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COME OUT FIGHTING
*** The marketing material for Come Out Fighting emphasizes how the film was inspired by World War II’s 761st Tank Batallion, the Black Panthers. One might expect a more prominent release for such a subject, but Come Out Fighting is a relatively low budget, relatively well-made war film about the African-American soldier experience in World War II. The short version is, not that different than everyone else’s experience, except with more racism. Come Out Fighting acquits itself well on the subtler elements of World War II more commonly glossed over in the movies. Like how easy it was for people to get lost due to a lack of good maps. Or how there’s not a lot you can do when given orders by an obviously incompetent officer. Or how surprisingly often trading favors factors into very basic functions. The Black Panthers themselves have a surprisingly minor role, just showing up at one point to offer services for a search and rescue mission. Our actual perspective characters are a Black minesweeping division, and then an odd couple dynamic when one Black soldier gets lost and has to spend a lot of time with a downed white pilot. Nothing too impressive, but nothing too bad either. NR. WILLIAM SCHWARTZ. On demand.
IT’S QUIETER IN THE TWILIGHT
** The Voyager program in 1977 was an attempt to send probes out into outer space as far as they would go, taking advantage of a once-in-170-years planetary alignment to give the probes a gravity slingshot. Once the probes were actually launched, Voyager became a bit of a dead-end program at NASA, since all the engineers can really do is monitor and give commands to the existing probes. It’s Quieter in the Twilight is a documentary about those aging engineers. Despite the strong premise, the film does surprisingly little either on the scientific or the personal level with its source material. Frequent mention is made to the significance of the Voyager probes leaving the heliosphere, but the documentary doesn’t explain the significance or even try to do define what the heliosphere is. All we know is that the probes stop working if they get too cold. The engineers themselves being relics of a different era of NASA is also barely explored. I noticed their computers looked fairly ancient; unsurprising, given that they need to interface with 1977 probes. How many people even know how to use those these days? It’s Quieter in the Twilight sticks to human-interest stories instead of discussing this genuinely intriguing material at the margins, to its detriment. NR. WILLIAM SCHWARTZ. On demand.