Posted on 10/22/2006 10:37:13 PM PDT by jordan8
Critics are already calling Clint Eastwood's new movie, Flags of Our Fathers, the most important film of the year.
It's a Second World War epic about the six soldiers who raised the US flag on the island of Iwo Jima, the six who live on through the now famous photograph that has become the most abiding image of the fight in the Pacific.
As made by one of Hollywood's best-known Republicans, you might expect a stirring slice of patriotism, yet this is anything but an ode to America.
(Excerpt) Read more at thisislondon.co.uk ...
Funny how this is trotted out. We on the right have been saying the same thing for quite a while, as the appeasers flirted with North Korea and other states.
Nothing new. Clint's been a libertarian, aka. social liberal, for years.
Uh...hmm....homina, homina...tell that to the families of the folks who died at Pearl Harbor. Oh yeah...didn't the Japs sink ships off the Cali coast near Santa Barbara?
Seems ol' Clint could have remembered to include a few black soldiers in his movie..
I have read at least one major complaint about the complete lack of any blacks in the cast..
IIRC from that article, over 900 black soldiers served at Iwo..
I have read at least one major complaint about the complete lack of any blacks in the cast..
IIRC from that article, over 900 black soldiers served at Iwo..
To be fair, with 900 blacks and 70000+ Marines and segregated units there was no "black guy" in every squad like Hollywood usually portrays.
To knock Clint for not rigging the movie to appease political correctness is pretty lame, IMO.
Clint's always been a libertarian. I won't be seeing this pissant movie of his. Clint was great in all the Dirty Harry movies and more but he's done run out of steam. He should retire. I can only imagine what crap he would spew about Iraq
Maybe Don Siegel should get more credit and Clint a lot less for the Dirty Harry movies
Don Siegel was educated at Cambridge University, England. In Hollywood from the mid-'30s, he began his career as an editor and second unit director. In 1945 he directed two shorts (Hitler Lives (1945) and Star in the Night (1945)) and won Academy Awards for both. His first feature as a director was 1946's The Verdict (1946). He made his reputation in the early and mid-'50s with a series of tightly made, expertly crafted, tough but intelligent "B" pictures (among them The Lineup (1958), Riot in Cell Block 11 (1954), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)), then graduated to major "A" films in the 1960s and early 1970s. He made several "side trips" to television, mostly as a producer. Siegel directed what is generally considered to be Elvis Presley's best picture, Flaming Star (1960). He had a long professional relationship and personal friendship with Clint Eastwood, who has often said that everything he knows about filmmaking he learned from Don Siegel.
Clint has proven himself to be no more than a lean lanky, Michael Moore.
The photo would have much less meaning if it were a message of "Mission accomplished!" but most of Kuribayashi's men were still dug into the hills in so many human hornet's nests. The picture wan anything but self congratulatory. To me it means freedom at any cost.
I get the feeling that this movie is one that wouldn't "Make my day".
I'll reserve judgment on CE. You can't put him in a box nor should you.
"To Be Fair", if you round off the numbers, 900 out of 7,000 is still one out of 7.. Make it 1 out of 8, "to be fair".. That's still over 12%..
Seems to me, when one of the main characters, "chief" Ira Hayes was a Pima indian, it takes some "rigging" to exclude all other non-white actors / characters from the movie..
This is NOT just appeasing political correctness..
This is American History...
Are you saying that the lives of black soldiers lost in the war aren't worth recognition?
That they aren't deserving of the same respect for their sacrifice as any other soldier that died for our country?
I didn't think so.. ;-)
Considering the "PC" consciousness of today's society, I'm sure this subject was brought up..
A conscious effort had to have been made to insure no blacks were included or portrayed in this movie..
"To Be Fair", if you round off the numbers, 900 out of 7,000 is still one out of 7.. Make it 1 out of 8, "to be fair".. That's still over 12%..
_______________________________________________
Oops, there were 70,000+ (seventy thousand plus) Marines on the island. Perhaps a correction of the math is in order as well as the rant.
yitbos
Clint, how come Al KoolAid, Dr. Ill, Dr. AmenJihad, HezEbola, and HamAs* didn't get the memo.
The liberal media have been praising this film to the heavens. There's only one reason this could be the case. I'm sure you can figure it out.
I can hear their battle cry:
"LET'S ROLL!"
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/113171.html
Read the article for yourself..
Just in case you're not interested in reading how blacks feel about this issue in full, here's an excerpt..
Melton McLaurin, author of the forthcoming The Marines of Montford Point and an accompanying documentary to be released in February, says that there were hundreds of black soldiers on Iwo Jima from the first day of the 35-day battle. Although most of the black marine units were assigned ammunition and supply roles, the chaos of the landing soon undermined the battle plan.
"When they first hit the beach the resistance was so fierce that they weren't shifting ammunition, they were firing their rifles," said Dr McLaurin.
Roland Durden, another black marine, landed on the beach on the third day. "When we hit the shore we were loaded with ammunition and the Japanese hit us with mortar." Private Durden was soon assigned to burial detail, "burying the dead day in, day out. It seemed like endless days. They treated us like workmen rather than marines."
"The people carrying the ammunition were 90% black, so that's an opportunity to show black soldiers. These are our films and very often they become our history, historical documents." Yvonne Latty, a New York University professor and author of We Were There: Voices of African-American Veterans (2004), wrote to Eastwood and the film's producers pleading with them to include the experience of black soldiers. HarperCollins, the book's publishers, sent the director a copy, but never heard back.
There's a whole Pima Indian in the famous photo. What % of the troops were Indians? Were they over represented in the picture or the movie? How many Hispanics were on the Island? Nissi? Racism, I tell you.
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