Shoop Da Woop

Saw redtails. Been thinking about it... it's better than I thought it was going to be. It's not a schmaltzy glossy rose tinted look at the tuskegee airmen although it does glorify them, it does so through the characters themselves rather than from a historical retrospective like the military itself does to make itself look good. I liked the scenes showcasing the racism raw and unfiltered. It's still true today, hell I lived it. Good to see they actually put it out there. The rest of the movie treats the airmen as flawed people with complex personalities who are ultimately trying to gain respect for their efforts. They get it of course, but that didn't matter in the end, they became a family that stayed together and fought together.

The military's the military and their MO is that they don't change. Change is deadly as any kind of hair out of place can mean the mission fails or whatever. So there's a point to the racism as much I wish there wasn't, it keeps things simple I suppose. There's a hint in the film that there's an understanding about it, in order for unit cohesion or whatever they don't mix, but the smarter members of the forces know how idiotic the whole thing is, just a necessary evil.

The movie's a bit sensationalized like a fantasy story, not the most gritty realistic war movie ever made. It didn't necessarily need to be imo. And I think it counters the more serious aspects of the film. It's basically the black top gun. My guess is they did it this way to make it more palatable to the majority white audience if they made the redtails a little less threatening and more cartoony.

Sitting there watching a black guy kissing and rubbing a white woman amongst a bunch of white people at my theater was strangley awkward. Needless to say this movie's going to bomb harder than anything dropped in the war. But it's good so I guess that's what the movie was trying to say. Ya can't win, but you can go out in style...

I'll discuss chronicles next.