the buzz log

There's nothing like a petty squabble between celebrities to send folks searching. Ideally, the tiff involves vapid starlets arguing over who started the purse-dog trend, but Clint Eastwood telling Spike Lee to "shut his face" makes for a perfectly acceptable substitute.

The spat began when Lee questioned Eastwood for not casting African-American actors in his two World War II films, "Letters from Iwo Jima" and "Flags of Our Fathers." Mr. Lee noted that there were black soldiers present at Iwo Jima but not in Eastwood's movies. Mr. Eastwood fired back, saying in an interview that black troops were not involved in the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima and also suggested that Mr. Lee should "shut his face." Yow, Dirty Harry's in the house!

In the dustup's aftermath, lookups on Clint jumped 89%, while Spike surged 178%. A slew of articles including one from the Huffington Post drew clicks, and the story's not over yet. The New York Daily News noted that Mr. Lee recently responded to Eastwood's face-shutting suggestion. Quoteth Mr. Lee: Eastwood "sounds like an angry old man." We're not taking sides, but you gotta admit—truer words were never spoken.