First off, I am not a fan of Clint Eastwood. Hate to say it but this, Mystic River, and Play Misty for Me are the only films of his that I have taken a liking to, and that is mainly because his "Eastwood touch" is nowhere to be found. This is also one of the few films of his that he doesn’t star in and is actually resolved quite well. Now don’t get your undies in a bunch, because I’m not saying he’s a bad actor or director. I just find there to be a lot of testosterone and holes in his work, both which have no relevance to my tastes.

The story takes place in Savannah, Georgia where John Kelso (John Cusack)—a reporter from New York—is visiting for an assignment. The socialite and bourgeois art collector, Jim Williams (Kevin Spacey), is throwing his famous Christmas party and the young reporter is sent in to interview the mysterious man and write an article on the events. He is introduced to Williams and warms up to his Southern hospitality immediately, while being thrown off by William’s troubled and violent lover, Billy (Jude Law), who is supposed to be out of sight for the party. John could care less that Williams is a closeted homosexual, but the aggravation and supposed fear that Billy sparks is clear from the start and is the catalyst for the rest of the film. The party happens and is covered by John and then he returns to his lodgings, passing neighbors who intend to party till dawn. Hours later, the familiar sound of sirens rouses him from sleep and he ventures back outside where the same locals are buzzing (chilled drinks still in their hand) about the fact that Williams has shot his lover.

Oh, the seventies, the best decade for movies ever! So often I see a film from that period and think, "they would never allow that to happen in a movie today." Case in point: High Plains Drifter. The year, 1973. This was a big movie for Universal, a big budget film. It was directed by and starred Clint Eastwood, who at that time was the biggest megastar in the world. Clint was playing the "hero" of the picture. Now you won't see this from a megastar in a movie today: in the first ten minutes or so he goes and rapes a woman, brutally in the light of day, while the people of the town ignore her plea for help (in Clint's defense, later in the film she comes back for more).

That's not the only naughty shenanigan Clint gets into. Clint's stranger, the new man in an unusually picturesque seaside Western town, is hired by the town's business class to protect their property from some revenge-seeking tough guys who recently got out of jail (those same business owners once employed them and when they got out of control, framed them and sent them to jail). And now Clint is the town's new protector and he seems to be hell-bent on his own kind of revenge against the town, in the form of humiliation. He takes advantage of his open tab to spend, he appoints the town little person as town sheriff and then, in preparation for the returning outlaws, he makes the town paint itself red (even the church is forced into being covered in paint).

I think motherhood has been good for Angelina Jolie. Before she started adopting orphans and having kids of her own she was best known as an Oscar-winning knife enthusiast who made out with her brother on television. Well, whatever else that sexy little home wrecker does with her time I now know that she’s also a first class actress who really taps into a primal maternal connection to the sad, sad story at the heart of The Changeling. Fans of true crime and L.A. history should find a lot to get excited about here. It’s a haunting story centered around Jolie’s incredible performance as a mother of a missing child who deals with some extraordinarily weird circumstances above and beyond her heartbreaking loss, and takes on a corrupt L.A.P.D. in the process.

Our story starts in 1928 in a lovingly evoked Los Angeles of a bygone era complete with street cars, rain swept downtown boulevards teeming with pedestrians, and roller skating telephone operators. Jolie, looking like an art deco maven chiseled out of a painting, plays Christine Collins—a single mother raising her nine-year-old son Walter in a middle class neighborhood of L.A. She comes home from work one day to find her house completely empty. At first bewildered she calls the police to report Walter missing and is told that they won’t bother sending any officers over because it’s just not a priority and that furthermore he’s probably just outside and will turn up soon. Days, weeks, and months go by and Walter still has not turned up. Collins finds the L.A.P.D.’s response to her crisis to be incompetent at best and hostile at worst.