Go ahead, make my day

This blog’s distinguished alumnus, Sonny Bunch, has a review in the Weekly Standard [subscription required] of a new book about Clint Eastwood, who may actually be the hardest working man in show business.

That’s not necessarily a good thing; being prolific and being great aren’t always the same.

Since donning The Man with No Name’s poncho in Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars (1964), Eastwood has starred in or directed (or starred in and directed) 54 films, and post-production work has already begun on his 55th feature, Hereafter.

This weekend, I saw Gran Torino for the first-time. As Wikipedia points out, critics were up in arms when the film failed to garner a single Oscar nomination. But my wife and I spent the first 45 minutes of the film trying not to giggle at the cartoonish plot and acting.

Some of Eastwood’s work is simply superb. Like Sonny, I think Unforgiven belongs in that category. Perhaps the rest of Eastwood’s directorial oeuvre is more a matter of taste. (Sort of like using unnecessary French vocabulary in a blog post.)