Word: epical
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LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA Last year, as he was preparing to shoot Flags of Our Fathers, his caustic epic about the U.S. invasion of Iwo Jima, Clint Eastwood got a script by his researcher, Iris Yamashita, about the soldiers on the other side of the battle and the losing side of the war. That cued Eastwood to make an Iwo Jima diptych and, after scouting Japanese filmmakers, to direct it himself (though he doesn't speak the language). The result is a unique, bifocal view of ground war--the men who fight it, the propaganda attending it, the awful...
...where the record is sketchy and subject to mythic reinvention, which leaves him--and anyone else--free to fill in the blanks with whatever dubious ideological instruction he likes. You can also argue, less cosmically, that his works are no more than extensions of a very long line in epic, unconsciously risible filmmaking that imparts earnest metaphorical lessons about metaphysical topics, often enough from people who are painted blue or speaking a language that needs subtitles, or both, as in this film. Gibson is a primitive all right, but so were Cecil B. DeMille and D.W. Griffith, and somehow...
...Apocalypto” hits the ground running (no, really—the first glimpse of a human we get is of legs churning by on a hunt) and the vivid violence that characterizes this first kill sets the pace for the epic carnage of the rest of the film...
...world full of bewildering, bloody beauty stunning in its scope. Aesthetically, the movie is magic—gruesome, gory magic perhaps, but powerfully depicted nonetheless. The city scenes in particular are extraordinary. The headdresses alone are worth more than their own astounding weight in cinematic gold, and the epic Mayan pyramids have never looked so outrageously good, whether in spite of or because of the heads and bodies bouncing down their infinite steps...
...wool boot is boxed out in plaid, as is Este Lauder's jeweled compact, illustrating the evolution of this onetime preppy look. What was once campus chic is now runway cool. Yves Saint Laurent designer Stefano Pilati even featured it for spring. But who better than Burberry, epic old English purveyor of plaid, to square up its new men's fragrance, Burberry London, in a bottle covered with tartan fabric...