"Flyboys"

And here is my first movie review!
This week DH and I saw "Flyboys." I don't recall having seen any previews for it, but dh had, and wanted to see it. I was very impressed with it!
"Flyboys" is about some young Americans who joined the French Air Force in WWI, prior to the USA entering the war. Airplanes were a brand new invention, and the ariel dogfight was adding a new demension to warfare. I particularly enjoyed the training sequence, where they taught the young men how to fly a plane prior to letting them actually go up; several of their methods were very amusing.
One of the young men was black, and some of the white boys were accepting of him while others were not--but they learned to work as a team in spite of previously-held ideas. One of the young men was deeply religious--I thought that modern hollywood would write a script that made fun of him for his faith, but in fact just the opposite was true. The other boys showed him the utmost respect, even when they clearly didn't feel the same way as he did. It's something I see so rarely in film that it really stood out.
Flyboys is rated PG-13, but there is a cumulative total of about 10 seconds of visuals warrenting this rating. There is no sex, no foul language, and the violence primarily consists of planes crashing down...except that there are a few brief moments where you see a burst of red as someone is shot (and then his plane spirals down...) The subject matter is pretty heavy--one pilot in particular really struggles with the fact of killing... I would not recommend it for small children because of that content...but I WOULD heartily recommend this movie. It's a good snapshot of history, presented simply and without apology. Add it to your WWI curriculum, and to your netflix queue!