Last time on friendly fire we discussed a really good movie that Clint Eastwood made about the Battle of Ewejima, Letters from Ewejima.

But that film came out just a couple of months after a different Clint Eastwood film about the Battle of Ivagima, this one, flags of our fathers, and the first one, this one, was not very good and probably sapped energy from that one at the box office.

And that's a bummer, because here on Friendly Fire we like what we like, and when we like something,

we want the world to see it.

We don't care about all the other garbage,

unless by we, you mean Adam.

Eastwood's premise was to make two films,

one from the American perspective and one the Japanese.

Which is a cool idea with lots of potential, full of shots of the same moment in the battle

seen from both sides.

The two enemies, each convinced the other is a faceless devil

when really they have more in common than they realize. Two soldiers on opposite sides,

both of whom love Louis Prima and Kabuki Theater.

They bayonet each other only to realize as they lay dying

that both have the same roadrunner tattoo.

The potential for mesmerizing puzzles woven through the two movies was an opportunity to create a pair of cult classics that would make Apocalypse Now look like Red Dawn 2.

But sadly, weirdly, Eastwood made his American film about some home-front horse hockey.

Now spoiler alert.

The iconic photograph of U.S. Marines raising the flag on Mount Surabachi, the one that inspired

the Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, the one that is the first thing that comes to mind

when someone says, Marines raising flag on

Ewa Jima you know the one well that one was kind of not what it purported to be

...