Flags of our Fathers (US Movie)

Part 1 of Clint Eastwood's opus on the Iwo Jima battle focuses on the the experiences of a group of soldiers involved in the flag raising on top of of the highest point of the island battlefield, Mt Surabashi.
The war went on and to the US population, the price, in terms of personal sacrifices is seemly too high, and they are tired of the war that seems will not end. The PR machinery of the US war effort desperately needed needed heroes that the population will accept and be motivated to continue to support the war.

As such, these group of soldiers were ordered to return home as heroes to be paraded before the US population. The matter of the flag raising has a little complication in that the flags were actually raised twice; the first flag was smaller and there were no photographs taken at that point. A second and larger flag was raised and this time a photographer was present to capture the historic moment; albeit, a little staged.

The soldiers captured in the photographs were not the original flag raisers but now, in the interest of raising a flagging population morale, they must pretend that the first flag raising never took place.
This, sets the stage of Clint Eastwoods's story, "Flags of our Fathers".

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SPCNet

Rating: 2/5
This movie was over-rated and pretty much run-of-the-mill. The focus was on a group of overly-conscious soldiers who were eating themselves up inside over the fact that they were not the original flag raisers that the PR machinery were making them out to be. There is no big picture here. It's about simple people worrying about a simple matter in total disregard of why the charade.

Apocalypto

Mel Gibson did it again with his "Apocalypto", the story of a young Mayan warrior living in a jungle tribe. It's a story of courage, determination and perseverance. His village burned to the ground and the survivors dragged off to be human sacrifices or slaves, and seeing his own father bleed to death with his throat slit.
It's a bloody story all the way with victims gasping with their hearts ripped out of their chests, heads severed and send rolling down a flight of stairs and the vision perspective coming from the torso-less heads. Running is pretty much the norm in this movie.
The fulfillment of a legend that doomed the great Inca civilisation.

Rating:
4/5 for a most unusual movie.

300

I've read about it, heard about it, but when I finally saw it it blew my mind away. Shot entirely on a "green" screen it didn't looked cheap and cheesy. It looked transplanted from an animated comic strip!

Basically a simple story of how a small army stood up to a huge army for days blocking a path that leads to their homeland in the historic Battle of Thermopylae. When they were finally wiped out they had demoralized their enemy to such an extend that they packed up and turned back, thereby saving their homeland with the sacrifice of their lifes.
I have to say that the Persians were really stupid to insist on sending their soldiers head-on against the Spartans even after several defeats, including the use of rhinos and war elephants.
When finally the Spartans were overwhelmed it was with rain of arrows from all around, negating the protection of the Spartans' shields.

Expect lots of abs as these Spartans ashews plate armour in favour to light clothing in a disdain for armour protection, Spartans were brought up as a warrior state and from a young age, the males started training in the arts of war. Ok, those abs made me feel very inferior but I can take consolation in that while many of the actors do have good abs, those abs were "highlighted" and defined to exaggerate their sharp definition.

Expect lots of really cartoonic blood and gore with stylist blood spurting, arms and legs being chopped off as well as one of the most explicit head-chopping scene in recent movie history.
I do take exception to the liberties taken with the seeming ease of sword and spear piercing the body in as if the body was made of jello. Stick-and-pull out and blood spurts.
The fighting was stylistic in similar vein to Brad Pitt's Troy (Two-Disc Special Edition) with the stylish sword and shield fighting and Matrix's slo-mo. The last seems a bit over done.

Overall, an incredible experience and one of 2007's "great-must-see-must-collect" movies.

Thumbs up and a
Rating of 4.5/5