Friday, June 20, 2008

Irony: Fueding Clint Eastwood and Spike Lee Pics "St. Anna," and "Changeling" Contenders for Oscars

The ANNOTICO Report

 

I admire Clint Eastwood greatly. I think Spike Lee is more like "Two Penny Nail " Lee, and I am angry with his constant negative Italian American Stereotyping.

 

I am very concerned about how Lee will portray the Massacre of Italians, and inflating the role of the four black soldiers.

 

The synopsis reads: Miracle at St. Anna chronicles the story of four black American soldiers who are members of the US Army as part of the all-black 92nd Buffalo Soldier Division stationed in Tuscany, Italy during World War II. They experience the tragedy and triumph of the war as they find themselves trapped behind enemy lines and separated from their unit after one of them risks his life to save an Italian boy.

 

The retreating German SS had  rounded up 560 Italian civilian villagers and refugees "mostly women, children and older men"  shot them and then burned their bodies.

 

Let's see what the degree of Empathy and Adulation the Film accords the one/four Black soldiers, and how much Sympathy and Importance given to the 560 Italians Massacred !!!!!!!

 

Spike Lee is on a rampage about the lack of  "proper" credit that Black soldiers were given in WWII. Lee is about to "rewrite" history, in view of the fact that there were less than perhaps 10,000 Black COMBAT soldiers, out of 1.2 million Blacks  that served. The 92nd Infantry Division in the Pacific, The  93rd Infantry Division -  Buffalo Soldiers in Europe , and the Tuskegee airmen (992) in Europe, because in the days of Segregation, Blacks were NOT generally assigned to COMBAT duty, but Service jobs as cooks, drivers, clerks,cargo handlers, construction,etc. Both these Divisions were Mini Divisions each having only Four Infantry Regiments. The Reputations of each was mixed, partly due to performance, partly prejudice, and the heroics were exaggerated by post revisionists "Black Pride" historians.

 

Source: DOD Dept of Defense 65-minute documentary, "African- Americans in World War II"

 

The Bounce: What's Up in Hollywood

Chicago Star Tribune 

June 19, 2008

Fresh off his beatdown from Clint Eastwood, who told him to "shut his face," Spike Lee is seeing his World War II drama "Miracle at St. Anna" pop up on several Oscar-prediction lists. The directors got into it after Lee criticized Dirty Harry for leaving African-Americans out of his war films. "St. Anna," about four black soldiers trapped in an Italian town, is being mentioned as a contender alongside "Changeling," directed by a guy named Eastwood.

 

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