Letters from Iwo Jima: Clint Eastwood sets the mood beautifully in this war film, with (his own) simple, delicate score and great all-around acting from the cast, in particular from the two central actors, Ken Watanabe and Kazunari Ninomiya. The classic, linear structure and the respectful, balanced tone were good choices to tell the story, furthering the themes. Tom Stern, once more, shoots this film beautifully, but the color palette (excessively cold and desaturated, for the most part) is distracting. Read also: Flags […]

Categories: Film reviews • Tags: drama, war

Flags of Our Fathers: the back-and-forth structure muddies the story of this film (of one of the iconic images of its century); it is, nevertheless, a delicate war movie which avoids the typical jingoistic tone as it portrays the hell of war (not only the combat, but also ancillary aspects of it). Clint Eastwood extracts subtle performances from his cast; but other than the main group, most of the other characters are virtually undistinguishable (even physically, which aggravates the confusion created by […]

Categories: Film reviews • Tags: drama, war