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Listening to Coldplay’s Viva La Vida, a good, continuous stream of ten rock tunes produced by Brian Eno. A driving, searching title track’s the best by far and the cover is a reproduction of French artist Eugène Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People.

Having recently been asked to name my favorite non-fiction writer, I was hard-pressed to come up with anyone who’s alive. That got me thinking about favorite journalists—also hard to come by—which leads to sharp Carol Marin, a Chicago broadcast reporter who recently pointed out in her Sun-Times column that President-elect Obama pre-selects journalists permitted to ask questions at his press conferences. Marin blithely wonders why the press is compliant with this presumptuous and journalistically improper practice.

Other fine voices of reason in the media: Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace, the only reporter to ask whether—not how—the government should intervene in the economy, Hardball’s persistently thoughtful Chris Matthews and MSNBC’s Chuck Todd, who offers an objective and often unique perspective on politics. On CNN, I gain value from straightforward work by Ali Velshi, Don Lemon and, when it comes to weather, meteorologist Rob Marciano.

Outside of news, television doesn’t offer much, though Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is an exception. I can’t resist anything hosted by Robert Osborne, one of the most knowledgeable and, incidentally, distinguished persons on TV. His Private Screenings interview with Ernest Borgnine, which airs at 8 p.m. Eastern Time, Monday, January 26, is outstanding. If you love movies, you’ll want to watch.

Mr. Borgnine, an American Navy veteran (he rose to Gunner’s Mate, First Class) whose career in pictures spans 50 years, talks about his work—including his roles in Best Picture winners Marty (1955) and From Here to Eternity (1953)—his colleagues and his marriages to Katy Jurado (High Noon) and Ethel Merman (It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World). The unassuming star of TV’s McHale’s Navy turns 92 this month. With Osborne covering the essentials—a deft not deferential interviewer—Mr. Borgnine covers his life in New York, Italy, Virginia, where he worked at the Barter Theatre, Broadway and Hollywood, where he was first cast in the Louis de Rouchemont film Whistle at Eaton Falls, opposite Lloyd Bridges and Dorothy Gish. 

Known for his role as brutal Sergeant Fatso Judson in From Here To Eternity with Sinatra, Lancaster, Clift and Deborah Kerr, the character actor snagged an Oscar® for his portrayal of a New York City butcher in Marty, an underrated classic about an ordinary man who chooses to break free from traditionalism and sameness and pursue his values on his own terms. Marty, part of TCM’s tribute slate, is a deserving winner. Others include The Catered Affair (written, like Marty, by the inimitable Paddy Chayefsky) with Bette Davis and the classic Bad Day at Black Rock with Spencer Tracy.  Other credits include Torpedo Run, Ice Station Zebra, Flight of The Phoenix, The Dirty Dozen and The Poseidon Adventure.

Here’s TCM’s Jan. 26 schedule for the tribute to Ernest Borgnine:

• 8 p.m.  Private Screenings: Ernest Borgnine (2008) – premiere
• 9 p.m.  Marty (1955) – starring Betsy Blair
• 11 p.m. Private Screenings: Ernest Borgnine (2008) – encore
• Midnight The Last Command (1955) –  starring Sterling Hayden
• 2:45 a.m. From Here to Eternity (1953) – starring Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Deborah Kerr, Frank Sinatra and Donna Reed
• 5 a.m.  Torpedo Run (1958) – Glenn Ford, Diane Brewster and Dean Jones

I finally saw Warner Bros.’ Gran Torino. I admit that I held off seeing it, figuring it would be another case for moral relativism from Clint Eastwood (Unforgiven, A Perfect World, Million Dollar Baby, Flags of Our Fathers), who tends to play anti-heroism as an ideal. Encouraged by Mr. Eastwood’s entertaining The Changeling (see earlier post), also released last year, I decided to take Gran Torino for a spin.

Consider this a qualified endorsement. Not a perfect movie, and, of course, not remotely heroic, it is involving as an arc of a fallen man’s attempt to restore value to his life. With a 1972 motor vehicle as a symbol of self-interest—with an undeniably benevolent depiction of Catholicism—Gran Torino putters and purrs toward the best redemptive treat in a long time. Coax Gramps or, perhaps better, a favorite older man of no genetic relation, out of the house and enjoy.

Beginning in a church, the picture weaves a conditional, not anything-goes, tale of forgiveness—an unspectacular relay race for a pair of loners. One is played by Mr. Eastwood, a stubborn old man afflicted by racism, and the other is played by an actor named Bee Vang—he dominates every scene—a bright, withdrawn young man tormented by an Asian gang.

Without spoiling the plot, the youngster, like the oldster, walks alone, reading a book and trying to be left alone in a cold, brutal subculture that destroys the one in the many. The mystical, collectivist Hmong people worship tradition and then wonder why their boys become brain-dead thugs in packs. As his spirited, Western-minded sister (excellent Ahney Her) puts it: “girls go to college, boys go to prison.” Clint Eastwood’s old man, growling while pushing his manual lawnmower, enters the fray with dramatic, appalling results.

This is post-Ford Motor Company Michigan, where sirens constantly blare in the distance and civilization everywhere is falling apart—in bones and in buildings, and on every block—which echoes the nation’s current demise. Amid the coot’s name-calling, an unending flow of low, vulgar terms, a glimmer of enlightenment emanates from the next-door neighbors. That it comes from immigrants, not natives or relatives, is not really surprising to this writer (who fervently holds that America’s best often come from the outside), and it lures the geriatrician into kind acts of selfishness.

Gran Torino is not a formula picture and his actions spring from a gentle awakening, stirred by a priest, of his better values. Responding to the virtues of his neighbors, Mr. Eastwood’s loner fixes himself, and, as a byproduct—not as moral obligation or government-mandated mentoring—he causes the young male to fix himself, too. He does it with tools—reason, restraint, reward—and the result is an engaging morality play.

Make no mistake, Clint Eastwood’s character is part pig and the anachronistically racist barbershop scenes, in particular, fail to function as valves of humor, but when it’s shined and ready to roll, Gran Torino provides a polished ride about a material possession which is purely selfish—with, for once, a nod toward an American, which is to say optimistic and individualistic, sense of life.