Flagging Fathers

I have not seen the film, nor do I plan to see it. I'm basing my decision on the ads, which seem far too jingonistic and sappy for my taste, and on the fact that I think Clint Eastwood is one of the most overrated directors in movie history. Besides, if I want to see a desaturated color work on WWII, I'll just rewatch Band of Brothers on DVD.

I started a job at a multiplex last week, so I got to see it without contributing anything to its grosses. Even so, I felt ripped off.

All of the problems come from its horrible script, which ranks with The Black Dahlia and High School Musical as the worst of the year. Paul "Sheep-Organs" Haggis cuts back and forth between horrible scenes at random. The battle footage (which I somewhat liked purely for its style) contributes nothing to the story's narrative at all. And the political theme (note: singular), though somewhat fascinating, is thrown at the screen and expected to stick for the entire length of the feature. I enjoyed some visual references to John Ford classics like The Longest Day and even The Searchers, but this film was a total mess.

I understand your hesitation to see the film. I felt the same way. Both Million Dollar Baby and Mystic River were let downs for me; to this day, I don't understand what audiences saw in either film. But I saw Flags of our Fathers this weekend, because as a moviegoer, I felt like I needed to know what is was like.

Again, I was extremely disappointed. The color saturation you talk about is distracting. Not only does is reference Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan too much, but it undermines what could have been a realistic war film. I found myself thinking, "Real life does not look like this, so how can I believe a true story". If it would have added something spectacular to the narrative, then I might have appreciated its use. However, it did not.

But what really got on my nerves was the structure of the film. Beginning in the present with one of the survivors who is now an old man, we think that he is going to tell us the story. Then, the film jumps into a series of on screen interviews, between a younger man, who we learn is one of the veteran's sons, and other veteran's who were somehow involved in Iwo Jima. I don't want to ruin anything for anyone, but the focus of the narration changes once more near the end. There seemed no need for this, and I found it rather distracting.

Meanwhile, there are flashbacks to the island. Personally, I did not feel a personal connection to these men and their struggle. Unlike Saving Private Ryan which despite its problems created a classic bond between the characters, this film lacks an emotional core. This is the third war film Barry Pepper has been in and this is his least interesting role yet. I kept waiting to see him use the talents that he has already shown in films like Private Ryan and last year's The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. Sadly, he was not given the opportunity.

As for the other actors, nothing stood out. Adam Beach goes in and out of a great performances as Ira Hayes. His character is so interesting, I kept thinking that the filmmakers may have made a mistake when they did not choose to focus primarily on him. But Beach reminds me of the hamminess of his role in Windtalkers in too many of the film's scenes.

Anyway, I have rambled for too long. Jim, I think you should definitely see the film. I look forward to hearing what you think of it in great detail.

I saw the film this weekend. It was decent and passable as a modern war flick, better than "Windtalkers" but not on par with "Private Ryan" or any of the other better WWII dramas.

Like others who disliked the film, I do think you should still see it, Jim. Whether or not the choppy and distracting weaving of the timelines was the fault of Haggis or Eastwood notwithstanding, one of them could at least have given the film some spirit.

The movie can't find its feet. It never challenges deeply as an exploration of how we use the term "hero," and it never even attempts a tear-jerking power scene between father and son, solider and soldier, or any other tissue demanding confrontation. It's alarmingly disconnected from characters and never justifies this. Had the film been a brutal attack on the marketing of war, it may have worked. Had it been a sappy, syrupy male version of the chick flick, at least it would have served a purpose for audiences interested in that type of film. As it is, the movie just never takes off. What's frustrating is that it never really tries to.

So I wasn't the only one who was reluctant to see the film, and for the same reason too: what struck me as artsy-fartsy desaturation and pseudo-patriotic babble in the previews. "Poor marketing?," I thought. It's certainly not the first time a film's been misrepresented. So I gave Eastwood the benefit of a doubt (and tried to ignore the fact that Haggis had anything to do with the film)

...but I couldn't, as Haggis' writing kept poking at my sides and hammering at my head. To quote Ed Gonzalez, his heavy-handed penmenship prevents Eastwood's personality from shining through. Eastwood understands power in subtlety, but when you have the Native American character being told he's a f***ing drunk every 15 minutes, there's no subtlety, no power - only blatant carelessness.

Barry Pepper's typecasting makes me wonder if Eastwood is at all interested in character development (not an insult, but an observation). Is he concerned with a larger scope, a concept more grand (a la Malick's The Thin Red Line)? I believe the answer is no. The reason you would have the [rather lazily set up] framing device is to, hopefully by the film's end, have his son understand the heft his father had to carry, or allow the viewer insight to these characters. By journey's end, I didn't feel closer to understanding any character.

To end this winded post, let me say I adored Eastwood's two previous, vastly superior films. While Eastwood's "less is more" philosophy to film scoring is usually in the right, even his FoOF score is distracting. The "America the Beautiful" quotation strikes me as false sentimentality - too much of the film is.

Matt: I happen to champion De Palma's Dahlia, but that's something for another time.

Jim, for whatever reason (I haven’t really figured out why myself), I shared your hesitation to sit down with Flags of Our Fathers, and I’m speaking as one who is often accused (at least by my wife) as being a bit starry-eyed when it comes to Clint Eastwood’s films, as a director and an actor. But I plunked down my $11 (yeesh!) Saturday night, and while I’m not convinced it’s a masterpiece, I think it is being vastly underrated, particularly by those who want to hang its various sins, perceived or actual, around the neck of Paul Haggis—the writer’s celebrated ham-fisted dramaturgy isn’t nearly as much in agonizing evidence as it was in his Oscar-winning folly (yes, I pretty much hated Crash.) Eastwood’s movie isn’t as focused or as cinematically accomplished as Saving Private Ryan, the movie to which it is most often compared, and a movie which has its own dalliances with dubious storytelling strategies. But neither is it interested, as Ryan definitely was, with employing all of Spielberg’s energy and inspiration as a director in making us go “gee, whiz!� over the movie’s graphic violence as often as we were repulsed or horrified by it. Eastwood stages the action in a much leaner fashion (but not Leaner), showing us just enough of the horror to lend it impact without turning the battle sequences into awesome showcases for Dolby Digital 5.1 home theater systems (where more people will probably finally see it).

The movie is structured to mirror the shell-shocked instability of men racked with guilt over the gulf between what they’re being told their experience means and what they took away from it, as well as what they left on those black-sand beaches (they certainly don’t feel like heroes), and also the guilt of simply having survived. In the context of the movie, that near-black-and-white palette, leached of most all color except for the sudden orange of an exploding shell or the dark red spray of blood, is thematically relevant—it mirrors the way these men, particularly the stoic “Doc� Bradley around whom the movie’s central structure is formed, try to compartmentalize and detach themselves from the vivid, relentless memory of battle—those orange explosions bring it rattling back into focus, for them and for us. The sections of the movie concerned with their return to American society, where they are pressed into service as heroes for a public uninterested in the real circumstances behind the photo that has made them famous, is only slightly less desaturated, filled in in such a way that expresses how this experience, safe from the dangers of warfare, is still a painful one that the soldiers must endure for a good other than their own. Only the present-day interviews are shot in full color, albeit often in Eastwood’s customarily near-chiaroscuro level of dark, darker and darkness.

And I must say, I don’t understand these charges that the movie is somehow cravenly jingoistic. That it’s being put to jingoistic purposes by a corrupt government administration and the Ann Coulters and Sean Hannitys and Rush Limbaughs polluting the free airwaves, I wouldn’t doubt for a minute. But for a supposedly jingoistic, rah-rah filmmaker, Eastwood has made a movie that is not only critical of the shamelessness of American governmental practices and manipulation of the armed forces to present a specific and specifically controlled portrait of a war (Sound familiar?), but also digs deep into examining some pretty difficult questions that go a ways beyond the typical “war is hell�-type sloganeering. As Manohla Dargis so eloquently pointed out in her review last week, “Mr. Eastwood insists, with a moral certitude that is all too rare in our movies, that we extract an unspeakable cost when we ask men to kill other men. There is never any doubt in the film that the country needed to fight this war, that it was necessary; it is the horror at such necessity that defines Flags of Our Fathers, not exultation.� If this is jingoism, well, it’s certainly not your father’s jingoism. I’m personally not bothered by a movie that may have structural problems or problems of performance (Adam Beach is very good, but also considerably undermodulated by his director), but that can still lead me, as a thoughtful viewer, into fertile ground such as this. Eastwood’s movies, even his great ones, have all hit the occasional false or discordant notes, and this movie is no different. It’s also genuinely felt, and it’s concerned with a whole lot more than just blowing us out the back of the theater with directorial flourishes and overwhelming pyrotechnics. It’s a movie with lots of rough edges about confronting what war costs, in terms of human lives, moral certitude, institutional trust and being forced to decide whether the truth or a lie best serves a greater good.

I haven’t had much of a chance to write about this movie—this is probably as close to a review as I’ll write—but I would like to recommend Manohla Dargis, Stephanie Zacharek and David Edelstein for further reading on this one—Zacharek and Edelstein in particular are not totally sold on the movie, but they seem to have a good grasp on why it works as well as it does. And That Little Round-headed Boy’s very positive take on it is well worth looking at too. I really do think there’s a lot more to be celebrated in Flags of Our Fathers than is being indicated in the comments above, and in the generally tepid response to it in the press and at the box office.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

I know exactly what you mean about not wanting to see the movie, but I'm going to force myself to watch it this weekend, because I'm hearing it's pretty good. I'll be watching it in a double feature with another movie I'm hesitant about, THE PRESTIGE. (I'm hesitant because of how much I liked that other recent movie about magic, THE ILLUSIONIST.)

I'm with you, Jim. The ads, regardless of how separated they are from the movie's reality, just beat down my desire to see the film. Though, personally, I like the desaturated look in a lot of films, it does seem to be somewhat sloppily done.

I saw the movie last Friday, Jim... and while I really admired aspects of it, other portions had me frustrated. The battle scenes were as real and gut-wrenching as any I've seen put to film, and I appreciated the fact that the movie was neither furiously angry nor blindly patriotic, but rather wise and honest. The movie's structure was what irritated me more than anything else... ordinarily I'm a fan of non-linear storytelling, but in this case, the jumbled structure only worked towards sucking the power out of "Flags of our Fathers".

My other major problem is that the characters are all a bit one-dimensional... there's a very long epilogue that closes the film, detailing what happened to who, but the problem is, we care far more about Eastwood's thematic subjects than his characters. Even Adam Beach, who's won a lot of acclaim, doesn't really do anything all that special. It's easy to identify with the plight of his character, which is why his performance is earning such rave reviews. But then, the performances of actors are often praised for what the screenwriters, directors, or others working in the more technical aspects of the industry do with the characters. However, that's another subject for another day. To summarize, "Flags of our Fathers" has a lot of great parts that add up to a frustrating whole.

Back at ya later
-Clark

I contributed to the $10 million take for Flags of Our Fathers this past weekend, and while I didn't think it was great great, I thought it had some interesting things to add to the cinema's discussion about war. Flags---at least in its purposeful middle section---deals with heroism and the way it can sometimes be exploited and packaged without giving much thought to the human beings underlying those highly-publicized "heroes." Maybe I haven't seen enough war films, but that's an angle that I hadn't seen explored before. And I found the film's near-cubistic editing to be fascinating, a far cry from Eastwood's usual emphasis on classical storytelling---appropriate, I think, for a film which is partly about the journalistic search for the complicated real truths behind the star images.

Perhaps Flags of Our Fathers is ultimately more sincere than artful: yeah, the battle scenes smack a bit too much of Saving Private Ryan (although maybe no surprise there, since Steven Spielberg did co-produce this film), and the distended last section does seem to fall into some of the sentimentality that the film's middle section mostly avoided. But, in spite of its heavy-handedness (well, what else would you expect from co-screenwriter Paul Haggis after the crudeness of Crash?), I think it's ultimately a film worth seeing and thinking about afterward. (I'm actually looking forward to Letters from Iwo Jima now, only because a film that claims to be about the humanity of soldiers in Iwo Jima---as Flags of Our Fathers tries to be---isn't quite complete until it looks at soldiers from both sides, which Letters at least promises to do as far as the Japanese are concerned.) Far from a masterpiece, but I'd probably take it over Million Dollar Baby any day.

I think people are going to the film wanting to hate it. Which is annoying.

The film is not perfect. But I found it to be thought-provoking.

I didn't know the story about the "two flags", the exploitation of the soilders, nor did i know about the racism towards native americans.

when i saw the movie, i saw it in an audience of mostly 40+. At the end of the film we all stayed in our seats (there were actual pictures from Iwo Jima in the credits) in silence like we were at a funeral. it was very respectful.

so i felt the movie was good. i think it could have benefitted by being a little shorter and the script being tighter. the biggest problem is the ending.

as for the comparison between Saving Private Ryan and this film, i think the film is going for a similar thing. the film is produced by Steven Speilberg. but honestly i feel like this film is probably a little better than SPR. Eastwood's message in his film is stronger and more important.

The idea of heroism. What makes a hero? Do heroes think they are heroes?

while soilders may be heroes for our country, in their perspective they certainly don't feel like it. They are just looking out for themselves and the man next to them.

ira hayes (played by adam beech) carries the emotional torch for the film. he is the most interesting character. and he gets your sympathy without asking for it.

I might get around to watching it in a couple of years on DVD, but I'm really in no hurry. There are so many good movies that I haven't seen that I'd rather watch instead.

I really can’t stand Paul Haggis. I think he reached the high point in his writing career while penning high kicks for Walker, Texas Ranger.

Eastwood can be seen in some of the TV spots talking about how this movie is about "sacrificing for the nation" or something like that. As a libertarian, that idea doesn't appeal to me under any circumstances, but in the case of war, it's an idea that turns out to be homicidal/suicidal.
The flick doesn't appeal to me at this particular time, not necessarily because of how the photography looks, but because of its timing with respect to the hideous Iraq situation.
Also, Iwo Jima is particularly irritating. The US had the island surrounded and blockaded. 10k Japanese soldiers were living there in a series of tunnels, without such things as food and water, and with such things as tremendous heat. The US could have simply waited them out, demanding surrender. But no, they heroically attacked the island, putting their own conscripts into the breech, resulting in a predictably gruesome slaughter on both sides.
It does occur to me that Eastwood may be making that very point, that the US shouldn't have attacked the island in the first place. If so, then it's a flick that should be seen. Somehow, I doubt that's the point.

I've already written about as much as I'd like to regarding this film (never a good sign), so I'll just copy and paste from my own review:

"Clint’s wonderful fingerprints are all over this one, so chalk it up more to screenwriter Paul Haggis’ attempts at political and philosophical articulation rather than poor direction. Million Dollar Baby was the perfect union between the two: while the script was indeed weak in great portions, the deep truths of the story were of a largely unspoken nature, allowing Eastwood greater opportunity in exploring with his tools what Haggis failed to do so with the pen. No such luck to be found with Flags of Our Fathers, which begins, continues, and ends in high-school thesis mode. That there’s no sense of rhyme or reason to the script’s shuffling of events and flashbacks doesn’t help much, either.

...

Flags of Our Fathers acknowledges the tendency of history...to simplify our conflicts into easy-to-understand binaries – stories of good and evil that leave out the real-world details that demand moral grappling. If only the film went the next step and actually did the same itself; rather, it continues to extol its bare-bones virtues in LCD terms beyond the point of despair, rendering any insight it might have otherwise instilled as mere aggravation."

The rest: http://strangersong.com/?p=92

I haven't seen it, and probably won't for a little while. Personally, I'm kinda burned-out on the Modern War Film Movement (i.e., do what Spielberg did with Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan), which was almost killed by Pearl Harbor, the worst movie ever made IMO.

I love the works of Clint Eastwood the director. The aftermath impact of Unforgiven is still hanging on to me (and I saw that movie years ago!), and I loved Mystic River and Million Dollar Baby. I'm confident that Flags, if anything, is a well-directed movie. It's just the subject matter, that drives me away.

I also am not in any hurry to see "Flags of Our Fathers", and it may be attributable to three reasons:

1. The film's marketing campaign. If the movie is indeed a thoughtful examination of the iconography with which wars are sold to the American public, then that sounds like an interesting movie that I would like to see. The problem with the commercials for the film is that they are steeped in the sappy sentimentalism and jingoism that the film is ostensibly trying to deconstruct. It doesn't fill me with confidence.

2. Clint Eastwood. I think "Unforgiven" is a great film, but I've been quite weary of his last two films, "Mystic River" and "Million Dollar Baby". They are both certainly above-average, but both also seem deeply flawed in certain points (particularly in terms of narrative structure and some of the secondary characterizations). Also, given Eastwood's track-record of yielding to ultra-conservative values (and I mean that in the truest sense of the word...Eastwood is definitely a conservative but not necessarily right-wing), he doesn't seem like the ideal man to question the assumptions we have about our "heroes" of World War II.

3. Paul Haggis. He seems to be the "hot" screenwriter in Hollywood right now, but I was bothered by his overly schematic storytelling style in both "Million Dollar Baby" and "Crash". The thought of him writing two films about the same battle (one from the American and one from the Japanese perspective) strikes me as either a noble undertaking or ridiculously "high-concept". I haven't decided which.

Having said all that, I still think I will eventually see "Flags of Our Fathers" (probably on DVD), simply because for all of his flaws as a director, Eastwood still appears to be tackling ambitious projects, and that's always worth supporting.

I am going to see the movie, though mostly based on Eastwood's track record that the advertising. I'm hoping for something a little more thoughtful that the over-hyped "Saving Private Ryan" (I know it is concidered an Americian masterpiece, but from someone outside the US it's just another cliched, badly filmed war movie with a moral attached.)

Truth be told though, I am more interested in seeing it's companion piece, which in a perfect world I would like to compare back-to-back with "Flags" to see what he can do with the Japanese side of the story.

I guess I should also add the full disclosure that I liked "Crash," so don't have this strange hatred of Paul Haggis that many seem to have. Each to their own.

I have to add that I misread the complaints about the film's jingoism-- Michael, up at the top, was complaining about the taint of jingoism in the movie TV ads, which I have not seen, so I cannot comment on them.

What I'm trying to figure out is what purpose does having the fractured time line add to the film's story. It really doesn't. And the devices used to take us back and forth become so trite (which maybe they were supposed to be - a car backfiring, etc.), but then they take us back to nothing.

If they had just sat down and decided to tell this story from beginning to end I have a feeling it would have been a lot stronger.

There are some good passages, and some interesting things going on, but the choices between Haggis, his co-writer William and Eastwood undermines everything they are trying to do. The characters are so adverse to being heroes, that they swing around and become heroes again. How does that help the theme??? An oridinary man, one who wasn't a hero, would not have been so affected by how they were being sold. They would have went along with it without hesitation: a get out of war free card, any non-hero would grab that. No matter how many times during the interviews they say "We weren't heroes", that's exactly what we step away from the movie thinking they were.

These characters weren't characters, they weren't real or alive. They were cut out to make us feel a certain way about them, and so, in the end, we don't.

It's funny too, I felt like the people in "Saving Private Ryan" were less heroic than the characters in this, and Spielberg gave script notes to Haggis and his co-writers. It is worth mentioning again that Haggis did not write this on his own. He wrote it with his co-writer of "Crash". That Eastwood had no notes as a director, and Spielberg had little to say as well. It made it through the hands of some of our best storytellers and directors untouched. And it needed to be. There's great material here.

Also you can really see why they want to make a movie telling it from the other side. The Japanese in this film were depicted as earth tunneling monsters, scary! "Prive Ryan" at least had the guts to show what war did to people on each side, come to think of it as did "Full Metal Jacket", and about every other modern day war film except for this one. No heroes in those films, and they don't have to come out and say it every chance they get.

I'm disappointed as you can see.

I haven't wanted to see it, but that's mostly because I've found both Clint Eastwood and Paul Haggis' previous films boring and pretentious.

On the exit interviews, I think the "50% better than average" means that if the average movie has, say 50% of viewers say they enjoy it upon leaving the theater, this film had 75% (75% being 50% higher than 50%; then adjust for whatever the actual numbers are.)

Jesus H. Mr. Emerson. Why don't you just see the film for yourself? Being a fan of Roger Ebert, I know of his policy to never know too much about a film before seeing it, as it might give him false expectations.

I love looking for trailers, but I take them for what they are: marketing. The sooner you realize this, the less likely you'll be hesitant the next time you thinking about watching a talked-about movie.

"Ignorance is like a dragon of ten thousands...Always coming from everywhere"!!
Oh! That is too bad that we are not arguing anymore about that "incredible masterpiece"!, that "genius piece of filmmaking"!, that "wonderful and incredible piece filmmaking"!called The Departed!. CrapFellas!! Now the attack is on Clint Eastwood! I hate nostalgia as much as a bulldozer likes an antique store! The only moment that I go for that! Is when I see a work by Clint!!!! While you guys where waxing the nostalgia icecone with Scorcese here comes Eastwood with an interesting piece on war history!! I think you guys should look into the review by Manohla Dargis from the NY Times. About the guy who said that Eastwood created a "jingonistic"(check the dictionary next time is jingoistic!!) piece. Two words for you!: SHUT UP! Clint made two movies the one that you didn't understand because you were wearing The Departed sunglases! Next year he is coming with one which is from the point of view of the the Japanese!! Again SHUT UP YOU SCORCEHEADS!

MyloJosh Plochmann!

Jim, you should go see the movie.

Shawn, You're right about the theme in this film being what it is, but that was also the theme behind Saving Private Ryan. SPR just had enough sense not to tell it to you every five minutes. It showed it to you through the actions of the men, and how they reacted to others around them. This film has little to do about sacrifice and heroism.

AND these ads with Clint saying that this film is about sacrificing yourself for your country... you mean for a country that will use the soldiers as a way to market the war efforts?!

There are so many mixed messages reeling around and within this film - it's left a particularly bad taste in my mouth.

I enjoy the fact that because people think you dislike a film you're somehow keeping score. I think most people take each and every film for what it's worth.

The further I get away from this film the less I'm moved by it.

And what exactly did the racism towards Native Americans add to the story, but to make our country (and in doing so it's efforts) seem that much more unwelcome and insincere. If this movie had the guts it would have been about how these boys and men were being sacrificed for something people at home no longer believed in, and that the government treated merely as a game of chess for their own pride. What a terrible reason to sacrifice people over. To fight over a lump of soil in the middle of the ocean.

If you're not interested in seeing "Flags of Our Fathers," why don't you just avoid seeing it? Why do you feel the need to advertise your lack of interest, as well as to solicit the opinions of others who share your lack of enthusiasm? There seems to be a whole lot of "Flags" bashing taking place on the web, and I can only guess that it's coming from fans of Scorsese and "The Departed" who have an irrational fear that the Oscar race will once more be an Eastwood v.s. Scorsese contest, and are determined to knock Eastwood and "Flags" out of the running. If you see "Flags" and don't like it, fine. You're entitled to your opinion. If you haven't seen it, but are determined to find fault with it, anyway, you're guilty of sabotage. I haven't seen "Flags" yet (or "The Departed"), but I will see both soon. I can't say the same about "It's Pat."

Dear brianna, Flipcritic, et al:

Obviously, I wouldn't have written this post if I were reviewing the movie. And I don't care a whit about Oscars or some ridiculous imagined "competition" between Scorsese and Eastwood.

But I think exploring why somebody does or does not want to see a film -- and what those feelings are based upon -- makes for a particularly intriguing subject for this blog, which tries to talk about the various ways movies enter our lives.

Maybe I'm too much of an introvert, but I'm fascinated by how my feelings about this movie changed from anticipation to apathy (in part due to marketing, in part to word-of-mouth). I think many people have had similar experiences. Why not write about them?

If anything, doing this will probably guilt me into seeing the movie. And if I feel like writing more about the movie itself, then I will. And if I don't... I won't.

I loved Million Dollar Baby, and yes, even liked Crash...so this movie was definitely of interest to me.

Unfortunately like many it seems I was turned off by an advertising campaign trying to push the movie as sappy Americana (most Canadians have a pretty instant negative reponse to such things ingrained in us).

Oddly the negative backlash on the Net has actually raised my interest in seeing the film if only so I can tell off the Eastwood and Haggis bashers in a somewhat educated fashion.

For the most part, I love the works of Eastwood. The marketing for the movie left me cold. Trailers and ads made it look like it was trying to be Saving Private Ryan, right down to the images of boats heading to a shore. I have no doubts that is what the battle was like, but it was derivative and showed nothing I haven't seen before. Derivative is not what I expect from Eastwood. Now that I know the movie isn't a standard war movie I'm more likely to see it. The failure in marketing kept me away from it opening weekend.

The other reason I didn't see it is that it's realy a double-bill. I hope this one is stil in theaters when the next one comes out.

Just want to make a point- and yes this is directed right at certain members: People are more likely to consider your opinions if they're delivered with class and in an aggressive-but-not-insulting manner. It's not "netiquette", but being human. Nobody's right when we're dealing with opinions.

Do you want people to care about your opinions? Then show them that you actually care about theirs.

I chuckle in sympathy :), as I once used to be swayed by trailers. But after seeing many films for my own reviews, they're unreliable, especially if the films they're for are expected to win something.

Remember those Godzilla trailers in the late 90s? As trailers they were absolutely stupendous, but the movie itself was wanting. That's expected of blockbusters which need the hype to get the bucks in big and early.

But for more meaningful (if you like "artsy") movies, "trailer-makers" have an even more daunting task of making a palatable precis of what the audience can expect. Since a more artistic movie has value that isn't so easily described as it is experienced, it's trailer will more than likely be misrepresented.

Call it ineptitude or false advertising on the part of these "trailer-makers", but they make their pieces to get us to watch. In the case of FLAGS, it is obvious that they've tried too much of the same schmaltzy formula.

I have yet to see Flags of Our Fathers but I am a great big fan of Eastwood, as an actor and a director. I have not seen the previews (no TV!) but have been excited by all that I've read about this on the internet, particularly the idea that this film is merely half of Eastwood's take on WW II (with the Japanese experince to be documented in Letters from Iwo Jima, coming early next year). I haven't seen it because friends wanted to see The Prestige adn I feel one has to be in a meditative mood to get the most out of Eastwood's direction.

Like others have said, I don't see where a jingoistic element would enter the film, particularly since it seems to question the war's marketing to the American public at the time. And, considering Eastwood is going to show the Japanese side, it seems counter-intuitive that he would make this film a trumpeting of American power/superiority.

Finally, I don't see now, nor have I ever seen, why Saving Private Ryan merits such praise. At its core, it is a cliche-filled and sophomoric take on the war/buddy genre, offering nothing new in the way of characterzation.

This poorly executed story is dressed in fancy visuals, true, and said visuals make for an amazing opening half-hour. However, the rest of the film devolves into stock characters and conflicts, interspersed with numbingly violent and gory moments(this coming from a fan of horror and gore movies)and it just all comes to feel so hollow for me...which is made all the worse by the fact that it is the product of an American master attempting to reinvision the WW II film for audiences to young to have remembered.

It's a good movie, but no more than that. If you skip it, you're not missing a whole lot. But it's certainly a lot better than MILLION DOLLAR BABY and CRASH.

How's that for advice?

I am a late comer on this discussion, but I just wanted to say that I saw the film before it opened and had no idea what to expect. I went because a friend of mine went down to see the filming as Eastwood's guest. He has been raving about this film for a year. So I saw it at a preview with him.
I absolutely loved the film, the screenplay and the story. I cannot wait to see the Japanese side of the battle directed by Clint due out next year.
The day after I saw the film I emailed many on my list to go see the film. Many went, after it opened with positive reviews. Reading through these comments, I just wonder if we saw the same movie. But then again, no film, book, TV show or piece of art will be seen the same by everyone.

The National Board of Review has named LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA, Eastwood's follow-up to FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS, the best film of 2006. However, Martin Scorsese was named best director. Looks like we're going to have another Eastwood-Scorsese Oscar showdown this year! (This is turning into the directorial equivalent of the Hilary Swank-Annette Bening wars.)