Clint Eastwood movie.

  11. Crudnasty – Good point, I agree that a guy like his character very well may exist. So it obviously didn’t kill the movie for me. I just think poetically speaking it’s too bad that in 2024 even a pretty perceptive movie about failures of the justice system has to lean on a cop as one of the few good guys.

  12. I just want to take a moment to reflect on how nutty I find it to have just seen the new Xu Haofeng, but yet, I’m unable to see the new Clint Eastwood…

  13. You’re lucky! That’s only playing in 5 theaters in the country. I was bummed that it wasn’t playing here but actually I think it helped to watch it on VOD because I was able to rewatch it to understand better. (Review soon.)

  14. I mean, for the record, it’s not like I’m exactly complaining. There’s just a weird irony to:

    New Xu Haofeng? = No prob
    New Clint Eastwood? = Hmmmmm, maybe you can get a VCD in chinatown…

  15. Vern – (SPOILER) I have not seen this movie.

    But (ACTUAL SPOILER MAYBE IDK) I’m guessing that the script/narrative needed some way to introduce the omitted clues about the car damage by someone who would be an authority on the matter, and ex-cop is the way to do that in movie shorthand. It’s interesting that the movie doesn’t treat this as the cliche “cops gotta break the rules to cut red tape and solve crimes” routine but instead shows this to be the evidence spoliation that it is and serves as justification to remove the ex-cop juror. The cop DID break the rules, found the break in the case, but was correctly treated as damaging the trial and dismissed instead of being turned into a fuck-the-system hero for it. I think that actually fits well with Clint’s theme here of “you can’t just bend or break rules to escape accountability, the ends don’t justify the means” which IMO is especially poetic considering the director made his name playing the iconic cop incarnation of “you have to break the rules to cut the red tape to get justice these days, the ends do justify the means.” This is probably as close as Clint can get to (lightly) commenting on that without doing a complete 180 on everything else in his career.

    I do wanna see this movie but I probably gotta wait for Hobo Max. Curious to see if this read on the cop character holds up after seeing it play out.

  16. Yeah, this is fucked up that they’re not giving it a wide release just because. He’s earned it, they shouldn’t dom him like this. Looking forward to seeing this one, sounds like vintage Clint! Saw TRUE CRIME again several months ago, and it’s just a great bastard of a character he plays, and he does some really fine work as an actor. I finally this year watched PALER RIDER and HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER for the first time and caught UNFORGIVEN for the first time in probably 20 years. He deserves better than this bullshit, but, as you say, he’s still going 30+ years into his old man period. So, Clint stay winnin regardless.

  17. Good points, Crudnasty, you’re pretty right on I think. I would say in praise of Clint though that he was already raising questions about DIRTY HARRY in the very first sequel, MAGNUM FORCE, where the opening credits aim his gun at us and then we find out what happens when a bunch of other cops besides Harry also feel they can go beyond the law.

  18. Great to see Clint make another movie. I was worried that his 44 Magnum Opus was going to be CRY MACHO, which was one of his worst films. I’m trying to imagine, if Clint were in his prime in this 21st century, what a Harry Callahan character would be like on the screen? As he was, I’m not sure he would pass the smell test of a DEI studio committee without major adjustments to cultural sensitivities. Secondary characters like his Hispanic partner in DIRTY HARRY and a woman in THE ENFORCER might get equal billing and/or a spinoff film of their own, or be written to take over the franchise as the new and improved Harry. In that sense I’m glad the Callahan series wrapped up during the golden decade of cultural insensitivity, otherwise zoomers would have no point of reference to where we are now. Not saying it’s a bad thing, just that Clint has evolved through two centuries to become an insightful and compassionate filmmaker. I respect him for that.

  19. On The Box Office Podcast, Scott Mendelson talked about how everyone has gotten the story about the theatrical release of this film all wrong. It was greenlit as an HBO Max streaming title, and the fact that they put it out in theaters at all is a bonus.

  20. I think these days everything from WB is greenlit as streaming title and then they just decide on the fly if it ends up in theatres and how big of a release it will be.

  21. That is a helpful counterpoint, and for all I know, Clint doesn’t give a shit. Still, from my vantage point, this might be his last film, and even if WB has to scrape through the couch cushions, this should get a wide release for a couple of weeks, even in 2024 — fuck, even if we lived in some bizarro world where a theatrical release was against Clint’s wishes. The man’s a national treasure, and he deserves a solid week on 1K+ screens, even if he grosses fucking $2M, and WB loses money on this shit. Then they can rapidly draw down and dump on streaming by week 3. #JUSTICEFORCLINT (lol).

  22. In (reluctant) defence of Zaslav (who still says and does things that seem anti-creative and more coldhearted and even avaricious), WBD still does have a lot of debt that requires hard choices and I think the current theatrical landscape is very difficult to get a handle on. I’ve seen way too many instances of movies that seemed like sure fire successes (sequels to Billion Dollar making movies, movies that WERE marketed well and seemed like a good time and had good reviews) just crash and burn. Knowing what you know now, would you think they’d have not been justified to release FURIOSA to streaming instead? There’s also cases where I can see a reason they did what they did, even if it disappointed me. BATGIRL getting scrapped is a big bummer for me (it filmed entirely here in Glasgow and I got to visit some of the shooting locations while the dressing was still up) and a lot of people, but that movie was made before James Gunn took over the DC stuff and decided to take things in the reboot direction which BATGIRL wouldn’t have fit into story wise without reshoots that would have added to the budget. So…I dunno.

    As for JUROR #2, saw it the other day and liked it, though I think the ending could have been executed with a little more meat, and as for the theme of “Justice is Blind”:

    SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER
    Is it possible they were exploring the two meanings of that? Like the traditional one is it’s blind in that it’ll not be swayed by outside factors, which is meant to be fair and good, but it could also be “blind” in how it doesn’t see the unfair effects supposed justice has? There’s no outcome that would apparently have been completely just. Either a guy wrongfully is convicted and goes to prison for the rest of his life, or a guy who they painstakingly establish was just really unlucky (though he shouldn’t have looked at his phone) would have been punished more than he deserved since Kiefer says no one will believe he wasn’t drunk and they’ll throw the book at him. Though maybe Faith is showing up at the door to offer him a chance to come forward and get a less severe sentence since she’s the DA, though showing that would probably have less bite than what they went for.
    It’s also interesting to me that in the American justice system, the attorneys have a say in who gets on the jury, as that basically gives them in theory SOME influence beforehand. I’ve been on a few juries and over here, they just pick names randomly out of a bingo tumbler when you go down to the courthouse, and it’s even possible that you can be finish duty on one jury, but still have to come in to potentially be picked for a second one the next day! You’d think it’d be in the interests of impartiality not to weary a juror out like that.

  23. Stu, that’s valid. I was just talking to my kid the other day about you can’t watch the WILLOW show any more and how the SCOOB sequel (hey, my kids liked part 1 and have a soft spot for Will Forte) and looney tunes movie will never see the light of day.

    I’ve done my share of tilting at windmills about the death of theatres and the hegemony of streaming and the evil of Netflix (I stand by that), but the fact is that, at this point, legacy studios are struggling to figure out how to make it work and stay profitable. The Zaslav guy does seem like a prick from where I’m sitting, but I honestly think Netflix is way more pernicious in their initial cumulative effect.

    All of the ranting on my part is half-assed and really boils down to: “I want Clint and his filmography and stature in general and for this studio to get the honor it deserves.” Of course, Clint will be just fine, he can wipe his non-tears with his millions (and, as I’ve said, it’s entirely possible he doesn’t give a shit one way or the other). The glass half-full perspective is that this movie exists, is seeing the light of day, looks pretty good, Clint still had the faculties and currency to get it made at his age. Life could be worse for the casual or serious fan of his work.

  24. Let’s be honest, from a cold business perspective, Zaslav seems to do everything correctly or the shareholders would’ve kicked this motherfucker out already. But of course the possible long term damage is already there, when you not just have “film Twitter” complaining, but also some big Hollywood names avoiding the studio because they don’t wanna risk their movie getting dumped to streaming or not being released at all. I mean, a few weeks ago it was reported that Christopher Nolan ignored WB’s and only WB’s phonecalls while shopping his new script around in Hollywood. I’m really not an expert on the business side of Hollywood (or any business), but once every other studio has a bunch of blockbusters that could’ve ended up at Warner but didn’t, because the director’s refused to work with them, no tax write-off in the world will fix that. They currently bet on Gunn’s DC-verse and HARRY POTTER, but who knows how these things will work out?

  25. The problem with that is that the investment of streaming movies is just promoting your streaming service, or your stock sales, as opposed to making a profit. Zaslav actually does understand this and moved some of their movies planned for streaming to theatrical release. The problem with FURIOSA financially was that it didn’t sell enough tickets, not that it DID sell tickets. I obviously don’t know, but since the box office did surpass the filming budget I bet that between VOD rentals and blu-ray sales they’ve made a profit. And the movie is also an investment for the studio in that forgotten sense of creating a great movie that can perpetually be re-released, licensed to cable, revisited in conjunction with the other classics in the series, etc. Of course that’s more of a benefit to the studio than to Zaslav, who will be looking for a golden parachute before that’s relevant.

  26. Skani:

    This is also in no way a defense of Zaslav either – but Warner Brothers has released a very well made documentary about Clint Eastwood and his work as a filmmaker. CLINT EASTWOOD: A CINEMATIC LEGACY, it’s currently available for free viewing on Youtube:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBxwe2_vEpo

    It’s pretty good.

    I saw the 50th anniversary re-release of DIRTY HARRY in the theatre and man was it great – WB was rereleasing a number of Clint films in 2021, caught another screening of UNFORGIVEN – saw it originally in theatres in 1992. The 50th anniversary of DIRTY HARRY really got me thinking about Clint’s place in the pantheon of cinema – and I have to say that right now I think he is actually a little under appreciated – I certainly think that since he started directing films, he has created a filmography that no other filmmaker has bettered. And a legitimate case can be made that UNFORGIVEN (which I certainly consider his masterpiece) is the best film made in the last 30 years. And it’s pretty incredible that in the 32 years since UNFORGIVEN he has directed 24 movies! Including 5-6 that most any other filmmaker would be happy to have directed and be called their best movie.

    And the guy has directed 39 films – he’s like the filmmaking version of author’s Stephen King or Joyce Carol Oates – incredibly prolific. Hell, Spielberg has only made 36 in that time.

    What I find most interesting about Eastwood is that he makes movies that on one hand examine an issue, and also interrogate both Clint’s ‘role’ in the history of film and/or issue – UNFORGIVEN is both a deconstruction of western films, a commentary on the myth of the American west and Eastwoods part in it – and also an interrogation of the role that film plays in mythologizing the west and creating the mythology that gave creation to the west in American history. Eastwood really has a deeply interesting view of all of this. It’s especially interesting that he is so self aware – and has been since the start of his film career 60 years ago of this and his past/part/future in it. I know CRY MACHO caught a lot of flack from some quarters – but holy crap their is a scene where Eastwood’s character (which is essentially a metaphorical version of both Eastwood and America) basically says that all the macho stuff that Americatells it self about itself and trumpets and acts upon and believes is BS and will lead to it’s ruin – that it leads to what he has become – a broken down, discarded lonely old man who essentially flees America to Mexico for love/family and peace. I mean that is a pretty crazy thing for the very emblem of American machismo to say in a movie in 2021 about America. Despite the perceived conservative Americanism that seems to be a the forefront in a lot to his movies – his films have also always shown a compassion for oddballs, immigrants, indigenous people, socially minority people etc.

    As an example – I find Clint’s movies much more thoughtful, intelligent and certainly humanistic that a filmmaker like Martin Scorsese, who can certainly be scene as a direct contemporary of Eastwood in terms if filmmaking.

  27. Miguel, that’s all very well-said, and I did not know that shit. I am a more casual Clint fan, but I am a fan. And you are so spot on with the self-criticism and self-awareness. This is part of why I’m always getting so damn fussy about this stuff. I think Clint’s politics, as far as I understand them (the Romney chair thing), are bullshit. But I also understand they are rooted in this deeply felt sense of personal responsibility folk libertarianism — the world is tough, life is painful, do the right thing, don’t be a fucking crybaby. That’s definitely a strong element, and to my point on the other thread about “toxic” and less toxic masculinity. It appeals to something in primal in us, and it’s not all bad, even if there’s a lot about it that is bent and dangerous.

    Vern touched on this so well in the PALE RIDER review he did that inspired me to watch it. You see a movie like TRUE CRIME, and his character in that is like the ultimate toxic male piece of shit — womanizing very young women, cheating on his wife, fucking up badly as a father. You watch a movie like GRAN TORINO, and the way he’s wrestling with racism and with violence and vengeance and cycle of violence, the way he’s wrestling with his own feelings and concerns and deconstructing shit. He’s letting you see his layers and his heart. He contains multitudes. And then the way he wrestles with cruelty and oppression and authoritarianism in those Westerns like PALE RIDER, HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER, and UNFORGIVEN. You may not agree with his politics — I certainly don’t — but there’s a certain coherence and complexity and depth there. There’s a lot under the surface. Onscreen and perhaps in real life, he’s a “man’s man” and even a “toxic man” by some definitions, but he’s a surprisingly humanistic, deep-thinking, compassionate toxic man’s man who challenges himself and his audience.

  28. Man oh man, I do not want to start a war on another thread about politics – but since Eastwood is both such political filmmaker – in that his films often have either an overt or subtextual angle – and Eastwood is a major figure in both American/world culture it does bear interrogating the political angle in regards to his films.

    I’m only bringing it up in relation to his filmmaking. [says a prayer.]

    Wikipedia had a pretty good entry just about the political life on Clint – and it kinda confirms what I suspect – he’s a multitude of positions. It says “in the spring of 1999, he told Premiere magazine that “I guess I was a social liberal and a fiscal conservative before it became fashionable.” In some ways this is evident in his movies, as I mentioned – he shows a lot of compassion for the underdog, misfits etc. The article is at:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_life_of_Clint_Eastwood

    The article includes this wild quote from Eastwood: “In 1992, Eastwood told writer David Breskin that his political views represented a fusion of Milton Friedman and Noam Chomsky and suggested that they would make for a worthwhile presidential ticket.”

  29. That’s pretty hilarious, Milton Friedman and Chomsky. No, yeah, that’s about right, as far as my read on Eastwood — it’s kind of like “keep the government out of things in general.” At least his consistent in his ideology. A lot of these old school action types have that sort of outlook, I think. At different points in time, I think Arnold, Sly, and Bruce have all articulated basically similar outlooks, and that tells you that there is something about this sort of folk libertarianism that appeals deeply to a certain kind of dude, and you see it continuing with the Joe Rogans. I think there’s an interesting narrative psychology that has to be at work in the mind of the person who becomes super famous and rich and celebrated. In a lot of cases, these guys actually did work super hard, suffer, and take big risks to get where they did, but then they learn the incorrect lesson that luck was not a major part of that or that everyone and anyone can do that if they just have the proper amount of grit (survivorship bias). My brother wears shorts in winter because who the fuck knows why, but then he gets in his head that because he’s a weirdo who can wear shorts in winter that it’s somehow a function of his superior willpower and that anyone can do that. The pull yourself up by the bootstrap stuff, which, we need that to motivate ourselves to strive for excellence and reach for the starts, but why can’t we have that as well as compassion and Obamacare and Pell Grants and infrastructure, lol.

  30. For those interested in Clint’s movies not seeming to fit the politics people expect of him, check out THE MULE. A movie about the Mexican border made in 2018 but it’s all about racial profiling and he sympathizes more with the drug cartels than the white people.

  31. I keep meaning to watch this one, as it looks right up my alley. I stalled out in my recent Clint-fest with FISTFUL OF DOLLARS, not because it was bad, but I was like four Clint joints in by that point, and I needed to take a breather. This one looks tailor made for me though, as I’m definitely more drawn toward Old Man Clint.

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