Red Tails

I have yet to see this but it is at the top of my list - looks like a fun inspiring movie.

Saw an interview Oprah did with George Lucas about his career and about this movie. Lucas went to all the Hollywood studios and they all said to him that you can't make any money on a movie about African-American people doing heroic things.

So Lucas invested $100million of his own money to make the movie and do the marketing and distribution. I hope it makes a lot of money.

It is fairly well known in the video geek world that DSLR guru Philip Bloom was invited out to Skywalker Ranch to show Lucas and his team that you can use small digital cameras in the filmmaking workflow. Supposedly they used 5D Mark II cameras for some of the cockpit shots in Red Tails.

A few topics here - chime in if you want or if you have seen the flick.

Mike Cohen

Hitler shot first!

I haven't seen it yet, but don't mind saying it's nice to see this brave group represented by a mainstream filmmaker. I know Lucas doesn't exactly conjure up warm fuzzy feelings for many, but he does grasp "epic". Knowing Philip Bloom was involved makes it more intringuing.

yeah, saw it.

i really wanted this to be GREAT. Aerial scenes not as good as Microsoft Combat Simulaotor II, dialogue just barks, stinks out the neighborhood, and OMG the star-crossed Italiana, bella et snella drops her spesi at 'the news'.

the big Nazi was even flatter and more 1D than the one Harrison Ford shot in that other movie.

I have the utmost respect for the Tuskegee squadron, and god knows I lurv P-51s, but... oh, ouch.

Discussion of how bad it actually was brought a grade session to a standstill a few days later.

jPo

You mean "Old Ben"? Ben Kenobi?

[Mike Cohen] "Enjoy retirement George."

This IS his retirement. He's doing indie features like this, because he got tired of people reporting the easily-verified fact that he has been systematically burning any good will toward Star Wars to the ground.

It may be the single saddest story in the history of cinema, especially because we don't have a greedy or inept studio to blame for destroying the legacy of one of the world's cinematic touchstones. Yes, studios forced re-edits of THX 1138 and American Graffiti, but Lucas has made a mess of his movies on his own, going as far as destroying the original negatives -- something that he asked Congress to intervene in to prevent OTHER filmmakers from doing.

A barbarian AND a whiner.

...uhm, sorry, what were we talking about?

Anyway, I was saddened but not surprised to see a story both heartbreaking and inspiring told in a way devoid of heart.

Instead, I can recommend the documentary "In Their Own Words: The Tuskegee Airmen," by two long-time COWs, Bryan Williams and Denton Adkinson. They wrote a story about the making of it. It starts with them sitting at a Huddle House (much superior to Waffle House imo) throwing out ideas for their next documentary when one of the surviving Airmen literally walked past their table.

While obviously not as polished as Red Tails was, it has all the heart that that one is missing. Here's the story.

Tim Wilson
Vice President, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine
Twitter: timdoubleyou

The typos here are most likely because I'm, a) typing this on my phone; and b) an idiot.