Admittedly I’m a sucker for a period piece, but World War I dogfight drama Flyboys has the most exciting aerial combat scenes I have ever seen. See it – it’s way better that you’d expect.
P.S. Get ready for the hundredth anniversary of World War I – it’s only six years away!
Apr 30 2008
A commenter points me to Will Wilkinson's post where he links to The Economist Intelligence Unit's ranking of Denmark as the best country to do business. About the Danish labor market, they write The system combines low non-wage labour costs and few restrictions on hiring and firing with high unemployment benefits (f...
Apr 30 2008
From Richard Rothstein at Cato Unbound:College graduates are, in fact, not in short supply. Indeed, some college graduates are now forced to take jobs requiring only high-school educations. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that, for the next decade, only 22 percent of job vacancies will require a college degree ...
Apr 30 2008
Admittedly I'm a sucker for a period piece, but World War I dogfight drama Flyboys has the most exciting aerial combat scenes I have ever seen. See it - it's way better that you'd expect. P.S. Get ready for the hundredth anniversary of World War I - it's only six years away!
READER COMMENTS
Dave Tufte
Apr 30 2008 at 4:21pm
Bryan: you are or were a gamer, right?
Have you ever seen a game called Ace of Aces?
It might offer you a similar experience in a table game environment. Great for kids too …
You can find them on E-Bay. Here’s the wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ace_of_Aces
Jim Gannon
Apr 30 2008 at 5:19pm
Bryan,
I agree. I watched it with low expectations and the acting lived down to my expectations. But the aerial footage was wonderful. It gives you a great sense of how dangerous is was flying these light construction early planes even before people start shooting at you.
Ross Levatter
Apr 30 2008 at 8:36pm
It’s really amazing when you think about it. It was a completely different world, less than a century ago. Of course, many would point to the vast technological changes, the information world, the way we are all portably and wirelessly networked to each other 24/7. Things virtually unimaginable (and likely literally unimagined) in 1908.
But many a libertarian thinks instead (or in addition) to a world where currently illicit drugs, including morphine and cocaine, could be ordered by mail without a doctor’s prescription, or simply downed in a soda picked up at the corner store. An era of rising rather than falling expectations.
A time of dramatic immigration.
Most importantly, an era of astounding peace, with most citizens blithely unaware of the secret treaties between various great powers that were even 6 years before already pushing the world to war.
A time when one could think the government wasn’t supposed to pay for your healthcare and wasn’t supposed to force you to save for your retirement without being viewed as a neanderthal antisocial kook. Far from it. A time when, though still a government monopoly, the school system was run at the local level, and parents actually had some substantive input.
A time when it was unconstitutional to establish an income tax.
A time when essentially ALL people had no trouble understanding that the 2nd amendment couldn’t possibly be anything other than an individual right.
A time when there was general agreement that it would only lead to trouble if America intervened in foreign quarrels.
Less than a century ago. More than a universe away.
Dennis Mangan
Apr 30 2008 at 10:30pm
Flyboys stunk. My review here.
John Fast
May 1 2008 at 7:04am
I strongly second the recommendation for Ace of Aces.
Have you ever seen either The Blue Max or Wings? (By “Wings” I mean the film which won the first Academy Award for Best Picture, not the 1990’s television series, which was still pretty good. Nor yet the band…)
Rue Des Quatre Vents
May 1 2008 at 6:56pm
Bryan, I think you’d really enjoy Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith.
Just out this week–It’s a captivating murder mystery set in Stalinist Russia.
Rue Des Quatre Vents
May 2 2008 at 2:29pm
I gave it a try, but this movie was not good.
Come on, a pet lion!
Daniel Klein
May 3 2008 at 9:49pm
Check the Eroll Flynn movie Dawn Patrol.
Comments are closed.