Flyboys

Cubdriver wrote:

I loved the movie, and it had me sniffling a couple of times (when the
planes took off

tee hee.
Usually that's what I'm using the popcorn napkins for. I cry at TV
commercials. Didn't tear up at Flyboys, though.

With the improving state of computer animation, it was clear a lot of
the fight sequences were enhanced, to say the least, to make them more
thrilling...though they were pretty good anyhow. Apparently you can
shoot a million holes in the plane and never get the hero.

The little French kids were good, the love interest a little too
contrived (You plan to meet her in Paris? And you don't know her last
name? You couldn't write down an address or something?) but the puptent
flying base was interesting, what we got to see of it. A couple times
my Skepto-Meter kicked in like when he swiped the trainer to rescue his
girlfriend and the Germans about 50 yards away didn't notice him landing
(yeah, I know, he pulled the power on final but jeez) and they don't
show how the hero and the rescued Wisconsin kid got out of the firing
zone...apparently having abandoned one perfectly good plane.

My second favorite part: that one of the actors is genuinely named "Lex
Shrapnel."

My very favorite part -- 11 months ago being at a rural home & workshop
of a fellow in Kansas, one Robert Basley, who builds planes and made
the four biplanes for the movie. Yup, only four...it was all camera and
animation work that made them look like 20 or so. They'd already
finished filming it then, and mailed the planes back to him,
disassembled and stowed in a semi-trailer "container."
FWIW, none really had a radial engine in it, rotating or fixed. The
planes were streaked with paint to make them seem older and grimier, and
seeing all their wire-spoke wheels, fabric wings and fuselages with the
Indian logo scrubbed off but still visible, there in the dim storage
container, was a lot like seeing real relics. Sure made me eager to see
the finished movie.

It's worth a look. Then rent "Dark Blue World" and though it's a WW2
film, and not so early in the history of aviation and war, see the same
plot done better. Ragtag band of reject pilots, seat-of-the-pants
flying, love interest in the nearby town.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0244479/

I think it's in Blockbuster's "foreign film" section.