comment #1

JD says ...

Articles like this make me nuts. Three Kings and Pearl Harbour are from different planets. To pretend that they're somehow cousins in a Hollywood trend is idiotic. And Flags of Our Fathers didn't fail because of some general, widespread feelings about WWII -- that's how studio executives think -- it failed because it's bad. As one person who saw it and absolutely despised it, let me just say that I was 100% game for a movie about this subject. If the movie was good, the public's general response would have been dramatically different.

comment #2

dre says ...

Three Kings and Pearl Harbor certainly are from different planets. Pearl Harbor is from planet Piece of Shit, and Three Kings is from planet One of The Best Films of the 90s. You don't need a telescope to see that.

I think there may be something to the fact that people are a little done with WWII...I'm not one of those people, but I did hear someone refer to Flags as "Oh, is that another Saving Private Ryan?"

I think Flags would have succeeded more if the modern day shit was ripped out and the ending was a little more focused.

comment #3

jeffmcm says ...

The war bond tour scenes were the best part of the movie.

comment #4

thatmovieguy says ...

Another factor in the failure of FLAGS was Paramount/DreamWorks' misguided ad campaign, which initially sold it as a rah-rah war movie; at a time when you can't get through a single newscast without being reminded of the neverending debacle in Iraq, there's not exactly a huge audience these days for that stuff. I heard more negative reactions to that first batch of commercials and trailers than I could believe. Whenever I tried to explain what the movie was actually about, people would always respond the same way: "That's not what it looks like in the previews." And the studio should have known there was trouble in the air when the early screenings that were open to the public were so poorly attended: I saw the movie a month before it opened, and there were maybe 40 people in a 400-seat auditorium. And, let's face it, FLAGS had been pre-sold as a sure-fire Oscar contender, and frankly, it's not that strong.

comment #5

JD says ...

If they found a way to make a coherent, engaging movie about ONLY the war bond tour scenes, Eastwood might have had something. As it is, the war scenes feel like a crutch to make a not-very-dynamic movie seem more alive. And it doesn't work. Plus, the movie is crippled by some ridiculously obvious, heavy-handed writing/acting. Why is every critic over the age of 50 blind to this?

comment #6

bipedalist says ...

SO disagree with everyone. 1) the studio didn't have much to do with promoting that movie as an Oscar contender; on paper it was already being predicted as, talked about and anticipated as an Oscar movie - like Munich. 2) the studio should never have released it wide. 3) there was no embargo when there should have been and thus a loudmouth like David Poland was allowed to release his very negative, ridiculous "review" online, thus beating all of the print outlets, which gave it near-unanimous raves. What you had was the web folks hating it and all of the major critics loving it - go to Metacritic and you'll see it is still one of the best reviewed films of the year.

Whatever problems you had with it didn't stop people from going - that Queenan guy nails it. Americans do not, in mass, want to see a movie about war, a dark movie about war at that. Excessive violence is the only selling point to the dumb and getting dumber by the minute target demo. Dreamamount ought not to have assumed THOSE people were going to see Flags over Borat. It should have been in limited release and slowly built an audience. But Letters should always have been included with it - the two films should be considered one.

Both films work so beautifully together. Letters comments directly back to Flags both thematically and visually. They are bold statements about war, especially the Iraq war. Perhaps no one was quite ready to "go there."

comment #7

NYCritic says ...

I only recently caught up with the film and I found it to be a terrific movie. Of course, I have a personal connection to the material as my dad served in the Pacific during WWII. Like a lot of the men, he would never really talk about what happened over there.

I'm not really a big Clint Eastwood fan, but I thought he did a really amazing job with Flags and coupled with Letters (which is more straightforward in its approach, thus more accessable and therefore more easily embraced), he proves he really is one of the best filmmakers working today.

comment #8

dre says ...

It's a fine film but it had its problems. im hoping letters is even better

comment #9

Jay T. says ...

I love how there's no mention of The Thin Red Line, which last I checked was also nominated for Best Picture (seems worthy of adding to the list, no?).

comment #10

Devin Faraci says ...

bipedalist, what's the bold statement on war in FLAGS? It seemed more like a bold statement on how hard it is to do publicity.

comment #11

jeffmcm says ...

Good call, Devin (I still think it's a good movie, though - just not as good as Bip.)

comment #12

donnyboy says ...

How did Flags fail?

Not enough Box Office?
Its not going to get (gasp.!) an OSCAR!

HOW WILL THE WORLD CONTINUE!

Clint made the movie he wanted to make. Everything else is nonsense.

As for being tapped out, I haven't seen Private Ryan, Jarhead, Pearl Harbor, and slept through most of Three Kings (boring)

comment #13

bipedalist says ...

Dev, I don't think you can always go into a film and see what's on the surface. You can always choose to take it right at face value - I could say The Departed was just a bunch guys shooting other people or that Little Miss Sunshine was about stupid beauty contests or that The Queen was really just about stuck up royals and how out of touch they are. I could see it that way. If you want to wave off the grand ambition with a few clever words, that's you choice. If you ever want to look deeper, though, you'll find a lot more there.

comment #14

Craig Kennedy says ...

Bipedalist, you might be right but you still haven't said what the 'bold statement' of Flags was. Perhaps if I saw the same thing I would've liked the film.

comment #15

Hopscotch says ...

I didn't like the transfer of the story from the soldiers to the son. That seemed very been there-done that formula. I respected Flags, but I didn't gush over it.