Pearl Harbor Forgotten Despite having anticipated seeing the new movie Pearl Harbor, I'm not going to spend my hard-earned $10 on a film the Times describes as "feeble", "forced and foolish", and "sanitized." But never mind that the movie has little value as a work of cinematography...
Worse than the film's problem is its producers and studio's lack of political backbone. It looks, unfortunately, like Michael Bay willl succeed in sanitizing the memory of Pearl Harbor in a way the Japanese never could have. Not only does the US version portray Japan's rulers "superficially and sympathetically as leaders who feel compelled to attack to preserve their way of life" but reportedly, the film has been further sanitized for its release in Japan. It's bad enough that their own government and schools rewrite history. We shouldn't be helping them. I have to wonder how the Jewish actors and crew who wrote, produced or marketed this movie would feel if that kind of editing was applied to the Holocaust. New York Times Review (Requires free account.)
