WWII Epic ‘Red Tails’ Opens Nation-wide Jan. 20 (video)

January 18, 2012 by Dasha Black
Filed under Entertainment, Film & TV, Lifestyle, News, Uncategorized, Video

Red Tails, George Lucas’ epic action-drama about the heroic World War II African-American flying aces, Tuskegee Airmen, opens nation-wide January 20 and has stirred a national debate about racism in American cinema.

In promoting the film, George Lucas( Star Wars), opened a can of worms when he told The Daily Show that he had difficulty getting the film made and distributed, forcing him to spend 23 years and nearly $100m of his own money to finish the project. “They [Hollywood] don’t believe there’s any foreign market for it and that’s 60 percent of their profit…I showed it to all of them and they said ‘No. We don’t know how to market a movie like this.’ ”
Of course, a WWII film should market itself — Pearl Harbor comes to mind — reducing any financial risk for film financiers, a point not lost on media critics. ThinkProgress asks whether Red Tails has “turned” Lucas into Tyler Perry,” a prolific, if not widely respected, purveyor of African-American cinema:

“I really hope Red Tails does well not simply to disprove the idea that black leads can’t open blockbusters or that black history is a niche genre,” writes Alyssa Rosenberg. “Lucas has said that this will be his last blockbuster. So if the movie makes bank, maybe Lucas could do for black artists what Tyler Perry hasn’t entirely done yet, and what Queen Latifah still might do: spread the wealth and give a financial springboard to projects that could be commercially viable if only they could find financing and support, and an imprimatur that would reassure distributors. The battle might be to get individual non-white (or for that matter, female) writers and directors credentialed and established. But the war is about getting a lot of them in the game.”

“Who knew that 70 years after African-American pilots had to work hard to overcome the prejudices of whites in the U.S. armed services, and the nation having its first black commander-in-chief, the men known as the Tuskegee Airmen would still be doing battle with an entrenched institution of white power brokers, all based on the color of their skin,” writes CNN Contributor Roland Martin.

and aviators around the country are eager to see it — if they haven’t already. Several advance screenings have been held, including one in the family theater at the White House last Friday, where President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama hosted a group of Tuskegee Airmen. Other Tuskegee groups around the country also have already screened the film. “I think the movie should get maybe four or five Oscars, at least,” Arthur Green, president of a Detroit Tuskegee Airmen group, told the Detroit Free Press.The critics, of course, also got an advance look, and not all of them were won over. “Despite stunning aerial scenes and good intentions,” writes Tish Wells for McClatchy Newspapers, “Red Tails is grounded by clumsy dialogue, a meandering plot and the occasional jarring anachronism.”

In The Daily Beast this week, writer Marc Wortman says the film “may make for a rousing Star Wars-meets-Flying Leathernecks action motive…. [but] even without dogfight scenes, the wider story of how African Americans shot down race barriers is every bit as dramatic and exciting.” Wortman recommends the Smithsonian Institution’s traveling exhibit, Black Wings, currently in Tacoma, Wash., for a more in-depth view of the history of black pilots in the U.S. Click here for the official film site with trailers, click here to learn about the trouble Lucas had getting the film financed, and click here for an AVweb podcast with Marcus Paulk, one of the actors in the film.