563: Masters of the Air / Letterboxd Reviews / Top 10 World War II Movies

[Henry Faherty]:\nI think one of the main reasons why I love World War two history so much and stories from that era so much is that it really was the last time, probably forever, when the world truly came together for a good cause saying, hey, this horrible thing is happening. Everybody needs to pitch in and do their part so we can stop this and move on. And I'm so thankful that many filmmakers continue to make stories from that. But in this case, Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks for doing this third show in this collection because they really are very special. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Film Buds podcast. This is episode number five hundred and sixty three, and my name is Henry. This week, I'm going to be tackling the Apple TV plus limited series masters of the air, and then I will be doing letterbox reviews of that as well, plus counting down my top ten favorite World War two movies of all time. So that should be really good. Thank you very much for joining us. Make sure to hit that subscribe button, rate, review, like, all that stuff. One thing, make sure to keep an eye out for video podcasts coming hopefully soon. I'm still trying to figure out the setup for that and how it's gonna be coordinated exactly, but I do hope to get some FaceTime and get a little bit more variety in that way so it's not just audio and you can have a little bit more interaction possibly with me. So it's long overdue, but trying to get around to it now. Make sure to check out our premium podcast page, which is filmbuds dot bandcamp dot com, where you can get collections of all these shows, and it's, of course, ad free. You get to download your own copy. So just in case things were ever taken away, you'd have your own m p three version as well as our primary website, which is filmbuds podcast dot com. And all that is in the show notes. We have a link tree, so please check out all those links. There's a lot to discover. Not much else to say. I wanna go and talk masters of the air and do have a clip, so take a listen. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nSo you're happy? A girl with Rhydindra is hard to find. Not if you know where to look. I'll miss you every second. Major Egan. You were the first pilot assigned to the one hundreds. Me and Barclay. You are in charge of thirty five planes and three hundred and fifty air crewmen. Don't you die on me before I get over there. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nAlright. Masters of the Air came out in early twenty twenty four. It's created by John Orloff, but the two main producers on the movie were Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg. And as I alluded to in the intro, it is the third companion series in the collection with Vanda Brothers and the Pacific. It stars Austin Butler, Callum Turner, Anthony Boyle, Drak Cowley, Barry Keoghan, pretty decent casts. And the synopsis is, during World War two, five miles above the ground and behind enemy lines, ten men inside an aluminum bomber known as a quote, unquote flying fortress battle anti aircraft fire and unrelenting flocks of German fighters. So I had been meaning to get around to this one for a while. I knew it was gonna be good, and I knew it was gonna be very emotional and special as silly as that is to say. So I was kinda saving it for the right time. Band of Brothers remains one of my favorite shows of all all time. I think it's one of the best shows ever made, honestly, and the Pacific, while not as good, still very strong. As anyone who listens to the show a lot knows, I love World War two history in all respects. I just cannot get enough of it. I watch every movie, TV show, try and read every history book. I never get bored of it. As well as one nostalgic or personal connection that I have to it is my late father was a pilot, not in the military, but he did teach military pilots at one point, and he's always loved not only World War two history, but World War two aviation, the American airmen, as well as the British RAF. He just was obsessed with that, built every model, and had every single book imaginable. So I grew up with all that around me, and I've come to also have a love of flight. So even more so than the other two shows, this one drew me in a little bit more deeply from the get go. One thing I didn't know about it, at least for the first four or five episodes, they were directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga, who directed the first season of True Detective, which is also one of the best TV seasons ever made to me, as well as Beasts of No Nation, No Time to Die, a really, really great director. There was also Dee Reiss, who directed the Netflix movie Mudbound. It's also shot by Adam Arkhipaw, who collaborated with Cary Joji on True Detective. He also shot Macbeth, Assassin's Creed, a really underrated cinematographer. But, anyways, long story short, this is easily one of the best shows I've seen in a long time. It is very traditional in style, like, there's nothing really that flashy about it. There's some gore and graphic content, but nothing too crazy, and it's very character based. It's very story based. There's not a lot of fat to it. It's \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nnine episodes. For one, Callum Turner \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nand Austin Butler, amazing as the two leads. Like, they're both big rising stars, and they both have a lot of talent, and I was never bored when they're on screen. The costume design is by Colleen Atwood, who's one of the most celebrated costume designers ever. And like the other two companion shows, there's such an emotional resonance to this story. And, yes, sure, I'm the history buff, so I'm maybe attaching more or getting more out of it than the average viewer might, but it really immerses you in the sheer terror of being up in one of these bombers where you are not that well protected, bullets and shrapnel can shred through the walls of those planes easily, the tide can turn on a dime, and suddenly you have to get into action. If you get shot down, there's maybe a chance of you being able to parachute out, or you might just be stuck in there while the plane falls to the ground and explodes. And one strong piece of direction, I think, in cinematography too is one thing that allowed me to really feel the panic and the surprise and the speed of planes flying by the bombers was there are these POV shots of the gunners on the side of the bombers, and they'll go from one side to another in terms of swiveling their gun as a fighter zooms by, and that immediately makes you think, holy crap, they're going fast. Like, this is insane. And the amount of planes that are flying all around in these huge dogfights, I can't imagine what that must have been like, and I would have been afraid, honestly, of shooting my own fighters or my own bombers down because things can move so quickly and direction can change that I don't even know how they hit anything at that, but whenever they're up in the plains doing bombing runs over Europe, it's so intense, so nail biting, and not only that, but what I appreciated it is a true story, of course, in most ways, but one thing I find aggravating in a lot of war movies is that somehow most of the lead characters will come out unharmed while everyone else around them is dying or getting torn up. A lot of the characters in this do die suddenly. There are the through lines of the characters, but there are many who feel like, oh my god. That person just died, and big stars too in the series. It's not just the lesser known actors with one being I won't spoil it, but there's one where one pilot is going down after he was shot, and he decided to try and stay with the plane and crash, but something goes wrong right before they hit the ground and blows up. And, like, okay. Well, that person's gone. And then, also, there are moments with the characters who don't get to say goodbye to their friends because that's how it was. Sometimes certain squadrons or groups would go on a mission without others, and then some of them wouldn't come back, and those friends, whoever, would not even get to see them before they died, and that feels very, very real. In terms of the overall narrative, the first half of the show is mainly focusing on the bombing runs over Europe, and then the second half, as you can guess, a lot of bombers are shot down, and you see pilots crashing in Europe and having to make their way back to allied lines. And even though I know that this wasn't the point or focus of the story, I wish we had seen maybe a little bit more of the resistance members in that journey, but not a big deal. There's other movies and shows that show that, so that didn't bother me much. And another pleasant surprise because the Pacific kinda struggled with this a little bit, The romances are very brief in terms of the amount of time on screen, but they cut back to the main front very quickly. And that was really a relief because there are a lot of other similar kind of stories out there that just bog the story down with these really uninteresting romances that I'd say most people watching it don't care that much about. And I know that it's important, and it was a real thing, of course, but they seem to have a handle on this of, okay, what's the most important in telling this story. The opening credits are very good. They're pretty long as the ones in Band of Brothers and the Pacific are, but very, very well done. The music is quite good. The effects, I thought, overall, were good. No real issues, and I was never taken out of it because of shoddy effects. Everything with the POW camps later on in the story were very interesting with the airmen trying to create certain devices and hatch out plans, and then the Nazis coming in and possibly discovering these things as well as the long treks through the countryside after the allies started to make more and more progress. And similar to the other two shows with the narrative, it does follow that decline of the war getting more and more intense and serious and more bombers being taken out, more people dying, the morale continuing to get worse, but there are still moments of joy when certain people are discovered or reconnected. I didn't know that it was gonna include this, but the introduction of the Tuskegee Airmen who were a very integral part to the war, and I highly recommend you look into them if you don't know who they are. While I don't have any firsthand experience, of course, with this world or anything along those lines, it does seem like they did the best they could at giving the utmost respect and honor as they did in the other two shows for these men, and they're very well rounded. They show the good sides, the bad sides, the nice things that they were able to do, but also the really horrible things that they had to go through and witness. All in all, I can't recommend it enough. It's easily my favorite TV show of twenty twenty four, and these stories are something that everyone should know about no matter what. That is a heavy five out of five, six out of five for Masters of the Air. Alright. Let's get to some letterboxed reviews of Masters of the Air. And just in case you're new, if you would like to have your Letterboxd review or if you have a review in some other place, feel free to send it to me or comment on social media, on YouTube, wherever you can. I would love to hear from you and have yours included. This time, I'm just picking at random on Letterboxd. The first one comes from Nayana. Hopefully, I'm saying that right. Gave it five stars. Says, the final episode couldn't have been more satisfying. In fact, in my opinion, it stands among the greatest finales ever produced. Pretty high praise there. Jeremy Johns gives it two stars, says too many characters. Band of Brothers had a lot of characters as well, but you got to know them. It wasn't just an endless parade of people whose names you won't remember getting shot down and killed. The two leads are cartoonish caricatures who I never really cared about. It feels like someone told an AI to write a script about the nineteen forties and the war, but make it really nineteen forties. And it's shot on an iPhone using Instagram filters, or at least it looks that way. Rylo forty four gives it four stars, says not quite as good as Band of Brothers or The Pacific, but still a well made and well acted drama told from the skies of World War two. A good ensemble cast helps tell the personal stories of the men that flew the planes for the air force during the war, and I recommend this to anyone who is interested in World War two history. Last one comes from Mari Mary. Sorry if I said that wrong. Spelled m a r I. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nGave it three stars and says, thirst watch for Calum complete. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nWell, thanks again for that, and, yeah, I would love to hear anyone's review out there, big or small. Just get in contact with me, send them my way. Let's end off with my top World War two movies of all time. I haven't seen every single one, of course, but I've seen the majority over the years. I rewatch a lot of them, so I don't think I'm missing many. Not only that, but since I do plan on doing a lot of other World War two movies and shows as featured reviews, I will be doing other related lists like top ten most underrated movies, worst movies, shows, that kind of thing. So if it's not on this list, that doesn't mean that I don't hold a certain movie in high regard, but I had to make my top ten as to the things that connect with me the most, the things that I like to revisit or that makes me think about the most. I just don't want mine as much as I can to be the exact same predictable choices. Number ten, the imitation game. I've seen this a handful of times. It's a fairly despite the dark nature of it, it's kind of an easy watch, I find. I don't know why exactly, but Benedict Cumberbatch is amazing. It's about the story of Alan Turing who broke the German enigma radio code during the war, but then he would later be prosecuted because he was gay, and it follows his rise and fall. A very, very good character piece, not action heavy or anything like that. So if you're looking for a big epic World War two movie, this is not it, but still a very essential one that not a lot of people know about. And I feel like nowadays, considering Alan Turing did really invent the first computer, more people should know his name. Also, very good score by Alexander Desplat. Number nine, Hacksaw Ridge. I saw this one in theaters. I've watched it maybe two or three times in total. It's a very intense film. Mel Gibson does, in his own way, have an obsession with violence and gore. Sometimes that works for him, other times not, but the introduction of this real life medic who refused to carry a gun in the Pacific as he was on the battlefield and trying to save people is very touching and almost unbelievable in terms of how selfless and brave he was. He did have this religious background, but no matter your faith or anything like that, he still did all these incredibly harrowing things and saved so many lives when he easily could have been killed as it was with all the medics in the war. When it gets into the war itself, it gets crazy really quick. It's very visceral and graphic, but for the most part, really does not feel overdone and really focuses on Andrew Garfield's character, and it's a great performance by him as well. And aside from Apocalypto, it would be my second favorite Mel Gibson directed film and one of the better films about the Pacific. Number eight, Fury. This was a big movie for Brad Pitt. I know this was kind of unexpected for him. I think he was sort of getting into his prime, and he's been in his prime for a while, I'd say, doing some of his best work that he's ever done. He had been in Inglourious Basterds, and that remains my favorite movie of his, I think. David Ayer had just done End of Watch, and he would go on to do Suicide Squad. Despite this movie maybe having a few too many over the top styles in terms of writing of these men bouncing back and forth and a little too modern with how they speak, It's very gritty and puts you into that dark, horrible part of the war and like Masters of the Air, it gives you a slice of life as to a very specific part. So Masters of the Air was in planes, Fury is in tanks as they go across Europe. I don't love Logan Lerman in everything, and he's the typical Logan Lerman in this, the fish out of water, kinda timid guy. Shia LaBeouf is good. He was getting into his method acting at this stage, and it's maybe a little too much, but \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nas a performance by itself, it's strong. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nHowever, I will say Michael Pena, maybe a little miscast, don't love him in this, but incredible action, very effectively claustrophobic. It looks great despite it being a very washed out gray looking movie, and the final action sequence is very epic. Definitely one of the more epic endings to a war movie in quite some time. Number seven, Flags of Our Fathers, the Clint Eastwood film, and I was debating on if I liked Flags of Our Fathers more or the companion film that he did, \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nLetters from Iwo Jima, and I think I like this one a little bit more even though the other one is very good. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nThis was one of the first World War two movies that really had an impact on me. I had seen Saving Private Ryan and a few others at this point, but I was still fairly young, probably too young to go and see this. It follows the true story of the marines on Iwo Jima who raised the flag on the hilltop in that iconic photograph that everybody probably recognizes and is one of the most famous photographs of all time, I think. I read the book at the time, and it's a very good book, but it's a very interesting, unexpected story because you don't, looking at that photo, at least I didn't immediately think, okay, who are these guys? Where did they come from? Why did this happen? And this gets into all of that, the time when they're in the war and they're losing friends, the random choices of them being picked to be a part of this photograph, and then the aftermath of the war of being these kind of celebrities for the war effort. It's one of Clint Eastwood's best directed movies. His score that he did is very good, and that introduction to the island hopping strategy and them getting on Iwo Jima and things seeming okay, and, of course, they weren't. Number six, Jojo Rabbit. When this was released or the trailers were released, I think everybody was like, what? Are you seriously doing a comedy about Hitler, a satire about Hitler? This is gonna be so offensive, so terrible, like, it cannot be good and \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nturned out to be the exact opposite. It's Taika Waititi's best movie. Him playing Hitler is hysterical, and just in case you haven't seen it, it is not necessarily what you expect. It does do a lot of \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\ncommentary on the Nazi regime and the ridiculousness \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nof it all and \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nmanages to make you laugh at a lot of points, but has a lot of very touching moments with one of the more referenced ones being the shoes that the young boy finds. I won't say anything more than that, but that's heartbreaking and there are a lot of moments like that that also look into the young boys who were drafted by the Nazis to fight towards the end of the war because they were losing so many of their regular soldiers. There's nothing else out there really like it, and I doubt many others could do this in the way that Taika Waititi did, and that's one of the reasons why it's so special. Number five, Inglourious Basterds. This still remains my favorite Quentin Tarantino movie. When it came out, I thought along with all my friends that this was like the coolest movie ever. It was these badass American soldiers in these guerrilla groups taking out Nazis. They kill Hitler. They change the war, and it was this, as Tarantino does very well, this alternate history that's not taking away from the realism, but it's satisfying to see things go better than they might otherwise would have. It's a fan favorite of a lot of people I know and many, many people, more people than you would think have seen it. And what makes it that much more impressive is that it is two and a half hours, and at least maybe half or sixty percent is not in English. There's French, there's German, and it's rare that you get a movie that has so much subtitled dialogue that is so widely accepted and praised, but it's very funny. It's great performances by Brad Pitt and Melanie Laurent, Christoph Waltz, Diane Kruger. It's got so many iconic lines, and I doubt maybe I'll love to be proven wrong, but I doubt Tarantino will ever top this in the movies that he has left. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nAlright. Number four, getting close here. Number four is Dunkirk, the Christopher Nolan film. Christopher Nolan continues to and will revisit him again in a little bit, but he is one of, \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nif not the most successful filmmaker right now in terms of being able to create very interesting artistic unique pieces, but still appeal to a wide audience way more than if other filmmakers tried to tackle this same story. And in this case, the playing of time with the three different story lines, and it is, if you don't know, it is about the Dunkirk disaster or evacuation during the war when the English were surrounded by the Nazis and they're trying to escape back to England. The use of practical effects as Christopher Nolan is known for doing, the amount of real planes, real ships, the thousands of extras. It's an amazing production. It's incredibly well edited and suspenseful. The score by Hans Zimmer is amazing and adds to that tension, and I think is as true to life of depicting this event as you could get. Harry Styles is very good in this. That unexpected casting choice, I remember, was very surprising to most, and he's gone on to be in a few other movies since. Tom Hardy, always great. Mark Rylance, Barry Keough again, it's pretty much a perfect movie for me. I understand that some people don't love it because the characters aren't really the focus. There's not a lot of development there. It's mainly the look at the entire situation and, again, that use of time within the story. Number three, Schindler's List. This is a obvious choice, I'm sure, for most. It still remains, I think, the defining Holocaust movie. It's almost three and a half hours. It's black and white, but it's one of the most captivating, moving films I've ever seen to date, one of Spielberg's best, and it's hard to see even with the other great holocaust films that have come out since. I don't know if I ever see this one being topped anytime soon. It follows the true story of Oscar Schindler who helped get countless \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nJews out of Europe or at least out of danger, and I think it's still Liam Neeson's best performance, one of Ralph Fiennes' best. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nPlus for a movie that is black and white and about the Holocaust, it looks beautiful. There is a lot of handheld cinematography, but it works perfectly. Of all the movies I'm talking about in this list, if you haven't seen it yet, this would be the one to watch in terms of its \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nhistorical significance and even its cinematic significance. Number two, Oppenheimer, \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\none of my all time favorite movies, and aside from The Dark Knight, it's my favorite Christopher Nolan movie. Like I was saying with Dunkirk, no one else could have done Oppenheimer like Nolan did. If someone else had done this, I think it would have made five million dollars. It would not have gotten the awards attention. It just would have been swept under the rug, but Nolan made it his own, made it this huge epic. It made almost a billion dollars and is Kelly Murphy's best performance, I think, to date. Robert Downey Junior, one of his best. The cinematography and score, the still very, unfortunately, very timely idea or message of this movie of the atomic bomb totally changing the world forever. It's never been the same, and it gets into that discussion of, you know what you're about to do. You need to know the ramifications of this. And the discussions with Einstein in the movie of him saying, you know, this is hard to even predict what will happen after this bomb drops, and could this destroy the world, and Oppenheimer at the end really kind of coming to an understanding of what have I done. It also on a smaller note, it really satisfies my ADHD. The editing is very quick, and it's almost like a three hour montage in a way, but I can watch this, and I feel like I get calmed down in a weird way even though it's very intense. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nI don't know if I'm alone there, but I noticed that right from the get go. Alright. Number one, \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nSaving Private Ryan, of course, done by Steven Spielberg. I know everyone talks about the opening sequence, and it is one of the most \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nunbelievable sequences ever put into movies, in my opinion, in terms of the reality \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nof it. And I know when a lot of veterans went to go and see it, they had to leave the theater because it was too real and visceral for them. But while that part is, of course, great, the rest of the movie is amazing as well. It's not just, oh, yeah. That first twenty, thirty minutes is all that's good. No. I think the entire movie is top notch, one of Tom Hanks' best, the ensemble cast, the trek across Europe for this guy, and that idea of, is it worth it to sacrifice or possibly risk the lives of these squad members for rescuing one guy? What are the pros and cons, and how do each sides feel about it? Yeah. I don't think I'll ever really get over watching that for the first time and not knowing that much about it and being completely shocked and blown away by everything that they presented. And, yeah, that is my top ten list. Please let me know your top ten or your top five, whatever, what you think of my lists, if you think things should have been removed or included, whatever. But remember, I will be doing other lists like this, so there will be plenty more discussions about World War two cinema. That is about it for the show. As always, rate, review, subscribe, like, share with your friends, follow us on social media, visit our website. Well, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did, and I'll see you next time. \n\n