Clint Eastwood

Normally, the Best Original Song category at the Academy Awards is the bane of our existence: an overloaded mess of badness that extends an already unending night into ass numbing proportions. No matter how the producers try to gussy up the presentation--"let's have Beyonce sing all the songs!"--the performances invariably suck. Of course the exception to this happened last year when Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova performed the ballad "Falling Slowly" from Once to beautiful perfection (and also deservedly went home with the hardware), but otherwise not a year goes by when we don't think that the telecast would benefit greatly from a total exclusion of the Best Original Song category. That opinion might have to change after this year. Sure, the potential nominees include the usual (boring) suspects like a Miley Cyrus song from Bolt and Peter Gabriel's number from Wall-E, but there are also original songs from Jenny Lewis (for Bolt as well), Bruce Springsteen's title track for The Wrestler and the team-up of A.R. Rahman and M.I.A. forSlumdog Millionaire. Cool! However! The most bananas song of all might be a little duet performed by British singer-songwriter Jamie Cullum and... Clint Eastwood. Yep. That Clint Eastwood.  read more »

Clint Eastwood is the hardest working septuagenarian this side of John McCain. Fresh off the release of his first Oscar hopeful, Changeling, comes the trailer for his next Oscar hopeful, Gran Torino. Someone tell the man to take it easy! In the film, the 78-year-old Mr. Eastwood stars as a tough and grizzled widower who overcomes his severe prejudices to help the Hmong family next door in their struggle with gang violence. Sounds good to us, even if the premise seems more movie-of-the-week than Best Picture. Plus, who can't get behind a movie where Mr. Eastwood points a rifle at some local ruffians who have made the mistake of fighting on his property and snarls, "Get off my lawn.  read more »

As the temperatures slowly lower themselves towards sweater levels, it's time for Hollywood to start the fall season at the box office in earnest. With two highly anticipated genre films hitting screens, this is sure to be the most lucrative weekend since August. Here's a handy guide to the weekend's new releases:

Saw V

What's the story: If you're wondering what the October Surprise is, look no further than Saw V. It's absolutely stunning that this horror franchise is on its fifth go-around. We don't know anything about the latest edition, but presumably the plot deals with a bunch people dying violent deaths. Expect this to make lots of money.

Who should see it: People who thought Saw IV didn't really tell the whole story.

High School Musical 3

What's the story: Speaking of making lots of money... allow us to introduce you to HSM3.  read more »

Changeling
Running time 140 minutes
Written by J. Michael Stracynski
Directed by Clint Eastwood
Starring Angelina Jolie, John Malkovich, Amy Ryan, Jeffrey Donovan

Clint Eastwood’s Changeling, from a screenplay by J. Michael Straczynski, takes place in a prodigiously painstaking re-creation of period Los Angeles from 1928 to 1935. To see a trolley car clanging along past neatly spaced Model T-shaped vehicles in Los Angeles is to feel oneself floating back into the dear, dead past. And the flapper costumes for the women in the picture, along with the mandatory hats worn by men until J.F.K. disabused them of the habit at his inauguration in 1961, completes the illusion.  read more »

Changeling
Running Time 140 minutes
Written by J. Michael Straczynski
Directed by Clint Eastwood
Starring Angelina Jolie, John Malkovich, Jeffrey Donovan, Michael Kelly, Jason Butler Harner, Amy Ryan

From chicken shit to chicken salad, don’t miss Changeling, Clint Eastwood’s absolutely true and overwhelmingly gripping saga of how crime and police corruption in 1920s Los Angeles led to a lifelong ordeal for a single mother named Christine Collins, a career-defining role for Angelina Jolie.

One sunny Saturday in 1928, while Christine works extra duty as a telephone-company supervisor, her bright, sensitive 9-year-old son Walter mysteriously disappears from her home in broad daylight without a trace.  read more »

On Saturday, Oct. 4, the paparazzi were in full blitzkrieg blast outside the Ziegfeld Theatre for the premiere centerpiece of the New York Film Festival, Changeling. Director Clint Eastwood, tall and ever-elegant in a dark suit and blue-printed tie, posed with his film’s star, Angelina Jolie—glam and sultry, and apparently back to pre-twins shape in a black Versace dress. Brad Pitt was beside her, and when they posed together the wall of photographers’ flashbulbs lit up the sky. But further down the line it was a different story.

Jason Butler Harner, who plays the role of Gordon Stewart Northcott, infamous serial killer of the late 1920s in Los Angeles, was taking his first major red-carpet stroll.  read more »

Someone knocked Lehman Brothers CEO Richard Fuld "out cold" after the company's bankrupcy was announced. Seriously. [Radar]

Ashley Dupre now travels with three bodyguards (does Eliot Spitzer even still have a security detail?). [R&M] 

Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani, who co-stars with Leonardo DiCaprio in the upcoming Body of Lies, may be barred from re-entering Iran because of her participation in the film. [R&M] 

One piece of good news on the Amy Winehouse front: She is not on an official suicide watch. [People]  read more »

Jude Law spent three days last week holed up in the Gramercy Park Hotel with a dancer he met at The Box. [P6] 

The Lower East Side's Chloe may be the new Beatrice Inn--plus, they're considering serving a full menu until 2 a.m. [Grub Street] 

At the New Yorker Festival, Clint Eastwood compared Angelina Jolie's talent to Meryl Streep's but added that she is "hampered by her gorgeous face." Meanwhile, Ms. Jolie told reporters that her secret to looking good after giving birth is "a great dress." [US Weekly]

Paris Hilton intends to have "three or four" children. [People]  read more »

Security was nutty this morning (bag searches and wands?) up at the Walter Reade Theater for the first American screening of Clint Eastwood’s Changeling. Based on a true story, the film is about Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie), a single mother who returns home from work in 1928 only to discover her son has vanished. After five months, with lots of publicity, the LAPD reunited mother-and-son--only problem was that Christine knew the boy wasn’t hers. And that’s just the beginning of the movie! The rest of it involves untangling the corruption and cover-ups of the Los Angeles Police Department. After the film (which is 2.5 hours long and flew by) 78-year-old Clint Eastwood – tall, elegant, and dry – sat for a press conference. The man looks really good – we just can’t stress that enough. And he’s funny too!  read more »

It's just a couple more weeks till Clint Eastwood's Changeling opens as the centerpiece of the New York Film Festival, and today Variety has posted the trailer and the Todd McCarthy review written back in May when the film premiered at Cannes. Based on the real Wineville Chicken Murders in 1928, Angelina Jolie plays Christine Collins, a single mom whose son Walter mysteriously disappears. When the police bring back the boy they claim to be her son, Christine is insistent he is not -- earning her a place in the psych ward. According to Mr. McCarthy's review, it is then that the film "really spreads its wings, as ramifications of this tragic but unexceptional case seep through the police department, the legal system, the medical establishment and City Hall in entirely unexpected ways.  read more »

Kristin Davis, whose character on Sex and the City downs Cosmos, often gets sent the cocktail at restaurants, but never drinks them because she is a recovering alcoholic. [P6]

More secret weddings! Jessica Alba and her longtime boyfriend, Cash Warren, wed on Monday before the arrival of their first child. [NY Daily News]  read more »

This weekend we’ll be treated to a blessed break from the heavy-duty Oscar-hopeful onslaught of late. If, like us, you have barely been able to breathe under the weight of recent movies (see Reservation Road, Rendition, Things We Lost in the Fire—ouch! It hurts!), Halloween torture flicks might actually feel like relief. The folks at Lions Gate are hoping that Saw IV (we know, we know … do you need to go back and watch Saw I, II, and III before seeing this one? We’re guessing not!), a series of disturbing prolific-ness, will have the kind of box office that Alaskan vampire flick, 30 Days of Night, had last weekend. Saw IV can’t boast the same amount of star wattage (no hottie Hartnett in this one!), but when aren’t people in the mood for random orifice blood-spurting? Seriously.  read more »