First, director Spike Lee criticized Clint Eastwood over the absence of black soldiers in his WWII epic Flags of Our Fathers. Next, Eastwood pointed out that the flick is about the raising of the American flag on Iwo Jima, which was done by white soldiers, adding that "A guy like him should shut his face." But Lee insists on keeping his face and mouth quite open, casually accusing Eastwood racism and calling him "an angry old man." Says Lee, "First of all, the man is not my father and we're not on a plantation either. He's a great director. He makes his films, I make my films. The thing about it though, I didn't personally attack him. And a comment like 'a guy like that should shut his face'-come on Clint, come on. He sounds like an angry old man right there."

"If he wishes, I could assemble African-American men who fought at Iwo Jima and I'd like him to tell these guys that what they did was insignificant and they did not exist," he said. "I'm not making this up. I know history. I'm a student of history. And I know the history of Hollywood and its omission of the one million African-American men and women who contributed to World War II."

"Not everything was John Wayne, baby..."

"I never said he should show one of the other guys holding up the flag as black. I said that African-Americans played a significant part in Iwo Jima," he said. "For him to insinuate that I'm rewriting history and have one of the four guys with the flag be black ... no one said that. It's just that there's not one black in either film. And because I know my history, that's why I made that observation." [HuffPo via OhNoTheyDidn't]