Film review – Gran Torino (2008)

20 January 2009
Clint Eastwood as Walt Kowalski

Walt Kowalski (Clint Eastwood)

Clint Eastwood’s place in cinema history has been well and truly established by both his iconic presence on screen and his talented work behind the camera. Eastwood really doesn’t need to prove himself any further but that hasn’t stopped him from continuing to create entertaining and well-crafted pieces of cinema. While Gran Torino is one of two films that he directed in 2008 (the magnificent Changeling being the other) it is the first film that he has acted in since his Academy Award winning 2004 film Million Dollar Baby.

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Posted by Thomas Caldwell

Top Ten Films of 2003

1 January 2004

Contribution to the 2003 World Poll

I have limited myself to films released theatrically in Australia between 1 January and 31 December 2003. Therefore films that were only shown at festivals or went direct to video, DVD or television are not included in this Top Ten.

Nevertheless the following films that were screened at the Melbourne International Film Festival would have all been contenders for my Top Ten had they been given a general release:

Resurrection of the Little Match Girl (Jang Sun-Woo, 2002)
Interstella 5555 (Kazuhisa Takenôchi, 2003)
Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance (Park Chan-wook, 2002)
The Other Final (Johan Kramer, 2003)

I have also not included re-released films such as Director’s Cuts or Special Editions. This is mainly due to the fact that the following four films would have dominated too easily which would have been unfair to recent films:

The Leopard (Luchino Visconti, 1963)
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Sergio Leone, 1966)
The Red Circle (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1970)
Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979)

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Posted by Thomas Caldwell