trailer break: ‘Gran Torino’

I’m gonna see this movie today, so I figured I might as well get a gander at what I’m in store for.

Looks like Dirty Harry’s gotten too mean and too old for the real world. His son wants to put him in a home; a little boy masquerading as a priest wants him to confess -- to what? being a crotchety old man? pulling a finger-gun on some troublemakers? yelling at those kids to get off his lawn?

Oh my: he actually does tell some kids to get off his lawn, doesn’t he?

Why does this make me think of Apt Pupil, like his new Asian neighbors are gonna discover he’s a Nazi or something? Or is this -- along with Lakeview Terrace -- the beginning of a whole new subgenre: the racist-neighbor horror flick? Or, hey, wait... why is the movie called Gran Torino? Is the car possesed? Maybe the car is a racist yet kindly old spirit that avenges wrongdoing with Clint? It’s Knight Rider Meets Dirty Harry!

Gran Torino opens limited in the U.S. on December 17, and wide on January 16, 2009; it opens in the U.K. on February 20, 2009.