Topic: Racist old man sits on porch, scowls at children (Read 16317 times)

Blue Kitty · « **on:** 28 Dec 2008, 22:02 »

Saw Gran Torino tonight, pretty damn good in my opinion.

Sure, Clint Eastwood has a perpetual scowl across his face the whole movie, but I didn't expect to be laughing my ass off every time he, or some of the other characters, spewed various racist remarks.

Gran Torino is Clint Eastwood doing what he does best, being an angry loner that gets the job done and sometimes helps people improve.

lprkn · « **Reply #1 on:** 29 Dec 2008, 00:46 »

I haven't seen it yet, but I've seen the trailer. I knew it was required viewing when Clint scowled and growled, "Get off my lawn."

Tom · « **Reply #2 on:** 29 Dec 2008, 00:57 »

Clint Eastwood has great wish-fulfillment fantasies. I will probably see this.

Nodaisho · « **Reply #3 on:** 29 Dec 2008, 12:04 »

I definitely want to see this too. Saw the trailer, and it looks really good.

Professor Snuggles · « **Reply #4 on:** 29 Dec 2008, 14:09 »

I really liked this movie. Way funnier than I expected it to be, poignant without being overtly saccharine. Good film.

RedLion · « **Reply #5 on:** 30 Dec 2008, 00:18 »

Saw it a few nights ago. Eastwood is almost always good, and this is a really good movie all things considered, but I felt like they played up the whole "angry old man" angle a bit too much, and at times it wasn't even comedic. At times his character felt horribly one-dimensional.

valley_parade · « **Reply #6 on:** 30 Dec 2008, 09:30 »

Really want to see this one.

SilentJ · « **Reply #7 on:** 30 Dec 2008, 20:05 »

I plan on seeing it to form an actual opinion on the movie, but right now all that comes to mind is "so, what does it feel like to kill a man?" "you don't want to know."

Ikrik · « **Reply #8 on:** 30 Dec 2008, 21:42 »

Is it something worth seeing in theatres or should I just get it off of my friend on a HD? Take into account that I have a huge man crush on Clint Eastwood.

SonofZ3 · « **Reply #9 on:** 31 Dec 2008, 12:07 »

Go see it. I don't know how many times I've thought "I'll just watch it on a home system" instead. Consequently, I missed out on Saving Private Ryan, Hero, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Dazed · « **Reply #10 on:** 10 Jan 2009, 21:50 »

Saw this last night. It's definitely good, but I agree with the above poster that they were a tiny bit too over the top in Clint's GRR I AM AN ANGRY RACIST OLD MAN persona. It improves a great deal throughout, as he mellows. Solid film, all around, just a bit hamfisted at times.

Cartilage Head · « **Reply #11 on:** 11 Jan 2009, 00:02 »

Clit Yeasthood.

Catacombs · « **Reply #12 on:** 13 Jan 2009, 19:09 »

I saw this movie last night. It was EXCELLENT. I'd probably go see it again.

But really, I'd recommend going to see it. I've never seen a Clint Eastwood movie (I know, I have some catching up to do) but he was good in it. I didn't think he was completely one dimensional, they just made the point very clear how he felt about everything/everyone else. The racism wasn't as much as...Crash was (which is also an excellent movie) but they really covered all races and preferences. There were some slurs I've never even heard in it.

And plus, it features Clint SINGING at the end of it!

Nodaisho · « **Reply #13 on:** 14 Jan 2009, 01:03 »

Honestly, I was disappointed with the ending. Sure, it's one I haven't seen before, but well... I can't figure out how to put this without spoiling it, spoilers are in the tiny text.

I was really wanting to see him kick some ass, the ending was more million dollar baby than unforgiven. What I like about a story is that it can be far more black and white than it is in real life. There are good guys, and there are bad guys. The good guys beat the shit out of the bad guys, the bad guys don't have anyone that would mourn for them, they don't have redeeming features, they are scumbags through and through, and they end up dead. It's wish fulfillment, because it isn't that simple in reality. I kind of saw the ending coming, what with the horoscope of an anti-climatic ending, but I was hoping I was reading too much into it. It feels like it was a real waste of Eastwood's badassity, and it's a real downer ending, even if it was trying to be a sort of closure for Walt's baggage from the war.

RedLion · « **Reply #14 on:** 14 Jan 2009, 23:21 »

Actually, I thought the ending was perfect.

Catacombs · « **Reply #15 on:** 15 Jan 2009, 06:48 »

SPOILERS! DON'T READ UNLESS YOU'VE SEEN THE MOVIE

I was a little disappointed in the ending, but I think that's all they could have done. Of course it would have been badass for Clint to sneak in and kill every one of the gang members, but that would be farfetched due to his age and stuff. The way they ended it made the most sense, with all the neighbors watching and the whole gang getting arrested. I don't think they could have done much else.

Nodaisho · « **Reply #16 on:** 15 Jan 2009, 08:12 »

I don't think it would be far-fetched due to his age, just far-fetched due to the 5 or 6 on 1 odds. Not that that has stopped him from doing that in his movies before. I've seen news stories of Korean War vets stopping burglars within the last year, add that to movie-ness and you get taking out a whole gang of them.

Don't get me wrong, it was a well-done ending, but it wasn't the movie I wanted to see with that ending. I was expecting to see Clint Eastwood, force of nature. As it was, I would have rather stopped watching after the barbecue and just watched the last 30 minutes or so of Pale Rider.

AngelofShadows · « **Reply #17 on:** 17 Jan 2009, 16:30 »

I loved this movie. A lot.

Clint Eastwood is the oldest bad-ass on the planet.

WriterofAllWrongs · « **Reply #18 on:** 18 Jan 2009, 13:09 »

I think this was a really great bad movie. Like, it's every Clint Eastwood character ever, but played with a little bit to give a fun angle to the film. Gritty war veteran who goes on about the good ol' days to young people who are the problem with America these days, racism, and a friggin' priest asking the main character to go into confession. Oh and also a training montage. It cannot get any more 50's values film than that. It felt like at numerous points the film could stray into actually bad territory, but whoever wrote the film kept it in check pretty well. It's a really good film that plays with a lot of cliches, and basically parodies Clint Eastwood throughout. Ace.

Ikrik · « **Reply #19 on:** 19 Jan 2009, 11:19 »

Watched it again last night and I've noticed something. The supporting cast (with a few possible exceptions) are absolutely terrible. Thao is the absolute worst offender and the priest and Clint's family being the only exceptions. Sue and Thao stuttered a bunch of times and just seemed like they were just picked right off the street. I'm sure they probably did pretty well in auditions or whatever...but wow, did their performance leave a lot to be desired. I don't blame them...trying to act next to Clint Eastwood would give me a heart attack.

-->WriterofAllWrongs
You want a really great "bad" movie....go watch Army of Darkness, hell..watch almost any Bruce Campbell movies. You want to describe Gran Torino as a great bad movie? Clint Eastwood is playing the persona he's played in every movie he's ever played in. This time he's a bitter, racist old man. When did he ever go on about the good ol days? If anything he talked about piling bodies in Korea. Basically paroides Clint Eastwood? Umm, no. He directed and produced the film, there is no parody.

WriterofAllWrongs · « **Reply #20 on:** 19 Jan 2009, 11:36 »

oh army of darkness yessss

Well alright man, that's fair enough I suppose, but it really does put a really comedic take on his grizzled scowling on-screen persona. Maybe not an outright parody, but he definitely pokes a bit of fun at himself. Don't have to get all up in arms about the film. It's a bad film because it's so predictable and sort of just the sort of film you'd expect a man who starred in numerous westerns to make about the youth of today, but it's great because it can avoid all the stigma of those sorts of films and the predictability is endearing.

Also, the cast is predominately Hmong folks who had never acted before, so it's understandable that they would be so awful.

Guido Sarducci · « **Reply #21 on:** 19 Jan 2009, 20:54 »

Quote from: Ikrik on 19 Jan 2009, 11:19

Watched it again last night and I've noticed something. The supporting cast (with a few possible exceptions) are absolutely terrible. Thao is the absolute worst offender and the priest and Clint's family being the only exceptions. Sue and Thao stuttered a bunch of times and just seemed like they were just picked right off the street. I'm sure they probably did pretty well in auditions or whatever...but wow, did their performance leave a lot to be desired. I don't blame them...trying to act next to Clint Eastwood would give me a heart attack.

-->WriterofAllWrongs
You want a really great "bad" movie....go watch Army of Darkness, hell..watch almost any Bruce Campbell movies. You want to describe Gran Torino as a great bad movie? Clint Eastwood is playing the persona he's played in every movie he's ever played in. This time he's a bitter, racist old man. When did he ever go on about the good ol days? If anything he talked about piling bodies in Korea. Basically paroides Clint Eastwood? Umm, no. He directed and produced the film, there is no parody.

Most of the Hmong were camera virgins, and, yeah they were basically picked off the street. Despite the common perception, your average joe really can't act. Sue and Thao were both new to acting so you aren't going to get Academy Award performances. I think the point of choosing Hmong was to make them somewhat stiff on camera. They've been somewhat isolated by society because they are frankly somewhat strange to a more modern culture (not strange in fact, just so out of the norm that they end up isolated...) Using them also gives Eastwood an opportunity to highlight just how mean and downright weird Walt is--the only people willing or desperate enough to live next to him are outsiders themselves.

I know what it is like to come home angry at the world, and sort of stuck in time like a fly in amber. I think the ending was perfect, actually. Piling bodies leaves you (if you are sane) stuck with the feeling when you come home that you are a monster, can't fit in and can't be forgiven for what you've done. You wait for (and sometimes see) that look in your wife's face that says she's deeply afraid of you and doesn't know how to deal with it any more than you do. Her fear confirms what you think about yourself. It's too hard for you to process, and so you try to hide from it--by isolating yourself. One good way of doing that is to drive everyone off--like your family so you won't hurt them. Racism is a good way to do that. I got the impression that he was avoiding confession out of fear that God would refuse him. Walt was able to find a measure of redemption in the end, and in a way that I'm sure he welcomed. Good movie, and not anything like anything else he's done, IMO.

Ikrik · « **Reply #22 on:** 20 Jan 2009, 18:05 »

Sorry I got riled up, I just REALLY loved this film. There are a few films I get really defensive of and this happens to be one of them.

TheFuriousWombat · « **Reply #23 on:** 21 Jan 2009, 15:05 »

POTENTIAL SPOILER(S) OF SORTS WITHIN:

Saw it this afternoon. It ultimately left me a little cold. I remember thinking, at the end, "man, the dog's going to miss him" and that made me sadder than anything else. Somehow the ending was just too predictable and, great as Clint was, the whole rest of the cast (including the priest, I think) were merely OK at best and downright awful at worst. It got to the point, at times, where it was distracting and dragged down potentially powerful or intense scenes. The scene with the girl and that wigger being accosted by those guys on the corner while Clint watches from his car and the scene where Clint tricks Thao and locks him in the basement, going to confront the gang on his own, are definitely examples of this. I thought a lot of the dialog was not only poorly acted but also poorly written at several moments. Even Clint's. The whole tough guy thing was, I think, a little overplayed but I place the blame for that solely on the screen writer since it was all in the dialog. Still, Eastwood was pretty brilliant throughout, even though I have a bit of a hard time finding his rather abrupt transformation believable. I was honestly hoping to love this and ultimately my reaction to it was far more lukewarm.
Also, a rather frightening experience: as the credits began to role, some guy sitting by himself in the top left corner of the theater started laughing hysterically. Like...in a nearly deranged manner. He was laughing so hard he was choking at a couple points. I left the theater and made a quick phone call. The guy walked past, still laughing just as hard. This perplexed and, to be honest, sort of terrified me. I mean, I know Clint Eastwood should never sing. I get that. But I'm not sure if it warrants a deranged reaction.

Inlander · « **Reply #24 on:** 27 Jan 2009, 05:17 »

Just saw this tonight. I really liked it, and I'm a bit amazed (though perhaps not surprised) by some of the reactions in this thread. Perhaps it's because I'm a bit older than a lot of the people here, but I find films about "badass killing-machine one-man-armies" in which the bad guys "get what's coming to them" at the end of the film to be pretty much utterly reprehensible. So I was really pleased with the way this film panned out, even if the ending was a bit sentimental and unbelievable (touch too much Walt Kowalski as Jesus metaphor in there for my liking). Clint Eastwood's become one of the most compassionate film-makers out there, and this film fits right in there with his recent work. In the end the only really duff notes in the film for me were the utterly cliched (though fortunately little-seen) character of the granddaughter, especially in her last scene, and that dreadful song over the end credits.

There was a really good article in the Guardian (as usual) last month about this film, but somebody seems to have forgotten to put it up properly on their website. Here's the link, keep checking it out in case they fix it: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/dec/19/clint-eastwood-gran-torino-dirty-harry.

Nodaisho · « **Reply #25 on:** 27 Jan 2009, 15:41 »

Quote from: Inlander on 27 Jan 2009, 05:17

Just saw this tonight. I really liked it, and I'm a bit amazed (though perhaps not surprised) by some of the reactions in this thread. Perhaps it's because I'm a bit older than a lot of the people here, but I find films about "badass killing-machine one-man-armies" in which the bad guys "get what's coming to them" at the end of the film to be pretty much utterly reprehensible.

Why, if you don't mind me asking? And your link is already dead, goes to the page, but there is nothing where the story should be. Did have a bit on how some dumbass that got put in charge decided to ban a poster for WANTED because it "glamourized gun violence".

Inlander · « **Reply #26 on:** 27 Jan 2009, 16:35 »

It's the Guardian, so the link's not dead, it's just borked. They'll fix it up eventually. They always do. Their website is pretty amazingly comprehensive - you can still read articles from the 90s there, for gods' sake!

As for the other bit, I just find the whole culture of violence in which it's assumed that because someone's the bad guy their life is disposable to be absolutely disgusting. It's the kind of thing we see over and over again in Hollywood - see Die Hard, for instance, or that horrible end to Bad Boys where they try to have their cake and eat it too ("You can't kill the bad guy! That's wrong! LOOK OUT, HE'S GOT A GUN! BLAM! Phew, that was close." A nice counterpoint to this was Hot Fuzz, which was incredibly violent without ever becoming vengeful. So I really appreciated the fact that Gran Torino managed to resolve itself in a different way - and in fact the whole point of the movie seemed to be that there is a different way to resolve things other than going on a killing spree - even if it was rather melodramatic.

satsugaikaze · « **Reply #27 on:** 28 Jan 2009, 04:24 »

I liked the "get off my lawn" line.

ALMOST as good as Harrison Ford in Air Force One, although "GET OFF MY PLANE" still sounds more hardcore.

TheFuriousWombat · « **Reply #28 on:** 28 Jan 2009, 05:57 »

Oh come on, that Ford line is much better! Every grumpy old man grumbles and/or yells "Get off my lawn" at least a few times a month. How many people ever yell "Get off my plane"? I'll tell you: only one. And it was Harrison Ford.

Alex C · « **Reply #29 on:** 28 Jan 2009, 20:19 »

Yeah, Eastwood's been meditating on vengeance and the glorification of violence for a while now. I loved how deftly he subverted many of the tropes that were present in his earlier films in Unforgiven; the general plotline of that movie could easily have been played "straight"* and worked as a standard western but it's such an ugly li'l film that the cumulative effect is completely different.

*Frankly, I would rather say that Eastwood is the one who played it straight and it was just those other dopes that used to glorify characters who mostly shot eachother for no god damn reason, but then again, I figure that'd be rather disingenuous.

Nodaisho · « **Reply #30 on:** 28 Jan 2009, 20:42 »

Quote from: Inlander on 27 Jan 2009, 16:35

It's the Guardian, so the link's not dead, it's just borked. They'll fix it up eventually. They always do. Their website is pretty amazingly comprehensive - you can still read articles from the 90s there, for gods' sake!

I've never been on their site before, so I wouldn't know. I just figured it was dead because it wasn't working right.

Quote

As for the other bit, I just find the whole culture of violence in which it's assumed that because someone's the bad guy their life is disposable to be absolutely disgusting. It's the kind of thing we see over and over again in Hollywood - see Die Hard, for instance, or that horrible end to Bad Boys where they try to have their cake and eat it too ("You can't kill the bad guy! That's wrong! LOOK OUT, HE'S GOT A GUN! BLAM! Phew, that was close." A nice counterpoint to this was Hot Fuzz, which was incredibly violent without ever becoming vengeful. So I really appreciated the fact that Gran Torino managed to resolve itself in a different way - and in fact the whole point of the movie seemed to be that there is a different way to resolve things other than going on a killing spree - even if it was rather melodramatic.

So you'd rather see someone have to sacrifice themselves to get the bad guys put away, likely not even for life, with their testimony of his previous threats and violence? I'd much prefer to see them get shot, though I wouldn't want to see it presented as wonderful and heroic (though in my opinion, it would be less than they deserved. Not the place to discuss that, though). The way that I think Unforgiven presented it.

Inlander · « **Reply #31 on:** 28 Jan 2009, 21:13 »

Quote from: Nodaisho on 28 Jan 2009, 20:42

So you'd rather see someone have to sacrifice themselves to get the bad guys put away, likely not even for life, with their testimony of his previous threats and violence?

I'd rather see murderous violence portrayed as an essentially evil act - regardless of who perpetrates it. I think this is basically the message that comes across in Gran Torino. I don't think the resolution of the film is perfect or ideal by any means, but I'm immensely pleased that for once we're not being asked to cheer for the good guy while he goes on a killing spree. The message of the film is pretty clear: "bad guys" kill people, "good guys" don't. That's much more in keeping with my own thoughts on the matter than the usual Hollywood line of "It's okay to kill bad guys because they're bad guys."

Nodaisho · « **Reply #32 on:** 28 Jan 2009, 21:36 »

I guess I understand that, I just disagree with you on it being that clear cut.

Catacombs · « **Reply #33 on:** 29 Jan 2009, 07:39 »

I did like that they attempted to create an alternate ending than what you thought was going to happen (Eastwood going back to the gang's house and killing all of them). However, while i was watching them get arrested, and the cop saying they would be put away for a long time, I couldn't help but thinking "really? i doubt they'll do THAT much time in prison, most likely they wouldn't get life". Which is sort of depressing, but it's just the way the world is i guess.

Alex C · « **Reply #34 on:** 29 Jan 2009, 07:50 »

You guys are forgetting that in this case the gangs shot a white guy for once.

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Author Topic: Racist old man sits on porch, scowls at children (Read 16317 times)