Prior to beginning jury selection, most trial judges in Chicago deliver a stock speech to the room full of potential jurors. One particular judge, however, would infuse some drama to the otherwise dry remarks. While his comments began as welcoming and informative, the primary objective of the speech was to combat the burning question on many juror’s minds: “How can I get out of jury service?”
That’s where his miniature statue of the Iwo Jima flag-raising came in. He had come across, and committed to memory, the stories of each of the surviving flag-raisers and the great personal toll the war had taken in their later lives. His recitation was a bit long (judges are, after all, lawyers, and suffer from the same occupational hazards), but it effectively delivered its message: think really hard before you suggest that you have a “hardship” which prevents you from the relatively benign act of jury service.
Regardless of whether one has any exposure to the story of the Iwo Jima flag-raisers, the most surprising and compelling aspect of Clint Eastwood’s Flags of Our Fathers is that for the surviving flag-raisers, who were whisked away to sell war bonds after the instant popularity of the 
famous photo, the horrors of war were magnified by the imposition of instant — and in some aspects false — notoriety. To whatever extent the film is an accurate historical document, Eastwood’s commentary on contemporary America is undeniable. The government/corporate underbelly of World War II, from the spin doctors to the bean counters, is as ugly as it is uncomfortably familiar.
With the exception of an unnecessarily trite and manipulative coda, Flags shows Eastwood to be a director whose technical and visual acuity is equal to his respect for natural and deliberate 
storytelling. For instance, while Adam Beach certainly does a remarkable job in an attention-getting role as Ira Hayes, the native American marine whose emotional sensitivity is matched only by many others’ lack thereof. Ryan Phillippe’s quiet and contemplative John “Doc” Bradley is both his director’s alter ego and the heart of the film. Sadly, Eastwood (and I suspect Paul Haggis, author of Million Dollar Baby and co-writer here) can’t trust us to discover this on our own. Thus, that lump in your throat at the end of the film might actually be the naturally earned emotional response of the film being unwillingly shoved down your throat.
Here are this morning’s Oscar-nominated films, alphabetically. The nominees for foreign language film and documentary feature are compiled at the end of the list. (Short format nominees are listed in a 
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