WCBE 90.5 FM: "Letters From Iwo Jima," "Miss Potter," "Sweet Land"

WCBE 90.5 FM
It's Movie Time: "Letters From Iwo Jima," "Miss Potter," "Sweet Land"
Co-hosted, produced & directed by John DeSando & Clay Lowe
Air Time: Friday, 3:01 pm and 8:01 pm, January 19, 2007
On Demand at http://www.wcbe.org

Clay

"Letters From Iwo Jima" is a Japanese language film directed by Clint Eastwood . . .

John

"Miss Potter" is an placid biography of a famous children’s author . . .

Clay

"Sweet Land" is a sweet movie about a shy homesteader and his mail order bride . . .

HIT THEME MUSIC

Richelle:

"It's Movie Time" in Columbus with John DeSando and Clay Lowe. .

MUSIC BRIEFLY UP THEN SLOWLY DOWN AND OUT

John

I'm John DeSando . . .

Clay

I'm Clay Lowe . . .

John ("Letters From Iwo Jima")

Clay, General Tommy Franks couldn’t withstand the biographical scrutiny Clint Eastwood gives to the Japanese commander in Letters from Iwo Jima. The ill-conceived preparations for the Iraq War pale next to the care General Kuribayashi (Ken Watanabe), took at Iwo.

Clay

And many of his own officers violently disagreed with his tactics.

John

I AGREE with you.

Clay

Good choice.

John (Continues)

Although the outcome of the battle was preordained because by February of 1945 the Japanese war machine was almost depleted, Eastwood suffuses the network of 5000 caves with a light that symbolizes the Japanese soldiers’ love of country and belief in its destiny.
It may not be the Oscar winner for this year, but it is another first-rate film the director has slipped in at the end of the year in an apparent strategy to get us to notice it.

He had my attention at Mystic River.

Clay ("Letters From Iwo Jima")

That river flows on, John, as do the tides of war.
 
Kudos, therefore, to Clint Eastwood for bringing into closer perspective what it was like on both sides of the bloody battle for Iwo Jima during in the closing days of WWII.

Not so much a counter-part to his "Flags of Our Fathers," which depicted how it all seemed for the invading American foot soldiers, "Letters From Iwo Jima" takes us behind the battle lines of the Japanese defending their homeland island.

"Flags," however, focuses primarily on how those events impacted the post-war memories of the U.S. soldiers.  Conversely, "Letters" takes greater interest in revealing the internal struggles taking place between the militarist Japanese officers and their more humane commanding general.

My, oh my, whatever happened to "Dirty Harry"?

John (Miss Potter)

He’s lost in Iraq.

Clay

No, that's dirty George.

John (Continues)

When Beatrix Potter (lovingly played by Renee Zellweger) says in Miss Potter, "There is something delicious about writing the first words of a story," you can anticipate a sentimental but endearing biography of the Tale of Peter Rabbit’s creator. Although we never really get to know the depths of Potter’s genius, Zellweger gives her a sunny optimism infectious in our cynical times.

Her romance with her publisher, deftly underplayed by Ewan McGregor, is about the only dramatic conflict in the story, which tends to imitate the benign world of rabbits, ducks, and frogs. The touches of magic realism reinforce the romantic aura.

This film also deserves praise for supporting a pre-feminist writer who resisted the social convenience of marriage in favor of her creative gifts.

Clay ("Sweet Land")

Well, folks, "Sweet Land" is also in gentle contrast to Eastwood's film about the yapping dogs of war.

But war was not a forgotten issue among the rural villagers whose sons and fathers had fought the Germans during the first Great War.

Featuring a shy young farmer, who invites a mail order bride from Norway to be his helpmate, he and the town are shocked when they discover she’s German and can speak only that language.

Shades of  the Hun-haters "Bad Day at Black Rock". 

So, can this lovely lady, with her good looks, and sweet music (she has brought along a phonograph player), win her way into the hearts of these people?

You bettchum.
 
"Sweet Land" is a visual delight that will, begrudgingly, charm you. 

But enough of humanized enemies, anthropomorphic rabbits, and winsome beauties, John, because it's grading time . . .

HIT DRUMS, THEN UNDER FOR:

John

Holy Happy Hares, Hooray!

"Letters From Iwo Jima" earns an “A” for its depiction of heroism from an ANAMOLOUS point of view . . .

Clay

"Letters From Iwo Jima" gets a "B" because Eastwood gets BOGGED down during the ending . . .

John

"Miss Potter" earns a “B” for help BRINGING animals into kiddy lit . .

Clay

"Sweet Land" gets a "B" because it's a BEAUTIFUL film that got made outside of the system . . .

John

Clay, Potter was filmed in the England’s Lake District, where you refused to photograph a dead sheep for me. I can’t forgive you. I’m outta here.

Clay

John, when I'm worried I don't count sheep, I count my blessings; and so should you while there's still time . . .

I'm outta here too.

See you at the movies, folks.

HIT CLOSING MUSIC, THEN UNDER FOR:

Richelle:

The Award-Winning "It's Movie Time" with John DeSando and Clay Lowe is written produced by John DeSando and Clay Lowe in conjunction with 90.5 FM,WCBE in Columbus, Ohio.

MUSIC UP, THEN DOWN AND OUT

Copyright 2007 John DeSando & Clay Lowe