Tag: Clint Eastwood

‘Jersey Boys’ Review: Clint Eastwood at his absolute best

If it wasn’t such an astonishing film with some truly remarkable points to make—I would likely have just enjoyed Jersey Boys as a pleasant movie. It’s not the normal kind of film that I would go to the theater to see. I’m not really crazy about pop music, and I could care less about another mobster movie—which Jersey Boys is at its heart. But this was different—I have been a Clint Eastwood fan all of my life and continue to admire his work late in life when most people would have cashed in and checked out a long time ago. I remember well when George Burns was still living well in his 80s which defied logic—but even he looked like a burnt up old man. Eastwood still has his swagger—and his mind at 84 without any sign of slowing down. I knew during the filming of Jersey Boys Clint’s wife wanted to run off with an old friend—a much younger man, then when Eastwood was ready to give her a divorce, she decided she didn’t want it. I also knew that Eastwood’s oldest son Kyle was in the film as a musical coordinator, and that one of his newest daughters Francesca was supposed to be in the cast.  I also knew that he was in pre-production for American Sniper—and there was a lot of other subplots not even related to the difficult production of Jersey Boys which is very well documented. Heck, the main character Frankie Valli is still alive and performing, and would see everything that Eastwood put on film—which can be intimidating to get right. There were at least 1000 reasons Jersey Boys should have been a bad movie and there would be every excuse available for it—so I went to see the film to support Clint Eastwood and his tireless efforts as a brilliant film director. What I saw wasn’t just good, or even great—it was magnificent.

Jersey Boys is a movie filled with very subtle scenes of radiance.  The strength of Clint Eastwood not only as an actor, but a director is in his ability to put many emotions in a scene from moment to moment. This was never clearer than when Frankie Valli rescued his daughter who was a run-away from a vile scum bag with a mobster hit man. The moment brought laughs from the audience and was reminiscent of one of Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry films but within a moment in the same scene was a level of drama seen in Mystic River. Valli had rescued his daughter then tried to tell her he was going to save her by making her dreams come true—helping her develop a singing career. As Valli spoke the words, it was clear he was making a mistake—the girl only wanted her father’s attention and her rebelliousness was clearly a response to an emptiness left in her life by a father who was always on the road. The scene was like Eastwood himself, a person who works at many levels all at the same time. The actor clearly had to know how Eastwood wanted to shoot the scene, yet the real Frankie Valli is one of the producers of the film and the decisions he had made eventually would lead to the death of that daughter and had to be painful for him. Eastwood handled all these elements like a symphony—effortlessly. Most directors would have wanted to show off how brilliant they were in such a scene—but Eastwood doesn’t even feel he needs to put a light on it. It just is—and he moves on to the next scene which is just as brilliant for the rest of the movie. It is amazing not only on how Eastwood handles things in front of the camera, but the elements behind the camera which affect what’s in front like an untouched maestro that only extreme maturity and philosophic understanding could provide. I had the feeling that the scene would cause the real Frankie Valli a lot of pain, but Eastwood didn’t care. I thought of his character from High Plains Drifter from many years prior—“people are only scared of what they know about themselves inside.” Eastwood had seen through the emotion written on the page of a screenplay to the heart of the problem and he did not hesitate to cast his opinion through film—which was gut wrenching. Moments later, Eastwood had the audience laughing again and enjoying music. It was quite phenomenal to see.

An example of such brilliance was the way the main characters provided narration throughout the film looking directly into the camera like it was a live stage play. Typically, it is a big error for an actor to look directly into the camera and speak to an audience—yet Eastwood pulls it off without being distracting. I can’t ever recall seeing such a narrative that does not interrupt the flow of the film and it wasn’t just one character—but several. It is a difficult concept to conceive, and even harder to pull off—yet Clint Eastwood effortlessly pulled it off knowing very well that he was shooting a period piece that most of the audience was alive to confirm—and playing music that many in the audience knew by heart. For any other film director—the task would be daunting—but for 84-year-old Clint Eastwood who is a master of his craft and at the top of his game—it was just the result of a life fully lived by a man who had seen and done everything and lived to tell the stories.

Jersey Boys could have been a PG film—there was no sex in it, or nudity. It was done very stylishly—except that the F-bomb was used extensively. But it was never distracting—it felt natural—like part of the culture we were witnessing. Warner Brothers would have reigned in any director except Clint Eastwood. They would have cut the language to get the PG rating for ticket sales, but because of whom the director was—they left Jersey Boys alone which tremendously elevated the authenticity of the subject matter.

Jersey Boys is a musical, but it didn’t go out of its way to be elaborately flowery in that category—the way Chicago, or even Walk The Line did—it again was an effortless exchange between a master filmmaker who happens to be old and uniquely able to convey wisdom that only elderly people can achieve—without being stuffy. Jersey Boys is really amazingly efficient in its delivery of complicated subject matter, well-known songs, and the telling of a story backed by actual history. In one scene the music is interrupted while one of the band members turns to the camera and speaks directly to the audience. It was a strangely satisfying way to tell the story that might only make sense on a printed page as a dream sequence. Most filmmakers would struggle to tell the crew in a meeting what their vision for such a scene would be—yet again Eastwood pulls it off as if everyone does it in every film ever made.

I found myself identifying with the young Frankie Valli and his unique relationship to a mob boss in Christopher Walken. I had a similar background—and understand how complex those types of relationships can be—how the morality between right and wrong can easily be colored gray. Eastwood in telling this kind of story never loses sight of right and wrong while at the same time covering every shade of gray that there is with humor, horror, pity, and honor. There hasn’t been a mob film done this well since The Godfather or Goodfellas. Christopher Walken played his part with all the confidence one would expect—and entered the storyline reminiscent of Pulp Fiction. Again there is typically a tendency to overplay the Walken type of mob boss in films because his performance was so incredibly strong. Yet Eastwood backs off the thrusters just enough to hit the right speed with the entire mob portion of the story seemingly taking a back seat to the music—which of course it was actually the support structure without naming it.

Yet my favorite character in the story was Bob Gaudio who at the end of the film proudly proclaimed to the camera—that without him, none of the events of the story would have happened—and he’s right. Gaudio wrote the songs that made Frankie Valli famous and carried the Four Seasons to heights they wouldn’t otherwise achieve. It wasn’t a teamwork exercise—it was because of Bob Gaudio that the Four Seasons produced so many hits. Frankie Valli had the unique voice, and everyone in the band did the hard work on the road—but it was because of Gaudio that there was anything to sing. I think only Clint Eastwood could have had a character deliver a line like that without sounding pretentious. It was a uniquely Clint Eastwood line delivered authentically.

 

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/jersey-boys-premiere-clint-eastwood-713739

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/06/16/clint-eastwood-reflects-on-age-america-and-acting/

If you go back to Eastwood films like Play Misty for Me the fabulous cinematography seen in Jersey Boys is not there. But the substance of subject matter was. Eastwood films are always intelligent, even in his comedies like Every Which Way But Loose. But Eastwood never let technical limits stop him from making a film. He doesn’t seem to worry about making something that will be criticized by someone who might think they can do it better. He just makes things—and really doesn’t seem to care how it’s judged. In this fashion he has made a lot of movies over a very long career. But starting with the movies he has made since his late 60s, the subject matter and quality of the films has become much better culminating in Jersey Boys. If this isn’t the Best Picture at the 2014 Academy Awards—I don’t know what would be. It is filmmaking at its best by a director who is the best. It was a pleasure to watch, and a real treasure to come from Clint Eastwood who once again has not disappointed me at the movie theater. I got more out of Jersey Boys than I thought I would—and that is always a good thing. And for me to feel that way about a film—it has to have some unique texture that speaks at many levels—and Jersey Boys does—just like the guy who made it.

I first ran into the music of Frankie Valli when I saw Grease as a kid, the movie with John Travolta and Olivia Newton John. Even back then, Valli was already considered an elderly music legend. At that same time, Clint Eastwood was an aging actor playing parts in films that were nearing retirement. It is then ironic that these two entertainment professionals are still around and kicking in 2014 and that they united to make the film Jersey Boys. For me the most haunting portion of the film was the first time the daughter who would die later  in the story sat at the top of the steps of their home angry at her daddy, Frankie Valli for not being home more. For both Eastwood and Valli this had to be a hard scene to film, because their entertainment lives had taken a toll on their personal lives. For Eastwood it was happening again and again, and during the filming of Jersey Boys his wife wanted to run off with a another man. But who could blame her Eastwood hadn’t been a saint. Eastwood has had so many girlfriends and children by them over his long life that he had to have many similar discussions with them as shown in Jersey Boys. The pain is that Valli did not listen to his daughter even though it was obvious that he loved her. There has been several times where I have had the same talk with my daughters and I chose to stay home—and to this day my kids appreciate it. I never had to deal with the kind of things Valli or Eastwood did—but these are the kinds of decisions that must be made by people who want to play the entertainment game at that level. Eastwood handled the scene with haunting coolness given the fact that several of his own children were on the set of Jersey Boys and undoubtedly the real Frankie Valli had to watch the dailies and it had to hurt him. There was real pain in those scenes—and they were handled with care without being too mushy.

If you dear reader were thinking of seeing Jersey Boys, you should take a moment over the upcoming weekend to see it at the theater. The end of the film transposes into a large musical number that is reminiscent of the stage play. It was just another example of the expert care Eastwood’s direction of the film exhibited. It was stylish without being campy—and unusually potent for a bookend to the entire film. Jersey Boys is one of those unique films, and it is a treat for everyone who sees it. It embodied all the elements of living life the way only an 84-year-old man who has always pushed the limit can tall it—making it a real American treasure that will never be forgotten. It is quite simply an amazing film.

Rich Hoffman   www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

 

FROM THE PAGES OF AYN RAND: Clint Eastwood, Harrison Ford, Angelina Jolie and the great Sergio Leone

The first time I was on television was on a commercial for the restaurant I worked for when I was only 16 years old.  I was a part of the filming and of setting up some of the shots and it gave me the opportunity to work with a crew from Channel 19.  The commercial just happened to air that week during “Tough Guy Week” where nightly they played movies from the toughest characters in Hollywood, people like Steve McQueen, Chuck Norris, Bruce Lee and best of all, Clint Eastwood.  I had been familiar with Eastwood’s spaghetti westerns before, but on the night that my commercial aired it was the same night that For A Few Dollars More played on television, so I ended up watching the entire film so that I could see how the commercial turned out.

The “Man With No Name” character in the Sergio Leone westerns—the trilogy A Fist Full of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, Bad, and the Ugly starring Clint Eastwood was a benchmark in tough guy films.  There had never been another character like the one that Eastwood played in those westerns in all of human history—including stage plays from the Renaissance.  Eastwood’s character was a brand new concept that few understood at the time—but loved.  That love continues 50 years later and has had an impact on cinema that has only escalated.

Eastwood would continue to work this personification of a male Übermensch conceived by Leone for several more films—particularly High Plains Drifter, Pale Rider, The Outlaw Josey Wales and Sudden Impact.    To a smaller degree Eastwood played the same role in the contemporary comedy Every Which Way But Loose as a bare knuckle fighter.  Eastwood’s characters were so popular that they spilled over into other films like Star Wars where the characters of Han Solo and Boba Fett were direct embodiments of the Leone westerns that were only 10 years old at the time.  Kevin Costner would take on a similar Übermensch role in The Bodyguard which was the romance drama of 1992 that women swooned over.  Arnold Schwarzenegger would adopt Eastwood’s screen presence in films like The Terminator, Commando, and Conan the Barbarian, and following Eastwood’s movie production pattern at Warner Brothers did a comedy with Danny DeVitto called Twins—where his  Übermensch character could be played off the hapless antics of a much smaller man.

Progressives in Hollywood of course hated all this attention on these tough guy films and the actors who played them.  In 1989 Tim Burton tried to make a common everyday guy into a tough guy with his Micheal Keaton Batman film which attempted to stop the trend of these superhuman character films that were out of reach for the common man.  Progressives did not want these Übermensch types to steer the American public away from their social messages of interconnected reliance on each other, feminist causes, and sexual experimentation in gender roles–so they tried to get the situation under control.  The most obvious attempt was in the Batman films by Warner Brothers.  While the first film was visually stimulating, the sequel fell apart leading Val Kilmer to play in the 1995 version of a Batman reboot.  The movie was good, but Kilmer wanted nothing further to do with the role—likely from internal pressure within the Hollywood community to stop making Übermensch films.  The next Batman film was with the progressive George Clooney playing the caped crusader, which bombed and was a terrible film filmed with progressive slanted messages—which the public rejected.  This would cause Hollywood to return grudgingly back to the Übermensch concept by plucking the older material directly from comic books.  There was some experimentation with Spiderman to take the Übermensch concept and make him more altruistic which fell apart after Spiderman 3 in 2007 completely imploded on itself as Hollywood had lost the formula.  Christopher Nolan would dig deep into the roots of the Übermensch and get it right which has launched the current superhero parade of films from Ironman, The Avengers, The Hulk, Superman and all the good stuff that’s coming.

Meanwhile James Bond went from an obvious Übermensch in the late seventies and early eighties to a much more “progressive” and less secure secret agent in the 90s which nearly destroyed the character when Timothy Dalton took control after Roger Moore and showed that Bond wasn’t always so sure of himself—which audiences didn’t like.  The Bond franchise is still struggling to find itself as fans still love the old Roger Moore, Sean Connery version of James Bond over the newer—less sure of themselves—James Bonds.  Personally I find the new Bond films by Daniel Craig to be nearly unwatchable.  I enjoy them for the stunts, but the Übermensch Bond is not there.  Progressives love the new Bond and promote it actively—but it just doesn’t take to the American consciousness.

Then there is Quentin Tarantino who loved the old Leone films as much as I did and resurrected the Übermensch concept with a new spin to appease his producer Harvey Weinstein—he cast the lead as a woman and gave the origin for the special mystical power of the Übermensch to the East as a tribute to martial art films from the past.  The result was a fun romp through a bloody series of films where the heroine Uma Thurman was essentially playing Eastwood’s “Man With No Name” character from the Leone films.  It doesn’t matter in the least that Thurman’s character was a woman—what matters is that she was an Übermensch.  Angelina Jolie would take the Übermensch type of character into her portrayal of Tomb Raider where she played the video game character Lara Croft.  To this day even though critics panned the film as not very good, Jolie is known as Lara Croft even though she has made dozens of very good films.  It was her confidence—and Übermensch character in Tomb Raider that fans will always remember about her.

So what is the point of this little history of films produced by Hollywood?  Well, most of these stories lean back on the Leone films which were real breakthroughs at the time and indicated that mankind changed forever.  Human beings want their Übermensch in spite of what political or social forces wish to acknowledge.  And the first filmmaker to really get it right was Sergio Leone.  Without him, it is unlikely that any of the above would have happened—and Hollywood would be just another industry failing in America under progressive leadership.  Instead, Disney now has control of the Star Wars franchise and the world just spent a week wondering if Harrison Ford’s broken leg from the new Episode VII set would hinder his ability to resurrect his Übermensch Han Solo once again.  Disney is rumored to be planning a Boba Fett film which will essentially be a science fiction spaghetti western inspired directly from Sergio Leone—and it will make a ton of money—and progressives will be left scratching their heads wondering why.

So let me give you the secret dear reader.  Let me explain to you the reason why this trend has emerged and given birth to a comic book culture that is taking over today’s youth steering them away from the pacifism of progressivism.  When Ayn Rand spent approximately twenty years writing two books—one, The Fountainhead and two, Atlas Shrugged, she took Nietzsche’s concept of the Übermensch and completed the work that the German philosopher was unable to due to madness.  In The Fountainhead was the first real attempt to provide an Übermensch to ever occur as a fully functioning character.  The novel published in 1943 was part of a growing trend for human beings to grapple with the Übermensch concept.  In just 1938 the first Superman comic was produced based on a 1933 fanzine trying to take the overman idea as proposed by the socialist George Bernard Shaw and Nietzsche’s direct influence of Hitler’s National Socialism and complete the destructive nature of the incomplete philosophic principle.  The Superman comic was a direct reaction to the type of sentiment which led to Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal ideals in America and had a bit of a liberal spin on it.  Ayn Rand further flushed out the Übermensch concept and put them on the pages of her novel, The Fountainhead—which to me is one of the greatest novels of all time.  Rand would then further perfect the concept into Atlas Shrugged which 60 years later is still selling like French Fries at McDonald’s.  It was in these two books that the Übermensch found the right philosophic balance and emerged as a new way of thinking.  It was this concept which found itself into the Sergio Leone films thus inspiring modern Hollywood in ways that would be inconceivable otherwise.  If not for Ayn Rand, her early work as a screenwriter for Cecil B. Deville, her casual associations with Walt Disney, and John Wayne and her deep work in philosophy with the fresh eyes of an immigrant who had seen the worst that communism had to offer—the movie For A Few Dollars More would have never happened, and likely Clint Eastwood would have remained an obscure actor doing bit parts on television shows.

Without Ayn Rand’s fleshing out the concept of the Übermensch there would not have been a Star Wars, there would not have been an Arnold Schwarzenegger in film, and Kill Bill would have never even gained the ability to be made.   Without question there would be attempts, but they would have failed.  When direction was given on how Han Solo should get up out of his chair after killing Greedo in the cantina, or how Boba Fett was supposed to walk down a hall, reference was pointed back to Clint Eastwood—“do it like the characters in the Leone films.”  And it was Ayn Rand who invented the type of Übermensch who appeared for the first time in The Fountainhead so that Clint Eastwood could have some sort of reference on how such a character should behave—since one had never been seen before in the history of the world.  Ayn Rand took the speculative theory of what an Übermensch was supposed to be and fleshed it out in her novels.  Filmmakers like Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood then brought that Übermensch concept to Hollywood which has changed the world.

There is no going back now.  It is only a matter of time that society acknowledges their intense desire for the Übermensch.  The evidence is obvious from the intense interest in comic book films, space odysseys, and an 84-year-old Clint Eastwood who is still tougher than men a fraction of his age.  It’s not the muscle which produce the toughness, it’s in the mind—the beholding of the Übermensch concept—something that became very real to me the first time I really came to understand it watching my first television commercial on Channel 19 during “Tough Guy Week.”  The world has been forever changed for the better in a tug-of-war between the Übermensch and the progressives who despise having to even hold a rope against the strength of such characters.  They have no choice.  Their years of progressive philosophy inspired by Immanuel Kant and Karl Marx are coming to an end in failure.  What is coming are the philosophies of the Übermensch brought to man’s mind through films inspired directly from the pages of Ayn Rand.

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Rich Hoffman

  www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

 

Clint Eastwood at the RNC: Explaining what the ’empty chair’ meant

I waited a couple of days to calm down before stating my opinion of the Eastwood speech at the RNC Convention just prior to Mitt Romney being officially nominated as the Republican nomminee for President of the United States.  The panicked Romney aide behind the stage at the Convention who said cringing as the speech time on stage exceeded the 5 minute mark and was way off-key from the typical stuffy Republican stage setup, “You don’t edit Clint Eastwood” was absolutely correct. You don’t “edit” Clint Eastwood. Eastwood is one of the most recognizable names in the world not because he sat quietly while others told him what to do, but because he has often embarked on wild chances and taken great risk upon himself and others in the building of his international persona. He has an elevated level of understanding of what audiences want to see, and his speech certainly reflected it. His knowledge of what an audience wants to see far exceeds the knowledge of the typical 30 to 40-year-old PR specialists handling Romney’s campaign, and they are not qualified to “edit” Clint Eastwood.

I knew what to expect when Clint Eastwood took the stage because I have watched the film icon give hundreds of interviews over the years, and most of them are just like that. Eastwood does not like to use notes, Teleprompters, or come across with flattened authenticity. To understand what Eastwood thinks deep down inside all anyone has to do is watch some of his most personal films, like White Hunter Black Heart, and Bronco Billy. Nothing Eastwood said on stage just minutes before the heavily scripted acceptance speech of Mitt Romney came as a surprise to me.

I was impressed to learn that Mitt Romney personally invited Eastwood to speak. It shows that Romney as a manager can identify talent thinking outside the box and will likely surround himself with good people like Paul Ryan when he gets the presidential job. But Romney was not giving Eastwood any kind of break in letting him speak. Unlike the speeches by Paul Ryan, Scott Walker, Marc Rubio and many others that were carefully scripted, Eastwood was not, and the Romney people wouldn’t dare ask the legendary actor to do such a silly thing. Romney like all politicians sought from Eastwood credibility, and to show that prestigious members of the Hollywood community supported Republicans, and that not all Hollywood was in the corner of Barack Obama. That message was so important to Romney that he had Eastwood give the last independent speech before his own introduction, and he got what he wanted in Clint Eastwood. To me, that shows great vision and instinct even if the Romney handlers were dumbstruck by the performance.

I was however baffled by the criticism, many saying that Eastwood looked like a stumbling fool on stage, a senile old man. Eastwood’s hair was a wreck, his manner seemed unorganized, and he was crude and insulting. But the biggest criticism of all is that he sucked all the air out of the room and had people talking about his speech the next day instead of Romney. Well, news flash, I could have told the Romney people exactly what Eastwood was going to do. I was so unsurprised by his speech that my wife and I hardly noticed it because in the Hoffman house, Clint Eastwood is the closest thing to a religious icon anyone will find. Over my dresser are two pictures of Clint Eastwood carefully framed and I look at them every day. My DVD collection has every single Clint Eastwood movie ever made, and they have been watched, and watched, and watched again. I even have the T.G. Sheppard album that features a duet with Clint Eastwood called “MAKE MY DAY.” For many years my family has ushered in each New Year by watching all 5 Dirty Harry films on New Year’s Eve and New Years Day. No football games, no parties, just Clint Eastwood movies with him playing Dirty Harry. Every young person in my family who has had to drive around in a car with me has had to listen to me playing that song while we drive. I simply love the man. I admire his grit and ability to age well every bit as much as the toughness he exhibited in his youthful movies that made him an international star. Eastwood has not been afraid to piss off people before, people he had admired greatly, specifically John Wayne when that cowboy icon was up in arms over Eastwood’s film direction, and acting in the movie High Plains Drifter, which Wayne felt was an insult to the American Cowboy image he helped to craft. Eastwood’s portrayal in that film as a “hell hound” returning from the dead to punish an entire town for the betrayal of their sheriff crossed many established lines of thinking in the early 1970’s. It is so refreshing to see that the 82-year-old Clint Eastwood is still not afraid to take a chance to make his point and is much smarter than the people around him. Even after a lifetime well lived, Clint Eastwood is still authentic to his own personal beliefs and cannot be swept up in the tide of politics. Eastwood showed up as a favor to the Romney Campaign and at no point did he get wrapped up in the glitter. To Eastwood, he knows just him being there helps Romney. But Romney does not help Clint. The sacrifice was purely on Eastwood’s end.

When I give public speeches and other presentations I do not use notes because I learned it from watching the many lectures of Joseph Campbell, and interviews with Clint Eastwood. The reason is that carefully prepared speeches come out sounding fake. It is much better to speak from the heart. Now on the downside, a public speaker without notes sometimes rolls through sentences while stringing together thoughts. People expecting Eastwood to give a polished performance like his younger speakers at the Convention have simply become used to the well oiled machine that has become the political norm. When Clint Eastwood went on stage, I know he was thinking he had to hit all the marks the Romney people told him to hit, but he was going to do his own thing as he usually does. Knowing Clint Eastwood, he went up on stage with a metaphorical idea he came up with while listening to the other speeches of the evening, and he wanted to use the “empty chair” to convey how we all feel about President Obama and politics in general. Most of the directors at the RNC failed to grasp the metaphor, and that is their problem. Eastwood figured that it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, so what the hell. Everyone in the room wanted somebody to take a shot at President Obama that was stylish and worked on any levels, and Eastwood had the guts to do it.

When people say “if I were to die tomorrow” they mean they would do things differently if they knew they did not have to live with the consequences which implies that they would be willing to live with little lies in their lives if they know they have to wake up tomorrow and face the music. In Eastwood’s case, he has lived his life this way for a long time, and now that he’s 82, he could die tomorrow. He could die at anytime, and he knows it, and is comfortable with that knowledge, but he’s not about to leave this earth being a stooge for a political looter, who simply wanted to use Eastwood’s image to prop up his own credibility.

Clint Eastwood detests–especially in politics–over grooming, too much make-up, and cardboard cutout people. Oddly enough, some of the appeal of Paul Ryan is that he represents an Eastwood style of politician, no-nonsense, fit, smart, and practical. When he first took the VP position his own hair and clothing was a bit sloppy, and that is appealing because it shows that Ryan cared more about his work than his appearance. But in two weeks once the Romney handlers began to “manage him—Ryan received a nice $300 haircut and is getting a taste of the “looters life” and it is obvious that he’s starting to like it. You can see it by the way he scowled at Eastwood’s speech looking at his watch in quit protest. I would offer to Ryan not to forget who he is, and to not get too wrapped up in images. When Eastwood, one of the greatest film directors of all time went on stage with his hair a mess—without a single speech note—without a care about his future and how the Romney people might scowl at what he said—he did every bit of it on purpose. Clint Eastwood had a very good idea that what he was about to say would be analyzed heavily, criticized, and belittled. He knew that the finger-pointing politicians would run for cover and attempt to distance themselves from him within seconds. Eastwood’s intention in his speech was for one last time in his life on a big stage to show everyone viewing just what is wrong in politics, and why people have lost faith in the two-party system. Everything he did was on purpose to be analyzed, and talked about for years.

Eastwood’s goal on stage that night at the RNC was not to be liked. He was already liked. Mitt Romney simply wanted to show the world that movie stars like him too. That was the entire purpose of bringing Clint Eastwood to the RNC convention. Nobody gives a damn about the crap a politician says. And it should come as no surprise that a movie actor could show up and take all the attention from the other looters in the room. And nobody gives a rat’s ass about what the media thinks, because those are the same idiots who “made” Obama. It’s the heart and soul of America that Clint Eastwood was speaking to and that is why the people who enjoyed his speech did, and the people all caught up in the wrong aspects of politics called it “strange,” and like “an episode of Twin Peaks.” Even Glenn Beck belittled the Eastwood speech, which really lowered Beck’s grade in my book. I was planning to go see Beck when he comes to Cincinnati in a few weeks, but based on his comments over the Eastwood speech, I don’t think I will value what he says. I might listen to him every now and then on the radio, but I won’t go out of my way to see him in public like I did when he came to Wilmington. Beck like Ryan, Anne Romney and Scott Walker based on their comments and behavior over Eastwood is looking too closely at the established order of things, and it is that order that people are sick of. Beck has done a good job asking for courage among politicians, and out of all people, he should understand what Eastwood was trying to do. But even he is too wrapped up in the “established” thinking to see what’s really going on, and that is disappointing. Like Ryan, Beck is becoming too big, and his concern over his own legacy is starting to overtake his reasonable assessment. Politics should not be so well rehearsed, it should not be so scripted, and it should not be praised as royalty. When Eastwood took the stage he did so as a rebel who didn’t comb his hair, and was going to speak from the heart. That should be honored.

The drifting from sentence to sentence that Eastwood was doing, especially after the 5 minute mark was because the red light was flashing, telling him to wrap up his speech. When I speak in public, I get told often to wrap it up, because if people let me, I will talk all day. But in Eastwood’s case, he knew that the directors of the RNC event were not happy with what he was doing, and that what he was saying was going to hurt. But he had to do it anyway, and he controlled his emotions very well, picking carefully which thing to say next so that it was right at the edge of acceptance, without crossing the line. It was not that Eastwood was a senile fool on stage, but a man walking a tightrope, and he was in no hurry to fall. He took one step after another to deliver one of the most scathing rebukes of a sitting president ever delivered on such a large public stage, and he did it with all the bravado that made him one of the biggest movie stars in the world. Mitt Romney got what he wanted whether he was consciously aware of what he was asking for or not. As I said before, Romney is showing a good instinct for hiring the right kind of people for the job, and bringing Eastwood to the convention was a brilliant idea. But I would caution those same Republicans not to distance themselves from what Eastwood did and said. Clint Eastwood did the Republican Party a tremendous favor at his own personal risk. The politicians involved should accept it at its value, which is great, and not distance themselves from him. To do so is to betray what they proclaim they are fighting for.

The American public is sick and tired of contrived, plastic, politics. They want to hear things told from the heart, and they like to see the soul of the person speaking. Glenn Beck is a great public speaker, and even he writes down notes in outline form so he can deliver punctual presentations to the public and not bounce around when he gets stuck in front of 60,000 people like Eastwood was doing. But notes are still a crutch, and it takes great courage to stand in front of so many people with only your intellect as your alley, which is why Eastwood does not speak with notes. It’s also why he’s 82 years old and still able to speak with such authority as he did at the RNC convention. His wits were clearly about him, as he delivered a speech that worked on many levels, not just a superficial, visual one.

If I was disenfranchised with politics before the Eastwood speech, I am certainly more so now, based on the political response to it. The Republicans are the good guys in my book and even the good guys are deeply tainted. I can see where the next line of battles will occur in the years following the buffoon Obama, and it will not be with the professional politicians in the room at the RNC convention or their handlers. I stand with Clint Eastwood completely over anyone else from the RNC event. It’s not that the man can do no wrong in my eyes. I can think of a few times he has let me down, as in making the film Tightrope, and a few others, but I trust that Eastwood makes every attempt to be honest with himself, and his intellect has benefited from his honesty. So when he says something, I trust what it is. I may not agree with it all the time, but I know there was a thought process that delivered the thought, and it didn’t come from some snot-nosed speech writer fresh out of college who doesn’t have a lick of experience in real life. I don’t want to hear Romney deliver a carefully controlled and well-orchestrated speech given to him by a hundred such handlers. I want to hear the authenticity of what a man is, not what kind of image he can conger up for himself. It is a sad state when it is an actor who is the most real person in a room, and at the RNC convention, Clint Eastwood was the most honest. Anne Romney should still be grateful that a person like Eastwood is supporting her husband and not make sly comments about how there should have been more contrived video of her family instead of the Eastwood speech. Nobody gives a shit lady. Don’t even think about turning into another Washington princess before the seat from the previous fat ass duchess has left it.

It should say everything to everyone watching the Eastwood convention speech that an “empty chair” was the most interesting thing that happened at the RNC convention. The empty chair worked on many levels of psychology. It obviously represented President Obama who has spent his entire presidency running for re-election, and not doing the job he was elected to do. But it also represented the emptiness present in politics. I would not put it passed Eastwood that the idea came not while on the plane from California, but while the Romney people where giving him their talking points to incorporate into his speech. The idea for the chair was meant as a warning not just to Obama, but to the Republican Party to not just become more empty minds in empty seats holding public office. It was a warning not to be afraid to shake it up a little, and be unpredictable, because that’s how you get the media eating out of your hand instead of the other way around—and that is a lesson that the Republican Party hasn’t been able to achieve since Ronald Reagan was president, who like Eastwood knew all the tricks of the trade because they are actors who have mastered public image. The Eastwood speech was not a debacle, it was a brilliant metaphor intended for minds too dim to see it. But the resonance of Eastwood, in what felt like one last public performance was a potent one that sadly shows how bad our political system really is. It revealed that even people I thought “got it” still don’t and I won’t bend over backwards ever again to listen to what they have to say, because the mind behind the thought is still in its infancy.

Yesterday Romney came to Cincinnati. I was invited, but I did not go, mainly because of the ill feelings I have after listening to the controlled finger-pointing after the Eastwood speech. In a couple of weeks, Glenn Beck is coming to town and I was planning to attend, but won’t be now. I’ll still support both people, and in Beck’s case I enjoy 80% of his work most of the time. But to jump on the Eastwood bashing bandwagon tells me a lot about these people. When it comes to picking and choosing, I’ll stick with the “Man with No Name” over the “Name” of a politician or political commentator. Because there is far more value in the man who arrives at 82 years of age and has not been seduced by the glittery lights of politics over the men who are enamored by it and became that way in a much shorter span of their lifetimes. I will not go out of my way to see those first people speak in person. But if Eastwood announced that he was coming to Cincinnati tomorrow to eat a hamburger but would not be giving any public statements I would drop what I was doing and attend, because there is more manliness in the authenticity of sticking to a set of beliefs than the person who follows the trends of belief. The world is so full of the later, and is in desperate need of the former. The value of a wordless bite into a hamburger by Clint Eastwood holds more merit than a whole string of convention speeches by polished politicians and their puppet handlers of orthodox opinion.  The aide was right, “you don’t edit Clint Eastwood.”  His brand is proven, and if you ask him to speak, you take what you get.  In the case of politics, a movie actor is much more important than a roomful of politicians, and that sad fact is a reality that cannot be covered up with fancy lights and balloons, but is exposed by the presence of a simple–empty–chair. 

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Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
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Clint Eastwood: It’s Halftime in America

Ok, it’s official, this is my favorite Superbowl commercial of 2012. Clint Eastwood on behalf of Chrysler, proclaimed that America isn’t done, that it’s only halftime and there is time to come back and win. I loved the metaphor, and thought it was well said–and stylish.

As for the hate and blame that is going on, I agree. When all the stupid people get out-of-the-way, America can start winning again.

I’m ready, how about you?

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Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com
 

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