Friday 16 December 2011

Clint and Family to star in reality TV show?

Thanks to my friend Kevin Wilkinson who just sent me these two stories. I never thought I would ever see Clint being involved in such a show, but after consideration, I can't help thinking what a fascinating insight this may prove to be...
Anyway, here are the 2 reports:
Clint Eastwood joins the good, bad and ugly of reality TV
The Guardian,
Dirty Harry star Clint Eastwood is set to appear in a reality TV show that will explore what it's like to live in a family of "Hollywood royalty". The show, which is being developed by the producers of reality shows about the Kardashian sisters and MTV's The Real World, will air on the E! Entertainment channel in the US. The makers intend to focus on the daily life of the 81-year-old actor and director's wife Dina Eastwood, a former news anchor and actor, their 15-year-old daughter Morgan, and Francesca Fisher-Eastwood, the 18-year-old daughter Eastwood had with former partner Frances Fisher.
Eastwood – who has acted in a string of Hollywood hits including A Fistful of Dollars, Play Misty For Me and Million Dollar Baby, as well as directing films such as Unforgiven, Mystic River and Letters From Iwo Jima – will make guest appearances in the as-yet-unnamed show which is scheduled to air in 2012.
The show aims to explore what its like to live in a family of "Hollywood royalty", according to a report on TMZ.com. The Eastwoods will join a burgeoning number of celebrity families who have let the cameras film their private lives including the Osbournes and the Spellings.

Oscar-winning actor Eastwood to star in a reality show with his family
Mailonline, 15th December 2011
Legendary actor Clint Eastwood already has more than just a Fistful of Dollars.

But he will no doubt be making a Few Dollars More when he features in a new reality show alongside his wife and daughters. The 81-year-old actor and director is set to tackle the new frontier as a guest star in an E! programme that will feature his wife Dina, 46, and their 15-year-old daughter Morgan. It will also focus on his 18-year-old child Francesca, who he had from a previous relationship with Unforgiven star Frances Fisher, and is an aspiring actress.
 
No doubt fans will be shocked to discover the film icon, who has won two best director academy awards, is open to appearing in a reality show. However they may also be intrigued enough to tune into the programme which according to TMZ will will explore what it's like to live in a family of Hollywood royalty. The show is being produced by top reality television specialists Bunim/Murray, who make the Kardashian family reality shows. In addition they also produce The Real World and Bad Girls Club.
 
Sources tell us producers are hoping to get the show on the air in the next few months.
Clint is also active politically, though the libertarian prefers to stay away from party politics. He served as a term as mayor of his home town Carmel-by-the-Sea, and served on the California State Park & Recreation Commission, and the California Film Commission.

 
The Any Which Way You Can star is also noted for his personal life, fathering seven children by five different women.

Friday 28 October 2011

J.Edgar News and Reviews


What a transformation: Leonardo DiCaprio is unrecognisable
as an elderly J. Edgar Hoover
October 28th 2011, Sarah Fitzmaurice, Mail Online
With a receding hair line thinning fast, deep lines etched across his weathered face and a stoop that comes with old age Leonardo DiCaprio looks unrecognisable in new stills from his latest film.
The actor, 36, has been transformed to look twice his age as part of his portrayal of J. Edgar Hoover. Leonardo takes on the role of the controversial FBI director in the film J, Edgar, which is set for release in the U.S. at the start of November.
Gone is the floppy blonde fringe Leonardo fans know and love, replaced by liver spots, excess weight around the middle and heavy bags under his eyes as Leonardo portrays the iconic man throughout his life. Hoover is credited with founding the FBI and remained director right up until his death in 1972. In one shot the actor is seen with co-star Armie Hammer, who has also been propelled into old age. In another the actor is playing the law enforcer as an ambitious young man, while a third shows a different side to Hoover as he leaves his dinner guests captivated with conversation at a glamorous meal. The story follows his life as he moulds the Federal Bureau of Investigation into an efficient crime-fighting agency, introducing modern technologies including fingerprinting and forensic laboratories.
Left: Clint directing on the set of J.Edgar
Apart from the physical transformation, which with the help of make-up sees the actor age from his thirties into his seventies, another hurdle DiCaprio has to overcome is alluding to being gay. While Hoover, who served in office between 1924 until 1935, denied he was homosexual, rumours circulated that he had an affair with Clyde Tolson, an associate director of the FBI who was his heir.
During one scene in the back of a taxi, the camera zooms in to see DiCaprio holding hands with Tolson, played by The Social Network star Armie Hammer. Hammer, 25, is a rising US actor who starred as both twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss in the social networking biopic centred on Mark Zuckerberg.
The trailer focuses on Hoover's rise to notoriety, with flashback scenes of when he was a young boy, and fast-forwarding to his glory years with the tagline, 'Even great men can be corrupted'.
                                                                                          He later became the face of law enforcement in America for almost 50 years, and was equally feared as he was admired. But behind closed doors, he held secrets that would have destroyed his powerful image, including psychological issues and bending the rules to discover the truth. The star-studded cast also boasts home grown talents Naomi Watts and Judi Dench, who plays DiCaprio's mother.
Million Dollar Baby director Clint Eastwood continues his filmmaking genius behind the lens, while Dustin Lance Black, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Milk, penned the script. J. Edgar will premiere at the AFI film festival on November 3, and will be released in cinemas in the US a week later. It will be in UK cinemas on January 20.
The Man in Charge
“J. Edgar.”by David Denby
The New Yorker, November 14, 2011
Clint Eastwood’s “J. Edgar” is, of all things, a portrait of a soul. The movie is a nuanced account of J. Edgar Hoover (Leonardo DiCaprio) as a sympathetic monster, a compound of intelligence, repression, and misery—a man whose inner turmoil, tamed and sharpened, irrupts in authoritarian fervor. Eastwood and the screenwriter Dustin Lance Black have re-created that period in the nineteen-twenties and thirties when a righteous young man with a stentorian style could electrify a nation. Outraged by scattered bomb plots and shifting values, Hoover senses that Americans need safety, or, at least, the illusion of safety, and he becomes the vessel of their protection, exercising and justifying, with ironclad rhetoric, his own dominance.

The movie has the structure of a conventional bio-pic. It begins in 1919, when the twenty-four-year-old Hoover, employed by the Justice Department to track “alien subversives,” shows up on his bicycle at the Washington house of his boss, Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, after it has been bombed by anarchists. The film traces Hoover’s rise from that shocking moment: his creation of the F.B.I., within the Justice Department; his corrupt and intimidating hold on the directorship; his successes, failures, and phobias; and his shaky last days. Yet “J. Edgar” is saved from the usual stiffness of the bio-pic form by the emotionally unsettled nature of its hero, a man vamped and controlled by his mother (Judi Dench), and afraid of his own sexuality, yet desperate for companionship. For decades, Hoover works at the Bureau with Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer) and carries on a chaste love affair with him. The two natty gents go to clubs and the races together, and spend weekends chaffing, quarrelling, and pledging their affections. This Hoover is a tyrant, a liar, and a prig, but he is also, in his impacted way, capable of love.

“J. Edgar”—a collaboration with the activist gay screenwriter of “Milk”—represents another remarkable turn in Clint Eastwood’s career. Remarkable, but not altogether surprising. Eastwood long ago gave up celebrating men of violence: the mysterious, annihilating Westerners and the vigilantes who think that they alone know how to mete out justice. But Clean Edgar, working with an efficient state apparatus behind him, is a lot more dangerous than Dirty Harry. As the filmmakers tell it, the roots of Hoover’s manias lie in his nature. The movie bears a thematic resemblance to Bernardo Bertolucci’s “The Conformist” (1970), in which a repressed homosexual (Jean-Louis Trintignant) in the nineteen-thirties, longing for “normality,” joins the Italian Fascist Party and operates as an amoral bullyboy. “J. Edgar” is the story of how a similarly repressed personality might operate in a democracy. The answer is privately, by accumulating secrets and blackmailing anyone who is even remotely a threat to his standing; and publicly, by making himself and his outfit pop-culture icons and then bending the government to his whim. The frame for the movie is the Director, in old age, dictating the story of his career to a series of young men from the Bureau. Black and Eastwood use this plot device ironically: Hoover is an exceptionally unreliable narrator, and the way Eastwood stages the actual events suggests that Hoover is pumping up his own role and stretching the truth.

The dark-toned cinematography, by Tom Stern, is as redolent of the past as old leather and walnut. The images are heavily shadowed, with faces often seen half in darkness, a visual hint that these people do not know themselves very well. Hoover’s ethics and his style are traditionalist in tone but radical in application. He flourishes at a time when powerful men are perfectly groomed and dressed—and cloaked in secrecy. Fanatically dedicated to appearances, they are fooling themselves, perhaps, as much as others. In the movie’s portrait of pre-electronic America, Hoover pierces those appearances with wiretaps, bugs, and the lowly file card, an early database that, aided by his longtime secretary, Helen Gandy (Naomi Watts), he wields to devastating effect. Nonetheless, Hoover is fixated on his own image and on that of the Bureau. Outraged that the public is enjoying the panache of Jimmy Cagney as a gangster, in such early-thirties pictures as “The Public Enemy,” Hoover lends his name and his support to Hollywood films, and, by the middle of the decade, Cagney is firing a gun on behalf of the government.

Hoover may be treated semi-satirically, but neither Black nor Eastwood suggests that the dangers and the national weaknesses he combatted early in his career were illusory. In 1920, crime detection was primitive. Hoover insists that the country needs an armed national police force and modern forensic methods—a fingerprint bank, up-to-date labs, and the like. Bursting into rooms at the Justice Department, and shouting down objections, he orders equipment, space, and training, and holds everyone to account. His new scientific methods lead, in 1934, to the capture of Bruno Hauptmann, the kidnapper of the Lindbergh baby. The complicated story of the Bureau is dramatized in flashes, as an emanation of Hoover’s will. This technique is inadequate as history but almost inevitable in a movie. What interests Black and Eastwood more than institutional lore is what Hoover did with the power he accumulated.
Again and again, he goes too far, treating Communist rhetorical bluster as the first stages of revolution, assembling lists of people whose opinions he considers suspect, fabricating documents, planting stories in the newspapers, bludgeoning potential enemies with his file drawers of sexual gossip. A single scene with Robert F. Kennedy (Jeffrey Donovan)—in the early sixties, when, as Attorney General, he was Hoover’s boss—stands in for Hoover’s relations with the various Presidents who longed to be rid of him but didn’t dare show him the door. Hoover tells Kennedy that he has evidence of his brother’s sexual escapades with dubious women, and his job remains intact. His smarmy prurience becomes a factor in national policy. He and Tolson giggle over an intercepted letter to Eleanor Roosevelt from Lorena Hickok, the reporter who became Roosevelt’s close friend and, possibly, her lover. As an old man, he holes up in a room to listen to tape recordings of Martin Luther King, Jr., having sex with a woman in a hotel. Eastwood stages the sexual scene as shadows on a wall. Hoover’s immobile, fascinated face is the obscene element in the episode.
The film moves fast, but Eastwood’s touch is light and sure, his judgment sound, the moments of pathos held just long enough. And he cast the right star as his equivocal hero-fool. In the past, such beetle-browed heavyweights as Broderick Crawford, Ernest Borgnine, and Bob Hoskins have played Hoover. By using DiCaprio, and then aging him with prosthetic makeup, Eastwood lets us see how a slender, good-looking young man might thicken and coarsen with years and power. DiCaprio, extending his vowels into a Washington drawl (Hoover was a local boy), focusses energy in his bulldog forehead; the body, increasingly sausage-packed into tight-fitting suits as Hoover gets older, is immobile, unused, mere weight. DiCaprio never burlesques Hoover, but when he meets Armie Hammer’s Tolson in his office for the first time he breaks into a sweat. Hammer—tall, handsome, suave yet gentle, with a sweet smile—gives a charming, soft-shoe performance that, in a memorable scene, explodes into jealous rage.
Hoover was in power for almost fifty years, and the filmmakers leave out many particulars of his reign. Despite frequent references to Hoover’s loathing of Communism (which he convinces himself is poisoning the civil-rights movement), Eastwood and Black omit his active role in the rise of the Red-baiting pols Joseph McCarthy and Richard Nixon. The filmmakers concentrate on the Bureau’s successes in capturing or killing the tommy-gun bank robbers of the thirties but overlook Hoover’s odd, and possibly corrupt, unwillingness to take organized crime seriously, even as, in the forties and fifties, the Mafia was draining millions from the economy. Liberals will find much in the movie that condemns Hoover’s trampling of civil liberties, but may be dismayed by the insistence that an emerging national power needed a secret police force. Gay activists may be disappointed by the filmmakers’ restrained assumptions about Hoover’s sexuality, though the destructive effects of self-denial have rarely been dramatized in such withering detail. Hoover, we realize, is obsessed with keeping America safe because he feels unsafe himself. Internal subversion is a personal, not just a political, threat to him. No stranger man—not even Nixon—has ever been at the center of an American epic.
J. Edgar By Peter Travers, Rolling Stone.
November 10, 2011
Say this for Leonardo DiCaprio: He doesn't scare off easy from acting challenges. At 37, he's already played billionaire Howard Hughes (The Aviator), junkie Jim Carroll (The Basketball Diaries), great imposter Frank Abagnale Jr. (Catch Me If You Can) and Shakespeare's Romeo. In J. Edgar, DiCaprio ages from his twenties to his seventies to play America's feared and loathed top cop. And despite being buried in layers of (often too obvious) prosthetic latex, DiCaprio is a roaring wonder in the role. He needs to be. Until his death in 1972, J. Edgar Hoover ruled the Federal Bureau of Investigation like a bulldog no one would dare leash. That includes eight presidents, Martin Luther King Jr. and even Marilyn Monroe. For half a century Hoover nosed into private lives to control his enemies, and some friends. But Hoover had secrets too, and now acclaimed director Clint Eastwood, 81, and Oscar-winning Milk screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, 37, are doing the nosing around.


The result is a movie exhilarated by biting off more than it can chew, a great boon especially when the pacing goes from rushed to dramatically inert. The tabloid version of Hoover as a cross-dressing closet queen is addressed, but not exploited. Black's script isn't linear; it jumps back and forth in time with impressionistic glee, hoping to get a fix on an unknowable public figure.
The film focuses on those closest to J. Edgar: his autocratic mother, Annie Hoover (a splendid Judi Dench); his protective secretary, Helen Gandy (a sutured Naomi Watts); and FBI associate director Clyde Tolson (a live-wire Armie Hammer), the lawyer who became J. Edgar's constant companion.
Of course, Hoover's greatest obsession was America and his need to protect it from commies and radicals. In dark and weighted images, Eastwood charts Hoover's rise and all-consuming myth-building. Though Hoover did popularize fingerprinting and the collection of forensic evidence (the CSI TV franchise is in his debt), he liked giving himself credit where it wasn't due, for killing gangster John Dillinger, solving the kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh's baby, and being the ultimate G-man, making arrests and capturing bad guys. Eastwood busts that myth with the same fury with which he undercut the codes of the Old West in Unforgiven.
To its credit, Black's admittedly speculative script keeps nudging into J. Edgar's secret heart. Did sublimated sexuality drive Hoover into megalomania? Annie registers what's going on between her son and Clyde. In a wrenching scene, she derides any hint of effeminate behavior ("I'd rather have a dead son than a daffodil"). And DiCaprio and Hammer do wonders with mere suggestion, that is, when melodrama and old-age makeup allow for nuance. Even when the film trips on its tall ambitions, you can't shake it off.
'J. Edgar': Hoover's Life, in a Dramatic Vacuum By JOE MORGENSTERN
The Wall Street Journal

As the peerlessly powerful and widely feared director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation over the course of almost five decades, J. Edgar Hoover saw himself in a constant state of war—against radicals, gangsters, Communists and any politicians, including presidents, who tried to get in his way. "J. Edgar," with Leonardo DiCaprio in the title role, is at war with itself, and everyone loses. Clint Eastwood's investigation of Hoover's life and tumultuous times seeks the cold facts behind the crime-fighter myths, the flesh-and-blood man behind the dour demeanor and the rumors of homosexuality. Yet Mr. Eastwood's ponderous direction, a clumsy script by Dustin Lance Black and ghastly slatherings of old-age makeup all conspire to put the story at an emotional and historical distance. It's a partially animated waxworks.



Thursday 29 September 2011

J.Edgar Trailer, 4 TV Spots, Teaser Posters and Release Dates!

During his lifetime, J. Edgar Hoover would rise to be the most powerful man in America. As head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation for nearly 50 years, he would stop at nothing to protect his country. Through eight presidents and three wars, Hoover waged battle against threats both real and perceived, often bending the rules to keep his countrymen safe. His methods were at once ruthless and heroic, with the admiration of the world his most coveted, if ever elusive, prize.
Left: The latest two Teaser design 1 sheet posters from the U.S.

Hoover was a man who placed great value on secrets–particularly those of others–and was not afraid to use that information to exert authority over the leading figures in the nation. Understanding that knowledge is power and fear poses opportunity, he used both to gain unprecedented influence and to build a reputation that was both formidable and untouchable.
He was as guarded in his private life as he was in his public one, allowing only a small and protective inner circle into his confidence. His closest colleague, Clyde Tolson, was also his constant companion. His secretary, Helen Gandy, who was perhaps most privy to Hoover's designs, remained loyal to the end... and beyond. Only Hoover's mother, who served as his inspiration and his conscience, would leave him, her passing truly crushing to the son who forever sought her love and approval.

As seen through the eyes of Hoover himself, "J. Edgar" explores the personal and public life and relationships of a man who could distort the truth as easily as he upheld it during a life devoted to his own idea of justice, often swayed by the darker side of power.

Oscar® winner Clint Eastwood ("Gran Torino," "Million Dollar Baby," "Unforgiven") directed the film from a screenplay by Oscar® winner Dustin Lance Black ("Milk").

Academy Award® nominee Leonardo DiCaprio ("Inception," "Blood Diamond") stars in the title role. "J. Edgar" also stars Academy Award® nominee Naomi Watts ("21 Grams") as Helen Gandy, Hoover's longtime secretary; Armie Hammer ("The Social Network") as Hoover's protégé Clyde Tolson; Josh Lucas ("The Lincoln Lawyer") as the legendary aviator Charles Lindbergh, whose son's kidnapping changes the public profile of the F.B.I.; and Oscar® winner Judi Dench ("Shakespeare in Love") as Hoover's over-protective mother, Anne Marie Hoover.

"J. Edgar" was produced by Eastwood, Oscar® winner Brian Grazer ("A Beautiful Mind," "Frost/Nixon") and Oscar® nominee Robert Lorenz ("Letters from Iwo Jima," "Mystic River"), with Tim Moore and Erica Huggins serving as executive producers.

Behind the scenes, Eastwood reunited with his longtime collaborators, including director of photography Tom Stern, production designer James J. Murakami, editors Joel Cox and Gary D. Roach, and costume designer Deborah Hopper. Eastwood is composing the score for the film.

A Warner Bros. Pictures presentation, "J. Edgar" was produced under the banners of Imagine Entertainment and Malpaso. It will be released in limited markets on Wednesday, November 09, 2011 and expand to a wide release on Friday, November 11, 2011. The film will be distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.

Also featuring Judi Dench as Hoover’s mother, Naomi Watts as his trusted secretary, Helen Gandy, and Josh Lucas as aviator Charles Lindbergh (the investigation of the Lindbergh baby kidnapping is reportedly an important component of the script), J. Edgar is due for release in the US on 9 November, and in the UK on 20 January 2012.
Below: The 1 Sheet Teaser design poster

This film has been rated R for brief strong language.
Check out the official site http://jedgarmovie.warnerbros.com/

J. EDGAR TO OPEN AFI FEST 2011 presented by Audi

25th Edition of AFI FEST Kicks Off on November 3 With Opening Night Gala

The American Film Institute (AFI) announced that J. EDGAR, directed by AFI Life Achievement Award recipient and Academy Award-winning director Clint Eastwood, will have its world premiere as the Opening Night Gala of AFI FEST 2011 presented by Audi. The film stars Academy Award nominee Leonardo DiCaprio in the title role, along with Academy Award nominee Naomi Watts, Armie Hammer and Oscar winner Judi Dench. It is produced by Academy Award winners Eastwood and Brian Grazer, and Oscar nominee Robert Lorenz. From an original screenplay by Oscar winner Dustin Lance Black, the film explores the public and private life of one of the most powerful, controversial and enigmatic figures of the 20th century, J. Edgar Hoover, founding director of the FBI.

"Clint Eastwood is an American icon – one whose work as a director, actor, producer and composer not only stands the test of time, but also continues to add new, rich chapters with each passing year," said Bob Gazzale, President and CEO of the American Film Institute. "What a gift it is to be going to the movies when Clint Eastwood is making them, and what an honor it is for the American Film Institute to premiere his latest contribution to America's cultural legacy."
Below: Here is a 30 second U.S. TV Spot from Warner Brothers

Below: Here are 3 more 30 second TV spots from Warner Bros
TV Spot #1

TV Spot #2

TV Spot #3

Monday 6 June 2011

Josey Wales Blu Ray release OUT TODAY!

Our good friends at Warner Brothers have again been in touch regarding their new Blu Ray release of Clint's western masterpiece THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES. Made in 1976, The Outlaw Josey Wales remains one of Clint's greatest films from the 1970's and one of my own personal favourites. Warner's new Special Edition treatment includes a whole host of bonus including

• Commentary by Richard Schickel
• Clint Eastwood's West (29:02 in 1080P)
• Hell Hath No Fury (30:29 in 480i)
• Eastwood in Action (7:55 in 480i)
• Theatrical Trailer (2:16 in 480i)
The Outlaw Josey Wales has a wonderful new freshness and vibrancy when viewed on its new Blu Ray format. The film's magnificent cinematography is (and always was) a real revelation. It is clear that Warner's have spent a great deal of thought and time on this ultimate home edition and comes mighty close to capturing the epic feel of its original cinema presentation.

Among the new Bonus material for this release is an excellent Richard Schickel commentary where he reflects on Clint's impressive career in the saddle and key production details.
There is a new 30 minute documentary called Clint Eastwood’s West, featuring interviews with Eastwood, Morgan Freeman, Oliver Stone, and James Mangold.


Previously released bonus material includes the 30 minute Hell Hath No Fury: The Making of The Outlaw Josey Wales.The fantastic original production featurette 'Eastwood in Action' (which I've owned on Super 8mm since my school days back in the 70s!!) And the Original Theatrical Trailer. I would have really enjoyed the inclusion of the full range of TV spots and those great Radio Spots (one of which includes Clint as Josey narrating). I would of been glad to contribute them towards the set, as well as 100+ stills for a rather nice gallery collection.
Nevertheless, it's without doubt a fantastic release and all enclosed in a beautifully produced and informative book.
The Technical Spec:
Disc:
Region: Free
Runnig time: 2:15:51.184
Disc Size: 35,538,137,230 bytes
Feature Size: 29,246,097,408 bytes
Video Bitrate: 21.96 Mbps
Chapters: 35
Release date: June 7th, 2011

Video:
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1, Resolution: 1080p / 23.976 fps, Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video
Audio:
DTS-HD Master Audio English 3590 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 3590 kbps / 24-bit (DTS Core: 5.1 / 48 kHz / 1509 kbps / 24-bit)
Dolby Digital Audio English 192 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 192 kbps / DN -4dB
Dolby Digital Audio French 192 kbps 1.0 / 48 kHz / 192 kbps / DN -4dB
Dolby Digital Audio German 192 kbps 1.0 / 48 kHz / 192 kbps / DN -4dB
Dolby Digital Audio Italian 192 kbps 1.0 / 48 kHz / 192 kbps / DN -4dB
Dolby Digital Audio Japanese 192 kbps 1.0 / 48 kHz / 192 kbps / DN -4dB
Dolby Digital Audio Spanish 192 kbps 1.0 / 48 kHz / 192 kbps / DN -4dB
Subtitles:
English (SDH), Danish/Finnish/French/German/Italian/Japanese/Norwegian/Swedish and Spanish


Our sincere thanks again to Warner Brothers for your continued support.

Check out Clint at Warners here.

Sunday 5 June 2011

News on Kevin Avery's book Conversations with Clint: Paul Nelson's Lost Interviews with Clint Eastwood

I had the pleasure of another email today from Kevin. It was back in September of 2010 that Kevin first contacted me regarding this very special book. Since then, Kevin has been true to his word in keeping The Clint Eastwood Archive bang up to date with any news.
I am pleased to report that there is now an official release date of September 22nd 2011.
Kevin's book is now available for order on Amazon, with a presale discount, so please check out the links below.
Conversations with Clint: Paul Nelson's Lost Interviews with Clint Eastwood, 1979-1983
AMAZON US
Conversations with Clint: Paul Nelson's Lost Interviews with Clint Eastwood, 1979-1983 AMAZON UK
Everything Is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson [Hardcover] AMAZON US
Everything Is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson [Hardcover] AMAZON UK

While this is Kevin's 2nd book, his first Everything Is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson, is due out shortly after on November 1st. This will also contain a chapter devoted to his relationship with Clint Eastwood, as well as other Eastwood-related material throughout.
Again, this too is available for order with a pre order discount.
Clint Eastwood has forged a remarkable career as a movie star, director, producer, and composer. These newly discovered conversations with legendary journalist Paul Nelson return us to a point when, still acting in other people’s films, Eastwood was honing his directorial craft on a series of inexpensive films that he brought in under budget and ahead of schedule. Operating largely beneath the critical radar, he made his movies swiftly and inexpensively. Few of his critics then could have predicted that Eastwood the actor and director would ever be taken as seriously as he is today. But Paul Nelson did. The interviews were conducted from 1979 through 1983. Eastwood talks openly and without illusions about his early career as an actor, old Hollywood, and his formative years as a director, his influence and what he learned along the way as an actor—lessons that helped him become the director he is today. Conversations with Clint provides a fresh and vivid perspective on the life and work of this most American of movie icons.
Kevin Avery’s writing has appeared in publications as diverse as Mississippi Review, Penthouse, Weber Studies, and Salt Lake magazine. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife and stepdaughter. His first book, Everything Is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson, is published by Fantagraphics Books.
Jonathan Lethem is one of the most acclaimed American novelists of his generation. His books include Motherless Brooklyn, The Fortress of Solitude, and Chronic City. His essays about James Brown and Bob Dylan have appeared in Rolling Stone. He lives in Claremont, California.
Advance Praise for Conversations With Clint
“Kevin Avery has performed a great service to film lovers by bringing to light Paul Nelson’s remarkable interviews with Clint Eastwood. Nelson was an appreciator of Eastwood in the seventies, before he had won wide critical recognition. In these fascinating and wide-ranging conversations, the actor-director discusses with complete candor both the art of his films and the realities of filmmaking in Hollywood.”
Andrew Sarris, Author of Notes on the Auteur Theory

“This book is a miracle. It reads so naturally—a testament to Kevin Avery’s editorial skill, and his own devotional attention to Paul’s voice—that you might suppose it’s an example of something. But it’s not. There aren’t books like this, because I doubt any other interviewer could ever have this sort of effect on a human being as (justifiably) well-defended as Clint Eastwood. (For comparison, see Lester Bangs, Paul’s friend, jousting with Lou Reed.) Here, you feel the seduction of good conversation, of genuine friendship, overwriting the task at hand for both participants.”
From the foreword by Jonathan Lethem

Films discussed include:
Revenge of the Creature (1955)
Tarantula (1955)
Lafayette Escadrille (1958)
A Fistful of Dollars (1964)
For a Few Dollars More (1965)
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
The Witches (1967)
Hang ’Em High (1968)
Coogan’s Bluff (1968)
Where Eagles Dare (1968)
Paint Your Wagon (1969)
Kelly’s Heroes (1970)
Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970)
The Beguiled (1971)
Play Misty for Me (1971)
Dirty Harry (1971)
Joe Kidd (1972)
High Plains Drifter (1973)
Breezy (1973)
Magnum Force (1973)
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974)
The Eiger Sanction (1975)
The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)
The Enforcer (1976)
The Gauntlet (1977)
Every Which Way but Loose (1978)
Escape from Alcatraz (1979)
Bronco Billy (1980)
Any Which Way You Can (1980)
Firefox (1982)
Honkytonk Man (1982)
Sudden Impact (1983)

September 2011 • 240 pages Paperback • 9781441165862 • $19.95

Music Critic Paul Nelson Finally Gets His Due.
Fantagraphics is proud to announce Everything Is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson. Author Kevin Avery spent four years researching and writing this unique anthology-biography. This book compiles Nelson’s best works and also provides a vivid account of his life. In the ’60s, Paul Nelson pioneered rock & roll criticism with a first-person style of writing later coined “New Journalism.” During a five-year detour at Mercury Records he signed the New York Dolls to their first recording contract, and then settled back down to music criticism at Rolling Stone. Through his writing, Nelson championed the early careers of artists like Bruce Springsteen, Jackson Browne, Rod Stewart, Neil Young, Warren Zevon, The Sex Pistols, and The Ramones.But in 1982, he walked away from it all. By the time Nelson died in his New York City apartment in 2006, everything he’d written had been relegated to back issues of old music magazines.
“My original idea for this book was simply to anthologize Paul Nelson’s best work so that today’s readers could discover, as I had in my youth, his elegant and brilliant writings,” explains author Kevin Avery. “But I soon realized that, in doing these pieces, Paul was ultimately telling his own story. And his story was so damn compelling it was impossible for me not to write about it." American journalist, biographer, and poet Nick Tosches wrote the foreword to this landmark work of cultural revival, which stands as a tribute to and collection of one of the unsung critical champions of popular music.
Everything Is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson By: Kevin Avery • Foreword By: Nick Tosches $29.99 • Hardcover • Black & White • 584 Pages Release: November 2011 ISBN: 978-1606994757

Thursday 2 June 2011

Happy Birthday Clint!

A big Happy Birthday on behalf of all the friends here at TCEA. We might be a day or two late, but never claimed to be perfect, even though we're pretty close! Have a great week Big Man!  ~The Clint Eastwood Archive~

Above: Clint and Leonardo DiCaprio currently working together on the upcoming film "J Edgar"

Thursday 28 April 2011

Hereafter Blu Ray / DVD combo review

Hereafter is without doubt a solid piece of filmmaking. That said, I’d probably have to describe Eastwood’s latest release as an ‘unusual’ entry when compared to his recent directorial projects. Hereafter starts off with a devastatingly realistic (in light of the recent news footage from Japan) and superbly produced tsunami sequence. However, the film is a soft and very gently paced piece of work.
Matt Damon (Invictus) gives an excellent and perfectly measured performance as a recently retired psychic, forced to quit his practice due to the stress of living with his ‘curse.’ Damon plays this difficult ‘tortured soul’ character very well.
Cécile De France plays Marie, the French journalist, author and initial non believer. Marie survives a near death experience when caught in the middle of the tsunami. For Marie, it is an experience that propels her to investigate further in a hunt for the truth. De France gives a wonderful performance throughout.

In London, twin brothers (played by Frankie and George McLaren) are separated when one is suddenly killed in a road accident. Left alone with his mother, the twin wonders where his brother has really gone and makes various attempts to make contact with him.
Hereafter is a deliberately slow paced drama which focuses on the aftermath of death and its emotional effect on the three people who struggle to find some form of closure. Eastwood examines closely the inner pain of the three principal characters and like the narrative; the story’s conclusion has a reserved and tender quality.
Hereafter will probably never be described as Eastwood’s greatest work. It is a dramatic and highly original character piece, with an engrossing subject at the heart of its well presented story. It’s a film that should be thoroughly enjoyed, so long as you are prepared to look beyond its opening (and very impressive) tsunami sequence.

Hereafter’s Sound and picture are stunning, see full spec below.

As bonus material on the blu ray disc only, Step Into the Hereafter Focus Points (HD, 42 minutes): View Hereafter's nine engaging Focus Point featurettes individually from the special features menu or as part of an unobtrusive, fairly seamless In-Movie Experience (of the "press enter to view" variety). Segments include "Tsunami! Recreating a Disaster," "Is There Life After Death," "Clint on Casting," "Delving into the Hereafter," "Twin Bonding," "French Speaking French," "Why the White Light?" "Hereafter's Locations: Casting the Silent Characters" and "The Eastwood Experience." Thankfully, Eastwood appears in each short via interviews and behind-the-scenes footage, giving the filmmaker ample opportunity to discuss and dissect the film.
Also included on the blu ray disc only, The Eastwood Factor: Extended Version (First time available in Full HD): An exceedingly extensive look at the life and career of Clint Eastwood written and directed by film critic and biographer Richard Schickel, built around Eastwood's own words, and narrated by actor and Unforgiven co-star Morgan Freeman. Classy, candid and oh-so-captivating, be sure to set aside two hours for this comprehensive documentary.


Video
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC, Video resolution: 1080p, Aspect ratio: 2.40:1, Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Audio
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, French: Dolby Digital 5.1, English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, French: Dolby Digital 5.1 (less)
Subtitles
English SDH, French, Spanish, English SDH, French, Spanish (less)
Discs
50GB Blu-ray Disc, Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD), Digital copy (on disc), DVD copy
Playback Region free
I would again like to thank Warner Brothers in the United States for sending this latest Blu Ray combo release. Your recognition and continued support of The Clint Eastwood Archive is always very much appreciated.

Wednesday 13 April 2011

Firefox writer Craig Thomas dies after cancer battle

CARDIFF-BORN thriller writer Craig Thomas has died from pneumonia, aged 68, it has been announced. The author was regarded by many as the man who invented the techno-thriller with the publication of his international bestseller Firefox, which was made into a Hollywood film starring Clint Eastwood. Mr Thomas had a successful career spanning 30 years, which featured novels such as Snow Falcon, Sea Leopard, Jade Tiger and Firefox Down. Born in the city, the former English teacher attended Cardiff High School and then went on to study at the University College Cardiff. When once asked why he was drawn in to the thriller world, he said: “Because of its evident sense of tension and danger, the deliberate structure of the plots, and perhaps the emphatic moral framework – just as many writers of detective fiction are drawn to the sense of justice their books demonstrate towards good and evil.
Below: Writer Craig Thomas died on April 4th
 
“There is an attraction in the thriller or adventure story, for both the writer and reader, in knowing which side one is supposed to be on. And thrillers are optimistic. “Their problems are soluble, and they are resolved by individuals. As Oscar Wilde said, ‘the good end happily, the bad unhappily – that is the meaning of fiction’.” He had recently finished a two-volume commentary on the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. He and his wife, Jill, who was also his editor, lived for many years in Staffordshire, but had recently moved to Somerset. Jill said: “Craig meant everything to me, we were soulmates and we had a fantastic life together. He was a very loving person and a very honest person. He would say what he thought and he hated political correctness. His passion for his writing remained up until the end. Even when he was in hospital under going chemotherapy he was still scribbling away until it just got too much for him.” Mr Thomas died from pneumonia on April 4, following a short but intensive battle with acute myeloid leukaemia.
Thanks to Dave Turner for bringing this story to my attention. Our thoughts are with his family.

Monday 28 March 2011

Eastwood on Eastwood Full Review on Michael Henry Wilson’s Exquisite Book

CAHIERS DU CINEMA produces a genuine master class
I had a feeling this book was going to be something a little bit special. Culminated from nearly 30 years of interviews, it certainly sounded like something worth holding your breath for. But Eastwood fans have been here before, and often been disappointed with the results or the inexcusable amount of general inaccuracies that have appeared in publications over the last few years. I’m pleased to report that this particular book suffers from no such problems. It is quite simply, an extraordinary piece of work which deserves to be singled out.

On first reading Wilson’s book, I was struck how easy I fell into it, almost encapsulated by it, but why? I have always approached every new book on Eastwood with an equal amount of enthusiasm, yet found myself ‘flagging’ as the same stories seemed to inherently begin to surface. It didn’t take long to establish what exactly makes this such a rewarding read; it is simply so refreshing, not only in its content, but in its delivery. What makes it particularly special of course is that it is Eastwood’s own words, from Eastwood’s own perspective. Eastwood engages in countless question and answer sessions with complete lucidity. Wilson cleverly applies a simple framework of Eastwood’s career. He allows his subject the freedom to expand upon any given subject that Wilson intelligently enquires about. The layout is fuss free, simplistic and to the point. Wilson’s questions are presented in Italic, Eastwood’s responses are not. Every page is tightly crammed, allowing only for the minimal of margin widths and header space.

For Eastwood admirers the world over, this book is certain to contain new and informative citations, and all from the man who knows best. Opening Eastwood on Eastwood is much like opening a bottle of single malt, preserved and left to mature for almost three decades. Its content is both rich and revealing. Wilson’s questions are answered with confidence and precision. Eastwood’s speaks with an undeniable ‘purity’ and honesty. His responses are intelligent and as we would come to expect from the likes of past masters such as Hitchcock or Ford. This trusted form of dialogue between Eastwood and Wilson allows Eastwood to expand on his subjects with ease. Many questions are discussed and explored.
Why did he choose to make risky projects when he could have sat back on his laurels?
How did he successfully manage to make personal pictures in a system controlled by the studios?
How did Eastwood arrive at the decision to become a director?
 
Everything in these pages makes for an incredibly insightful read. Each page is beautifully presented on quality stock paper (I was constantly thinking I had two pages stuck between my finger and thumb) and very well illustrated throughout. While this book does come with a rather hefty price tag (see below), I must also add that you certainly get a lot for your money. At 240 heavy pages, there is a lot of reading to be had. Consider perhaps, where else are you ever likely to find a book that contains so much of Eastwood’s own words..? And that’s really where my considerations would end. I’ve certainly been lucky enough to read most of the Eastwood books that have been published. But in my opinion; I would certainly rank this as one of the most important and most significant books on Eastwood to be published in a very long time.
Yes, seriously, it is that good…

Eastwood on Eastwood is published by Cahiers du cinema and available through Phaidon Click here for direct link.
Price £39.95, $59.95, euro 49.95, Can $65.00, Aus $95.00

A very special thank you to Kara Reaney and the good people at Phaidon Press for their support and contribution.

~The Clint Eastwood Archive~

Sunday 13 March 2011

Big new book on Eastwood

From Dirty Harry to his life as one of Hollywood's most critically-acclaimed Directors, Phaidon's Eastwood on Eastwood ($60) (£40) chronicles one of cinema's living legends in his own words. The book Includes over 340 colour photographs, including previously unpublished photographs from Eastwood's personal collection, a biography, a complete filmography and a dialog with critic and documentary filmmaker, Michael Henry Wilson.
The book explores Clint Eastwood's career as an actor and director in Clint Eastwood's own words. Wilson uses his interviews with Eastwood to frame his career. This is a must have for any Eastwood fan or anyone curious about the man behind the legend. Phaidon are very kindly sending The Clint Eastwood Archive a copy of this lavish looking book, so I am looking forward to telling you much more about it.
Our thanks go to Phaidon for their kind contribution.
~The Clint Eastwood Archive~

Thursday 17 February 2011

A Hollywood Icon Lays Down the Law: Wall Street Journal Interview, Jan 2011

A Big thank you to our American friend Jerry Whittington who recently sent me this interview with Clint.
The Wall Street Journal, Jan 29th 2011, Michael Judge, Carmel, Calif.
It's high noon at Mission Ranch, and the haze is just beginning to burn off the meadow. One couldn't ask for a better setting for a conversation with an actor who's played some of Hollywood's most iconic outlaws and lawmen, and who is today, at the age of 80, perhaps the most respected filmmaker in the industry.
Clint Eastwood pulls up in a silver Audi SUV. He extends his hand and says simply, "Nice to meet you." His voice is softer, more lilting than in his films, but his presence—he stands a full 6 feet 4 inches tall—is formidable. The Italian director Sergio Leone once said he had "an indolent way of moving," similar to a cat's. There's a calmness to him that puts one at ease.
"Where should we do this?" he asks, with a smile. "Somewhere quiet," I reply. "It's quiet everywhere here," he says, gesturing to the meadow and the towering eucalyptuses that border it. He should know—he owns the place. He bought the 150-year-old, 22-acre ranch in 1986, partly to save it from developers and partly out of nostalgia. When he was a young man in the Army, he tells me, he had his first "legal" beer here at the Mission Ranch bar and restaurant. That's where, nearly 60 years later, we settle into a small table with a view of the meadow and, beyond it, the white surf of Carmel Bay.
Mr. Eastwood is deep into his latest project, a film starring Leonardo DiCaprio as J. Edgar Hoover, the controversial and secretive founder of the modern FBI. "If you're doing a biography, you try to stay as accurate as possible to reality," he says. "But you really don't know what was going on in the person's mind. You just know what was going on in the minds of people around him."
The Hoover screenplay was written by Dustin Lance Black, the Oscar-winning writer of the 2008 film "Milk" about the life and 1978 murder of gay-rights activist and San Francisco City Councilman Harvey Milk. When I ask if the screenplay addresses reports by former FBI employees that Hoover was a cross-dresser and perhaps a closeted homosexual, Mr. Eastwood says not really. In fact, what attracted him to the screenplay was the fact that it "didn't quite go down that road."
As with all his films, Mr. Eastwood didn't rely on others to do his research. "I went back and read probably all the material that [Mr. Black] had read. . . . I went and visited with the FBI in Washington, D.C., and tried to find out as much as I could about people who had worked with Hoover."
Mr. Eastwood's main interests are the workings of a sprawling, crime-fighting bureaucracy and how a young man—Hoover was 29 when he was made director of the Bureau of Investigation in 1924—survived to serve eight presidents, from Calvin Coolidge to Richard Nixon. Hoover was, in many ways, "the most powerful guy in the country," says Mr. Eastwood, "at a time when America was by far the most powerful country" in the world.
The film spans Hoover's entire career, from the 1919-20 Palmer Raids, which saw thousands of suspected anarchists, socialists and other radicals detained or deported; to the Gangster Wars of the 1930s that resulted in the shooting deaths of such arch-criminals as John Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson; to the wiretaps and secret dossiers of the 1950s and '60s on "subversives" that included leftists and Communist Party members but also political rivals, celebrities and civil-rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr.
I ask if Hoover—like Mr. Eastwood's Dirty Harry character of the '70s and '80s, or the brutal sheriff Little Bill in his Oscar-winning 1992 film, "Unforgiven"—hadn't overstepped his bounds as a lawman.
"Sometimes they do," Mr. Eastwood says. "And that's what I always loved about the 'Unforgiven' script. Little Bill is not treated as just a guy with a dark hat and a sinister villain. He was villainous only because of his excesses. He had dreams that everybody else has. He just wanted to sit on the porch of the house he was building and have a nice life and watch the sunset and smoke his pipe. And he believed in gun control in the town that he controlled. But he had also gone over into a cruel streak along the way. . . .

"You could say Hoover might be that way, too. I'm sure he had his excesses. . . . He was obviously a very detailed guy all his life, starting as a very young man. He had some great ideas—modern-day investigative techniques [like fingerprinting and forensic science]. But he also liked the glory of it all."
I ask Mr. Eastwood about the final scene in one of his earlier Dirty Harry movies, when his character throws away his badge after shooting one more "scumbag." Marshall Will Kane, played by Gary Cooper, does the same thing at the end of "High Noon" when the townspeople abandon him to face a murderous gang alone. It's a classic theme in Westerns: Does society expect too much from its lawmen, only to spurn them when they deliver?
"Society is at odds with itself," says Mr. Eastwood. "They want law and order but . . ." he pauses, perhaps thinking he sounds too much like Dirty Harry. "I was always intrigued by this guy who was frustrated by not being able to solve problems due to the obstacles put up by society itself—by the bureaucracy in society. . . . That didn't mean I was against a criminal's right to justice, to a defense, and all that sort of thing. Though a lot of people interpreted it that way because when you do those roles people go, 'Hey, that's the way the guy thinks.' That's kind of a left-handed compliment in a way, you think, 'Oh, I convinced you that much? Good!'"
Mr. Eastwood has called his 1976 Civil-War era Western "The Outlaw Josey Wales" (which tells the story of a Missouri farmer avenging the murder of his family by Union soldiers) an "antiwar" film. Does he see parallels with his more recent films, such as "Letters from Iwo Jima" (2006) that tells the story of the epic battle for that South Pacific island largely from the Japanese perspective?
When it comes to war, he says, it's hard not to think about the "poor slob" fighting for the other side. In the case of the Japanese conscripts fighting on Iwo Jima, some were as young as 14 or 15, "sent to an island and told don't plan on coming back. You're going to defend your country because of all our philosophies. . . . I mean, that's a big request, but it happens in every country. . . .
"I was drafted during the Korean War. None of us wanted to go, It was only a couple of years after World War II had ended. We said, 'Wait a second? Didn't we just get through with that?' An atomic bomb, the pacification of Japan . . . and here we are back in it again. . . . But everybody went. You objected but you went. You said, OK, this is what we're supposed to do."
Mr. Eastwood says he wasn't shipped out to Korea with the rest of his outfit due to an airplane accident. He was stationed at Fort Ord, not far from Carmel, and had hopped a Navy plane to visit his folks in Seattle. On the return trip, the plane crash-landed in the ocean near Drakes Bay, just north of San Francisco. He wasn't injured—he and the pilot swam to safety—but he was ordered to stay behind and await a Navy hearing, which never came, on the cause of the crash. "Typical of the service," he says.
"As for Josey Wales, I saw the parallels to the modern day at that time. Everybody gets tired of it, but it never ends. A war is a horrible thing, but it's also a unifier of countries. . . . Man becomes his most creative during war. Look at the amount of weaponry that was made in four short years of World War II—the amount of ships and guns and tanks and inventions and planes and P-38s and P-51s, and just the urgency and the camaraderie, and the unifying. But that's kind of a sad statement on mankind, if that's what it takes."
After 9/11, I suggest, the country was unified, but that soon faded. "Yeah it did," he says. "A couple years afterwards everybody goes, 'Oh well, OK, that's over with.' And of course you can't do that. You've got to always keep that kind of memory alive, so it doesn't happen again."
But he says he wasn't one of those guys saying the U.S. should go to Iraq and "kick ass and take names," because too often we just "stick a toe in" and risk too many lives. Still, he appreciates the sacrifices made by our military personnel: "It all comes back to the grunt. The guy who's in the trenches, the guy who's walking along the roads . . . in a country where you don't speak the language, you don't know the customs that much, and you're just sort of at the mercy of what the chain of command is up along the line."
He also appreciates the dilemmas faced by democracies when dealing with Islamist terrorism. "How many rights do you want to give to people who are trying to kill you just because you're you? You may be of a different religious sect, or you may be an agnostic, or you may be anything. But you're not one of them, so you're an inferior being. . . . Do you fight on 21st-century ideas or 17th-century, like the people who are against you?"
Closer to home, what does this onetime Carmel mayor think of the return of California Gov. Jerry Brown, who has pledged to get rid of the "smoke and mirrors" in Sacramento and balance the state's $25 billion budget deficit?





"He's got an interesting opportunity now because most fantasies in this world are based around 'If I only knew then what I know now, imagine what I could have done,'" he laughs. "But I'll tell you when I liked him—and I wasn't a registered Democrat—but I liked him when he was running for president [in 1992] on the flat tax. . . . A ton of economists, both liberal and conservative, have argued for a flat tax, but nobody's ever had the nerve to do it. . . . It would simplify things, but simplification doesn't seem to be in the human psyche."
If he wasn't a Democrat back in 1992, was he an independent? "No, I was a registered Republican," he confesses happily. "I became a Republican in 1951, the first year I could vote. Eisenhower was running [for president] and we were all in the Army. He ran on the fact that he'd go to Korea [and end the war]. I don't know if that was anything more than a show, but he went there, and the Korean War did end." He then adds with a smile, like the easy-going Eisenhower Republican he is, "But I've supported Democrats along the way."

Mr. Eastwood is a product of what he calls the "Not So Great Depression." Born on May 31, 1930, in San Francisco, his father, Clinton Eastwood Sr., was a steelworker and migrant laborer; his mother, Margaret Ruth Runner, a part-time factory worker and full-time mom. "It was a tough time. My parents and my sister and I, we all travelled around the West Coast with a trailer on the back of the car. My dad would get a job that would last three months and then he'd have to go look for another one. Once in a while he'd get one that lasted six months."
His first big break came in 1958 with the role of Rowdy Yates in the Western TV series "Rawhide." In the mid-'60s, he left Hollywood to star in the Italian-made Western "A Fistful of Dollars" (1964), the film in which he originated the "Man with No Name" character—the mysterious, avenging gunslinger he later resurrected in films he directed himself, like "High Plains Drifter" (1973) and "Pale Rider" (1985).
In 1992, his revisionist Western "Unforgiven" won four Oscars, including Best Director and Best Picture, sending his career to new heights at an age when most film stars typically retire. He's since directed and sometimes also starred in "Mystic River," "Million Dollar Baby," "Invictus" and "Gran Torino," to name a few that have had critical and commercial success. "My whole life has been one big improvisation," says Mr. Eastwood. He started his own production company, Malpaso Productions, in the mid-1960s, gaining the freedom to experiment and take greater risks than other Hollywood stars of his generation.
With the Hoover movie about to start filming, I ask if he's ever come in over budget. "Not that I know of," he says. "Maybe once or twice. I usually stay on schedule. And when I was mayor here of Carmel we always had a reserve and we never spent more than we took in. . . . That's the first thing you're taught when you're a kid from the Not So Great Depression—don't spend it all in one place."

*All photos added from my own collection for illustrative purposes