• feature
  • SUNDAY OCTOBER 26 2008 6:00 AM

Gran Torino Trailer Fixes Everything

I normally don’t like to do two trailer reviews back to back… however, I don’t normally get emailed the greatest trailer of all time.

I’m not kidding.

This trailer was built from everything I’ve ever loved, cared about, or been interested in. They apparently used some advanced brain-reading technology to drain the information from my head while I was sleeping and mold it into the shape of a trailer.

I’ve gushed over trailers before. After awhile they all blend in, the same sights, sounds and general mayhem. Then a trailer comes along that features CLINT FUCKING EASTWOOD TAKING ON AN ASIAN MOB. The pleasure center of my brain has just grown five sizes too big and shattered the device used to measure it much like what happened to the Grinch and his super-sized heart. That center then expended its entire contents leaving me numb, empty and unable to taste food. Does this brain-metaphor conflict with the one from the paragraph above? No, that's how great this trailer is.

Which Clint Eastwood, you ask? (Let’s pretend that you don’t know the answer due to being alive and having a rough idea of Clint’s age. Let’s pretend that this conversation takes place in a world outside of time and human history. A place in the clouds filled with grim-looking beings in robes weighing the relative worth of Earthlings based on randomly selected objects created by us. Got it? Cool.) A GRIZZLED AND WORLD WEARY CLINT ON THE WRONG SIDE OF SEVENTY.



My life should be divided into two parts. Pre-that trailer, and post- that trailer. I honestly had goose bumps after watching it.

I now have a handy way of summing up who and what I am. I meet a new person who asks what movies I like, I show him that trailer.

Meet a new person who asks what kind of stuff I like, I show him that trailer.

Someone asks me what kinds of food I like, what my favorite color is, what my feelings on the environment are, I show them that trailer.

Some highlights –

- The slow build. They know what we’re waiting for, (Clint punching/shooting something while spitting out a gravelly voiced one-liner) and they make us wait… then deliver the goods like nobody’s business. He’s like William Munny brought into the modern world. Like Newman’s "Nobody’s Fool" character with a gun, like a meaner Dirty Harry.

- The nod to The Outlaw Josey Wales, with the Clint spitting followed by an old woman spitting a tobacco-filled swallow onto the ground. Kinda wish that dog from Josey Wales was around to take the shot.

- Another bonus is that I was reasonably sure Eastwood had put this kind of role behind him. I know he’s sworn off westerns, and I just assumed a more action-type guy even in a more character-type story would be asking too much. Happy to be wrong.

- Military medals in the display box sort of mirrors the moment in Pale Rider when he takes off his priest’s collar, puts it into a box, then takes his guns out of the same box.

- He may have made giving someone the “finger gun” cool again with one fell swoop.


I'm already anxious for the sequel. Every movie should feature him beating up a different ethnicity, culminating in him eventually punching out an alien from Mars.




TheCoolerKIng's column appears each Sunday at SuicideGirls.com. Click HERE for further reading. He's also doing this: HowToBeatUpAnything

 

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Comments
issue_

issue_

HOPEFUL

I'm lost

OCT 26, 2008 06:07 AM

smile hey look i'm the first comment...

mattacme

mattacme

Calistoga, CA
February 2006

OCT 26, 2008 07:40 AM

Okay.

I thought he was really on to something with "White Hunter, Black Heart" and directing "Mystic River", which was brilliant.

Regress. I'm glad someone is entertained.

whatever

xfinitex

xfinitex

East Lansing, MI
August 2005

OCT 26, 2008 07:47 AM

I cannot wait.

Pwndcake

Pwndcake

Portland, OR
October 2004

OCT 26, 2008 08:24 AM

Great, just what we need. A movie that glamorizes crotchety old people who shoot kids for treading on their lawn. You know how impressionable they are! I fear we are about to see a spike in lawn-related fatalities.

TheCoolerKing

TheCoolerKing

NEWSWIRE

Los Angeles, CA

OCT 26, 2008 11:03 AM

Also, thanks to the incredible Drake for once again sending me something awesome that I then write about.

J24U

J24U

Danvers, MA
February 2006

OCT 26, 2008 01:59 PM

Opening night, my ass is there.

"Get off my lawn" indeed.

keeperdesign

keeperdesign

Beaverton, OR
June 2008

OCT 26, 2008 02:39 PM

Wrong side of 70? Clint's pushing 80 with a short stick. The trailer does hit all the right notes, though, doesn't it...?

PaulNikon

PaulNikon

Palm Bay, FL
February 2003

OCT 26, 2008 04:38 PM

Why is this in silliness? This is serious.

How much of an honor would it be to have your ass kicked by Clint Eastwood.

Tiger_Fodder

Tiger_Fodder

Braintree, MA
June 2007

OCT 26, 2008 04:45 PM

Silliness news? WTF? The only news I want to know about are:

Did BrightDeadScream have a good night and get drunk last night?
Did velvet_petal make a new video?
What new avatar has Rusty_metal_ass put up?

surreal

StevenJohn

StevenJohn

Anniston, AL
May 2006

OCT 26, 2008 10:49 PM

Pwndcake said:
Great, just what we need. A movie that glamorizes crotchety old people who shoot kids for treading on their lawn. You know how impressionable they are! I fear we are about to see a spike in lawn-related fatalities.

I'm somehow quite sure this is going to be a story of such a crotchety old guy learning the error of his ways and eventually softening through his eventual friendship and bond with his Chinese neighbors.
I'm going to be really surprised if I'm wrong.

Mythos_

Mythos_

Germany
March 2008

OCT 27, 2008 09:09 AM

The expression at 0:39 is funny. wink

But, I lean towards Pwncake, the moral seams to be: Forget the police, if a gang troubles you, let vigilante justice solve the problem.
The improving relation with the chineese neigbours is just in there, so that the gang could be of other races without being politically incorrect.

Drake

Drake

SUICIDEGIRL

I'm lost

OCT 27, 2008 05:38 PM

Yaaaaaay!

Tiger_Fodder

Tiger_Fodder

Braintree, MA
June 2007

OCT 27, 2008 08:26 PM

I am posting without reading the original post. That is what silliness is all about bitches!

velvet_petal

velvet_petal

I'm lost
November 2006

OCT 27, 2008 08:30 PM

FrankenSid said:
Silliness news? WTF? The only news I want to know about are:

Did BrightDeadScream have a good night and get drunk last night?
Did velvet_petal make a new video?
What new avatar has Rusty_metal_ass put up?

surreal



No. My creativity has come to a halt. I'm all washed up FrankenSid. I got video block.

silentwhisper

silentwhisper

Glen Ellyn, IL
October 2004

OCT 27, 2008 10:02 PM

I cant wait

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