![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Took Dad to see Flight tonight -- he's been wanting to see it for ages, so we had a nice dad-daughter date. And it turned out to be an excellent movie -- far better than the critics had led me to expect -- with a truly fascinating and redemptive story. It was basically the story of a pilot addicted to alcohol, drugs, and his own brilliance, and it was made clear in many ways -- many unique and interesting ways -- that God was deliberately letting him fall to rock bottom because there was no other way for him to get free from himself. Maybe even driving him to rock bottom. There was something like a touch of Flannery O'Connor about it.
Unfortunately, it more than earns its R rating, with a lot of bad language, and what I can only call rampant nudity at the beginning. It's a great pity, because it didn't need any of it. (The nudity did serve a purpose of sorts, but it did not have to be nearly that rampant.) They could easily have taken that out and knocked it down to PG-13, and gotten it a wider audience, and it so deserves one. Oh, well.
But we both really liked it and had a great time, and Dad has been happily talking airplanes ever since. He used to be a pilot himself, back in his Army days -- was in charge of helicopter maintenance at his base in Vietnam, and flew rescue missions. And he had his own little Cessna for a few years as well. I do like his flying stories, and when something once gets him started, like this movie did, he'll go on for hours. (We're very much alike in that respect: When we're interested in a subject, we get INTENSE about it . . . as I expect many of you have noticed!) It's fascinating to think he had this whole other daredevil life before I was even born.
And the fact that he liked this movie so much says a lot for it, because he is a big stickler for accuracy in movies, especially when he knows the subject well. So you know they got the flying stuff right on the nose! (He knew right away what went wrong with the plane at the beginning of the movie, even though they didn't explain it till the end.) And even more importantly, they got a lot of the really big stuff -- sin and brokenness and redemption -- right as well.
Unfortunately, it more than earns its R rating, with a lot of bad language, and what I can only call rampant nudity at the beginning. It's a great pity, because it didn't need any of it. (The nudity did serve a purpose of sorts, but it did not have to be nearly that rampant.) They could easily have taken that out and knocked it down to PG-13, and gotten it a wider audience, and it so deserves one. Oh, well.
But we both really liked it and had a great time, and Dad has been happily talking airplanes ever since. He used to be a pilot himself, back in his Army days -- was in charge of helicopter maintenance at his base in Vietnam, and flew rescue missions. And he had his own little Cessna for a few years as well. I do like his flying stories, and when something once gets him started, like this movie did, he'll go on for hours. (We're very much alike in that respect: When we're interested in a subject, we get INTENSE about it . . . as I expect many of you have noticed!) It's fascinating to think he had this whole other daredevil life before I was even born.
And the fact that he liked this movie so much says a lot for it, because he is a big stickler for accuracy in movies, especially when he knows the subject well. So you know they got the flying stuff right on the nose! (He knew right away what went wrong with the plane at the beginning of the movie, even though they didn't explain it till the end.) And even more importantly, they got a lot of the really big stuff -- sin and brokenness and redemption -- right as well.
