The coming soon review doesn't surprise me with the way he's been kissing David Poland's ass. He made it priority #1 to go to Poland's blog to support him and declare "it sucked" as soon as he saw it.

I can't recall ever seeing this kind of divide. The major/important critics have been raving, yet the bloggers and unimportant critics are very critical. Who's right?

Infamous checks in at the BFCA with an 80.

That guy in your avatar, was INCREDIBLE in Infamous.

Changes nothing about my feelings towards Casino Royale but man, he sung, made gay love, and killed people in Infamous.

His Bond contract states he's not allowed to wear a tux in anything but a Bond film, but gay love is ok.

This whole Flags business is the weirdest thing I've ever seen. First off, I can't believe Poland shot his wad like he did so early. First of all, lame of him (like big picture lame) but secondly, only an extreme egotist would shoot off like that, pretending they already know it's not an Oscar player, before the major reviews are in. AMPAS is a whole different animal from these film geeks getting their reviews on RT. And Clint belongs on the island with AMPAS. For Poland not to recognize that is crazy. When I saw Flags I sat next to Kris Tapley - Poland behind me, Jeff Wells in front of me, Drew from AICN in front of him. I cried throughout the film even with Tapley drumming his pen on his shoe and acting visably bored (checking his cell phone). Afterwards, both Wells and Drew talked about how they thought it was eh...Kris didn't like it. It was the weirdest thing, like I'd suddenly stepped into the twilight zone and here's why. To me, Flags takes on subject matter for two kinds of people and if you aren't one of those kinds you might not like it - one is a fan of Clint's. To appreciate what he's trying to do with these two movies, to appreciate his anti-establishment, anti-Bush message - you gotta love Clint. The second type is someone who knows a lot about WWII enough to give a crap about what happened after they raised the flag. If you don't give two shits about WWII history you aren't going to be moved by Flags. Me, I'm obsessed with WWII -- it hooked me years ago and I'm still going strong on it so every second of Flags fascinated me. What moved me about it I can't say without a huge spoiler but the long and short of it is that you really have to have raised children to appreciate the ultimate message in the film, the major punch at the end.

Sorry that was so long-winded - I have to run out but wanted to get this out there. I'm nauseated by the bad reviews of this film I see trickling out. It seems mean to me. Poland's a cool dude and all but I maintain what he did was just plain wrong, wrong for any journalist with access to the public to spew such bad press about a movie that has so much to offer.

Ah well. Win some, lose some. As I said in a different post, Manohla Dargis will probably hate it and Kenneth Turan will give a respectful review, perhaps not a rave. My prediction...

From Sasha Stone, posted on OW forum:

The coming soon review doesn't surprise me with the way he's been kissing David Poland's ass. He made it priority #1 to go to Poland's blog to support him and declare "it sucked" as soon as he saw it.

I can't recall ever seeing this kind of divide. The major/important critics have been raving, yet the bloggers and unimportant critics are very critical. Who's right?

The huge divide continues: CHUD gave FOOF a negative, and The Film Experience, if/once it is counted, scored only a C/C+.

I don't think it'll be all that unanimous among big name critics. We're four days from its release, and some top COTC reviews are not out yet, not an encouraging sign. The Departed had seen like 15 positives by now. Look like NY Times will be a pan, and LA Times will only be mild positive. James Berardinelli will print the review tomorrow, so probably not going to be a 4-star (normally he put those up on Monday, like for The Departed).

Well, I don't know if it's a bad sign. Somebody at RT could be being lazy, maybe they're sick, etc... There have been quite a few raves from top critics, and they haven't been posted yet.

Weren't those articles that just hinted at great praise for the film, like the Washington Post article?

No.

Really? Then what is Mav talking about? I was talking about This piece written by the WP film critic, which is pretty much a Pro-FOOF interview/article about Eastwood, referring to the film as "the biggest, grandest, most tragic, most complex of his career." That's not a review, but it hints at great priase if Hunter reviews it.

Both Entertainment Weekly and the NY Times have raving quotes that are used in one of the TV spots, The Chicago Tribune is a rave, the Boston Herald is a rave, L.A. Weekly is a rave, Newsweek is a rave, Time is a rave, and Seattle Weekly is positive.

None of those are posted at RT.

Do you have the links to these reviews?

They're out there if you look for them, and I've built up enough credibility that people know I don't make things up when I post something like that.

Well, I've looked for them and nothing. I seached on google '"[publication]" "Flags of Our Fathers" review' with every source you gave me, and nothing. To make sure it was verifiable, I checked with The Departed, and found nothing. The only successful one was Time, which RT is indeed missing. Oh, and the review Metacritic has up is more an article than a review, as most reviews don't feature an interview with the director.

For the review to be on Rotten Tomatoes, there has to be an internet link. For the reviews you mentioned, there are none I can find for now.

Are you calling me a liar or just trying to start arguing once again?