The Last Serious Man

Well, this may be the most imposing career retrospective ever. Certainly, I see no reason to dispute Warner Home Video's claim that it's the largest feature film box set ever devoted to a single artist.

I refer, of course, to WHV's just released (on Tuesday) Clint Eastwood: 35 Films 35 Years at Warner Bros, which features 34 of the iconic actor/director's flicks -- from Where Eagles Dare in 1978 to Gran Torino from 2008. Plus The Eastwood Factor, a fascinating new documentary on the once and future Man With No Name's career written and directed by critic Richard Schickel.

Obviously, the set isn't definitive -- none of Clint's image-defining Spaghetti westerns with Sergio Leone are included, and I really miss the ridiculously entertaining In the Line of Fire -- but looking over the films that are there, this is obviously a pretty substantial body of work. Some of the Warner entries are inarguably great -- Unforgiven, obviously, and I might if pressed make a case for Tightrope and Mystic River. I also think a couple of them are rife for reappraisal; in that category I'd include Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (I'm apparently the only person who's read the book and doesn't think the film suffers by comparison), the surprisingly smart Bridges of Madison County, Bronco Billy (as charming a parable about following your dreams as has ever been offered to the viewing public) and the devastating A Perfect World, which may in fact be Eastwood's masterpiece.

BTW, the Schickel documentary is actually a 22 minute excerpt from a longer film coming out theatically later this year. But what's here -- lots of footage of Clint wandering around the Warners lot, including a very funny sequence where he visits the vault where his costumes from all the films he did at the studio are stored -- is fascinating, and the set also feature a lavishly illustrated 24 page illustrated booklet expanding on some of Schickel's themes in the doc.

Bottom line: You can -- and at $129.99, if you've got the disposable income in this otherwise depressing economic climate to afford it, my hat's off to you -- order the Clint set at Amazon. You'll find a a complete list of the films in the box there too, and in case you're wondering, yes, it includes all the Dirty Harrys.