Straight Shooter

Dirty Harry comes clean: "Eastwood has no time for Lee's gripes. 'He was complaining when I did Bird [the 1988 biopic of Charlie Parker]. Why would a white guy be doing that? I was the only guy who made it, that's why. He could have gone ahead and made it. Instead he was making something else.' As for Flags of Our Fathers, he says, yes, there was a small detachment of black troops on Iwo Jima as a part of a munitions company, 'but they didn't raise the flag. The story is Flags of Our Fathers, the famous flag-raising picture, and they didn't do that. If I go ahead and put an African-American actor in there, people'd go, 'This guy's lost his mind.' I mean, it's not accurate.'"

If I wasn't an enormous fan already, this article would win me over.

Fortunately for him, his stature in Hollywood allows him to say pretty much anything ("A guy like him should shut his face", for instance) without suffering any serious repercussions (It helps that he's usually speaking the truth). I wish they all had the latitude for such straight-talk.

(thanks, defamer)