Movie Review Review- NY Times on "Gran Torino"

The NY Times has a review of Clint Eastwood's new movie "Gran Torino".
I am not particularly interested in whether the movie is good or not, but rather the nature of the review by MANOHLA DARGIS. It is entitled "Hope for a Racist, and Maybe a Country." The author, and the media in general, are obsessed with inserting race into every possible discussion. Is racism the central theme of this movie? Was the importance of recycling the central theme of Wall-E?

Twice in the last decade, just as the holiday movie season has begun to sag under the weight of its own bloat, full of noise and nonsense signifying nothing, Clint Eastwood has slipped another film into theaters and shown everyone how it’s done. This year’s model is “Gran Torino,” a sleek, muscle car of a movie Made in the U.S.A., in that industrial graveyard called Detroit. I’m not sure how he does it, but I don’t want him to stop. Not because every film is great — though, damn, many are — but because even the misfires show an urgent engagement with the tougher, messier, bigger questions of American life.

It doesn't seem like there is any shortage of engagement with the "tougher, messier, bigger questions" if that means racism when ESPN segments routinely focus on whether a coach has been hired or fired because of his race, or whether investigation (or lack thereof) into a player's use of performance enhancing drugs is due to his race. There seems to be plenty of engagement, and plenty of certainty, that race is the key driver in practically every event from the mundane (voting for a Presidential candidate) to the extraordinary (running for President).

Few Americans make movies about this country anymore... Hollywood made movies for export then, of course, but part of what it exported was an idea of America as a democratic ideal, an idea of greatness which, however blinkered and false and occasionally freighted with pessimism, was persuasive simply because Gene Kelly and John Wayne were persuasive.

It has often been said that the movie industry is happy to make movies about America provided that they are extremely critical of our country and culture. For example, there were plenty of anti-war movies made over the last several years, though few were seen by an audience. Its clear enough that "Few Americans make good movies about this country, and few depict any important aspect of the country in a positive manner. Its nice to see that the author is ready to retroactively eliminate those good films made in a past era that failed to meet the new standards for political correctness. If "On the Waterfront" were made today, it would have to be about a good union boss fighting a greedy corporation. While the anti-American team has been diligently working to hide or prevent present and future American greatness, it is expanding its efforts to hide or eliminate past greatness lest people find inspiration in these "blinkered and false" past works.

While it’s easy to understand why the last eight years (or the last 50) have made it difficult to sell that idea to the world or even the country, it’s dispiriting that so many movies are disconnected from everyday experience, from economic worries to race.

Its more difficult to understand why people still read the New York Times, but its easy to understanding why its difficult to sell it. It will be increasingly difficult to sell ad space in it. I doubt if there's a need for more movies connected to "everyday experience, from economic worries to race."

Ms. Kael also famously branded Don Siegel’s “Dirty Harry” as “deeply immoral,” even fascistic, but the film became a classic because of its ambiguous engagement with American violence and masculinity. Mr. Eastwood and a .44 Magnum did their bit too.

As above, Wall-E was not a call for increased recycling and most people probably didn't think Dirty Harry was "deeply fascistic" or distinguished by its "ambiguous engagement with American violence and masculinity". Most fans would say Dirty Harry resonated because:
a) Dirty Harry understood that there was a war going on between society and criminals, and he used his ability to find and kill the criminals and win the war
b) Dirty Harry put his mission first and had utter disdain for the bureaucratic red tape and politics which often muddle purpose and ensure failure in all manner of everyday experience (e.g. going to work, visiting the doctor, etc).

“It was made by an industry that now barely makes cars, in a city that hardly works, in a country that too often has felt recently as if it can’t do anything right anymore except, every so often, make a movie like this one.”

I'm pretty sure American's are achieving bigger things than making this movie. But if you don't think so, you should write for the NY Times.