Re: Eastwood in the press (minor mentions)

[antonis]

Cannes 2017 Unveils Official Schedule, Adds Masterclasses With Clint Eastwood and Alfonso Cuarón

As is tradition, the Cannes Film Festival has unveiled its official schedule just days before the creme de la creme of festivals kicks off next week. Buried in an impressively stacked lineup are two brand new and delightfully unexpected additions: masterclasses with Clint Eastwood and Alfonso Cuarón, both listed as part of their Cannes Classics slate.

Eastwood’s class is slated for two hours on Sunday, May 21. The previous day, Cannes will screen Eastwood’s 1992 Western classic, “Unforgiven.” Eastwood is a long-time Cannes regular, screening films such as “Changeling,” “Pale Rider,” “Bird,” “Absolute Power,” and “Mystic River” at the festival over the years.

In 1994, he served as President of the Official Selection jury, which ultimately picked Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction” as their Palme d’Or winner.

http://www.indiewire.com/2017/05/cannes-2017-official-schedule-masterclasses-1201815260/

[AKA23]

This is pretty cool. I'm sure that many here are familiar with this but I am not. What is a Masterclass at Cannes? What is Clint going to be doing exactly? Will this be similar to what he has done in the past at festivals (him sitting for an interview and talking about his career) or will he be doing something different here?

[antonis]

Clint Eastwood Does Not Rule Out a Return to Westerns

CANNES, France (Reuters) - Clint Eastwood does not rule out making another Western, he said on Saturday as he presented a 25th anniversary restored copy of "Unforgiven" at the Cannes Film Festival.

"When I read the ("Unforgiven") script 25 years ago, I always thought that this would be a good last Western for me to do," said the 86-year-old actor-director.

"And it was the last Western, because I have never read one that worked as well as this one since that.

"But who knows, maybe something will come up in the future," said Eastwood, who made his name in the TV series "Rawhide" and the so-called spaghetti Westerns of the 1960s, now considered classics.

https://www.usnews.com/news/top-news/articles/2017-05-20/clint-eastwood-does-not-rule-out-a-return-to-westerns

[AKA23]

Clint Eastwood Says ‘We’ve Lost Our Sense of Humor’
By Stewart Clarke

Having mostly eschewed acting for directing in recent years, Eastwood’s last on-screen performance was in 2012’s “The Trouble With the Curve.” He said he missed performing “once in a while but not often,” but added he plans to return at some point, “I did a lot of it for a long time. I’ll visit it again someday.”

http://variety.com/2017/film/news/eastwood-tells-cannes-audience-he-lives-on-instinct-1202439258/

Oh I wish it were true! Rather than reflecting an actual intention, this sounds like something he might say for his fans. Similar to maybe he'll return to "Dirty Harry" again if someone came up with a good script, but I so would love to see him act again!

[Christopher]

That sounds like he could mean it, but it could be that he's waiting on a part he'd like to play.

[AKA23]

The entire Master Class has now been posted. Unless you speak French, I'd recommend skipping the first 4 minutes.

One thing I noticed was that when his recently announced project, "The 15:17 to Paris," was brought up, Clint said he was flirting and fooling with it. It was thought to be his next project, but his responses make his involvement seem more tentative than what was initially reported. His discussion of this is about 42 minutes in.

http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/festival/actualites/articles/a-cinema-masterclass-by-clint-eastwood

[_Clintan_]

Oh, how I hope he makes another movie! He can't end with Trouble With the Curve, he deserves a much better ending to his acting career than that.

Do it, Clint!

[-satu-]

Thanks for the link, AKA! It was nice to watch. 

[The Schofield Kid]

In Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Quentin Tarantino wants the audience to know right from the get-go just how dire the prospects of Leonardo DiCaprio’s TV heavy, Rick Dalton, have become in the topsy-turvy Tinseltown landscape of 1969. How does he signal that exactly? An agent (played by Al Pacino with lip-smacking, scenery-chewing relish) tells him that he can give his career a shot in the arm by going to Italy and starring in quickie spaghetti Westerns like Nebraska Jim and macaroni spy knockoffs such as Operazione Dyn-O-Mite!
Of course, since it’s a Tarantino movie, this particular vocational crossroads isn’t just pulled from the cinema-fiction ether. The movie-mad director took his inspiration from cinema fact. In Once Upon a Time, Tarantino is referencing and riffing on the handfuls of struggling, real-life American
B-listers and macho small-screen wannabes who made the transatlantic pilgrimage to Italy (and Spain) in a desperate bid to become the next expat leading man à la Clint Eastwood (who’d rocketed to international fame thanks to Sergio Leone’s “Man With No Name” trilogy — A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly). Here, a look at Eastwood and some of the other Hollywood hopefuls who headed to Rome for a career boost and the dream of a once-upon-a-time, fairy-tale ending.

https://www.vulture.com/article/hollywood-actors-italian-movies.html?fbclid=IwAR3M_3sXHsU4AFbOif0OvVuUzLj9egXmeTOY-ZUeuefeST6-I1FSE-9Hlsc

[Hammerhead]

https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/scottish-news/4536082/clint-eastwood-wedding-aberdeen/

This is near where I live but surely unlikely given that the great man in currently shooting in Atlanta?!

[KC]

American Sniper made the New York Times list of "The 10 Most Influential Films of the Decade," compiled by Times co-chief film critics Manohla Dargis and A.O. Scott:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/24/movies/best-movies-2010s-decade.html

The 10 Most Influential

The most popular movies and the movies we love most aren’t always the ones that shape the industry, reflect the times or change the terms of cultural discourse — for better or worse. The films on the first list, whether we like them or not (and in some cases we very much did), made a difference in the world of entertainment and beyond. In a politicized time, their impact was often measured in ideological terms, by the arguments they started and the passions they inflamed. And at a time of blockbuster hegemony and streaming ascendancy, they also represented a business and an audience in constant and sometimes confusing flux.

‘American Sniper’ (2014)

Clint Eastwood’s drama about the life and death of the Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle, released at Christmas in 2014, went on to finish at the top of that year’s domestic box office. It was the only release of the decade to accomplish that without being part of a franchise, a Disney property, or both. A testament to Eastwood’s mastery, the movie’s popularity challenged the fiction of a monolithically liberal Hollywood, even as it revealed the polarization of the American audience. With its pro-military, pro-gun flag waving — and fallen-warrior protagonist — “American Sniper” showed which way the political winds were howling.

I didn't take the film as one-sided in the direction of "pro-military, pro-gun flag waving," nor, I believe, did most here, but obviously many in the audience did, which partly explains the film's great box-office success.

[Saman Moradkhani]

American Sniper made the New York Times list of "The 10 Most Influential Films of the Decade," compiled by Times co-chief film critics Manohla Dargis and A.O. Scott:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/24/movies/best-movies-2010s-decade.html

I didn't take the film as one-sided in the direction of "pro-military, pro-gun flag waving," nor, I believe, did most here, but obviously many in the audience did, which partly explains the film's great box-office success.

Same here KC. I don't think that Eastwood is "pro-military" and "pro-gun" especially after knowing that he has also directed Flags of Our Fathers and Letters.
on the other hand, I do agree that American Sniper is one of the most influential films of the decade. No one saw that coming. that project was passed by 2 directors due to budjet diagreements with WB. but Clint had a magic wand and the rest is history.

[Gant]

I can't post links or pictures right now but there's a story just popped up..

Clint Eastwood Donates Oceanfront land to Preserve Open Space for Public

There's a nice pic of Clint being interviewed and a piece describing how Clint has donated 79 acres of prime beachfront property to the Big Sur land trust..

I'm sure it'll be easy to find and post a link  if anyone does a search on it..

I guess this is a bit more than a minor mention ??

[KC]

Thanks, Gant. This story is actually a few years old (2016). Antonis posted about it on the previous page of this thread:

Clint, Maggie Eastwood donate 79 acres to Big Sur Land Trust
Gift will restore Carmel River Flood Plain

http://www.ksbw.com/news/clint-maggie-eastwood-donate-79-acres-to-big-sur-land-trust/40269034

Here's another link, with a picture:

https://www.montereycountyweekly.com/blogs/news_blog/clint-eastwood-donates-acres-of-carmel-land-to-big-sur/article_f9070f36-3d8f-11e6-a202-8faefd584838.html


I had forgotten about this, but thanks for reminding us! 

[Gant]

Oops.. I shoulda checked myself first..

Cool story tho...

[Gant]

I read a piece online this morning from The Wall St Journal where Clint appears to endorse Democrat and former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg who is running in the 2020 Democratic Presidential primaries. Published Feb 21.

There's some interesting quotes about the President as well as Clint's views on the #MeToo movement..

I can't post links but should be easy to find..

[KC]

I wanted to post a link to a neat little story in the sports section of the Times today with a selection of unusual sports movies to watch during the international sports hiatus owing to the pandemic ... beginning with Invictus.

But I simply could not find it on the Times website. I finally came to the conclusion that it had been pulled, for reasons unknown (not all the films are currently available streaming? Who knows?)

Anyway, I still have the "paper" paper, so here it is:


The pertinent detail:

[AgentSmith]

This touches Mr Eastwood in a minor way but it is still worth knowing. Jeremy Thomas’s Brit sales and production firm HanWay is rebranding catalog label HanWay Select to The Collections as part of a drive to highlight and propel its significant library of more than 350 movies. This also matter to The Sally Potter Collection includes movies Orlando and Ginger & Rosa; The New Zealand Film Collection features auteurs such as Campion and Taika Waititi as well as Lee Tamahori’s Once Were Warriors; The Paul Cox Collection comprises thirteen features including Man of Flowers and Exile; while The Blues Collection includes Martin Scorsese’s documentary about the blues and its African origins Feel Like Going Home and the seventh installment of the documentary film series Piano Blues directed by Clint Eastwood.

More information here:
https://deadline.com/2020/05/hanway-last-emperor-naked-lunch-restoration-1202925239/

[honkytonkman]

The trial of the Thalys attack on August 21, 2015, is due to open on November 16 before the specially composed assize court in Paris. According to France Inter information, among the witnesses expected at the hearing, a certain ... Clint Eastwood


https://www.franceinter.fr/justice/proces-de-l-attentat-rate-du-thalys-clint-eastwood-convoque-a-l-audience

[AKA23]

I have an update on a past potential Clint project that he ended up not making. It's a very interesting story and you will never guess the reason why! Many years ago there used to be a site called the4filmmakers.com. It was an industry site for studios to post information on  various film projects in development. In 2000, Clint optioned a book called The Boys of St. Julien by Lucian Truscott IV. This was the plot:

The murders of two of his neighbors in a small French village draw retired CIA agent Hank Mathias into a deadly fifty-year-old mystery as he searches for a former Nazi captain responsible for the 1944 massacre of innocent civilians, a crime of which his murdered neighbor had been the sole survivor--and witness

It sounded to me like the perfect starring vehicle for Clint, so recently, I had been trying to track the book down so I could finally read this story. I looked on AMAZON, but it wasn't available for purchase, and I was unable to find it at any local libraries. The only library in the world that seemed to have a copy was in Australia, which I found to be very odd. I found some kind of search engine that listed the stock of independent book sellers and called many in my local area that were reported to have it, but but none of them actually did. When I googled the book, I wasn't able to find any reviews of it, even though the author had published multiple other best selling books in the United States.

I had exhausted my capabilities in this area, and it was driving me crazy that I could not find it, so I reached out to our very own KC and started harassing her about this book to see if she could find a copy for me, since she works for a library working in the rare books division! I thought for sure KC would be able to track this down, but she used her library resources and was similarly unable to track a copy down. So, she developed an interesting theory on this, which was the only explanation that was consistent with all of the facts, and it was this:

I've searched the librarians' version of WorldCat, and there are three records (two for the book, and one for an audiobook version). But when you look at them more closely: they were created by book distributors, not libraries, and the handful of "holdings" listed are also either distributors or library consortia (groups of libraries where catalog records are probably input straight from the publisher or distributor, then used for a public record when the physical book comes in ... if it ever does).

I had never heard of library consortia, but since this was the only explanation that made any sense whatsoever, I decided to see if I could contact the author to confirm. I found him on Facebook and wrote him a message, but he did not respond. I also saw that he had a Twitter account, and that he seemed quite active on there, but I didn't have Twitter, so I enlisted another one of our board members, Saman, to write him and ask him. His response was, "never finished the book. Sorry." The moral of the story here is that KC was right! Thanks to her and Saman, I now have my answer! I also thought members might find it amusing that a book that I thought sounded like a promising Clint project that I have wanted to read for 20 years  never actually existed!