Posted on 01/19/2012 6:23:52 AM PST by Bender2
Red Tails: Film Review
7:53 PM PST 1/18/2012 by Todd McCarthy
The Bottom Line: Action-and-effects version of the Tuskegee airmen's story flies only when it's off the ground.
The George Lucas-produced labor of love stars Cuba Gooding Jr. and Terrence Howard as Tuskegee airmen in World War II.
The experience of black American aviators in World War II gets a whitewash in Red Tails. The story of the 996 pilots (and some 15,000 ground personnel) who distinguished themselves in the air in the face of institutional racism is a great one and, at least, will come to the attention of more people due to this long-gestating project from Lucasfilm. But every character here is so squeaky clean, and the prejudice as depicted is so toothless and easily overcome, that the film feels like a gingerly fantasy version of what, in real life, was an exceptional example of resilient trail-blazing. The tale's considerable built-in inspirational value will move and impress black audiences of all ages and would do the same to a wider public if sufficiently promoted, but the determinedly simplistic approach will curtail interest among any viewers hungry for some real history. The anticipated low interest level for this material overseas is cited as a major reason the project took so long to get off the ground.
A key signal of how much you can trust any contemporary movie about either of the 20th century's world wars is how, and even if, it depicts smoking; if, like this one, it buckles to current fashion and scarcely depicts soldiers smoking at all in a period when cigarettes were part of ration kits, then it's frankly not to be trusted in any other respect either.
(Excerpt) Read more at hollywoodreporter.com ...
“...you’d almost suspect we had a black Democrat running for re-election....”
I wonder when the first flick about that disaster will come out and how accurate it will be.
What? How could not like the constant buzz of cell phones, the migrating light of smart pones, the constant conversations of rude patrons, crying babies, coughing and hacking sick people and the occasional outburst of violence?
It can’t possibly be as bad as U-571, I mean Jon Bon Jovi???? Really?!?!?!
The great British actor Christopher Lee, who often played Dracula, was an RAF fighter pilot in the Battle of Britain. He auditioned for the movie “The Battle of Britain” and was rejected as being “too tall to be a pilot.”
"It was a different time, you understand." - Wallace "Suitcase" Jefferson
quote-Nowadays the only thing they teach about WWII is Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Dresden.-end quote
How true. And, of course, it was those nasty, rich, racist, old white men who were responsible and, of course, “war criminal” Harry Truman.
The trailer for the movie that I see on TV has killed the movie for me.
According to the trailer, the only people fighting were the Red Tails. They saved America.
Their actual contributions were great, but this movie appears to be a travesty.
will george lucas follow the path of speilberg and change history to have airplanes with wing mounted walkie talkies?
Them and of course, the Red Army.
‘Nowadays the only thing they teach about WWII is Hiroshima, Nagasaki’
Very True.
Whenever a lefty moans about ‘American Barbarianism’ when nuking Hiroshima, I look them directly in the eye and Tell them:
God Bless Harry Truman for saving so many lives,both American and Japanese, who would surely fought to the death had Truman not used the A Bomb.
The lefties get real uncomfortable.
Of course they also hate the fact that Japan didn't fall to the Soviets.
In fact, I believe one of the things the bombs did was to save Japan from being divided, like Korea, which certainly would have resulted in a Japanese Civil War, between Red Japan and Free Japan.
We are friends with the son of a Tuskeegee Airman. I will ask him what he thinks of the movie before I go see it.
Yup. The only real reason I associate them more with the P-51D, is that the P-51D is my absolute favorite aircraft, so when I learned about the Red Tails (on my own, not in any history class), and learned they flew the P-51D, that's what stuck in my head as their main aircraft.
They began flying P-40 Warhawks. The P-40 was utilized heavily as a fighter-bomber in the Meditteranean Theater. I don't think P-47's were ever used there.
I also seem to remember they never lost any bomber they were escorting.
A legend fabricated by a newspaper story in Chicago. In fact the day the article came out they lost at least 1 bomber in air-to-air.
Not being critical, just realistic. Besides when you are losing so many bombers each mission to enemy AAA fire, this statistic fades a bit in importance.
Fighter pilots didn't really want to do "close-escort" missions. They'd rather range ahead of the bombers and mix it up with the enemy interceptors. Close-escort was a "sh*t detail". The bomber crews fealt reassured, but Adolf Galland would tell you how helpless you were to diving enemy fighters making a high-angle pass.
The Tuskeegee program also created a couple of bomber groups. But we never seem to hear anything about them. Pity.
Don't forget the $30-worth of two large sodas, a large popcorn, and stale Goobers.
That movie was the quadfecta of anti war lefty casting. Along with Clooney it stars Sean Penn, John Cusack, and Woody Harrelson.
—What? How could not like the constant buzz of cell phones, the migrating light of smart pones, the constant conversations of rude patrons, crying babies, coughing and hacking sick people and the occasional outburst of violence?—
;)
We bought a 46” led edge lit 1080p set a couple of months ago (we sit about 6’ away from it) and have had a blue ray player for a couple of years. I’ve been a stereo/hi-fi junkie since the early seventies, so you can get a feel for the sound system we use. We saw War Horse last week at a local theater and, other than the fact that it was a lousy movie, I couldn’t help but notice, from the git-go, that it was blurry and the lighting seemed off from beginning to end. Turns out that is just the way it was filmed, but the picture sucked. and yes, it was actual film. You could see the “reel change” black dots on the upper right just before reel changes.
We’re so done with theaters (except for the occasional imax 3D)
But the main role in the movie was played by Jim Caviezel, from "The Passion of the Christ." The other guys played relatively small roles.
Click on the link above [(Excerpt) Read more at hollywoodreporter.com ...] and read it.
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