Clint Eastwood 20-Film Collection on Blu-ray

Blu-Ray Review: Clint Eastwood 20-Film Collection

Clint Eastwood 20-Film Collection on Blu-ray

Can we all agree that Clint Eastwood is one of the greatest actors, producers, writers, directors and soundtrack scorers of our generation? I think we can.

If you’re a fan — and who isn’t? — consider investing in the “Clint Eastwood: 20-Film Collection” released on blu-ray from Warner Home Video on June 4, 2013.

Buy Clint Eastwood: 20 Film Collection [Blu-ray]

While I don’t know that there’s a particular theme to this box set, it’s a great collection of films from a variety of decades and genres. The 20 films include:

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

Note that the films are a mix of Eastwood in front of the camera as an actor, as well as behind the camera as a director, writer and/or producer. He appears in 15 of these films, and I believe a few of them have never been included in previous box sets, including “Gran Torino,” “Hereafter,” “J. Edgar,” “Invictus,” and “Trouble with the Curve.”

Clint Eastwood 20-Film Collection on Blu-ray

It’s interesting, though, that while the set includes “Letters From Iwo Jima,” it doesn’t include the companion film “Flags of Our Fathers.” Also interesting is that none of the early Sergio Leone westerns are included. With such a wide array of films, you’d think they would include at least one of those, preferably “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.”

Bonus content includes two feature-length documentaries:

  1. “The Eastwood Factor.” Produced in 2010, this profile of Eastwood’s career is narrated by Morgan Freeman (but of course!), and Eastwood is interviewed in the film. This was previously released as bonus content on the “Hereafter” blu-ray.
  2. “Eastwood Directs: The Untold Story.” Produced in 2013, this brand-new documentary has never been released on blu-ray, but did air on TCM on May 30, 2013. The film features interviews with actors and producers who’ve worked with Eastwood.

Also included in the set is an excerpt of the book “Clint Eastwood: Master Filmmaker at Work,” a 48-page sampler of the book, which is 240 pages in total. Why they just didn’t include the whole book, I’m not sure. Maybe because of space issues.

The box set is packaged in book-style, with discs inserted into slots on the pages, making the discs less secure and more apt to scratch than if they each had their own cover.

At $90 (at this writing), the price tag is somewhat steep, but all in all, this is a nice set that includes a diverse assortment of Clint Eastwood films, and one that any fan or collector would want for their collection.

Comments

3 responses to “Blu-Ray Review: Clint Eastwood 20-Film Collection”

  1. Nik Avatar
    Nik

    Anybody else really love the movie gran Torino? I just thought it was fantastic.

  2. Walt Cooganw Avatar
    Walt Cooganw

    Ms. Boursaw,

    Yes, I certainly answer in the affirmative in response to your initial question, although I should note that Eastwood has never formally or officially written a script. However, he has written or rewritten certain scenes and lines of dialogue (including much of the dialogue for his first film as a star, 1964’s “A Fistful of Dollars”).

    Speaking of the three Sergio Leone Westerns, none of them are included because Warner Home Video lacks the rights to any of them. United Artists helped fund the 1966 Italian production of “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” (the first two films, “A Fistful of Dollars” and “For a Few Dollars More,” hit theaters in Italy and continental Europe without a single cent of Hollywood capital), and UA obtained the rights for and distributed all three movies in the English-speaking world (US and UK releases in 1967 and into 1968). So Warner Brothers has never been associated with those films, and actually, until 1976, only two of Eastwood’s movies (1971’s “Dirty Harry” and 1973’s “Magnum Force”) had come courtesy of Warners. Most of his pre-1976 movies are associated with either United Artists or Universal, but from 1976 onward, Eastwood has made the vast majority of his films with Warner Brothers.

    I do concur that including “Letters from Iwo Jima” without “Flags of Our Fathers” makes little sense.

    1. Jane Boursaw Avatar

      Ah, thanks for the clarification and backstory. It’s always more complicated than “They should have included such-and-such movies and why didn’t they?”

      And the fact that he wrote much of the dialogue for “Fistful of Dollars” shows that he knew from the beginning what audiences would love. And of course, he also knew how to deliver those lines so people would be repeating them decades later in casual conversation.

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