Clint Eastwood/Spike Lee fight is hilarious

[Scoops]

...and I always thought Spike Lee was a pretty intelligent guy. He just sounds nitpickie on this one.

OK....so if Clint put in the munitions company who was not related to the group of soldiers the stories were about...how would he work that into the story? and should other ethnicities complain too....I am sure there were people of all sorts of European descent there too....maybe some Native Americans?....should they all gripe that there weren't enough of their kind?.... Italian-Americans, or Polish-Americans, etc?....sometimes in a historical movie when telling a particular story it becomes ridiculous to try to tell every story that was happening during the period and do justice to all of them. That's why Clint chose to do two movies...one from our view and one from the Japanese view.

Monday, June 09, 2008
Spike Lee has responded to Clint Eastwood telling him to "shut his face," saying the "Dirty Harry" actor "sounds like an angry old man" and "we're not on a plantation."

In an interview published on Friday, Eastwood told the "Do the Right Thing" director to "shut his face" and stop criticizing him about not including African-Americans in his 2006 Iwo Jima movies, "Flags of Our Fathers" and "Letters From Iwo Jima."

Lee responded: "First of all, the man is not my father and we're not on a plantation either," he told ABCNEWS.com. "He's a great director. He makes his films, I make my films. The thing about it though, I didn't personally attack him. And a comment like 'a guy like that should shut his face' — come on Clint, come on. He sounds like an angry old man right there.

"If he wishes, I could assemble African-American men who fought at Iwo Jima and I'd like him to tell these guys that what they did was insignificant and they did not exist," Lee continued. "I'm not making this up. I know history. I'm a student of history. And I know the history of Hollywood and its omission of the one million African-American men and women who contributed to World War II."

While promoting his own war movie, "Miracle at St. Anna," about the all-black 92nd Buffalo Division, which fought the Germans in Italy during World War II, Lee said Eastwood's Iwo Jima movie "Flags of Our Fathers" lacked a single African-American.

"There were many African-Americans who survived that war and who were upset at Clint for not having one [in 'Flags' or 'Letters From Iwo Jima']. That was his version: The negro soldier did not exist. I have a different version," Lee said recently at the Cannes film festival in France.

Responding to Lee's comments in an interview with the U.K.'s Guardian published on Friday, Eastwood said of Lee: "A guy like him should shut his face."

"Has he ever studied the history?" Eastwood asked.

As for "Flags of Our Fathers," he says there was a small detachment of black troops on Iwo Jima as a part of a munitions company, "but they didn't raise the flag. The story is 'Flags of Our Fathers,' the famous flag-raising picture, and they didn't do that. If I go ahead and put an African-American actor in there, people'd go, 'This guy's lost his mind.' I mean, it's not accurate."

Lee responded: "I never said he should show one of the other guys holding up the flag as black. I said that African-Americans played a significant part in Iwo Jima," he said. "For him to insinuate that I'm rewriting history and have one of the four guys with the flag be black & no one said that. It's just that there's not one black in either film. And because I know my history, that's why I made that observation."

[lavender]

Spike Lee wishes he had 1/10% the talent, and capability of Clint Eastwood. Clint is a nation treasure as far as I am concerned, his movies are a masterpiece.

Sounds like sour grapes Spike! Don't tell a master craftsman how to do his job.

[kitten4762]

In a fight Clint Eastwood would F#@$ him up!! lol

[itzg...]

<<<his movies are a masterpiece.>>>>

Couldn't agree more lavender . . . . each one a masterpiece in it's own right.

We just watched Million Dollar Baby again for the 4th time . . . . wow! Love, love that story and Morgan and Hillary and of course, Clint.

Wow!

<<<In a fight Clint Eastwood would F#@$ him up!!>>>>

lol . . . I think you're right, kitten :)

[Zippy]

That is a great Movie G...Loved it

Got to love Rowdy !..I cant think of a movie he didnt bring home.

Reminds me I have the Dvd..I should watch it again !

[itzg...]

Hi Zip, wasn't it great? AMC showed it a couple times this past week and I watched it back to back. That end scene?? . . . "My darling, my blood" . . . oh man . . . I could cry just thinking about it, lol.

[Scoops]

World War II By The Numbers
This page will list a variety of statistics about the war that many people ask about.

Casualties :
DISCLAIMER : There is a distinction when speaking of casualties. The distinction is that the terms “killed,” “died” and “casualty” can not be used interchangeably

Killed:
Refers to those killed in action and those that died of wounds sustained in action.

Died:
Refers to military personnel that died in accidents or of diseases or other accidents while serving in WWII.

Casualty:
Refers to anyone that is taken out by the enemy and includes wounded and prisoners.


World War II by the Numbers

List of Casualties
Total deaths in WWII? 54,770,000
How many civilians died in WWII? 38,573,000
How many Americans died in WWII? 292,131
How many Americans died on D-Day? 3393
How many casualties (deaths, wounded and prisoners) were there on D-Day? 6,603
How many Americans died on Iwo Jima? 7,000
How Many Americans died on Okinawa? 12,000
How many Americans died in the Pacific? 51,983
How many members of the Japanese military died during WWII? 1,140,429
How many Japanese civilians died in WWII? Variously estimated from 700,000-10,000,000
How many Soviets died in WWII? 7,720,000
How many British died in WWII? 300,000
How many French died in WWII? 173,260
How many Italians died in WWII? 93,000
How many Polish died in WWII? 6,028,000

Home Front
How many boats were produced by Higgins Industries for WWII?

12,964 Navy crafts or (92%) were built by Higgins.
NOTE: 8,865 of those were built in the New Orleans plant.
How many conscientious objectors were there performing alternative service? 37,000
How many Victory Gardens were planted? 20,000,000
How many women worked in defense industries? 6,500,000

Military
How many Americans served in each branch of the military in 1944?
Army 7,994,750
Navy 2,981,365
Marines 475,604
How many Americans were drafted? 11,535,000 (61.2%)
How many Americans volunteered for service? 6,332,000 (38%)
What was the peak strength of U.S. armed forces
during WWII? 12,364,000
What was the peak strength of German armed forces
during WWII? 10,000,000
(including Austria)
What was the peak strength of French armed forces
during WWII? 5,000,000
What was the peak strength of USSR armed forces
during WWII? 12,500,000
What was the peak strength of UK armed forces
during WWII? 4,683,000
What was the peak strength of Japanese armed forces
during WWII? 6,095,000

Pearl Harbor
How many people were killed? 2,403
How many people were wounded? 1,104
How many planes and ships were destroyed or damaged? 188 planes
8 battleships
3 light cruisers
3 destroyers
4 smaller vessels

Women in the War
How many women served in the U.S. military? 350,000
How many African-American women served in the Army? 4,000

African Americans in WWII
How many African Americans served in the military in WWII? 1,200,000
How many African American Medal of Honor recipients were there? 7 total, 6 received their
awards posthumously.
The soldiers received the Medal several decades after the War due to racial disparities identified in a study of the selection methods for the Medal called
the Shaw Study.

Japanese Americans
How many Japanese were interned in the U.S. ? 110,000
How many internment camps were there? 10 Permanent Camps,
16 Temporary Camps
How many Japanese Americans served in the US military? 33,000

Hispanic Americans
How many Hispanic Americans served in the U.S. military during WWII? Between 250,000
and 500,000 .
NOTE: These estimates are rough because at the time, the military categorized Hispanics under the same heading as whites. The only racial groups to have separate stats kept were Blacks and Asians.

The Cost of War
How much did the War cost the U.S.? $288,000,000,000
How much did the War cost Germany? $212,336,000,000
How much did the War cost France? $111,272,000,000
How much did the War cost U.S.S.R.? $93,012,000,000
How much did the War cost U.K.? $49,786,000,000
How much did the War cost Japan? $41,272,000,000
Direct economic costs of WWII? $1,600,000,000,000
How much was the average base pay for:
Servicemen?
Officers?

$71.33 per month
$203.50 per month

Awards
How many Medals of Honor were awarded during WWII? 464 Medals
How many purple hearts were earned during WWII? 800,000 to 1,000,000

The Holocaust
How many Jews were killed under Nazi rule? 5,993,900
How many non-Jews were killed in the Holocaust? Between 16 and 20 million (including the elderly, Gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, Homosexuals, etc.).
How many people were killed at Auschwitz ? no answer
How many Nazi concentration camps were there? More than 100 camps.
How many Nazi death camps were there? 26 major camps .
NOTE : There were thousands of camps and sub-camps however according to the U.S. Holocaust Museum .

[Scoops]

By ALEX ALTMAN Mon Jun 9, 5:45 PM ET

Sixty-three years after U.S. forces vanquished the Japanese and planted their flag on Iwo Jima's Mount Suribachi, the remote outpost in the Volcano Islands is the focus of another pitched battle. This time, acclaimed film directors Clint Eastwood and Spike Lee are engaging in verbal warfare over the verisimilitude of Eastwood's two films about the epic clash, Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima. Lee has claimed that by soft-pedaling African-American contributions to the battle, Eastwood is misrepresenting history.
ADVERTISEMENT

"Clint Eastwood made two films about Iwo Jima that ran for more than four hours total, and there was not one Negro actor on the screen," Lee said at the Cannes Film Festival. "In his version of Iwo Jima, Negro soldiers did not exist." Eastwood's counter: "Has he ever studied history? [African-American soldiers] didn't raise the flag," he said. "If I go ahead and put an African-American actor in there, they'd say, "This guy's lost his mind.'" Eastwood also told Lee to "shut his face," prompting Lee to amplify the racism charge: "[Eastwood] is not my father and we're not on a plantation, either," he fumed. "I'm not making this up. I know history."

History, as it turns out, is on both their sides. Lee is correct that African-Americans played an instrumental role in World War II, in which more than 1 million black servicemen helped defeat the Axis Powers. Those efforts include significant contributions to the fight for Iwo Jima. An estimated 700 to 900 African-American soldiers participated in the epic island battle, many of whom were Marines trained in segregated boot camps at Montford Point, within Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.

Those soldiers were restricted from front-line combat duty, but they played integral noncombat roles. Under enemy fire, they piloted amphibious truck units during perilous shore landings, unloaded and shuttled ammunition to the front lines, helped bury the dead, and weathered Japanese onslaughts on their positions even after the island had been declared secure. According to Christopher Moore, the author of a book about African-Americans' myriad contributions during World War II, "thousands" more helped fashion the airstrips from which U.S. B-29 aircrafts could launch and return from air assaults on Tokyo, about 760 miles northwest. Hosting that air base, Moore says, was Iwo Jima's primary strategic importance.

Eastwood's portrayal of the specific battle is, if narrow, also essentially accurate. Flags Of Our Fathers zeroes in on the soldiers who hoisted the U.S. flag atop Mount Suribachi, and nobody disputes that this task, memorialized in a famous staged photograph, was accomplished by white servicemen. (His other entry in the Iwo Jima category, Letters from Iwo Jima, is told largely from the perspective of Japanese soldiers.)

Eastwood is also correct that black soldiers represented a small fraction of the total force deployed on the island. That argument doesn't placate Yvonne Latty, a New York University professor and author of a book about African-American veterans. Black soldiers "had the most dangerous job," she says. "If you were going to show the soldiers' landing, you'd need to show [African-Americans] on the beach." In Flags of Our Fathers, which shows the landing in significant detail, African-Americans appear only in fleeting cutaway shots and in a photograph during the film's closing credits.

Moore lauds Eastwood's rendering of the battle, but laments the limited role accorded to African-Americans. "Without black labor," he says, "we would've seen a much different ending to the war."

[Scoops]

I love this part below...let's see African Americans are roughly 12.5 percent of the population now...I am sure it was less then, but of course, they determined the outcome of World War II..and they had the most dangerous jobs..huh?..

Viet Nam sure, but World War II? Gimme a break people.



<<<That argument doesn't placate Yvonne Latty, a New York University professor and author of a book about African-American veterans. Black soldiers "had the most dangerous job," she says. "If you were going to show the soldiers' landing, you'd need to show [African-Americans] on the beach." In Flags of Our Fathers, which shows the landing in significant detail, African-Americans appear only in fleeting cutaway shots and in a photograph during the film's closing credits.

Moore lauds Eastwood's rendering of the battle, but laments the limited role accorded to African-Americans. "Without black labor," he says, "we would've seen a much different ending to the war." >>>>>>

[Zippy]

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itzg...;1760762:
Hi Zip, wasn't it great? AMC showed it a couple times this past week and I watched it back to back. That end scene?? . . . "My darling, my blood" . . . oh man . . . I could cry just thinking about it, lol.
www.tvtalkshows.com/board/showpost.php?p=
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Oh No Kidding

Pass me a tissue G...Im fogging up just thinking about it

I am gonna watch it again tonight for sure