Seriously, Stay off the Man's Lawn!

I really cannot decide if I want to watch Wise Blood or Gran Torino tonight. On the one hand, we have John Huston directing Brad Dourif, Harry Dean Stanton, and Ned Beatty in a story based on Flannery O'Connor. On the other, we have Clint Eastwood doing what he does best: playing a grouchy loner that hates everyone, except this time he overtly racist to boot.

Honestly, that sounds like I'm stacking the deck in Wise Blood's favore, if only because on paper Gran Torino doesn't sound as interesting. On the other hand, if I'm going to watch a Clint Eastwood movie, I want Clint to be in it and not just directing it (*coughChangelingcough*), and regardless of all the Daniel Craigs and Vin Diesels and the Jason Stathams, nobody does BAD ASS like Clint does. Clint Eastwood is a dude you do not fuck with, and if he says "you damn kids get off my yard" and you expect to live another day, you do it.

So yeah, Gran Torino doesn't read as interesting, but the movie has that intangible quality that is the Eastwood swagger. You could even just put that dude in Space and I'd watch*. It doesn't hurt that Torino is certainly more well regarded than Changeling, which was all right but definitely the "Flags of Our Fathers" of the 2008 two-fer. I watched Changeling mostly because it was something Clint-related while I waited for Gran Torino, although I also watched The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly on Blu-Ray too, but that's just logical.

Now, on the flipside, I didn't know a) Wise Blood even existed or b) the degree of talent involved in the movie even after Criterion announced it. Normally, John Huston alone is enough to grab my attention, but for some reason I never looked carefully at the cast or watched the trailer. Bad call on the Cap'n's part. Once I saw who was in it and, more importantly, that this was a comedy about evangelism, I was sold. To be honest, it's been on "Very Long Wait" for so long on Netflix that I honestly never thought it would get here, but it did.

Or I could watch Valkyrie, which is more of a courtesy to Bryan Singer, who did after all make The Usual Suspects and Apt Pupil and X2. He also made X-Men and Superman Returns which, it turns out, don't have a lot of staying power. Even though pretty much nobody saw Valkyrie because of Tom Cruise, and - more alarmingly - some people didn't know how it ended**, I feel like I should at least give it a try. The general consensus is "meh", but that's what I get for moving new releases to the top of my queue and not paying close attention to them.


* even if it wouldn't end on time. And yes, I watched Space Cowboys.
** seriously. there are people so stupid that not only did they not know that Harvey Milk died, they also weren't sure if Hitler was assassinated by his own men. le sigh.