Clint Eastwood has come a long way. People of my generation and younger aren’t going to remember, but there was a time when there was a stigma against Eastwood as a director. The Outlaw Josey Wales is probably one of the top 3 if not the best western of all time. As far as awards, nothing, zilch.
Switch to today, and people assume an Eastwood film is going to be nominated for something.
Just musing over some tinsel town history…
Now to J. Edgar; I would have like to have seen a film that examines Mr. Hoovers career and the implications of the tactics he used. Hoover was the originator of the FBI and his career straddled the ongoing tradeoff between freedom and safety. What I would like to have seen is a critical look at what we got from the FBI law enforcement, and what price we paid, in terms of freedom, for it. But, J. Edgar is not that movie.
J. Edgar is amost entirely about the personal eccentricities of Mr. Hoover and how they flavored his behavior and how they may have affected his policies. It is the story of a closeted homosexual’s hypersensitive defense mechanisms. It’s more of a psychological portrait of the man than a study of how he affected history.
So, I was bored. What the hell do I care if the man was gay? And what is it to me if his fervor to hide that fact spawned a fascination with gathering intel on other’s private lives. To me that is the background for one character in a film. It is not the whole film.
So, if you want to see some very good actors wasting their time in period clothes and (rather effective) makeup; go ahead. But there’s an actual story to tell that effects all of our lives today. And they kind of ignored it.
So, meh.