Showgirls has some competition

Wow. Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino looks like the worst movie in over a decade. This trailer effed me up in the theater. I thought it was an About Schmidt-style comedy. Half way through, it hits: he's totally serious. Rotten Tomatoes has it at 76% (certified fresh), but I'm assuming this has something to do with the fact that many reviewers see Eastwood as someone who can't do any wrong. 

NY Mag's Vulture blog has a great list of the year's 10 worst films and it covers some highlights in scathing movie reviews. It got me thinking that I should look up reviews for Gran Torino. I'm so glad I did.

"A terribly dated mix of 8-Mile, The Karate Kid and Death Wish. The desperate last gasp of pre-Obama Era intolerance." Kam Williams, NewBlaze

"Oh my god, it's finally happened: Someone made Hey You Kids Get Off My Lawn: The Motion Picture." - MaryAnn Johanson, Flick Filosopher

"Gran Torino is most fun when it's working on the level of performance art, and much of the time, it resembles an art school take on an insult comic's one-man show." - Karina Longworth, Spoutblog

"And you thought Walt was kidding when he told his son early on that people would show up after the funeral because he 'suppose they heard there's gonna be a lot of ham.'" - Eark Childress, eFilmCritic.com

"At his finest, he delivers thesis lines, the ones about how terrible it is to kill a man—as Walt did in Korea—with the subtle but insistent quaver of a great jazz musician filling a measure to bursting: His day wasn’t made after all. But most of his readings would be too broad for even the movies he made with farting orangutans." - David Edelstein, NY Mag