I can feel it — I can feel that assured, less-is-more, in-the-pocket traditionalism coming out of Trouble With The Curve (Warner Bros., 9.28), a father-daughter relationship drama mixed with a sports story about a hot baseball pitcher (Justin Timberlake) discovered by an aging scout (Clint Eastwood) on his last round-up.

Clint Eastwood during filming of Trouble With the Curve in Macon, Georgia.

Amy Adams plays Clint’s too-short daughter (i.e., wouldn’t she be as tall as Alison?). And Matthew Lillard (an apparently decent follow-up to his work in The Descendants) and John Goodman costar.

I’m not saying it’s baity except for a possible Best Actor nom for Eastwood, this quite possibly (but not necessarily!) being his last acting job, given his 82 years on the planet. Didn’t Eastwood tell someone that Gran Torino would be his last performance? I’m figuring that Randy Brown’s script had to be pretty good to make him want to act again.

I couldn’t find the original link, but an IMDB guy has claimed to have read/heard an interview with “steady” Steve Campanelli, camera operator on Trouble With The Curve and other Eastwood flicks. Campanelli said in the piece that Trouble is “a cross between Gran Torino and Million Dollar Baby, but with a happy ending.”

Here’s a J. Edgar-related interview that Campanelli gave to CJAD AM’s Ric Peterson and Suzanne Desaultels.

The only thing giving me the willies is Robert J. Lorenz, a producer of three Eastwood pics (Mystic River, Flags of Our Fathers, Letters From Iwo Jima) and a longtime AD, having directed Trouble Behind The Curve. He’s a Malpaso “house” helmer in the same way that former stuntman Buddy Van Horn “directed” Pink Cadillac, The Dead Pool and Any Which Way You Can. Curve will be clean and steady because Lorenz surely took his cues from Clint all during shooting, but I’m feeling a bit uncertain. Just a bit.

Here’s a J. Edgar-related interview that Campanelli gave to CJAD AM’s Ric Peterson and Suzanne Desaultels.

(l. to r.) Clint Eastwood, camera operator Steve Campanelli, 1st Assistant Camera Bill Coe, and actor Bee VANG on the set of Gran Torino.