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Jersey Boys may have tanked, but don't count Clint Eastwood out yet. The 84-year-old is still the fastest gun in the West. He just cranked out American Sniper with Bradley Cooper, and it will debut Christmas of this year.

Really? I didn't even know he was filming it so close together with the last film.

flyonthewall2983 wrote:Really? I didn't even know he was filming it so close together with the last film.

He shot three films while you were writing that post.

And I thought Woody Allen was fast.

Clint typically films very very quickly. Not a lot of takes and he doesn't mess with the script. He works with talented writers and doesn't interfere with their work.

Apropos of nothing: One of my biggest pet peeves is the preponderance of films with the title American ________, and the fact that Bradley Cooper is in two of them in two years particularly irks me. It's the laziest template possible for a title - just call the fucking thing Sniper!

And disrespect the good name of Tom Berenger? I don't think so.

Then again, Sniper! would be an awesome title.

I dunno, I think Cooper's really gonna change your mind on that when he stars in American America.

What am I supposed to do now with my half-written screenplay for American Funk: The mfunk Story?

Give it to Eastwood, I'm sure he'll think it's good enough as is to immediately begin production.

ShellOilJunior wrote:Clint typically films very very quickly. Not a lot of takes and he doesn't mess with the script. He works with talented writers and doesn't interfere with their work.

None of that takes away from this being an amazing turn-around, because he's 84. He'll probably be retired, but I have little doubt he'll make it to 100.

I will say this about the trailer (having seen it before Gone Girl): it is one of the most refreshing trailers I have seen in quite a while. It gives the right amount of information to get you intrigued about what is going on without spoiling the hell out of it.

Also this may give me some hope for Bradley Cooper =].

Yeah, it's a great trailer, jumping right into a high-stakes situation, and then ending before it presents a solution. It's so unlike an Eastwood movie, though, that it's hard to believe it resembles the actual movie in any meaningful way.

I found it heartening just to see that whoever cut the trailer deviated from the typical cliches I've come to expect in trailers for Eastwood's films (specifically that somber piano music). I hope this reflects the filmmaking more than Warner Brothers marketing.

flyonthewall2983 wrote:Trailer

Finally saw the trailer after reading this Guardian article exploring the reaction for/against this film. It is indeed an excellent trailer. I was so disappointed in J. Edgar that I pretty much gave up on Eastwood's newer work, but I feel compelled to check this one out now.

The television ads have even been incredibly intense showcases for the tone [or what I hope to be the tone] of this film. I'm looking forward to it too.

To be released on IMAX screens when it goes wide.

There's also a few articles out there about the movie's inaccuracies. Am I the only one who's tired of these stories every single awards season, that are obviously being put out by supporters of competing films?

No fight scene with Jesse Ventura, no sale.

Has a film ever been this successful in January before?

This seems to be the running theme of Oscar this year: journalistic veracity. (Can't wait to hear the host's jokes on Oscar night.) The fictionalized elements of what I consider the worst films seem to be more banal and lazy (Theory of Everything, The Imitation Game), and I guess it shouldn't be surprising that they've gotten the least criticism. Foxcatcher's, we've discussed before. I thought Selma would be the biggest controversy (still a good film, just flawed in respect to LBJ), but the outcry over American Sniper has been incredible, moreso because it's a box office smash bigger than most recent comic book films.

I went to a packed screening, and I didn't exactly feel a charge in the air, most people leaving the theater were neither angered or fired up over the film. If it's propaganda or a canonization of Chris Kyle, I wonder if the neutral part audience has been swayed that way?

There are problems, historically and politically, but to me most came in the beginning, more the result of omission. The quick rush through the flashbacks link the war on terror to Iraq in a way that may betray a neo-conservative bent - the mistakes in policy are never made clear. But I could also see it interpreted as showing how Kyle may have entered this life for wrong-headed reasons - he probably believes they are linked, and given how he reacted to the last pre-9/11 terror attack, he seems like the type of guy who would buy whatever Orwellian lies the Bush administration was selling. So perhaps it's more his POV? So much of the film is done that way, like his routine, didactic responses, but we see doubt everywhere (and we don't ever hear it in didactic terms, we see it experienced - I feel like Eastwood chose to show opposing views in opposing styles which fit the viewpoints). The way others react to Kyle's confident sense of mission, some of the more obvious sniper scenes, the way Kyle is uncomfortable around a surviving soldier's own patriotic gratitude towards him, etc.

It did bother me that the Iraqis were almost uniformly terrible…but it could make sense if Kyle's encounters with most of them is in combat, and this is a film strictly from their POV. We saw what happened to one group of friendlier Iraqis, narratively it could explain why we don't see anymore. I'm still uncomfortable about it, but at least there's some logic to it.

It's not a great film, it's very flawed, but I think there is a strong current of ambiguity there that tempers the harsher reactions towards this film. The scales are still tipped towards Bush-era conservatism, but not as far as I think some make it out to be.

flyonthewall2983 wrote:Has a film ever been this successful in January before?

No. I believe the previous weekend record was from Avatar, which went wide the previous November or December. American Sniper's new record doubles the old one.

Zot! wrote:No fight scene with Jesse Ventura, no sale.

Probably because the studio doesn't want to be on the losing end of a defamation lawsuit.