Derek's Reviews

Red Tails (2012)

Grade: D

I really wanted to enjoy “Red Tails.” I really did. But George Lucas did it again. He churned out yet another clichéd, corny, and painfully scripted movie that doesn’t do the real story of the Tuskegee Airmen justice. In fact, Lucas wanted to tell the story of the Tuskegee Airmen for decades. The Airmen were African-American fighter pilots who endured the Army’s racism and indifference during World War II and ultimately overcame discrimination by proving to be some of the military’s most effective and courageous pilots. Click here for the full review...

War Horse (2011)
Grade: B-

“War Horse” marks Steven Spielberg’s return to the war genre since “Saving Private Ryan.” The veteran director slathers his latest project with his distinctive and entertaining style, but the film is ultimately shortchanged by its sentimentality. Spielberg begins “War Horse” with grandiose shots of Devon, a picturesque English countryside with luscious, green hills and a charming town, in the year 1914. Here a young boy, Albert, peers through a fence and witnesses the birth of a thoroughbred foal. Click here for the full review...


Snow Falling on Cedars (1999)
Grade: C+

Snow Falling on Cedars opens with a hazy mist hovering over the harbor of the fictitious San Piedro Island in the post-WWII Pacific Northwest. As a boat cuts through the fog, it chances upon a lifeless body tangled in fishing nets – a murder scene as chilling as the harbor’s wet, dreary atmosphere. Suspicions surrounding the mysterious death of the Anglo fisherman befall Kazuo Miyamoto, a second generation Asian-American who was swindled by the deceased man’s family in a land deal. Click here for the full review...