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We’ll Make Your Day Today, Clint
On this day back in 1930, actor/director Clint Eastwood was born in San Francisco.
Whoa. Ladies and gentlemen, just as a reminder, it’s 2019.
Celebrating a towering 89 years, Mr. Eastwood is still regarded as one of the toughest tough guys around. His films, ranging from westerns ‘Unforgiven’ and ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’ to starring as a hardass cop in ‘Dirty Harry’ to a Secret Service agent in ‘In the Line of Fire’ to dramatizing the World War II battles on Iwo Jima in ‘Flags of Our Fathers’ to telling the real and deeply gritty ‘American Sniper’ to shining a behind-the-scenes light on ‘Sully’ — and dozens more movies in between — have left a definitive mark on Hollywood cinema that have and will continue to stand the test of time.
But just as important as the aforementioned serious films is Clint Eastwood’s sense of humor. And as famed comedic “roastmaster extraordinaire” Don Rickles showcased in a video clip below from many moons ago, ‘Dirty Harry’ is quite content for comedians to make his day.
Happy 89th Birthday, Clint Eastwood!
A Real Leap of Faith
There are movies that transcend entertainment and invite audiences into an experience. This could mean a fantasy world like Star Wars, or a park filled with prehistoric dinosaurs.
Or, in rare cases, real-life moments in the purest sense.
The 15:17 to Paris is as close as you can get to a shot-for-shot remake of the literal heroism of the three American friends who faced down a terrorist with his small arsenal of guns and weapons on a foreign train in order to protect themselves and complete strangers. In many ways, this film could’ve only come from Clint Eastwood; the idea to use the real people and the initiative to tackle this specific story. And don’t forget that casting the real people (Spencer Stone, Alek Skarlatos, Anthony Sadler) was a risky calculation by Mr. Eastwood. Regardless, watching these heroes leap toward the terrorist to save lives will be something special.
Everybody should see The 15:17 to Paris starting tomorrow not because it’s projected as a blockbuster hit at the box office or as brilliant cinema, but instead to see on the big screen what Clint Eastwood saw in these three American men who reacted to the worst kind of adversity in the best way imaginable.
A Real Hollywood Ending
There’s a new movie that takes the idea of practical effects and realism to another cinematic level.
Clint Eastwood is an acclaimed actor and is proving to be, with each new major motion picture under his belt, one of the best directors on the planet. And leave it to the 87-year-old all-American badass to innovate a “young man’s game” in Hollywood by not casting professional actors for events inspired by real-life heroes but by casting the real-life heroes who defined an inspiring event.
Ladies and gentlemen, the first trailer for The 15:17 to Paris (based on a book with the same name) directed by Clint Eastwood was released by Warner Bros. Pictures today.
If The 15:17 to Paris doesn’t qualify as a must-see movie, then I don’t know what does.
Mark down February 9, 2018, on your calendar as movie night. Real-life American heroes (Anthony Sadler, Alek Skarlatos of the Oregon National Guard, and U.S. Air Force Airman First Class Spencer Stone) will be given a Hollywood treatment unlike any we’ve seen before in cinema.
Along with Christopher Nolan’s surreal, yet very realistic and necessarily gritty Dunkirk and Joe Wright’s Darkest Hour led by Gary Oldman’s sublime metamorphosis as Winston Churchill, there’s been no shortage of mainstream films spotlighting incredible people and their acts of courage and bravery.
That’s worth the price of admission and so much more.
