Presented without much in the way of comment is the first trailer for Red Tails, which tells the story of the first African American aerial combat unit in WWII. These men, also known as the Tuskegee Airmen, were the first men of color to fly in a combat squadron and fought bravely and overcame adversity to defend our country during the war.

The film features an impressive cast including Terrence Howard, Cuba Gooding Jr, Bryan Cranston and David Oyelowo. It’s directed by Anthony Hemingway with Charles Floyd Johnson and Lucas regular Rick McCallum producing. George Lucas is executive producing. Let’s not confuse this with the film The Tuskegee Airmen with Lawrence Fishburne. This one looks like it has better effects.

The film will be released on January 20, 2012 from Fox. Check out the trailer after the break.

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This week’s pick is the 1989 drama directed by Roland Joffe Fat Man and Little Boy which were the code names given to the two atomic bombs that were dropped on Japan, ending the war in the Pacific during World War II. The film stars Paul Newman in a tour de force role as Gen. Leslie Groves, the military head of what was to be known as the “Manhattan Project.”

The film also stars Dwight Schultz (better known for his role on the hit TV show The A-Team playing Murdock) as J. Robert Oppenheimer, the brilliant physicist which brought the scientific minds together to help create the project. Rounding out the cast is John Cusack (Michael Merriman) who is a young physicist who acts as the film’s narrator while keeping a secret journal of his time in the New Mexico countryside while research and development of the “gadget” was underway.

The film is a brilliant examination of how the hypothetical became reality. Groves and Oppenheimer begin pulling in some of the best minds in the world who are eager to create a super weapon which will smash the Nazi’s hold throughout Europe. Ironically, Hitler’s own notions of racial purity drove some of Europe’s greatest minds to England and the United States to help the allies come up with an atomic device that would grant them the terms to wage war on the aggressors.

Many of the scenes show how the scientists met crushing deadlines, near fatal accidents with high explosives, radioactive materials, and whether or not the $2 billion project was ethical in the hands of military men like Groves, and what the fate of the world would be with such an awesome new weapon?

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This Week’s pick is yet again another World War II classic, the 1969 John Guillerman (King Kong 1976) film The Bridge At Remagen which stars George Segal (Lt. Phil Hartman), Ben Gazzara (Sgt. Angelo), Robert Vaughn (Major Paul Krueger), Bradford Dillman (Major Barnes) and screen great E.G. Marshall as General Shinner.

The film opens in March of 1945 as the American 9th Armored Div began to push elements of the retreating German army back towards the Rhine River. The German high command wants all the bridges over the Rhine destroyed in order to halt the advance of the allies from reaching the heart of Germany.

But one high ranking officer, General Von Brock (Peter Van Eyck) enlists the help of Major Paul Krueger (Vaughn) to keep one bridge, the bridge at Remagen up in order to allow the German 15th Army and its seventy-five thousand men to retreat and avoid capture. Krueger accepts the mission believing that a large force stationed at the bridge will stop the advancing Americans.

The Americans however want the bridge destroyed, but in the end keep it up as a way to help shorten the war. Both the Germans and Americans don’t realize it yet, but Remagen will become one of the last decisive battles of the war in Europe.

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The Big Red One: The Reconstruction is director Samuel Fuller’s (Fixed Bayonets, The Steel Helmet, Merrill’s Marauders) autobiographical account of his experiences with the legendary 1st U.S. infantry division throughout World War II. Lee Marvin leads the cast of raw recruits which include Griff (Mark Hamill, fresh from success in Star Wars), Zab (Robert Carradine, who doubles as Fuller and the film’s narrator), Vinci (Bobby Di Cicco), Kaiser (Perry Lang), and Johnson (Kelly Ward).

This version of the 1980 film was released several years following Fuller’s death, which was in 1997, as a tribute to his lasting work and the version he intended his audiences to see. When this version was released in early 2005, I was overjoyed to see the original forty seven minutes which Fuller was forced to cut by the Warner Bros. executives.

The film opens as the guns fell silent on the Western Front in France during World War I in November of 1918. Lee Marvin begins his military career as a private who outlasts the war only twenty five years later, to fight once again on the battlefields of North Africa, Sicily, and Europe. The film serves as a combat diary of Marvin and his rifle squad of young, inexperienced boys who fast become hardened soldiers.

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Today, HBO has released the “official’ trailer for Steven Spielberg and Tom Hank’s miniseries sequel to Band of Brothers called The Pacific. The new show, as opposed to Band of Brothers which followed paratroopers in Europe, tells the story of the Pacific Fleet’s journey through the 2nd World War.

According to HBO’s press release about the miniseries:

“Made up of 10 episodes and produced by Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg and Gary Goetzman, the creative team behind the Emmy-winning 2001 HBO miniseries Band of Brothers, The Pacific tracks the intertwined odysseys of three U.S. Marines – Robert Leckie, Eugene Sledge and John Basilone – across the vast canvas of the Pacific.

The extraordinary experiences of these men and their fellow Marines take them from the first clash with the Japanese in the haunted jungles of Guadalcanal, up the black sand terraces of Iwo Jima, to the triumphant, yet uneasy, return home after V-J Day”

As a big fan of Band of Brothers, I can’t wait to see this. It looks great.

The Pacific premieres on HBO in early 2010. Check out the trailer after the break.

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