In the month of June, Joe Valdez “takes over” programming of the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles with a series of double features on his favorite film themes.

Here’s Part 2 of a bill featuring high tech conspiracies in L.A.

Blue Thunder (1983)
Directed by John Badham
Written by Dan O’Bannon & Don Jakoby and Dean Riesner (uncredited)
Produced by Gordon Carroll
109 minutes

There haven’t been many movies about the LAPD’s Air Support Division. That might be due to logistics, or maybe the best picture you could possibly make in that milieu has already been done: Blue Thunder. Screenwriter Dan O’Bannon was so incensed by the ghetto bird buzzing his L.A. abode that he was inspired to write a thriller — with USC Film School buddy Don Jakoby — about a Travis Bickle type going AWOL in a police helicopter above the City of Angels. Columbia Pictures loved the ballistic third act, the crazed lone nut in the first and second acts not so much, prompting rewrites in which the LAPD became good guys and government spooks were invented as bad guys. O’Bannon & Jakoby at the time lambasted the finished film, a box office hit that inspired two TV series in the ‘80s; Airwolf on CBS and the short lived Blue Thunder on ABC, one even cheesier than the other.

Blue Thunder is wound like a Swiss watch and designed with almost the same level of craftsmanship, briskly introducing us to Los Angeles, the rigmarole of the Air Support Division (dubbed “Astro Division” in the film to avoid hate mail flooding the LAPD) and issues of privacy on the approach to the year 1984. The action is set up gracefully and executed tenaciously, while a post-Watergate malaise gives the film an edge. John Alonzo’s lighting and Arthur Rubenstein’s electronic score were cutting edge for their time and hold up well, while the casting is superb. It’s easy to forget how strong a leading man Roy Scheider was, while the magnificent Warren Oates — in his final movie — chews up scenery like a buzzsaw. Director John Badham shot the film back-to-back with WarGames and was in a zone, fusing high concept, high tech, compelling characters and fun without crossing over into cartoon.

Maverick police helicopter pilot Frank Murphy (Roy Scheider) breaks in a new partner, the baby faced Richard Lymangood (Daniel Stern) who’s transferred over for some supposed peace and quiet in the haze above Los Angeles. While the men spy on a yoga practitioner in Encino known to perform in the nude, a city commissioner is attacked outside her home in Brentwood and shot. Reprimanded for his flight patterns by the loquacious Captain Braddock (Warren Oates), Murphy contends that the attack on the city commissioner was no attempted rape but a stakeout. A Vietnam vet compressed with PTSD, Murphy makes up with his oddball girlfriend (Candy Clark) and returns to the crime scene, where a memo he retrieves from the commissioner’s lawn has the cryptic word THOR written on it.

Assigned a special detail, Murphy accompanies Braddock and two feds to the demonstration of a prototype helicopter designed for crowd control in the Los Angeles ’84 Summer Olympics. “Blue Thunder” is equipped with a 20mm gun turret, turbine boost, whisper mode and surveillance devices that see and hear through walls. The test pilot is Colonel Cochrane (Malcolm McDowell), a nefarious operator Murphy knew in ‘Nam. In an attempt to rub out his competition, Cochrane sabotages Murphy’s chopper. Staying alive long enough to take Blue Thunder for a test spin, Murphy and Lymangood discover the feds have big plans for THOR (Tactical Helicopter Offensive Response), instigating social unrest in L.A. to justify military expenditures. Framed by Cochrane and the feds running the project, Murphy commandeers their toy and takes to the friendly skies.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 147 users: 65% for Blue Thunder

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: Not available

What do you say?

In the month of June, Joe Valdez “takes over” programming of the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles with a series of double features on his favorite film themes. Joe is not a professional curator and may not even show potential as an amateur one, but comments and recommendations for future double features are welcome below.

Butch and Sundance: The Early Days (1979)
Directed by Richard Lester
Written by Allan Burns, based on characters created by William Goldman
Produced by Gabriel Katzka, Steven Bach
115 minutes

The first prequel Hollywood ever cranked out is also the answer to the question of which one remains the best, Butch and Sundance: The Early Days. That may be faint praise in the company of titles like The Flintstones In Viva Rock Vegas, Exorcist: The Beginning or the Star Wars prequels, but if there absolutely positively had to be another Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, without Paul Newman or Robert Redford — whose characters were shot up by the Bolivian army in the climax of the original — then this belated follow-up is actually pretty good. A blithe screenplay constructed by Allan Burns (co-creator of The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rhoda), a solid cast and comic flourishes by director Richard Lester that deftly sidestep parody while providing plenty of grins all add up to a thoroughly enjoyable western adventure.

Part of the fun is the slight of hand that permits Tom Berenger and William Katt to pull off roles originated by Paul Newman and Robert Redford. That’s not saying they’re preferable to Newman and Redford (nobody is) or really recapture their on-screen chemistry (no one can) but Berenger and Katt hold their own and their casting keeps us in the movie rather than throwing us out of it. The Early Days recognizes what made William Goldman’s original script very good: surprises, action that tilts toward the irreverent and colorful banter zinging between the title characters. Collaborating with director of photography László Kovács and art director Jackson De Govia, Richard Lester spared no expense giving the film both visual panache and certain wit. None of it resembles the Old West and the film lacks the female presence Katharine Ross brought to original, but it all works fine.

One year into a prison sentence for horse theft, Robert A. Leroy Parker, alias Butch Cassidy (Tom Berenger) is brought before the governor for a parole hearing. Vouched for by Sheriff Ray Bledsoe (Jeff Corey) — the crusty lawman who arrested him — Butch promises that if set free he will most certainly commit more crimes, but agrees not to in the state of Wyoming. Visiting a casino, Butch has his new pistol stolen by a lightning fast stick up artist named Harry Longabaugh (William Katt). To retrieve his gun, Butch joins the posse of noted lawman and tracker Joe Le Fors (Peter Weller) who gives up the hunt when his men show little inclination to pursue the kid into a rock fortification. Butch stays behind to parlay with Longabaugh, suggesting that his intellect and the kid’s reflexes would make a good team.

Returning to his old hideout, Butch is reunited with cattle rustler O.C. Hanks (Brian Dennehy) before being swept up in a raid by Sheriff Bledsoe. Convinced Butch set him up, O.C. threatens to kill him first chance he gets. Butch and the kid get their feet wet as bandits by knocking over high roller casinos and such. Butch bestows his young partner with the handle Sundance Kid, due to jail time the kid spent in Sundance, Wyoming and their adventures take them through snowbound Telluride and to the farmhouse in Circleville, Utah which Butch occasionally shares with his wife Mary (Jill Eikenberry) and two sons. Life as a citizen doesn’t sit well with Butch and with the help of two bumbling outlaws (John Schuck, Christopher Lloyd), Butch and Sundance attempt to rob a train carrying U.S. Cavalry troops and cash.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 2 users: 100% for Butch and Sundance: The Early Days

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: Not available

What do you say?

In the month of June, Joe Valdez “takes over” the programming of the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles with a series of double features on his favorite film themes. Joe is not a professional curator and may not even show potential as an amateur one, but comments and recommendations for future double features are welcome below.

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)
Directed by Joseph Sargent
Screenplay by Peter Stone, based on the novel by Morton Freedgood (as John Godey)
Produced by Gabriel Katzka, Edgar J. Scherick
104 minutes

Listening to a Beastie Boys LP or watching The Taking of Pelham One Two Three will not only assist a visitor in the successful navigation of the New York subway system, but for 1 hour 44 minutes, the latter is an electrifying 1970s cops and robbers thriller that captures the magnitude of NYC as well as the mettle of many of the people you’re likely to encounter there. Based on a 1973 bestseller by Morton Freedgood — a PR hack who published several potboilers under the name “John Godey” — Hollywood came calling during a bleak time for the Big Apple, which was depressed economically and threatening to crack with crime and ethnic tension. In an effort to turn the city’s fortunes around, Mayor John Lindsey invited the film industry to use Manhattan as a back lot, but his office initially found in this script exactly the type of social distortion he was trying to clean up.

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three is one of those once in a blue moon entertainments that fires on every cylinder from start to finish, sharply adapted by Peter Stone and supremely well cast right down to walk-on roles. If anything is better than “Walter Matthau as Lt. Zachary Garber” and “Jerry Stiller as Lt. Rico Patrone”, I don’t know what is; the equivalent would be Ricky Gervais and Patton Oswalt starring in a $150 million summer action movie; in other words, unlikely. Even more so than The Fugitive, this is an E-ticket ride through a great metropolis, with accents and plot developments that feel singular to that city above any other. TV journeyman Joseph Sargent does a yeoman’s job balancing action across different locations, while the peerless camerawork by Owen Roizman and musical score by David Shire send this movie into another stratosphere.

On a subway train departing Pelham Bay Park Station in the Bronx at 1:23 in the afternoon, men sporting long coats, hats and wearing fake moustaches and eyeglasses move into position. Identifying each other as Mr. Blue (Robert Shaw), Mr. Green (Martin Balsam), Mr. Grey (Hector Elizondo) and Mr. Brown (Earl Hindman) and armed with submachine guns, the men access the motorman’s compartment and hijack the train, using Green’s expertise as a conductor to stop in a tunnel somewhere between 28^th Street and 23^rd Street. At the Transit Authority command center, the wry Lt. Zachary Garber (Walter Matthau) and Lt. Rico Patrone (Jerry Stiller) have their boredom interrupted when Blue radios threatening to execute hostages starting in one hour unless a ransom of $1 million is delivered.

While the Mayor (Lee Wallace) dithers over how New York voters will respond to his decisions — negatively, it seems, no matter what he does — his deputy (Tony Roberts) and wife (Doris Roberts) advise that it would be wise to pay the hijackers and avoid risking another Attica. Sparring with Blue over the radio, Garber is stumped over how the meticulous ex-British Army colonel plans to escape an underground tunnel. When a sharpshooter fires off a round on accident, Blue makes good on his threats and executes one of the hostages. With the ransom cash running late, Garber thinks fast and produces a ruse to prevent Blue from shooting anyone else, including an undercover transit cop whose identity remains unknown. As Pelham 123 gets moving again and hurdles toward Manhattan, Garber hits on how the hijackers plan to escape.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 208 users: 94% for The Taking of Pelham One Two Three

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: Not available

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Unforgiven (1992)
Directed by Clint Eastwood
Written by David Webb Peoples
Produced by Clint Eastwood
131 minutes

The Outlaw Josey Wales is the best material Clint Eastwood ever lucked into, but this Academy Award winner for Best Picture and Best Director of 1992 is from sunrise to sunset the best screenplay Eastwood has yet filmed. Known as The Cut-Whore Killings when David Webb Peoples wrote it in 1976, Malpaso took a look at the script five years later. The writing was so digressive and subject matter so reprehensible that story editor Sonia Chernus referred to it as “trash”, but when Eastwood took a look much later as a sample of Peoples’ writing, he optioned the script and held onto it until the time was right to make the film. As savage and foreboding as any indie made that decade by directors half his age, this western is a potent exploration of the roots of violence; elegantly written, boldly photographed and magnificently performed.

Rationing the number of fatalities, Unforgiven is explicit in wanting to make the viewer actually feel something for every felled body. Despite the relative lack of gunplay, the deeper we get into the story, the more it crackles with suspense. The characters are compelling — with Eastwood essentially playing a villain revisited 20 years down the road — and the dialogue has an otherworldly splendor, as if Peoples traveled back in time to take notes. Richard Harris and Gene Hackman deliver monologues as rapturous as any torn from a Quentin Tarantino script and like a Tarantino film, when the talking stops and the bullets fly, we aren’t disappointed. Jack N. Green washes the film in thunderstorm gray while the town of Big Whiskey — built in Alberta, Canada by Henry Bumstead — is one of the most visually compelling frontier villages ever put on film.

As a rainstorm pelts the town of “Big Whiskey”, Wyoming in 1880, a cowpoke slashes the face of Delilah Fitzgerald (Anna Thomson) for a slight against his manhood. Sheriff Little Bill Daggett (Gene Hackman) considers bullwhipping the assailant and his partner, but when the cut whore’s employer (Anthony James) protests the assault as destruction of property, Little Bill fines the cowpokes in ponies instead. Strawberry Alice (Frances Fisher) pools together the savings of the working girls to buy their own retribution. Tending to his pigs, retired mercenary William Munny (Clint Eastwood) receives a visit from the self-proclaimed Schofield Kid (Jaimz Woolvett), nephew of a desperado he once rode with. Invited by the kid to partner with him in the murder for hire, Munny maintains that his dearly departed wife cured him of that “drink and wickedness.”

Changing his mind, Munny picks up his pistols and climbs back on a horse for the first time in 11 years. He stops off at the farm of his old partner Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman) and recruits him to participate in the killings. Gunslinger-for-hire English Bob (Richard Harris) and his “biographer” W.W. Beauchamp (Saul Rubinek) arrive in Big Whiskey ahead of them to collect the reward money, only to have Little Bill and his deputies violently yank away the welcome mat. Amused by Mr. Beauchamp’s frontier fiction posing as fact, the sadistic sheriff sets him straight on how law & order out west really works. Arriving in town, Munny has a hurt put on him by Little Bill, but is able to regroup with Ned and the kid to finish the job. One of them falls prey to Little Bill’s posse, prompting Munny to pay a visit to Big Whiskey for his own retribution.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 55 users: 96% for Unforgiven

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: 82 for Unforgiven

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In The Line of Fire (1993)
Directed by Wolfgang Petersen
Written by Jeff Maguire
Produced by Jeff Apple
128 minutes

It’s once in a blue moon that Clint Eastwood comes aboard a production as an actor for hire, recommending a director but letting another company call the shots. If that arrangement results in a movie as sensational as Castle Rock Entertainment’s In The Line of Fire, it’s a wonder Eastwood doesn’t ride in the passenger seat more often. This A-class action thriller was the idea of producer Jeff Apple, who garnered studio interest in a movie about the Secret Service. Apple turned to a struggling screenwriter he knew named Jeff Maguire and while the resulting spec script was good enough to intrigue Dustin Hoffman and later Robert Redford, nothing happened until Maguire got the script to somebody who knew UTA agent Jeremy Zimmer. In the bidding war that ensued between Castle Rock and Paramount, the film and TV company co-founded by Rob Reiner won out.

The time In The Line of Fire spent baking may account for its richness of character, crispness of action and how organically the two blend. The novelty of a murder weapon coming together from a modeling kit is a nice touch, as is an aging hero trying to redeem his failure to protect one president by saving the neck of another. As Frank Horrigan, Eastwood seems compelled to bring out much more of his romantic side, and his randy chemistry with Rene Russo knocks years off his age. The central spoke is John Malkovich, a tremendous villain infused with more idealism and professional courtesy than typically afforded psycho killers in movies. The smaller the scale, the more energy and wit director Wolfgang Petersen seems capable of bringing to a thriller, of which this one ranks near the top of the form. Ennio Morricone employed a light but noticeably felt touch with his musical score.

After tangling with counterfeiters in a sting operation, Secret Service Agent Frank Horrigan (Clint Eastwood) tickles the ivories in a D.C. bar. His new partner (Dylan McDermott) reminds Horrigan about a threat they were given to check out. The suspect isn’t home, but Horrigan discovers a wall devoted to the assassination of President Kennedy. Horrigan receives a call from the tenant, who gives the name “Booth” (John Malkovich) and expresses his admiration of Horrigan dating back to when he was JFK’s favorite agent. Booth announces his intention to kill the current president. Joining the hunt for the would-be assassin are Agent Lilly Raines (Rene Russo) and the agent in charge of the president’s detail (Gary Cole). Convinced that Booth will make a try for the President, long in the tooth Horrigan asks to be placed back on protective duty.

Booth continues to taunt Horrigan by phone, sympathizing with his adversary for the blame he took over Kennedy’s assassination. Though unable to trace the calls due to Booth’s technical superiority, the White House Chief of Staff (Fred Dalton Thompson) refuses to take the President out of the public eye during the re-election campaign. Using Booth’s interest in model toys to pursue him, Horrigan discovers their man is named Mitch Leary and during a foot chase, lifts his palm print from a car windshield. Horrigan discovers the CIA is also hunting Leary, a rogue operative the agency tried to let go. Removed from protective detail due to his obsession with Leary, Horrigan manages to close in on him as the assassin infiltrates a fundraiser at the Bonaventure Hotel in L.A. with a handmade pistol invulnerable to metal detectors.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 35 users: 97% for In The Line of Fire

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: 74 for In The Line of Fire

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High Plains Drifter (1973)
Directed by Clint Eastwood
Written by Ernest Tidyman and Dean Riesner (uncredited)
Produced by Robert Daley
105 minutes

Clint Eastwood’s sophomore feature as a director is every bit the exercise in efficiency, mood and supreme wickedness as Play Misty For Me, translating those qualities from a contemporary thriller to a western. Universal owned a treatment written by Ernest Tidyman, the white author and screenwriter who helped usher in the Blaxplotation genre with Shaft and its sequels. Tidyman expanded his western concept to a screenplay, which Eastwood brought in Dean Riesner to punch up. One of the pleasures of High Plains Drifter is the ambiguity of its anti-hero, credited as “The Stranger”, who could either be the relative of a marshal bullwhipped to death in a civic conspiracy or even better, the ghost of that marshal rising up to wreck supernatural vengeance. Which ever interpretation you prefer, it’s a hell of a movie.

The script has a hard hitting economy, with characters defined by what they are as opposed to who they are, but the film has a substantial moral universe pooled beneath the surface. When the hotelier’s wife warns, “You’re a man who makes people afraid”, The Stranger replies, “It’s what people know about themselves inside that makes ‘em afraid.” The action is styled less along the lines of a conventional western as it is on a community’s breach of the seven deadly sins and the divine retribution hammered down. The top-notch cast includes Verna Bloom and several actors who’d become Malpaso regulars. Exterior and interior sets were exceptionally well designed on location at California’s barren Lake Mono by Henry Bumstead, while the lighting by Bruce Surtees and musical score by Dee Barton set a spectral mood from the jump.

Out of the desert, a horseman materializes and rides into the desolate mining town of Lago. Branded as The Stranger (Clint Eastwood) by the anxious townsfolk, his efforts to enjoy a shave and a bath are harassed by thugs employed to protect the mine. Establishing himself as the toughest hombre in town, The Stranger helps himself to a roll in the hay with the local sex kitten (Mariana Hill) and inherits a loyal assistant in a dwarf named Mordecai (Billy Curtis). The Stranger checks into the hotel, where he draws open contempt from the only person in Lago with any backbone, the hotelier’s wife Sarah Belding (Verna Bloom). During his sleep, The Stranger is vexed by memories of Lago’s former marshal (also Clint Eastwood) being bullwhipped to death by gunslingers in full view of the townsfolk, who refuse to help him.

Fearful that the marshal’s killers (Geoffrey Lewis, Anthony James, Dan Vadis) will return to wreck vengeance on Lago when released from a territorial prison, the townsfolk offer The Stranger carte blanche to protect them. He puts the men through rifle drills on moving targets, but their marksmanship skills and willpower fail to inspire anyone. The Stranger begins to wear out his welcome with the co-chairman of the mining company (Jack Ging) and the hotelier (Ted Hartley) who resist being taxed for the defense operation, which will have something to do with picnic tables and 200 gallons of blood red paint. It’s revealed that the townsfolk conspired in the murder of the former marshal out of fear he might close the mine. As the desperadoes arrive, The Stranger gives all of Lago a homecoming they won’t forget.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 24 users: 96% for High Plains Drifter

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: Not available

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Heartbreak Ridge (1986)
Directed by Clint Eastwood
Written by James Carabatsos and Dennis Hackin (uncredited) and Joseph Stinson (uncredited)
Produced by Clint Eastwood
130 minutes

Firing locker room trash talk with the repetition and accuracy of a machine gun, Heartbreak Ridge is loaded with more R-rated one-liners than the careers of all the male action stars you could name combined. James Carabatsos wrote a first draft, which was doctored by the authors of the goofiest film Eastwood ever made (Bronco Billy) and the one with the greatest line of dialogue in action movie history (Sudden Impact), Dennis Hackin and Joseph Stinson, respectively. Greeted with dissent by some army veterans who maintained that the Marines never engaged Heartbreak Ridge and by a Marine Corps which did not square with the film’s language or Gunny Highway’s training techniques, Heartbreak Ridge may be trying to fit a size 12 foot into a shoe two sizes too small, but reality aside, it’s one of the more entertaining movies Clint Eastwood ever made.

The combat sequences — which utilize the U.S. military intervention in Grenada that the United Nations later voted illegal — are on auto-pilot, reflecting neither the terror of combat or hinting at any real consequences for the combatants. Heartbreak Ridge was the last in a line of war movies going back to John Wayne fighting Injuns in Fort Apache where the enemy was evil and when shot, went down like a bowling pin. For those able to cotton to the film’s outdated approach, its macho bluster is hard to resist. With an opening line of “I been pumping pussy since Christ was a corporal” the script never apologizes for being about a crusty Marine gunny and never lets up. Underneath lies a character that fits Eastwood’s screen persona like a glove, a man whose distaste for authority is matched by a loyalty to the ideals of that authority. Showing real signs of age, Eastwood gave what feels like the richest performance up to that point in his career.

In 1983, Marine Gunnery Sergeant Thomas Highway (Clint Eastwood) is allowed to walk away from drunk and disorderly charges — including urinating on a police car — due to his distinguished service in both Korea and Vietnam. Despite his contempt for authority and loose tongue, Highway is so gung ho about being a Marine that he earns a transfer back to his old unit: 2nd Recon Battalion, 2nd Marine Division in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. Reuniting with a sergeant major (Arlen Dean Snyder) he survived a battle with at the so-called Heartbreak Ridge in Korea when they were army corpsmen, Highway runs afoul with Annapolis football hero Major Malcolm A. Powers (Evertt McGill) who’s displeased as much with Highway’s age and his record of insubordination, commenting, “Well I ask for Marines, the division sends me relics.”

The sloppy recon platoon Gunny Highway is assigned — “The Marines are looking for a few good men. Unfortunately, you ain’t it” — regrets the day they met him. This includes Corporal “Stitch” Jones (Mario Van Peebles), a loudmouth who ripped Highway off on the bus ride to Lejeune. Accustomed to serving as target practice for 1^st Platoon, Recon is whipped into combat shape by Highway. He has less success rebuilding a relationship with his ex-wife Aggie (Marsha Mason), a barmaid who tired of waiting at home for Highway to return from whatever war zone he volunteered for. Termed an “0-0-1” by Powers — 0 wins, 1 tie for Korea, 1 loss for Vietnam — Highway gets a shot at redemption when the Marines are deployed to Grenada to free American medical students stranded by a Communist coup d’état on that Caribbean island.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 12 users: 83% for Heartbreak Ridge

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: Not available

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Blood Work (2002)
Directed by Clint Eastwood
Screenplay by Brian Helgeland, based on the novel by Michael Connelly
Produced by Clint Eastwood
110 minutes

Watching a star of Clint Eastwood’s magnitude — whose anger can be as explosive as TNT and whose wit could turn as light as a feather — exiled in Blood Work with opportunity to do neither is like watching Michael Jordan come out of retirement in 2001 to play with torn cartilage in the drab prison blue uniform of the Washington Wizards. Yes, it’s The Greatest out there, but this isn’t anything resembling a great movie. Based on a crime novel by Michael Connelly, whose best cop procedurals filter darkness through his expertise on the LAPD as well as the City of Angels, this adaptation was either phoned in by Brian Helgeland or was already hackneyed to begin with. Either way, the results are inexcusable. Tailor made for somebody like Benjamin Bratt to star in for A&E, Blood Work adds up to one of the weaker efforts Eastwood has given in decades.

This is TV back when TV was bad for you. It’s T.J. Hooker without William Shatner or his hairpiece. There’s a conceit planted here involving an FBI profiler chasing the killer of the woman whose donated heart now resides in his chest. Sounds promising, but the script puts FBI profiling and the fragility of new organ recipients on the shelf to focus instead on killers and the clever clues they like to tease cops with. The suspense is nonexistent because the clues are obvious to everyone except the adults in the movie. Eastwood cast two great actors opposite himself in Jeff Daniels and Anjelica Huston, while Wanda De Jesus gives a strong performance as his love interest in a superficial script that doesn’t seem to care about the talent it’s stranding. Lennie Niehaus composed a superb retro lounge music score used far too sparingly.

FBI profiler Terry McCaleb (Clint Eastwood) responds to the latest murder show by the Code Killer, who taunts McCaleb by leaving numerical clues scrawled in blood. Barely tolerated by LAPD detectives (Paul Rodriguez, Dylan Walsh) envious of his media attention, McCaleb spots a pair of Converse sneakers in the crowd similar to ones that left footprints at the crime scene. Giving chase, McCaleb suffers a heart attack. Two years later, the now retired McCaleb recovers from a heart transplant and is compelled by his doctor (Anjelica Huston) to make the most of his gift. Living on a boat moored in Long Beach, McCaleb is approached by Graciella Rivers (Wanda De Jesus) and asked to look into the murder of her sister Gloria, who shared McCaleb’s rare blood type and ended up donating her heart to him.

McCaleb humors the LAPD into letting him review the surveillance tape of Gloria’s unsolved murder, which appears to be a random convenience store robbery gone bad. Seeking help from his protégé Jaye Winston (Tina Lifford) — a detective with the L.A. County Sheriff — McCaleb gets a look at the murder book. He discovers an assailant wearing a ski mask shot a victim at an ATM with the same weapon only two weeks before Gloria was killed. Employing dim-witted boat bum named Buddy Noone (Jeff Daniels) to serve as a driver, McCaleb searches for a connection between the two victims, much to the disapproval of his doctor. He gets to know Gloria’s young son and becomes closer to her sister, but it’s not long before the Code Killer resurfaces with a new message for McCaleb.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 147 users: 54% for Blood Work

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: 64 for Blood Work

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Dirty Harry (1971)
Directed by Don Siegel
Written by Julian Fink & R.M. Fink and Dean Riesner
Produced by Don Siegel
102 minutes

Some movies are timeless. Others are time machines, and in the case of Dirty Harry, the Flex Capacitor is set to the summer of 1971. If the jazz soaked funk of Lalo Schifrin’s kinetic musical score or some of the haircuts didn’t transport you back, then the spectacle of Inspector Harry Callahan blowing away four black bank robbers might hip you that cultural sensitivity will not be a going concern. Or, maybe you’ll get to witness PC in its infancy. When another cop cracks that Callahan despises everyone — “Limeys, Micks, Hebes, Fat Dagos, Niggers, Honkies, Chinks” — Eastwood smirks as if parodying Archie Bunker as opposed to honoring him. But after 30 minutes, Dirty Harry puts politics in its rearview and floors it into a majestically made, immensely entertaining, classic cat and mouse game between a flawed good guy and a great bad guy.

While Pauline Kael spent years trying to divine Eastwood’s political agenda, Dirty Harry delivers intense audience appreciation for those in the mood for a damn good movie, from captivating action pieces, tasty one-liners, a crafty villain played by Andy Robinson as a hippie/Vietnam vet/Zodiac killer hybrid, and vivid use of the Bay Area as a location. In a testament to the brass tacks realism of director Don Siegel, Dirty Harry effectively documents a West Coast city undergoing epic social change during the Vietnam War. In the center is Eastwood, taking a role Paul Newman passed on and Frank Sinatra was perhaps welcomed to vacate by Warner Bros. Instead of looking burned out, Eastwood’s youth feels just right for a cop whose idealism for the law becomes cracked as it tilts away from victims to favor their assailant. Eastwood personifies just the type of anti-hero who knows how to respond.

After a madman issuing the moniker of Scorpio (Andy Robinson) shoots a sunbather from a San Francisco highrise, Inspector Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) is put on the case. In a note addressed to The Mayor (John Vernon) Scorpio demands $100,000 and threatens to “kill a Catholic priest or a nigger” if ignored. Bristling at answering dumb questions at City Hall, Callahan is incredulous that the Mayor wants to play along with Scorpio in a bid to buy time. While on lunch break, Callahan foils a bank robbery with the help of his best friend, a .44 Magnum revolver — “the most powerful handgun in the world” — and while thankful, his lieutenant assigns Callahan a human partner, college boy Chico Gonzalez (Reni Santoni) who’s eager to find the meaning behind Callahan’s nickname “Dirty Harry”.

After a couple of detours through the nocturnal streets of San Francisco, Callahan and Gonzalez shoot it out with Scorpio on a rooftop. Their nemesis escapes and kidnaps a 14-year-old girl. Put in charge of the ransom delivery, Callahan wounds Scorpio and chases him to his hideout at Kezar Stadium in Golden Gate Park. Rather than give the punk his constitutional rights, Callahan attempts to beat the girl’s location out of him first. Discovering she was already dead, Callahan watches as Scorpio is set free due to police brutality. To ditch his surveillance, Scorpio contracts a thug to work him over with bruises, which the psycho blames on Callahan. For his next stunt, Scorpio hijacks a school bus and demands cash and a getaway jet from the Mayor. Callahan and his best friend take over negotiations.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 38 users: 95% for Dirty Harry

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: Not available

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Letters From Iwo Jima (2006)
Directed by Clint Eastwood
Screenplay by Iris Yamashita, story by Iris Yamashita & Paul Haggis, based on the book Picture Letters From Commander In Chief by Tadamichi Kuribayashi
Produced by Clint Eastwood, Steven Spielberg, Robert Lorenz
141 minutes

In his research for the $90 million World War II drama Flags of Our Fathers, Clint Eastwood had his interest piqued by the general who designed the ingenious defenses for Iwo Jima. Pitched as an audacious companion piece that would illustrate the battle from the perspective of the Japanese — budgeted at $20 million and shot largely on the Warner Bros. backlot — Letters From Iwo Jima turns out being vastly superior to the unwieldy Flags of Our Fathers and more complex than Saving Private Ryan or any other war movie of the past 20 years. Rejecting genre clichés like a beachhead, Eastwood’s film is both a vision and a discovery, of actors we’ve never seen before, of a place we’ve never seen portrayed on film in this way and a discovery of a culture and people reduced to caricature in other movies.

Letters From Iwo Jima owes its eyes and its heart to Iris Yamashita, a Los Angeles web programmer who’d won a screenwriting contest with a spec titled Traveler to Tokyo and whose work was referred to Paul Haggis, who Eastwood had hired to structure a screenplay. In addition to keeping the dialogue in Japanese, Yamashita paints a vibrant depiction of men sent to war; some descend into pettiness or barbarism, but for the most part, these are men who miss their families and want to go home, a quality they either already understand or soon learn they share with their enemy. Like all great movies, this one feels like it’d been waiting to be made, at least by an American filmmaker as intuitive and skilled as Eastwood. Letters From Iwo Jima is the best picture he’s directed without acting in so far.

Japanese archeologists sifting through the island of Iwo Jima in 2005 discover a mail pouch buried in the cave network abandoned in World War II. Moving back in time to 1944 — as outmanned and outgunned Japanese forces fortify the beaches of the volcanic rock against an impending American invasion — Private Saigo (Kazunari Ninomiya) runs afoul with his sadistic superior Captain Tanida (Takumi Bando) when he’s overheard making comments deemed unpatriotic. A baker and comparatively weak soldier drafted into the army, Saigo writes letters home to his wife Hanako. His friend Kashiwara (Takashi Yamaguchi) becomes stricken with dysentery while Nozaki (Yuki Matsuzaki) gossips about the newly arrived General Tadamichi Kuribayashi (Ken Watanabe) who received his military training in the United States.

Notified that reinforcements have been destroyed off the Marianas, Kuribayashi shifts his defenses from the beaches to Mount Suribachi, where the Japanese begin digging a cave network that will hold out much longer than a frontal assault against the Americans. The contemplative general finds an ally in Lieutenant Colonel Takeichi Nishi (Tsuyoshi Ihara), a charismatic cavalry officer who won gold as an equestrian in the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics. Newly arrived superior Private Shimizu (Ryo Kase) reveals to Saigo and Nozaki that he received his training as a military policeman, raising concerns that he might be a spy; the truth behind Shimizu’s deployment to Iwo Jima reveals another side to him. Drilled that Americans are weak and inferior, once the invasion begins, Saigo and the others quickly learn otherwise. Their only honorable course of action is to embrace ritual suicide.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 195 users: 91% for Letters From Iwo Jima

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: 89 for Letters From Iwo Jima

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