[SpaceBar]

I’ve always been partial to the westerns. The man with no name trilogy will forever define what a gritty western is in my book. And the Ennio Morricone soundtracks were perfection.

[Finny]

Oh, I hear you on that! Clint is a master at Westerns. I can't really go though a year fulfilled unless I watch "High Plains Drifter," one of my faves. I was away from the U.S. in a kind of third-world place for a couple of months as a teen, and when I got back to the U.S. there were only two things I craved: a real cheeseburger, and a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western.

And though a lot of people snicker at "Pale Rider," Eastwood's brazen '80s take on "Shane," it's one of my favorite Westerns of all time. Stockburn's deputies are priceless! They never smile, they never blink, they never talk among themselves. They just stand around in those big white dusters and look mean. Until "the preacher" kills them all, that is!

*sigh* Now I'm going to have to watch both of them again!

[Richard Kimball]

Eastwood redefined two genres of movies, the western and the cop show. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, and Dirty Harry. Every western and cop movie made since then owes a debt to Eastwood. He also delivers one liners better than almost anyone else:

"Deservins got nothing to do with it."

He also previewed the psycho-chick movie in "Play Misty for Me." Fatal Attraction was an almost scene by scene ripoff.

And, I'll tell you exactly where Heath Ledger got the idea for his Joker. Scorpio from Dirty Harry. Watch the movie and check out Andrew Robinson's character, the way he moves, the psycho lies, and the rapid personality changes: