In My Country

John Boorman continues his exploration of remote political situations by moving from an invented situation in Panama to a fictional account around the real stories told during the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission after the end of Apartheid under the presidency of Nelson Mandela. He also continues his propensity for pushing too much into…

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The Tailor of Panama

I think this film almost works. Almost. Not quite, though. There's a saggy middle section that just drags the whole affair down without building up the tension like it probably should that the rest of the film can't get past. However, the first third and final third are actually quite adept at pulling together this…

Invictus

#16 in my ranking of Clint Eastwood's films. This feels like a fairy tale. Born of Morgan Freeman's desire to play Nelson Mandela in a film about the South African leader's life, it is a celebration of the man and his triumph in bringing the embittered, divided nation together through bread and circuses. It's ultimately…

Gran Torino

#14 in my ranking of Clint Eastwood's films. Following up a grand, period piece, Clint Eastwood gravitated towards a much smaller script by Nick Schenk (based on a story that he and Dave Johannson came up with) that feels like Eastwood just playing himself. The last time a role so fully felt like Eastwood playing…

Changeling

#3 in my ranking of Clint Eastwood's films. A period piece about a single mother looking for her lost son? This couldn't possibly be a Clint Eastwood film, could it? Well, if you've been paying close attention to what Eastwood's been trying to say over the previous several decades, it'd be easy to see that…