Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997)

11/21/11 update: Just saw this again after about two or three years. Clint Eastwood is a multi-tasking god. I have a friend who has a couple of high-school aged daughters. It's not that the daughters are slackers; the oldest one is the valedictorian of her class. What bothers my friend is that the kids are always boasting about how good they are at multi-tasking -- it's reportedly one of the greatest talents of their generation. My friend constantly rolls her eyeballs when these boasts are set forward, because she would like for them to understand that multi-tasking means more than doing lots of things at once. She wants them to know that it means doing lots of things at once well -- completely. Not doing a bunch of things in a half-baked manner. This generation does do lots of things simultaneously, but they tend to do them not in the way of renaissance "men," but in the way of, say, renai "men." Half-way. Along the lines of a jack-of-all-trades and master of none. This is definitely not Clint Eastwood's problem. You can throw him two-dozen balls, and he'll keep them all in the air. Piece of cake. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is an example of Eastwood at the height of his multiple powers. And hey, here are words to live by from Lady Chablis: Like my mama always used to say, "Two peas in a bucket, mother-f--k-it." What a find she was : ) * * * * *Original comments, way back when: It begins with a soundtrack: All Johnny Mercer, all the time. We know Eastwood has an ear for music. BIRD is a good example of his tastes. This soundtrack is phenomenal. k.d. lang's "Skylark" haunts me; I hear it in my head from out of nowhere when I least expect it.To say the reaction to this movie was "mixed" is generous. If it was truly mixed, I think there would have been a few more critics making a few more positive comments. Clintwood was called self-indulgent for meandering around with the direction of this movie. You can call it meandering; I'll call it . . . jazz. Cusack delivers a tour de force performance. Spacey is equally good. That death scene with Jude Law, facing each other on the floor, and that smile Law gives Spacey--it gives me goosebumps just typing about it. The acting of Eastwood's daughter. Okay, so this isn't big on FX, lacks thrilling stunts and car chases, and maybe moves very slowly, very methodically, very thoughtfully, at times. But this true story is compellingly condensed, not butchered--just think, if Eastwood had stuck even more closely to this excellent book, the movie could have gone on for three or four more hours. Chop-jobs of books is what I fear we may see trending with the HARRY POTTER series--although that's way too harsh of me to say. All these wonderfully quirky Savannah characters so beautifully played--or discovered: The Lady Chablis! That fine detail, so artistically appropriate, of the one painting covered up by the second painting. Layer upon layer . . . Yes, flixsters, I think that's it: I'm calling this a masterful Clint Eastwood jazz performance.