Top 250 movie map

This diagram might seem familiar to anyone who's lived in or visited a major metropolis with public transportation, but unless you've been to towns, neighborhoods or districts called ROPE, AMADEUS, SNATCH or UNFORGIVEN, the stops are probably a little different. The map was assembled at vodkaster using the 250 highest-rated films on IMDB (as of mid-June), and charts them based on genre. Some of the layout might... Read More...

GRAN TORINO Blu-ray Review

Somewhere around 1988’s Bird, Clint Eastwood’s career took a turn for the respectable. Four years later he had two Oscars for Unforgiven. And though Eastwood’s career as an auteur has had some detractors (people either love him, or find him highly overrated), his run in the 21st century has shown that he’s given up his [...]

Blu-ray Review: Appaloosa

The western genre is a tricky one for feature films nowadays. They used to be a dime a dozen, but it seems they went out of style for good after Clint Eastwood made the superb Unforgiven in 1992 and has yet to return to the genre. Kevin Costner made the stinker of a film in [...]

John Carpenters The Prince: Unforgiven as a Gangster Flick?

It’s been a long time since we’ve seen something new on the big screen from legendary horror director John Carpenter. Ghosts of Mars was his last theatrical release, and that was all the way back in 2001. Since then he has taken a long hiatus, for the most part content to simply cash cheques while [...]

The Top Five Clint Eastwood Movies

5 - The Outlaw Josey Wales

4 - Million Dollar Baby

3 - The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

2 - Dirty Harry

1 - The Unforgiven

                                Classic Clint

I haven't done exhaustive research on this, but I'm willing to bet that there has never been an actor with 50 years of screen credits who, half a century into it, also won another Best Director Oscar. Clint Eastwood is an absolute rarity. For the first 20 years of his career, he was defined by his squint and his gunplay. For the next 15 years, by his squint, gunplay, and bad, silly action movies. Then came Unforgiven, and it was like Eastwood was reborn.

Though he's made a few forgettable movies since 1992, there's no denying that the artist Eastwood is in his late 70s is better on every level than any of his previous incarnations. He's a better actor, a better storyteller, a better director, and what the hell, a better composer. And what he has done in the past five years is truly, truly astounding. Perhaps only Kurosawa was still making great films so late in life. But it's the kinds of stories Eastwood is telling now that are the most interesting thing about his renaissance: He hasn't made a western in nearly 20 years.

As an actor, interestingly enough, most of Eastwood's best performances have come after the age of 60, and only one of those (In the Line of Fire) is in a film by another director. And you can't mock his style anymore, not after Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby, which is the best performance in his long career.

So narrowing this down to five capstone movies is tough. We have the new crop and a smattering of his pre-Unforgiven films to choose from. Fortunately, as we pare down the list - which is also open to his acting performances - there aren't many before 1992 that really qualify, so that saves us some time.