And though Stallone may be an extreme example, the same kind of point can be made about our two biggest stars. Eastwood has to beat up on people. When he doesn’t, as in The Beguiled or the more recent and very sweet Bronco Billy, a film that he also directed, the audience is considerably smaller. Bronco Billy, for example, attracted less than a third of the audience than the Eastwood film that preceded it, Any Which Way You Can. Clint Eastwood is really only Clint Eastwood when he’s the toughest guy on the block. And Reynolds, in the four years he’s been at the top, is only Reynolds when he
...more
