Clint Eastwood 20-Film Collection Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.0

Clint Eastwood 20-Film Collection Blu-ray Movie Review

And Many More to Go

Reviewed by Michael Reuben June 4, 2013

In the documentary The Eastwood Factor, the legendary director, actor and producer describes the day when he decided to hang his hat at Warner Bros., where his Malpaso Productions has since been headquartered for over three decades. The arrangement has been mutually beneficial. Warner has provided Eastwood with a stable base for his restless cinematic exploration, while Eastwood has provided Warner with a steady supply of films that usually turn a profit and, with increasing frequency over the years, burnish its artistic respectability (not to mention its trophy case). Even the flops haven't been costly, due to Eastwood's legendary thrift.

In the usual manner of home video divisions, Warner can't resist the allure of double dipping, and with an oeuvre as vast as Eastwood's, the possibilities are almost endless. On Blu-ray alone, we've had The Clint Eastwood Collection, Essential Eastwood: Director's Collection and the five-film Dirty Harry: The Ultimate Collection (replaced two years later by the more simply named Dirty Harry Collection). Now, just in time for Father's Day, Warner has given us the Clint Eastwood 20 Film Collection, which partially duplicates, but does not supercede, the preceding three.

All of the films in Eastwood 20 have been previously released on Blu-ray, but not every Eastwood Blu-ray to date is included. Let's start by listing titles from the existing collections that have been omitted. They are: Absolute Power, Kelly's Heroes, The Rookie, Where Eagles Dare, The Enforcer and The Dead Pool. But what's here is quite impressive for the price, especially for someone who is just starting their Blu-ray collection. The set also includes two excellent documentaries (unfortunately, only on DVD), one of which is brand new, and a mini-book of photos excerpted from a recently published overview of Eastwood's career.

Since every title in the Eastwood 20 set has already been reviewed at Blu-ray.com, and none of the discs are remasters, they are not being reviewed anew. The titles are listed below in the order in which they appear in the collection, with links to their respective reviews:

1. Dirty Harry
2. Magnum Force
3. The Outlaw Josey Wales
4. The Gauntlet
5. Every Which Way but Loose
6. Firefox
7. Sudden Impact
8. Pale Rider
9. Heartbreak Ridge
10. Unforgiven
11. A Perfect World
12. Space Cowboys
13. Mystic River
14. Million Dollar Baby
15. Letters from Iwo Jima
16. Gran Torino
17. Invictus
18. Hereafter
19. J. Edgar
20. Trouble with the Curve

Speculating about how someone else made up a list is always risky, but it's fairly obvious that the collection stresses Eastwood's more recent work, including everything to which Warner has rights beginning with 2003's Mystic River. (Changeling was a Universal film, and Flags of Our Fathers was released by Dreamworks through Paramount.) Before that, the collection hops around, landing mostly on award winners and signature roles.

To get a full sense of what remains, it's useful to compare the Eastwood 20 set to the so-called Clint Eastwood: 40 Film Collection that Warner is releasing simultaneously on DVD. In reality, it's a 38-film collection, because Warner counts the two documentaries to reach 40. Some of the additional films have yet to appear on Blu-ray. The additions are as follows; a link means that a Blu-ray exists:

1. Pink Cadillac
2. Absolute Power
3. Any Which Way You Can
4. Bird
5. Blood Work
6. Bronco Billy
7. City Heat (subsequently released here)
8. Honkytonk Man
9. Kelly's Heroes
10. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (subsequently released here)
11. The Bridges of Madison County (subsequently released here)
12. The Dead Pool
13. The Enforcer
14. The Rookie
15. Tightrope (subsequently released here)
16. True Crime (subsequently released here)
17. Where Eagles Dare
18. White Hunter Black Heart

Clint Eastwood 20-Film Collection Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

For a video evaluation of each title, please see the individual review.

Clint Eastwood 20-Film Collection Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

For an audio evaluation of each title, please see the individual review.

Clint Eastwood 20-Film Collection Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Special features for individual titles are discussed in their respective reviews. The collection itself comes with three new extras, each of them noteworthy.

• The Eastwood Factor (extended version) (480i; 1.33:1; 1:28:18). Directed by film critic and Eastwood biographer Richard Schickel, this documentary was made while Eastwood was working on Invictus. It first aired on Turner Classic Movies in 2010. Factor attempts to provide a complete overview of Eastwood's career from his earliest days as a bit player to his current role as producer, director and actor. Eastwood is the sole interview subject, and although he describes his life and career with the same understatement that is characteristic of his directorial style, much of what he has to say is enlightening.
  
  Many of the film clips will be familiar, but a few are surprises. A scene from the old Maverick television show exemplifies Eastwood's early days in television before Rawhide made him a familiar face; he plays a tough guy confronting James Garner's Maverick, who ends up in a typical saloon fistfight. Watching the excerpt in isolation, one would never guess that the future Man with No Name has just entered the room.
  
  An inevitable tone of hero worship accompanies Schickel's presentation, but it is somewhat counteracted by Morgan Freeman's dignified narration and Eastwood's own self-effacement. Even after all these years in the spotlight, he refuses to take himself seriously. Listening to him describe his lifelong frustration with the game of golf, you might be eavesdropping on the average duffer.
  
  It is unclear why this version of Factor is labeled "extended". The running time matches that listed at IMDb. In English, with subtitles in English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Japanese.



• Eastwood Directs: The Untold Story (480i; 1.78:1, enhanced; 1:01:39): Also directed by Schickel and initially shown on TCM, this new documentary focuses on Eastwood's directorial style through interviews with actors he's directed, writers who have written for him, executives for whom he has made films and several notable fellow directors. Eastwood participates as well, but the bulk of the commentary belongs to others. It's an impressive roster that includes:
  
  • Steven Spielberg
  • Martin Scorsese
  • Paul Haggis
  • Meryl Streep
  • Kevin Costner
  • Morgan Freeman
  • Marcia Gay Harden
  • Hilary Swank
  • Gene Hackman
  • Tim Robbins
  • Tommy Lee Jones
  • Kevin Bacon
  • Brian Grazer
  
  Some remarkably candid insights emerge. Meryl Streep describes an incident during the filming of The Bridges of Madison County when she complained to her co-star and director that he was watching her performance rather than participating in the scene. Eastwood agreed and promised it would not happen again. (It didn't.) Several interviewees recount rare occasions when the usually unflappable director briefly became angry on set. Martin Scorsese struggles to find a vocabulary for describing a directorial style that he admires, but which is the polar opposite of his own. And Eastwood himself talks about both of his two major influences, Sergio Leone and Don Siegel. In English, with subtitles in English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Japanese.



• Clint Eastwood: Master Filmmaker at Work: The mini-book included with the set is a sampler of the 240-page volume published in 2012 by Michael Goldman and Lisa Fitzpatrick with a preface by Morgan Freeman and a foreword by Steven Spielberg. The cover is labeled "a selection of imagery", and indeed the book is mostly photographs with relatively little text (although Freeman's preface is included). The illustrations are first-rate, and I am seriously considering buying the complete volume.

Clint Eastwood 20-Film Collection Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Give Eastwood another year or two of filmmaking, and Warner a little more time with its Blu-ray catalog, and before you know it we should be looking at an Eastwood 20, Volume 2. The omitted titles listed above include some major works that are long overdue on Blu, such as Bird, Tight Rope and The Bridges of Madison County. This latest collection probably contains too much duplication to be of great value for the typical Blu-ray afficionado, who will already have many of these titles on the shelf. Then again, consider giving your duplicates to that friend or family member who's just starting to build their hi-def library. Go ahead, make their . . . you get the idea.