Letters from Iwo Jima

Lisa Schwarzbaum

It takes a filmmaker of uncommon control and mature grace to say so much with so little superfluous movement, and Eastwood triumphs in the challenge. ( Read More )

Roger Ebert

For a fraction of a second at the very beginning of Clint Eastwoods Letters from Iwo Jima, you may think that you are gazing overhead at a field of stars.In fact, you are looking straight down into the ground, at waves of black sand on the volcanic island where, over the course of five weeks in February and March, 1945, an invasion force of 100,000 Americans (two thirds of them U.S. Marines) fought 22,000 entrenched Japanese infantrymen. ( Read More )

His burgeoning relationship with Jessie is surprisingly realistic in a host of wholly unexpected ways this isnt some creepy reverse take on The Graduate and he mesmerizes you every single second hes on the screen. ( Read More )

Wally Hammond

A very fine film, with some surreal ironies witness the almost imperceptible shot of the famous flag hoisting on Mount Suribachi in extreme longshot that bravely neither embraces grandeur nor demands the medal of masterpiece. ( Read More )

All of which, lets face it, isnt so much of a hassle as great fun of the sort generated years ago by the late, lamented midnight movie circuit. ( Read More )