{"id":2122,"date":"2013-05-13T00:00:04","date_gmt":"2013-05-13T04:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/smugfilm.com\/?p=2122"},"modified":"2013-05-14T00:11:21","modified_gmt":"2013-05-14T04:11:21","slug":"red-tails","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/red-tails\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Tails: Watch It And Feel Like A Kid Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"redtail\"
\nUnlike the Star Wars prequels, here’s a plot young kids can actually follow.<\/em><\/p>\n

Red Tails<\/a> (2012)<\/b>
\nDirected by Anthony Hemingway
\nScreenplay by John Ridley and Aaron McGruder
\n125 min.<\/p>\n

Right off the bat, I should warn you that Red Tails<\/a> is not a good movie. At least, not in the traditional sense. It\u2019s not even good \u2018for what it is\u2019. It\u2019s just plain bad. But you will have a good time. You\u2019ll be laughing at ineptitude in damn near every scene, and, even with all its cheesiness, this movie will touch you on a very deep level\u2014in fact, partly because<\/i> of its cheesiness. Let me explain.
\n
\nDo you remember the kinda books you used to blow through like crazy as a kid? Those 49 page chapter books, double spaced, with big print and no big words? Red Tails is basically one of those, in movie form. Watching it transported me right back to my childhood, sitting in bed, a small lamp on, quietly reading a whole damn book in one sitting. Instant time travel to a period of my life I quite frankly hadn\u2019t thought of in many, many years.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve never seen a PG-13 movie quite like this. It is so unrelentingly dumbed down that at first it seems like parody, like maybe Trey Parker and Matt Stone made it or something. But you quickly move from \u2018wow this acting is awful and this dialogue is hackneyed and this story is oversimplified and this director sucks\u2019 to \u2018holy shit these are all deliberate stylistic choices and this film has more consistence and daringness-to-be-different than most films\u2019. It wins you over with its sheer balls-out desire and commitment to making a movie specifically for 10 year old boys.<\/p>\n

Most kids movies these days aren\u2019t even for kids. They\u2019re overstuffed with pandering fluff clearly for adults\u2014jokes and references that kids can\u2019t possibly get, and depressing elements designed to give the story \u2018rawness\u2019 and \u2018depth\u2019 (something only aging hipster parents care about). The abysmal wreck Where the Wild Things Are<\/a> is probably the best example of this in recent history, but it also happens in movies you would not expect in a million years for it to happen in. Mr. Popper’s Penguins<\/a> comes instantly to mind.<\/p>\n

Bored one night, searching through HBO On Demand, I decided to give that one\u00a0a shot. Not because I thought it\u2019d be any good of course\u2014basically, I was curious to see just how bad it was. Well, It was worse than I ever could have imagined, and, on an entirely different level<\/em> than I could have imagined. The first few scenes of this supposedly light family flick are about a dad who just plain isn\u2019t there for his son. Over and over. Throughout the kid’s entire childhood. And then that son grows up and is Jim Carrey, but not happy, fun Jim Carrey\u2014depressed Jim Carrey damn near from Eternal Sunshine<\/a>. Sad Jim Carrey then proceeds to have long, boring conversations in his office with some boring adults\u2014conversations so boring that I, an adult, couldn\u2019t even follow them. And then he goes home and has a dysfunctional conversation with his teenage kids who just plain don\u2019t like him at all. Their relationship is legitimately sad and completely unfunny. There is not a single laugh\u2014or even an honest attempt at a joke\u2014in the first act of this movie. Need I remind you this is a movie that\u2019s supposed to be about a bunch of CGI penguins and Jim Carrey getting into hijinks. How fucking depressed and hateful do you have to be to write something like this, knowing full well that children will be going to see it? It\u2019s purely sociopathic filmmaking. If I were a parent who brought my youngster to it, I\u2019d ask for my money back.<\/p>\n

Red Tails at least attempts\u00a0to please children, and speak to them on their level. Which means that even if you don\u2019t have the same visceral, warm reaction to the film that I have, you have to admit, its heart is in the right place. This movie aims to please. It’s\u00a0simple, easy to understand escapism for a segment of the population who just plain has not seen many movies\u2014and thus, the elements which read as hackneyed and lazy to us are probably quite enamoring to a child. Maybe it doesn\u2019t aim to please you, <\/i>Mr. Twenty-Something, but not everything has to be about you, you know. You\u2019ve been spoiled far too long by your favorite Parks and Rec<\/a> and The Office<\/a> actors showing up as voices in CGI kids movies or whatever. Here\u2019s a movie that refuses to pander to your specific and\u00a0equally annoying sensibilities. Deal with it.<\/p>\n

Yes this movie made me feel like a kid again, but don\u2019t get me wrong, I felt like an adult too. I laughed at shit that I wasn\u2019t \u2018supposed\u2019 to laugh at. This movie is a a veritable hot bed of unintentional comedy from the get go. Hell, I laughed harder at the shockingly piss-poor font choice for the opening credits, and its obtrusive placement during what was supposed to be an action scene, than at any \u2018comedy\u2019 in recent history. And don\u2019t get me started on the Germans in this movie. I swear to god, every German in this movie is played by the same gay male model turned actor. I seriously think they just hired one dude and put him everywhere. They all look exactly alike. Again, Trey & Matt-esque.<\/p>\n

I refuse to believe the people involved in the making of this didn\u2019t know they were making a hilarious piece of shit. Cuba Gooding Jr., in particular, looks like he\u2019s fighting back laughs in every scene, basically, biting down on a prop pipe for dear life. And the director is Anthony fucking Hemingway, for fuck’s sake. You may not know him by name, but he\u2019s a goddamn modern veteran of TV directing. He\u2019s directed episodes of The Wire<\/a>, Treme<\/a>, Shameless<\/a>, True Blood<\/a>, Battlestar Galactica<\/a>, Fringe<\/a>, and Community<\/a>. The man knows what good acting is. He had<\/i> to have known the acting in this movie was hammy. Which means, like I said before, it was a deliberate stylistic choice. Whether you agree with that stylistic choice or not is beside the point. The man wanted to make a cheesy movie for wide-eyed children that have never seen a movie before, so he had the actors give line readings the target audience can wrap their little heads around. You don\u2019t see that often in big Hollywood PG-13 movies. Which makes this movie, whether or not you like it, a pretty fucking singular work.<\/p>\n

Look, your mileage may vary. I can\u2019t promise this will open locked doors in your heart like it did mine. At the very least, you\u2019ll laugh at the cheese, so it\u2019s worth a watch. I honestly had more fun watching this than I\u2019ve had watching a Hollywood film in a long time. And I can see myself rewatching it. Hell, I kinda wanna watch it right now. Not even kidding. How many movies that I’ve reviewed on here can I say that about? Only this one.<\/p>\n

4 out of 5 stars.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"redtail\"
\nUnlike the Star Wars prequels, here’s a plot young kids can actually follow.<\/em><\/p>\n

Red Tails<\/a> (2012)<\/b>
\nDirected by Anthony Hemingway
\nScreenplay by John Ridley and Aaron McGruder
\n125 min.<\/p>\n

Right off the bat, I should warn you that Red Tails<\/a> is not a good movie. At least, not in the traditional sense. It\u2019s not even good \u2018for what it is\u2019. It\u2019s just plain bad. But you will have a good time. You\u2019ll be laughing at ineptitude in damn near every scene, but, even with all its cheesiness, this movie will touch you on a very deep level\u2014in fact, partly because<\/i> of its cheesiness. Let me explain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,1],"tags":[1571,1569,1585,32,1587,1580,1586,1579,883,1570,1576,1578,861,860,1568,1573,1574,1572,1583,104,185,771,1582,1584,1575,1581,1577],"class_list":["post-2122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-allposts","category-codysreviews","tag-aaron-mcgruder","tag-anthony-hemingway","tag-battlestar-galactica","tag-cody-clarke","tag-community","tag-eternal-sunshine","tag-fringe","tag-hbo-on-demand","tag-jim-carrey","tag-john-ridley","tag-matt-stone","tag-mr-poppers-penguins","tag-parks-and-rec","tag-parks-and-recreation","tag-red-tails","tag-red-tails-movie","tag-red-tails-movie-review","tag-red-tails-review","tag-shameless","tag-smug-film-2","tag-smugfilm","tag-the-office","tag-the-wire","tag-treme","tag-trey-parker","tag-true-blood","tag-where-the-wild-things-are"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2122"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2144,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2122\/revisions\/2144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}