Excellent FIlm

I feel that True Crime is terrific—a very good film and, in certain ways, one of the best American films ever with regard to race—without ever being pretentious or self-conscious in that regard. The movie is powerful and probing socially, it is full of irony, it constitutes a rich character study with an excellent and underrated cast, and it maintains a bleak, tensely atmospheric tone while nimbly varying mood. The film also brilliantly navigates the conventions of expectation in both its climax and its coda.

I would say that the late Roger Ebert captures a lot of that nuance here:

... This is Eastwood's 21st film as a director and experience has given him patience. He knows that even in a deadline story like this, not all scenes have to have the same breakneck pace. He doesn't direct like a child of MTV, for whom every moment has to vibrate to the same beat. Eastwood knows about story arc, and as a jazz fan, he also knows about improvising a little before returning to the main theme.

"True Crime" has a nice rhythm, intercutting the character's problems at home, his interviews with the prisoner, his lunch with a witness, his unsettling encounter with the grandmother of another witness. And then, as the midnight hour of execution draws closer, Eastwood tightens the noose of inexorably mounting tension. There are scenes involving an obnoxious prison chaplain and a basically gentle warden, and the mechanical details of execution. Cuts to the governor who can stay the execution. Tests of the telephone hotlines. Battles with Everett's editors. Last-minute revelations. Like a good pitcher, Eastwood gives the movie a nice slow curve and a fast break.

Many recent thrillers are so concerned with technology that the human characters are almost in the way. We get gun battles and car chases that we don't care about, because we don't know the people firing the guns or driving the cars. I liked the way Eastwood and his writers (Larry Gross, Paul Brickman and Stephen Schiff) lovingly added the small details. For example, the relationships that both the reporter and the condemned man have with their daughters. And a problem when the prisoner's little girl can't find the right color crayon for her drawing of green pastures.

In England 25 years ago, traditional beer was being pushed off the market by a pasteurized product that had been pumped full of carbonation (in other words, by American beer). A man named Richard Boston started the Real Beer Campaign. Maybe it's time for a movement in favor of Real Movies. Movies with tempo and character details and style, instead of actionfests with Attention Deficit Syndrome. Clint Eastwood could be honorary chairman.

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/true-crime-1999

I had not read that review previously, but I sense that Ebert and I saw matters much the same way.

I liked Blood Work as an atmospheric neo-noir of sorts with a memorably vulnerable protagonist—vulnerable in a very tangible, physical way—and as an exciting mystery that occasionally even creates some phenomenology. I know from audience reactions at the time that some people found the mystery totally obvious, but I feel that many of those people are the kind who go into this kind of movie actively searching for the "whodunit" based on other types of films from the genre. Personally, I do not view films that way. Although I have not seen Blood Work since I viewed it three times in the theater in August 2002, when I was twenty-one, I would at least consider it "good" based on those experiences. Certainly, it is not one of Eastwood's major films, but I found it worthwhile.

I viewed Space Cowboys three times in the theater in August 2000, when I was nineteen, and once on DVD two years later. I liked the film on all those instances as a well-judged entertainment piece, an atmospheric movie with a real sense of flight. But when I viewed it again in September 2012 on DVD at the age of thirty-one, I gained a whole new appreciation for the film. Obviously, it is not one of Eastwood's weightier works, but he ingeniously finds the sweet spot between parody and homage. I feel that Eastwood's skills as a director turned what would have been a ridiculous movie in almost anyone else's hands into a very good film—and that ability is as much a sign of a great director as any. To have just made a parody might have been fun, but that sort of thing has been done before and it would have been hackneyed and of little value. To have just made an homage or a fully serious film, while potentially noble, would have been preposterous. Finding the sweet spot between parody and homage is what really makes Space Cowboys work, but it is not an easy task to accomplish. In Raiders of the Lost Ark, Steven Spielberg finds the middle ground between parody and homage, and the film is effective for that reason, but I believe that Space Cowboys goes further, in part because it is more subtle. And then, in the middle of the movie, Eastwood adjusts and sharpens the tone in a perfectly timed, perfectly judged manner. The movie is well-cast, well-scored, and quite striking visually in some of its compositions, with the CGI stuff from 1999 really holding up. And the coda is absolutely classic. Finally, Space Cowboys is surprisingly eloquent in its style, especially in the sense that Eastwood says as much by what he leaves out as what he leaves in—and he leaves out a lot of conventional filler that 95-99 percent of Hollywood directors would have included.

I agree with what the late Richard Corliss wrote in Time:

... Four guys doing something kooky-that sounds like a teen-hormone romp. But the Space Cowboys quartet has been alive for a cumulative 261 years, and in films for 156. They're too mature to fiddle with bra straps or play with pastry. Besides, Eastwood is a gentleman of sorts, so-except for displaying the four men's naked behinds, which is quite an archaeological sight-he will embarrass neither them nor us. Directing from a script by Ken Kaufman and Howard Klausner, he finds fresh breezes in familiar vectors: the residual rivalry of Frank and Hawk, the tensions between the ancient astronauts and the modern ones, the impact of decay and disease on minds that are still bright, wills that are still strong.

For its first hour, this is an engaging rite-of-passage comedy for the Grumpy Old Men set. When the men go into orbit, so does the film. It blends tension and emotion, computer wizardry and dramatic skill in a vigorous climax-and the most impressive, haunting final shot of the movie year.

Eastwood's message is clear: he wants Hollywood to see how an old man can play a young man's game. Find a story that allows elbow room for star quality; hand the old boys some new toys; don't try to be a kid. Deep into Act 3 of his career, Eastwood still has the goods.

http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2047803,00.html

Once again, I had not read that review previously, but he seems to have seen the movie the same way.

As an aside about sweet spots between otherwise different elements, I feel that for the first half or so of Manchester by the Sea, writer-director Kenneth Lonergan finds the sweet spot between comedy and tragedy. Unfortunately, in the second half, he pushes the combination too hard or veers unevenly between the two—he struggles to maintain a middle ground, let alone a sweet spot. I still find the film good, but this sort of ability is difficult to maintain for an entire movie.

Nobody will argue that "Unforgiven", "Million Dollar Baby" and "Mystic River" are great movies.

I assume that you meant that no one will argue that they are not great movies. For even if you feel that they are not great, many (perhaps most) would argue differently.

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