Re: NERDSWAG: Red Tails on Blu-ray! Plus the Director Speaks

Got this emailed to me and I am sure some other people that read this got it as well. I am looking at watching this movie this week. 

Tue 22 May '12 NERDSWAG: Red Tails on Blu-ray! Plus the Director Speaks Anthony Hemingway talks Tuskegee, trilogies and tales untold. If you missed Red Tails in the theater because you thought a historical movie wasn't your speed, think again. As action-packed as everything else you've come to expect from Lucasfilm, the aerial combat flick arrives on Blu-ray this week and we're giving away five Blu-ray combo packs so you can rectify the omission, or relive the adventure if you caught it the first time. (Target some bonus entries at our Facebook, Twitter and Google + pages.) To help get you pumped up for more sky swooping, we talked to the film's director, Anthony Hemingway. N: Red Tails is one hell of an auspicious feature directorial debut. How did it all come about? AH: You know, it was just kind of one of those big rainbows that came across the sky and blew up, and a bunch of nuggets came down, and Lucky Charms rained...I'm kidding. It started off with a phone call from George Lucas wanting to meet with me. He'd seen my work on The Wire, and I was part of a host of great directors that he was looking at and interviewing to help with this project. We met, and from a series of meetings and a presentation - that I went in to basically sell my conviction and desire and passion for wanting to helm this project - they hired me. N: We understand you're a big fan - at one of the meetings, you ended by saying, "May the Force be with you"? AH: Oh my god, I walked out of that meeting after I said that and completely wanted to jump off the fifteenth floor of that building. He got a good laugh out of it. So at least I walked away feeling somewhat at ease, but I still felt like the biggest dork walking out of there, like, okay, I could not have been a bigger geek, saying that phrase. N: This movie doesn't over-sentimentalize the way a lot of historical dramas do - it really focuses on the action aspect. Was it a tricky balance between being reverential to your heroes versus getting quickly to the action and making it kickass? AH: Well, you know it always is a challenge, especially when you're dealing with fact and history, and stories that are known for so many years. But it's one of the things that George said from day one, that he really wanted to tell a story about heroes and not victimization. One of the great benefits was the HBO film (The Tuskegee Airmen), because they kinda set the platform and told the history of it and really the beginning. So we really had the awesome opportunity to just focus on the heroics of them and have fun with it. One of the things that I got to really see, that the surviving airmen really shed light on, when I got to meet them, was the childlike qualities in them. Even to this day, they're still so vibrant, and have so much energy. Getting that opportunity just to sit and talk to them, I got to delve into who they were, and really connect with them on that level. And I think that really helped channel their spirit, just ignited everything that we wanted to do, which was really make this a fun, awesome experience. For more from Hemingway, including how George Lucas' reacted to cowriter Aaron McGruder's The Boondocks comics, check out our full interview. Then be sure to enter to win the movie.

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