Movie Review Time! "In Darkness", "The Tuskagee Airmen" and "Wild Bill"

In Darkness (2011)

How many Holocaust movies have we had now (particularly since Spielberg's "Schindler's List")? I've seen at least 5 myself even though the idea of watching a holocaust film puts me right off. There's "The Boy With The Striped Pyjamas", "The Counterfeiters" "The Pianist" last year's "Sarah's Key" and now "In Darkness".



Now admittedly the large quantity of movies on the same topic is not, on its own, a reason to get annoyed. There've been more than 10 superhero movies over the last two years (believe me, I've counted) and I'm not about to stop getting excited over those. However, there are a number of differences here....

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The Tuskegee Airmen (1995)

When George Lucas'"Red Tails" came out last year, the response was fairly unanimously negative. Lucas posed it as a courageous decision to present an important part of black history, but the counter to this was that the story of the 'Red Tails' had already been told in a made for tv film called "The Tuskegee Airman" which features a similarly awesome cast. Meanwhile George Lucas' production, by most accounts, seemed to give a rather overly cartoonish portrayal. With the creator of the acclaimed tv show "The Wire" directing the film, it seemed logical to blame the problems with the film on Lucas.

I haven't checked out "Red Tails" myself, but I was intrigued enough to check out this earlier tv movie. The Tuskegee airmen were a group of university educated black Americans who aspired to become the first African American squadron during World War II.



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Wild Bill (2011)

"Wild Bill" could not really have been marketed much worse if they tried. The poster showed possibly the least well known actor in the entire cast showing off his tattoos with various other figures kind of leaning in from the sides. The poster background was bright yellow and it looked like a very silly comedy, with very little clue as to what it was actually about. It wasn't a poster that you could easily ignore, but I remember actually coming away from that poster thinking "that's a film I will never want to see". As such, I was quite surprised when the film had 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, after a pretty respectable number of reviews.

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