Movie Thoughts: Red Tails

Awesome movie! It is about time we recognized some of the lesser known heroes. The sad part is that once the war was over it took an awfully long time for even a small bit of equality to happen. There were a couple spots that the acting was a bit rough, but by the time the movie ended, I felt like standing and clapping. Of course, I am ex-Air Force and was active duty on the tail end of women in the Air Force being WAFs--which, to those who don't realize it, women, like the Tuskegee Airmen, had their own division of the Air Force. It was just months before I went active duty in 1977, that women became "service members" and not WAFs. When I got to my first duty assignment, my OIC turned to me and said he told MPC not to send a woman--women were lazy and did a poor job. I was in an all male office, and no one would speak to me. I put up with the nonsense for a couple of weeks, hoping things would change. It finally came down to me slamming a route folder down in front of the NCOIC and saying, "How do I do this?" This "lazy woman" turns out was the best radar predictor on base and when it came time for me to ship out to a new duty assignment, was given an Air Force Commendation Medal.
Red Tails was well done. I'm glad it was presented in such a positive way and not just in the style of a documentary. The dogfights were great--makes me wonder how they did all the special effects. I know there aren't that many WWII aircraft around anymore, nor would they want to blow them out of the sky like that.
Go see this movie. I bet you'll like it.

Movie Thoughts:Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

The movie begins with a scene from Budapest. I'm not a big fan of Budapest, but at least they could have told us that the shooting was done in Buda, but I suppose that most people would not know that Budapest is actually two cities--Buda and Pest (pronounced Pesht). I felt like I was watching a movie from the early 60s or 70s which had the European approach of not much action in a great amount of time. I actually contemplated taking a nap and wondered if I would miss anything. If a person was paying attention, they could have figured out the ending within the first fifteen minutes. In general, this was a ho hum slow moving drama.

BUT on the other hand, if you get a chance to see Sherlock Holmes DO IT! Loved the movie. Lots of action and kind of reminded me of the excitement of the Indiana Jones movies mixed with a little James Bond. I hope they do more. My daughter liked this Holmes movie even better than the first one. There is a few glitches, but only those who have been to Paris would realize. When it was said that Moriarty was going to the Gare du Nord because it was the closest train station, Sarah and I beg to differ. The closest train station would have been the Gare D'Orsay or Gare du Louvre. The Hotel du Triumph that they blew up would have been located near the Arc d'Triomphe not near the Louvre. There is a Hotel du Louvre right there that looks suspiciously like the destroyed hotel. As long as you don't get caught up in the nit picky details the film rocks.