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Play Clinty For Me
National Review Online - The Corner ^ | August 31, 2012 | Mark Steyn

Posted on 08/31/2012 12:32:00 PM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife

...Clint is a brilliant actor, and a superb director of other actors (and I don’t just mean a quarter-century ago: in the last five years, he’s made eight films). He’s also, as Mr Gavin observed, a terrific jazz improvisor at the piano – and, in film and music documentaries, an extremely articulate interviewee. So I wouldn’t assume that the general tenor of his performance wasn’t exactly as he intended. The hair was a clue: no Hollywood icon goes out on stage like that unless he means to.

John Hayward writes:

>>>The intended recipient was not Mitt Romney, the convention delegates, or even Republican voters, but rather wavering independents. Clint was there to tell them it’s OK to find Obama, his ugly campaign operation, and his increasingly shrill band of die-hard defenders ridiculous. It’s OK to laugh at them.<<<

I’m not sure he could have pulled that off if he’d delivered a slick telepromptered pitch. As Mr Hayward suggests, the hard lines packed more of a punch for being delivered in the midst of a Bob Newhart empty-chair shtick from the Dean Martin show circa 1968. They were some of the hardest lines of the convention and may well prove the take-home (“We own this country… Politicians are employees of ours… And when somebody does not do the job, we’ve got to let them go”), but they seemed more effective for appearing to emerge extemporaneously from the general shambles.

The curse of political operatives is that they make everything the same.....Even politicians you’re well disposed to come across as slick bores in that format. Which is by way of saying Clint is too sharp and too crafty not to have known what he was doing......

(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Political Humor/Cartoons; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: clinteastwood; laughatobama; marksteyn; rncconvention; romneyryan2012
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To: NonValueAdded

I just ordered the Dirty Harry box set on DVD !


41 posted on 09/01/2012 4:32:12 AM PDT by sushiman
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To: Fledermaus

Clint could have had his pick of leading ladies but he always went with these washed-out blond types. Sondra Locke, Frances Fisher (although I think she may have been washed-out red). Never understood his taste in leading ladies and girlfriends.


42 posted on 09/01/2012 4:33:45 AM PDT by miss marmelstein
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To: Ozymandias Ghost
Amen!

And, if I may add, helped Romney with the women's' vote as well - at least the baby boomer women.

Anybody know what younger women think of Clint?

43 posted on 09/01/2012 5:17:48 AM PDT by Aevery_Freeman (All Y'all White Peoples is racist!)
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To: Ozymandias Ghost
I think we can trust Romney to NOT leak state secrets.

Let's face it, Romney simply must be a brilliant tactician. I'm beginning to like him.

44 posted on 09/01/2012 5:22:27 AM PDT by Aevery_Freeman (All Y'all White Peoples is racist!)
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To: AaronInCarolina

-——These lefty “talking heads” are either ultra-stupid or ultra-dishonest. They can’t be anything else. ———

Actually there is one other common motivation....... pure unadulterated fear. The Clint piece showed all that the Emperor has no clothes. The Obama myth is really nothingness.

The reaction to fear is panic. We will now be able to watch the panic as it unfolds and the Democrat house disassembles


45 posted on 09/01/2012 5:33:32 AM PDT by bert ((K.E. N.P. N.C. +12 ..... Present failure and impending death yield irrational action))
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To: reformedliberal
I have friends older than him who do have a characteristic quaver and tremor and who really do forget what they are saying in the middle of a sentence

I'm four years older than Mr. Eastwood and it was immediately obvious to me what he was doing. I judged the skit to be both hilarious and hard hitting.

Then I heard the critics start to howl and thought Clint really got to them.

The man is a Genius Director and Actor. He knew precisely what he was doing. And though he is still young (by my standards),I heartily applaud him!

46 posted on 09/01/2012 5:36:03 AM PDT by Ole Okie
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

"Go Hope Yourself"



47 posted on 09/01/2012 5:36:12 AM PDT by Stand Watch Listen
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To: Stand Watch Listen


48 posted on 09/01/2012 5:49:12 AM PDT by Stand Watch Listen
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To: Terry Mross

Oh yeah, Ellen Degeneres — she uses that same method.


49 posted on 09/01/2012 7:15:23 AM PDT by Yardstick
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

:sigh: It seems nobody — not even the wizened film critic Roger Ebert — recognized Eastwood’s performance for what it was: a brilliant parody of a classic Jimmy Stewart character, Elwood P. Dowd, from the movie “Harvey.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKECvqSVWPA

It’s a great movie, by the way. Rent it.


50 posted on 09/01/2012 7:15:34 AM PDT by kevao (Is your ocean any lower than it was four years ago?)
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To: kevao
:sigh: It seems nobody — not even the wizened film critic Roger Ebert — recognized Eastwood’s performance for what it was: a brilliant parody of a classic Jimmy Stewart character, Elwood P. Dowd, from the movie “Harvey.”

Exactly...Eastwood's performance went right over the heads of the majority who saw it...'Harvey' was the first thing I thought of when I saw Clint talking to 'invisible Obama'...he nailed Stewart. Watch it again with 'Harvey' in mind...

51 posted on 09/01/2012 7:23:50 AM PDT by who knows what evil? (G-d saved more animals than people on the ark...www.siameserescue.org.)
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To: Ole Okie

The talking points of *senile, embarrassing* appeared immediately after Clint finished his speech. This exact phrasing was on every site that had a video clip of the speech and was often the first comment. It was a DNC coordinated attempt to demean Clint.

It didn’t work.

I read a lot of comments about Clint’s hair, too. I assume they mean his bald spot was showing and the est was sort of spiky and somewhat uncontrolled. I think he looks great and is still an attractive man at 82.


52 posted on 09/01/2012 8:42:15 AM PDT by reformedliberal
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To: reformedliberal

—— the rest was sort of spiky and somewhat uncontrolled-——

It was make up, a costume if you will.


53 posted on 09/01/2012 8:48:15 AM PDT by bert ((K.E. N.P. N.C. +12 ..... Present failure and impending death yield irrational action))
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To: kevao
“Harvey.”

One of the best! Full of all kind of lunatics tastefully done. The only movie I would say is equal is "Arsenic and Old Lace"

FMCDH(BITS)

54 posted on 09/01/2012 8:50:41 AM PDT by nothingnew (I fear for my Republic due to marxist influence in our government. Open eyes/see)
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To: bert

Yes. My point is that it looked _good_. It was a good cut and it had been volumized. for those who don’t know what that means, ask a woman in your life or the person who cuts your hair.

Older men w/thinning hair need to add volume to it while not trying to cover up the bald spot or receding hairline. It looks a lot better than a hairpiece, a comb over or something gelled within an inch of its life. Clint looked natural, healthy and was able to move without worrying about his hair.


55 posted on 09/01/2012 4:29:04 PM PDT by reformedliberal
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To: bert

“It’s a show about nothing.”


56 posted on 09/02/2012 4:50:06 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet (You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass.)
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