The University of Alabama Jefferson County Alumni Chapter is screening the film “Red Tails” Friday at 7 p.m. at the Patton Creek Rave Theater, according to a Facebook event invite. It’s the movie Coach Nick Saban showed the Alabama football team the night before the 14th National Championship against LSU.

Watch the first public promotional trailer for the feature film above, and notice the commander says: “We need pilots who will put bombers before themselves.”

Another indication that an individual sacrificing for the team is NOT Socialism, as some Republicans and conservative news outlets would have you believe.

The film is set in 1944. World War II rages and the fate of the free world hangs in the balance.

Meanwhile the black pilots of the experimental Tuskegee training program in Alabama are courageously waging two wars at once — one against enemies overseas, and the other against discrimination within the military and back home. Racial prejudices have long held ace airman Martin “Easy” Julian (Nate Parker) and his black pilots back at base — leaving them with little to do but further hone their flying skills — while their white counterparts are shipped out to combat after a mere three months of training.

Mistakenly deemed inferior and assigned only second-rate planes and missions, the pilots of Tuskegee have mastered the skies with ease but have not been granted the opportunity to truly spread their wings. Until now.

As the war in Europe continues to take its dire toll on Allied forces, Pentagon brass has no recourse but to reconsider these under-utilized pilots for combat duty. Just as the young Tuskegee men are on the brink of being shut down and shipped back home, Col. A.J. Bullard (Terrence Howard) awards them the ultimate chance to prove their mettle high above.

Undaunted by the prospect of providing safe escort to bombers in broad daylight — a mission so dangerous that the RAF has refused it and the white fighter groups have sustained substantial losses — Easy’s pilots at last join the fiery aerial fray. Against all the odds, with something to prove and everything to lose, these intrepid young airmen take to the skies in a heroic endeavor to combat the enemy — and the discrimination that has kept them down for so long.

Red Tails is a film directed by Anthony Hemingway, from a script by John Ridley and story by executive producer George Lucas. It is based on the Tuskegee Airmen, a group of African American combat pilots during World War II, and is the first Lucasfilm Ltd. production since Radioland Murders (1994) not to be associated with the Indiana Jones or Star Wars franchises.

George Lucas began developing Red Tails around 1988. He compared it to Tucker: The Man and His Dream as “a story too good to be true.”

Thomas Carter was his original choice to direct. A number of writers worked on the project until John Ridley was hired in 2007 to write the final screenplay. Lucas held discussions with Samuel L. Jackson regarding Jackson possibly directing and acting in the film. Although Jackson praised the script, he did not commit to either role. Anthony Hemingway was finally chosen to direct in 2008.

In researching the film, Lucasfilm invited some of the surviving Tuskegee Airmen to Skywalker Ranch, where they were interviewed about their experiences during World War II. Lucasfilm was also given access to the original mission logbooks used by some of the pilots.

Production began in March 2009. High-definition Sony F35 cameras were used for principal photography, which took place in the Czech Republic, Italy, Croatia and England. While shooting in the Czech Republic, the actors underwent a “boot camp” program, during which they lived in similar conditions as the actual Tuskegee Airmen.

Editing began while the production was in Prague. Avid editing systems were used simultaneously in a Prague studio and at Lucasfilm. A vehicle was fitted with a “technical center” so that the production could quickly move between locations. In March 2010, Lucas took over direction of reshoots, as Hemingway was busy working on episodes of the HBO series Treme. Hemingway had final approval over the footage.

The Big Picture
by Glynn Wilson

When I first opened my eyes and looked at the LaCross clock and temperature gauge Tuesday morning, it was 24-degrees outside in the Pinson Valley campsite. The local weather guys and gals on TeeVee say it was the coldest night of the winter so far.

Outside, the water in the bird bath is frozen, but the cardinals, finches and chickadees keep warm by flying back and forth between limbs in the dogwood tree, taking turns at the feeder.

The cold doesn’t bother me so much anymore, as long as there is a warm sleeping bag by a heater or a fire. The heat of summer is more annoying these days, perhaps because I have spent most of my life in the Sun Belt.

What annoys me more than heat or cold is ignorance.

I spent much of the holidaze of 2011 in a warm, comfortable recliner watching movies on television. The big party of 2012 will come later for me.

When I watch movies, however, it is not just for entertainment purposes or simply to coax my mind off to sleep at night. Sure, it does both of those things. But like great poetry or literature, films often have a point.

I know I’m not the only person on the planet who gets the point. In fact, if you are reading this at all, you probably get it too.

But I think there are a lot of people who just coast through life thinking these stories we are exposed to in the mass media are nothing more than infotainment to get us through the day. True, in the U.S. it is most often about the money. But do you ever stop and take the time to think about the stories abstractly, to ponder how you might improve your own plight in life by listening to the stories and learning the lessons well?

Do you ever wonder about this? Do ever wonder what John meant when he wrote in Revelation, “For those who have an ear let them hear?”

Big Fish

One of the movies I finally had the chance to catch over the holidays was a film called Big Fish based on the book by Daniel Wallace, another writer from Alabama and native of Birmingham.

While it is a well-told story and is certainly entertaining, a discerning viewer might come away with more than a smile and a laugh. Many a southern author has told fantastic tales to try educating an audience. Think of Flannery O’Connor or even Winston Groom.

At a glance, it is obvious the author was toying with a theme students the world over have had to deal with in their own lives: Whether to strive to become a big fish in a small pond, or take a chance at becoming a success in the larger world?

The cliche certainly came up early in my life about the time I decided to leave my home town to attend the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. For Willie Morris of Yazoo, Mississippi, it was off to Oxford, England. For Daniel Wallace, it was off to Chapel Hill, North Carolina to teach English and write stories.

For the main character in Big Fish, he became a big fish by telling tall tales about his life and travels. But what his son the journalist-narrator found out in the end was that there was a nugget of truth to the stories. His father might not have really been a fish, but he was a big deal who was loved by a lot of people. That in itself is a life worth living, for sure. But for many, it is not enough.

I remember when I was an undergraduate student in the first couple of years of college when I could not wait to have an English professor explain to the class what the poem or the short story meant. As a society, we have official interpreters of stories, from preachers to teachers to journalists. Some people even rely on politicians, although I would not recommend that. Mostly they use stories to fool people into voting for them, not to improve people’s lives.

Unfortunately, rare is the journalist these days who would ask the right question to help people understand.

If I were in Iowa today, for example, the question I would ask Mitt Romney and the other Republicans would be: “Why is it that you want to be president, really?”

In other words, tell us a real, honest story from the heart about why you want to be president.

Is it because you have dreamed your whole life about being president of the United States? Is it because you think you are the most qualified person in the country to solve our very real problems? Or is it because you crave the attention? The money? Or the power?

This is not a crazy question, people. It is the root question that should be at the heart of every campaign. Even political marketers know you have to establish a narrative of your life to sell yourself to voters. That’s how political campaigns work.

When I asked Artur Davis why he wanted to be governor of Alabama in 2008, he refused to answer it. He dismissed it as a crazy question from a blogger, not an honest question from a real journalist. He didn’t have the character to know the difference.

What he didn’t seem to grasp was that if he could not answer such a simple question with a convincing narrative, he had no chance of being the first African-American governor of Alabama. I was just giving him a chance to think about that question and to tell me the story, so I could quote him in a news story.

It is pretty obvious now that Mr. Davis did not get the point of all those stories he read in college, all those movies he watched over the years. He just thought you could wear a suit and show up in public and pretend to care and you could get elected and gain a lot of power and money by fooling people.

George W. Bush may have been elected governor of Texas and president twice, but what did he actually accomplish? Is getting elected to public office in and of itself an indication of success in life? Perhaps by some measures. But let me humbly suggest that there is more to it than that.

There is an AP story on the wires today indicating that Bush’s name is rarely being mentioned in the Republican campaigns for president in Iowa. There is no need here to re-list all of Bush’s failures. They are well known and documented elsewhere.

The lesson is that to be a success in life, you have to be able to communicate effectively to make a difference. But more than that, you have to care enough about people for them to care about you. You have to at least want to make a difference in this crazy world and go down trying, even if you fail from time to time. That, in my view, is what life is all about.

Like Humphrey Bogart said as Rick in Casablanca, “I’m no good at being noble, but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.”

What ended up mattering to Rick was the fight for freedom against the Nazis. In the end he risked his life, his fortune and gave up love to help save the world from Fascism.

What if enough of us understood that — and had the same courage to act on our convictions?

Wrenched: The Legacy of The Monkey Wrench Gang from ML Lincoln Films on Vimeo.

Edward Abbey’s riotous novel, The Monkey Wrench Gang, is the unifying thread of this character driven feature-length documentary nearing post-production. “Wrenched” offers a penetrating look at the environmental plight of the American Southwest, with a caustic sense of humor reminiscent of Abbey himself. This film is a lyrical tour de force of environmental activists, designed to give a voice to those both young and old.

How far does one go in defense of Wilderness? The split over direct action in the environmental movement, from its beginning to the current crackdown as seen through the lens of Edward Abbey’s groundbreaking novel, The Monkey Wrench Gang. The story of four ordinary people who were forever transformed by the degradation of the West, crossing a legal and ethical line — and inspiring generations of activists to do the same.

Watch for news of this new film’s release from ML Lincoln Films.

Anthony Hopkins as former president John Quincy Adams delivers a most eloquent argument against slavery and for freedom based on the Declaration of Independence and international law before the United States Supreme Court of 1841. This might be a good time to revisit it, considering the immigration crisis facing the U.S. and states such as Alabama today. All people should see this movie, especially modern-day self-styled Conservative Republicans, who think they know something about American freedom. I was moved by this scene. Perhaps you would be too.

The Amistad case, also known as United States v. Libellants and Claimants of the Schooner Amistad, was a U.S. Supreme Court case resulting from the rebellion of slaves on board the Spanish schooner Amistad in 1839. It was an unusual suit in a long line of cases that came to define what “freedom” meant under the law in the United States.

The rebellion broke out when the schooner, traveling along the coast of Cuba, was taken over by a group of captives who had earlier been illegally kidnapped in Africa from a British Colony where the slave trade was outlawed, modern day Sierra Leone, and sold into slavery. The Africans revolted and took over the ship, but their ship was captured near Long Island, New York, by the U.S. Revenue cutter and taken into custody. The widely publicized court cases in the United States helped the abolitionist movement in its argument against slavery, and some say it was a precursor to the Civil War, although there are historians and critics who disagree.

In 1840, a federal trial court found that the initial transport of the Africans across the Atlantic had been illegal, because the international slave trade had been abolished, and the captives were thus not legally slaves but free. Given that they were illegally confined, the Africans were entitled to take whatever legal measures necessary to secure their freedom, including the use of force. After the US Supreme Court affirmed this finding on March 9, 1841, supporters arranged transportation for the Africans back to Africa in 1842. The case influenced numerous succeeding laws in the United States, according to Wikipedia and other sources.

The Mende believed that when faced with a situation in which there is no hope at all, they invoke their ancestors. They believe if they can summon the spirit of their ancestors then they have never left, Hopkins argues, invoking the founding fathers of the U.S. and their phrase in the Declaration of Independence, that “all men are created equal.”

“We understand now, we’ve been made to understand, and to embrace the understanding, that who we are is who we were.”

He exhorts the court by saying: “We desperately need your strength and wisdom to triumph over our fears and our prejudices — ourselves. Give us the courage to do what is right. If it means civil war, then let it come. And when it does, let it be, finally, the last battle of the American Revolution.”

The final episode of this series about the natural and human history of Appalachia sparks both heartbreak and hope for the region’s ransacked mountain ecosystem is now running on public television.

Early 20th-century mineral barons ruled Appalachia with an iron fist. Company spies tracked miners’ every move. If they found a man’s union card, he would be fired, even killed.

Inspired by a brave little old lady who talked like a preacher and cursed like a sailor, mineworkers organized and demanded better treatment. The dams of the Tennessee Valley Authority drowned ancestral homesteads, but the project eliminated abject poverty for thousands.

An invasive fungus has wiped out the majestic American chestnut tree, but its roots refuse to die.

Strip mining has torn the tops off mountains, but a new wave of activists, writers, musicians, scientists and nature-lovers is expanding the miners’ ideas of health and fairness to include the forests, the rivers and the mountains themselves. Academy Award-winning actress Sissy Spacek narrates.