Red Tails opened this weekend at number two bringing in a very respectable $19.1M. George Lucas has been trying to make this movie for the past twenty-three years and finally got so tired of the studios rejecting the idea because the cast was predominantly Black that he put up his own money. He paid for everything out of pocket, including the damn prints, to get the story of the Tuskegee Airmen into theaters nationwide.

If this is the kind of thing George is spending his prequel money on, I applaud him. It shouldn’t be this fucking difficult to make a movie about one of the most important Allied flying units of World War II. It’s about time Hollywood realizes that a good story is a good story regardless of race or ethnic background or culture. And if it takes Jar Jar Binks money to break down that door, I’m proud to give George my money.

So what’s it like flying with the Red Tails?

First, the bad news. It really pains me to say it, but, well, I didn’t think this was a good movie. Too much of it just didn’t work for me. There’s a love story that’s based on nothing, there’s a Nazi prison camp segment that seems tacked on, the characters we’re supposed to sympathize with are kind of jerk faces. Now the good news. If I didn’t like it, chances are it will do very well. I am clearly not dialed in to the pulse of most movie goers. If my tastes reflected a majority of film audiences, we’d have some really weird shit in theaters.

Normally, I’d spend some time warning you of all the painful things you will sit through should you choose to sit through two and half hours of war movie. But I really want this to do well and I think people should ultimately make up their own minds when going to the theater. And as much as I didn’t really like much of the movie, there’s one thing that kept me wildly entertained. The P-51 Mustang.

Flies Like An Angel

The P-51 Mustang is a gorgeous aircraft. I have this gigantic book of World War II airplane illustrations and the Mustang has always caught my eye. There’s a character in the film who says something to the effect that it looks like it’s speeding even when it standing still. That’s the beauty of its lines in a nutshell. It’s a sexy damn airplane and you get to see a whole lot of it throughout the film.

Certainly there was a social aspect that kept this movie from theaters for so long. But honestly, I don’t think the air battles would have looked as good as they do if this movie was made twenty-three years ago. The dog fights alone are almost worth paying full price to see them on a big screen. They way they’re shot and edited really put you in the action. There are so many shots that we’ve never seen in an air battle before. Honestly, they almost put Star Wars dog fights to shame.

The P-51 is a scene stealer. Every time you see it on the screen, you forget the cheesy dialog and the horribly written one-liners. You forget the comically evil German fighter pilot or the terrible voice-overs of the bomber pilots. You forget that you’re watching a movie and instead get absorbed by the areal ballet of bullets and propellers playing out before you. It’s a beautiful thing and it’s gotta be scene on a huge ass screen.

Warts and all, I had a good time. There were enough air battles to make me forget a lot of what I wasn’t liking. Cuba and Terrance turn in some really good performances. You can tell they had a lot of fun with this movie. It was great seeing some of the cast from “The Wire” on the big screen. I left with a smile on my face. It’s not the best war movie, but you know what you’re getting into.

The January 18th protest against SOPA and PIPA was awe inspiring. I was especially heartened to see so many web cartoonists joining in the fight. But one single day isn’t enough to make Congress listen to us. We have to keep the pressure up. Sopa Strike has a tool that will let you send a message to your Congressperson voicing your opposition to the bill.

We can end this! We must end this!

My very rambly thoughts on the new internet cartoon category in the Natuonal Cartooning Society awards and awards in general. And I’ve now probably made it impossible for me to ever win anything ever. Ah well.

This is street artist Fabian Gaete Maureira doing his thing, oil painting with his fingers on small, glass canvases. He spends about three minutes per piece and churns them out like a finger painting art factory. If you can read Spanish, his website features more of his work and some of his larger pieces.

But is it art?

I saw this linked over at Gizmodo. The comment thread kicks off a discussion of whether or not Maureira’s little glass oils are “art.” Well, I suppose you first have to define art before you can make a proper determination.

What is art?

You’d think after years of doing this shit for all these years I’d have a good answer. Maybe it’s best to start small. I guess I’d call Maureira’s speed paints commercial art. I also consider comics to be commercial art. But then if you think about it, a lot of great Renaissance masters were doing what would be considered the commercial art of their time. They had patrons and clients and commissions. They arted to make a living much like Maureira does and much like I hope to some day. Hell, most of the stuff you see hanging in galleries is done by artists trying to make a living off of their work.

What makes small oil paints less arty than something hanging in the Louvre? Is it the curators? Is it the critics? What imbues them with the power to declare art?

At the end of the day, who really cares? Does it impact Maureira in the slightest if some art snob considers his work to be lowbrow drivel for the masses? Does a tourist really give a shit? No. It’s a pretty thing that they can afford that puts food on Maureira’s table.

Reader Mark Williams linked me to a number of good posts about the somewhat implausible poses that artists sometime use to depict women in fantasy novel covers and comic books.

Young adult fantasy author Jim Hines wasn’t entirely satisfied with the way his characters were portrayed on the covers of his novels. He decided to show what bothered him about them by taking photos of himself attempting to emulate the poses. And boy, does he look uncomfortable. He then grabbed a selection of other covers and took photos of him posing. The results are hilarious and beautifully illustrate his point.

Jim links to a post by Ils who is both a martial artist and contortionist. She examines the Strong Female Pose^TM found in so many pages of comics starring female heroes.

While it is possible for a contortionist such as Ils to turn her torso mostly the way around, it is physically impossible to get the ass and the boobs to pop like that in the same direction at the same time without installing some kind of swivel hinge in your spine.

Both posts are pretty great. The female form is pretty damn sexy the way it is without having to contort it in impossible or extremely uncomfortable poses. Artists sometimes need a gentle reminder that we can draw sexy without going over the top. And there’s nothing sexy about a broken spine.