You know how some families are toaster oven people?

They claim you can make everything in a toaster oven,

even though you know they just make toteinous pizza rolls.

I did not come from toaster oven people and I've never eaten a pizza roll.

Likewise, I am not a Clint Eastwood people.

He's like Sinatra, an entertainer for people who failed algebra.

So in 2006, when Eastwood released back-to-back movies about

Euajima, one of them entirely in Japanese, I took a knee. Even though I like war

movies it's not like I feel obligated to see the obvious turkeys, like where Brad Pitt does

any dialect work or anything Adam recommends.

So when letters from Ewejima popped up in our randomized list, I kind of winced. Not like I winced at Ben

Affleck in Pearl Harbor, which was more like an involuntary flinch as if dodging a cat of nine

tails. No, it's just I assumed that the two movies were another sign that Hollywood had run out of ideas

and was just agreeing to any shitty script if it had a star attached.

Like Mel Gibson wants to direct a movie in Aramaic that's a lengthy apology for the blood libel.

Well, roll out the craft services.

But it turned out letters from Iwo Jima was astonishing. It was so popular in Japan that it was number

one at the box office for five weeks in a row and Japanese critics hailed it as sensitive and

respectful and they weren't just being nice to avoid embarrassment.

Eastwood was, well, celebrated as the greatest living director.

His films were the top-growing movies of the year and he was awarded the French Legion-de-Anir.

Well, of course the movies were not top-crossers.

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