The New Road

Flags of our fathers

I had a full force allergy meltdown on Sunday. I went to my office for a little bit and that helped. But I couldn't concentrate for that long, so I decided to see a movie. I picked Flags Of Our Fathers, figuring a good "Saving Private Ryan"-esque war movie would keep me awake and keep my mind off of my imploding sinuses.

Flags is no Private Ryan. It's well made, and well acted. But I wasn't satisfied with it for two reasons. First, the primary story line is in the states. So that Iwo Jima scenes, while amazing, act more as back story. I actually knew that going in. And while I'm ok with that, I would rather have one big flashback, rather than lots of flashes here and there. Think of Apocalypse Now. Lots of people watch that movie just for the helicopter scenes with the Ride of the Valkyries. While that misses the point of the movie it is understandable. Now imagine the helicopter scene done as flashbacks throughout the movie in semi-random time order. It's frustrating.

Second, the story line in the states didn't dig deep enough for me. Perhaps Clint was trying to stay true to the facts. But it just didn't feel edgy enough. It was never really clear to me why Ira was so reluctant to play the war hero. Or why Doc seemed to have infinite patience for him. These characters had arcs that were like rulers flexed ever so slightly. And yes, perhaps I've been skewed by Battlestar, which has character arcs that are more like infinite knots. But even so, have them do, you know, something.

Then there was the annoying point that there was some dude who was in the picture, who was mixed up with some other dude, who just happened to have a very similar last name. And frankly, well, I just don't care. Oh, wow, they mixed up some guys name in a war photo. You think? When they are getting shot at I'm sure the first thing that's on their minds is proper attribution.

At one point the Secretary of the Treasury talks with the guys and tells them that they need to help raise 14 billion dollars to fund the war. And that fighting about who was who in the picture was besides the point. That if they wanted to help win the war they should just keep it simple. I couldn't have agreed more. Does it really matter that there were two flags? Does it really matter that the right or wrong person was given attribution? And the more the characters talked about it, the less I cared about them, and the movie.

I've been in enough meetings where people have been fighting over minutiae. Blinded by the insignificant trees and unable to see the important forest. I find that very frustrating. And here was a sub-plot dedicated to just that type of tree-spotting.

All in all, Million Dollar Baby was a far better film.

My guess is that Letters from Iwo Jima will also be a better film. And I'm happy to see it since this movie gave no play at all to the Japanese. Even Private Ryan had better formed German characters.

Oh, and by the way, Battlestar, freaking unreal. This season has been the best television I have ever seen. If you aren't watching it, your nuts. Great writing. Superior acting. The effects are fantastic. The drama, the suspense. The show is firing on every single cylinder.