#041 - Fire Birds (1990)
Hello and welcome to my web log. Today I watched Fire Birds (1990).
Fire Birds is a classic underdog story about a group of plucky upstarts (the United States Army, minutes after the Cold War ended) taking on a seemingly unstoppable foe: a single East German helicopter pilot in the employ of cocaine traffickers. Tommy Lee Jones plays a veteran helicopter pilot with the army who has a concussion and who wants to go fight the war on drugs as a midlife crisis but is forced to train rookie pilot, played by Nicolas Cage, instead. Together, they cure(?) Cage’s character’s left-eye dominance by wrapping underwear around his head, strapping a periscope to his face with electrical tape, and making him drive a humvee at high speed around the army base. This movie is dumb as hell, just scene chewing and explosions, and yet I find myself in awe of (and deeply jealous of) the lyrical writing and delivery of a pep talk Tommy Lee Jones gives moments before the final action sequence:
“That’s what I’m looking for in you: first class, all-American hero with his heart and brain wired together cooking full-tilt boogie for freedom and justice, okay? It’s the oldest, corniest story in the whole world. By God, this could be a happy day! [INCOMING MISSILE WHIRS AND EXPLODES MERE FEET AWAY, SURPRISE AIR STRIKE ON THEIR LOCATION BEGINS. THEY BOTH SPRINT TOWARD THE HELICOPTERS]”
Today is also the birthday of all racehorses in the northern hemisphere and to celebrate, the following is my list of the top ten active racehorse names (northern hemisphere) from the Jockey Club that start with "cyber", in alphabetical order:
Cyber Baby (2015) Cyber Gun (2017)+ Cyber Mama (2024)* Cyber Monday (2017)+ Cyber Secret (2009) Cyber Sensation (2017)+ Cyber Shoes (2018)+ Cyber Tag (2015) Cybertime (2020) Cyber War (2015)
Happy birthday to all these horses.
*I could not find Cyber Mama on Equibase to confirm that Cyber Mama is from the northern hemisphere. +Sired by Cyber Secret. I point this out not to note that half this list is related but instead to draw your attention to the fact that roughly half the list is not; roughly half this list landed on the word “cyber” independently. Also, dear reader, please note that the full list of active racehorse names that start with “cyber” has 41 entries.