THOSE MISUNDERSTOOD JAPANESE TORTURE EXPERTS GET PRAISE, BUT NOT EVERYWHERE

Movie: Flags of our Fathers
Some of the reviews for Eastwood's Flags of our Fathers ain't too good, especially considering the way the fawning boot licking Hollywood papers slobbered all over it.

But I will say this. Flags of Our Fathers is more than a disappointment. It is a bad movie. It's not a decent, flawed film that isn't a major Oscar movie, which something like Gangs of New York might have appeared to be or small, like Good Night and Good Luck might have seemed. It's not even like Crash, in which there was a line between lovers and haters that was as clear as the structural conceit of the film.

Keep in mind that the Japanese on Iwo Jima tortured our guys to death so their screams could be heard for a mile, they actually ate some of our guys alive while they screamed for mercy, there was The Rape of Nanking, and lots worse. This movie tries to show these pricks as......

The most effective war movie here is the p.o.v. from inside the caves and tunnels. The fear factor of being buried alive, essentially, and having these waves of troops coming at you must be terrifying. The issues of cultural thinking which lead to the unique Japanese choices when they realize they are about to lose are definitive and profound.

Definitive and profound? Jesus, give me a fucking break.