He makes you work for it: Clint Eastwood’s Bird

I decided watching Bird from 1988 was a lot of work. And then I thought, wait, so was his most recent The Mule, as was Million Dollar Baby. Let’s face it, Clint is one of those Dad’s who made you do chores, lots of them.

Written by Joel Oliansky, Bird is darkly lit, with many a rainy night car ride. I understand that much of the jazz world lived in the night, and certainly Bird’s life contained more darkness than light, still, at a bloated 2 hours plus, at times I felt a The Irishman falshback.

Also, the chemistry between Forest Whitaker (Charlie Bird) and (his common law wife Chan) Diane Venora (who I liked in the modern day take on Hamlet starring Ethan Hawke) was uneven at first. But eventually their union grew on me when I realized that were two eccentric people trying to cobble a relationship all the while one was a jazz genius/heroin junkie/drinker were bound to seem wobbly.

Forest Whtiaker is an amazing actor and I just realized I’ve never seen his academy Award winning performance in The Lat King of Scotland. I am also glad I got to learn about Charlie Parker via biopic.