Letters from Iwo Jima DVD Review

Posted by Johnny Mercedes Categories: DreamWorks, Miramax, Action, Drama, Foreign Language, Thrillers, New Releases, DVD Reviews

Clint Eastwood’s Oscar-nominated war epic was released on DVD last week; this is a review of the two-disc special edition.  The film is a companion piece to Eastwood’s other war film from last year, Flags of Our Fathers, which depicts the same war from the American side.

Letters from Iwo Jima is the story of a pivotal battle between the United States and imperial Japan during WWII.  The film portrays the war from the perspective of the Japanese soldiers as they desperately attempt to keep the US from taking their island and using it against the mainland.  General Kuribayashi takes command and without proper infantry or supplies does his best to defend Iwo Jima from the country he once considered a close friend.  Meanwhile, a young, homesick infantryman named Saigo endeavors to surrender to the opposing forces as they drive his comrades deep into the caves of the desolate island.

Letters from Iwo Jima is directed by Clint Eastwood, written by Iris Yamashita, and stars Ken Watanabe, Kazunari Ninomaya, and Tsuyoshi Ihara.  Rated R

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FilmCrunch 042: Ghost Rider, Half Nelson, Flags of our Fathers, The Queen

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Columbia Pictures, DreamWorks, Paramount, Sony, Warner Independant Films, Action, Adaptation, Documentary, Drama, Period, Political, Thrillers, DVD Reviews, Full Episodes, Theatrical Reviews, Videocasts

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Veronica Santiago and Neil Estep have another full episode of FilmCrunch for you. In this show we review Ghost Rider, Half Nelson, Flags of our Fathers, and The Queen.

Now we want to hear from you - hit the forums and let us know what you think, what you want us to watch next, and any other recommendations you have for the show.

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FilmCrunch 038: Flags of our Fathers Review

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: DreamWorks, Warner Bros, Adaptation, Period, Short FilmCrunch, Theatrical Reviews, Videocasts

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Veronica Santiago and Neil Estep review Flags of our Fathers in this episode of FilmCrunch:

It is the most memorable photograph of World War II, among the greatest pictures ever taken. The winner of the Pulitzer Prize for photography and one of the most-reproduced images in the history of photography, the picture has inspired postage stamps, posters, the covers of countless magazines and newspapers, and even the Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Virginia. “Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima,” a picture taken by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal on February 23, 1945 depicts five Marines and one Navy Corpsman raising the U.S. flag on Mount Suribachi. The image served as a counterpoint for one of the most vicious battles of the war: the fight to take Iwo Jima, a desolate island of black sand barely eight square miles that would prove a tipping point in the Pacific campaign. Lasting more than a month, the fight was a bloody, drawn-out conflict that might have turned the American public against the war entirely, had it not been for the photo, which was taken and published five days into the battle. The photograph made heroes of the men in the picture as the three surviving flag-raisers were returned to the U.S. and made into props in the government’s Seventh War Bond Tour. Uncomfortable with their new celebrity, the flag-raisers considered the real heroes to be the men who died on Iwo Jima; still, the American public held them up as the best America had to offer, the supermen who conquered the Japanese—and then, just as quickly as it had arrived, the glory faded. For two of the surviving flag-raisers, life became a series of compromises and disappointments; for the third, happiness came only by shutting off his war experiences and rarely speaking of them ever again.

Now we want to hear from you - hit the forums and let us know what you think, what you want us to watch next, and any other recommendations you have for the show.

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