The friends of Clint Eastwood‘s Gran Torino now include the L.A. Weekly/Village Voice‘s Scott Foundas, critic David Ehrenstein (“I see it as Clint’s Umberto D…it’s a lovely, deeply felt movie”), the N.Y. Observer ‘s Andrew Sarris , EW‘s Lisa Schwarzbaum, Variety‘s Todd McCarthy, Some Came Running‘s Glenn Kenny, etc. All big guns, highly esteemed, influential.

Of course, any film critic worth his or her salt isn’t supposed to care about expressing a majority or a minority opinion, but critics are just as human as the next guy.

If we lived in a Banana Republic those early dissers (Poland, et. al.) would probably be thinking about packing up their laptops and heading out to the desert for a few days until things cool down, just to be on the safe side. But of course, we live in a civil society so they have nothing to worry about. They can say anything they want about Gran Torino and nobody will think less of them.