Clint Eastwood gave Michael Moore a warning he’ll be hardpressed to ignore.

“Michael Moore and I actually have a lot in common – we both appreciate living in a country where there’s free expression. But, Michael, if you ever show up at my front door with a camera – I’ll kill you.”

All in good fun, of course. Where politics ends entertainment begins, and Moore showed he took the comments in the spirit they were intended.
Which makes me think that perhaps this is a new tactic for Moore, whose recent personal revolution in the hygiene department has sparked accusations that the rebel “documentarionist” (it’s like “fictition” for the masses!) may be forgetting his roots as an obese liberal circus entertainer and taking on the more pleasant characteristics of 1950′s beat icon Buddy Holly (joke courtesty of Greg Piper, who also alerted me to this story), sans the thin physique and with devilishly sculpted facial hair.
Or perhaps this is just the bizarro-world Michael Moore, an evil twin only South Park fans can adore. Who’s to say? Clearly, though, the real story is Eastwood, who at 74, is Hollywood’s most rugged frontman, tougher than Heston and more gnarled than Haggard. He’s also the man who has defied the odds and history to produce and direct some of the past couple years’ most insightful, darkest human dramas, including 2003′s Mystic River and this year’s Million Dollar Baby, a film that could have Annette Bening sweating again this Oscar night around if critics like Hilary Swank’s tough-to-beat performance.
If Eastwood threatens me, I’d take it with a grain of salt. But not too big a grain. You just never know what he’s hiding behind those steely eyes.