# Movies you've seen recently (Part 1) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [September 29, 2014, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906 "2014-09-29T21:53:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 177
**Author:** ![alovem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@alovem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alovem)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2022, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/3533 "2022-01-07T18:36:56Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > I’m re-watching the remake of “True Grit” and enjoying it more than I did the first time around. On first viewing, did you think it fell short of the original? Because that’s my opinion, although I’ve seen only bits and pieces of the new one and have noticed that people speak highly of it. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2022, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/3534 "2022-01-07T19:29:51Z")
I like both versions a lot, but would give a very slight edge to the Coen Bros. remake. Favorite line from either: “I call that bold talk for a one-eyed fat man!” ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2022, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/3535 "2022-01-07T20:53:06Z")
I did, as it was one of Wayne’s best roles along with “The Shootist”. But the new one is true to the story and the acting is excellent, as is the dialog. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2022, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/3536 "2022-01-07T22:58:47Z")
Just watched **Venom** , which I hadn’t seen before. The plot was nonsense, the bad guy a stereotypical rich movie bad guy and the amount of collateral damage ludicrous, but Tom Hardy’s internal comedy dialogue was sufficiently entertaining for the duration to make it worthwhile. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2022, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/3537 "2022-01-07T23:19:26Z")
We watched the “Downton Abbey” movie last night about the king’s visit. Jesus, what a snooze-fest _that_ was. By the end, which was drawn out to absurd lengths, we were yelling “JUST END THE DAMN THING!” at the TV. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2022, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/3538 "2022-01-07T23:21:38Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Just watched **Venom** , which I hadn’t seen before. The plot was nonsense, the bad guy a stereotypical rich movie bad guy and the amount of collateral damage ludicrous, but Tom Hardy’s internal comedy dialogue was sufficiently entertaining for the duration to make it worthwhile. The sequel is very fun, playing up the comedy even more. I was stunned, though, when the sequel’s credits rolled at 86 minutes. No joke. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2022, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/3539 "2022-01-07T23:23:27Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > We watched the “Downton Abbey” movie last night about the king’s visit. Jesus, what a snooze-fest _that_ was. By the end, which was drawn out to absurd lengths, we were yelling “JUST END THE DAMN THING!” at the TV. Does that mean you’re not excited for the _second_ Downton Abbey movie, scheduled to be in theaters in March? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2022, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/3540 "2022-01-07T23:34:35Z")
I went to see _The French Dispatch_ and _Last Night in Soho_ this week. _The French Dispatch_ was pretty much what you would expect. As I once heard in a video, Wes Anderson is basically his own genre. I posted my thoughts on _Last Night in Soho_ [here](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-about-last-night-in-soho-spoilers/957357). ---
**Author:** ![Paintcharge](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/paintcharge/32/7946_2.png) [@Paintcharge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paintcharge)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2022, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/3541 "2022-01-08T00:06:22Z")
I watched _The Tender Bar_ last night. It was…fine. I read the book a few years ago. Well my sense of years ago is somewhat skewed because of the pandemic, so I probably read that thing in 2015. Anyway, it seemed to me that they cut out a lot of the **bar** bits of the book to make it not glorify booze culture too much. IIRC, the book was more of a love letter to your corner local pub than the movie ended up as. There were some nice bits about backing folks up, which is a big thing in locals. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2022, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/3542 "2022-01-08T00:08:47Z")
TCM is airing Red River tonight at 7 central. It’s in my top four favorite John Wayne movies. It’s a great movie and I’m looking forward to seeing it again. Thomas Dunson is not a likeable character. I find myself cheering on Montgomery Cliff’s more level headed character. Wayne showed skill in bringing Dunson to the screen. Wayne usually had a likeable charm in his roles. That’s not true of Red River. He took risks with Dunson. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2022, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/3543 "2022-01-08T00:35:06Z")
Continuing my pulp character theme of this month, I watched **The Shadow** last night. Very of its time, the mid 90s, but it was very well directed. The plot is thin, and there’s a lot less Shadow in it than you might expect, it seems to spend too much time on a nonsense villain plot and not enough on building Lamont Cranston’s inner conflict, but whatever, it was fun, and had some cool effects in it. About fifteen characters, only one of which was a woman, and she wore a slinky revealing dress throughout. That wouldn’t fly nowadays. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2022, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/3544 "2022-01-08T01:00:37Z")
Good god. I’m sick of all the problems of the rich and privileged. ---
**Author:** ![Wheelz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wheelz/32/5718_2.png) [@Wheelz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wheelz)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2022, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/3545 "2022-01-08T06:05:37Z")
> [@Paintcharge](#): > > I watched _The Tender Bar_ last night. It was…fine. I read the book a few years ago. Well my sense of years ago is somewhat skewed because of the pandemic, so I probably read that thing in 2015. > > Anyway, it seemed to me that they cut out a lot of the **bar** bits of the book to make it not glorify booze culture too much. IIRC, the book was more of a love letter to your corner local pub than the movie ended up as. There were some nice bits about backing folks up, which is a big thing in locals. I just watched it and came here to post pretty much exactly this. Lots of characters and story lines were left out, which is to be expected, but the editing choices were not necessarily the ones I would have made. I thought they captured the general _feel_ of the memoir pretty well, but the thematic threads that tied the book together so well were mostly missing, and the result felt somewhat disjointed. Still, not bad. In the end, it made me want to read the book again. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2022, 7:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/3546 "2022-01-08T07:04:50Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > TCM is airing Red River tonight at 7 central. It’s in my top four favorite John Wayne movies. > > It’s a great movie and I’m looking forward to seeing it again. > > Thomas Dunson is not a likeable character. I find myself cheering on Montgomery Cliff’s more level headed character. Wayne showed skill in bringing Dunson to the screen. Wayne usually had a likeable charm in his roles. That’s not true of Red River. He took risks with Dunson. Have you watched _The Searchers_ (my favorite Wayne movie)? It’s another one where Wayne plays an unlikeable character. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2022, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/3547 "2022-01-08T14:19:29Z")
_The Searchers_ is a great movie. Wayne’s obsession to find the kidnapped girl and kill her is quite a performance. Jeffrey Hunter is equally obsessed with finding the girl and saving her from Wayne. I’ve seen fan theories the little girl is actually Ethan’s daughter. There’s a scene at the beginning of the movie between Ethan and his sister-in-law where they exchange looks. It would help explain why the character rarely visits the family and his obsession. _Hondo_ is another great movie. Wayne is a little more likeable in it. But he’s still a very gruff and independent character. I didn’t see _Hondo_ until a few years ago. It was tied up in a copyright battle and not released on VHS for many years. ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2022, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/3548 "2022-01-08T16:08:56Z")
**Lilies of the Field** (Amazon Prime), in honor of Sidney Poitier. I hadn’t seen it in 50 years and was curious how well it held up. Perfectly well, as it turns out. Just a delightful little film. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2022, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/3549 "2022-01-08T19:27:50Z")
Bad Day at Black Rock airs today at 3:30 central on TCM. I can’t recall watching it. I’ve seen short clips on YouTube. The cast is superb with five Academy Award-winning actors (Spencer Tracy, Ernest Borgnine, Walter Brennan, Dean Jagger, and Lee Marvin). I found a transcript of the directors film commentary online. It’s made me really want to see the movie. **There are spoilers. I like to know if a movie is worth watching and what to expect.** > **[34 Things We Learned from John Sturges’ ‘Bad Day at Black Rock’ Commentary](https://filmschoolrejects.com/commentary-bad-day-at-black-rock-john-sturges-d5158b27aac5/)** > > We explore what we can learn from the DVD commentary track for Bad Day at Black Rock, featuring director John Sturges. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2022, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/3550 "2022-01-09T05:48:32Z")
**The Beguiled** (Netflix, 2017) Dumb. The first two thirds are a slow cooked Civil War romance of a wounded Union soldier taken to a sheltered Southern Girls School in Virginia and cared for by horny nubile lonely women. After that is 15 minutes of actual plot, action, interest, and character development and then the remainder is forlorn shots. Looking back I am not sure who is even at fault. The acting was fine. There just didn’t seem to be a worthy story to tell. I may someday read the 1966 book this was adapted from. There is no way the book sucked this much and I am interested in the story the film was trying and yet failing to tell. ---
**Author:** ![Precambrianmollusc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/precambrianmollusc/32/63_2.png) [@Precambrianmollusc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Precambrianmollusc)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2022, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/3551 "2022-01-09T06:13:32Z")
Got half way through The Lost Daughter, on Netflix. It was really good but then we got interupted by Tornado warnings and have been sat under a pretty hefty storm for a good while now. It is now midnight and still looks like another 45 minutes or so of bad weather before it clears through , so I guess we will finish it tomorrow. The weather team on channel 11 are absolutely loving this and are geeking out on 'correlational coefficients ’ right now. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/3552 "2022-01-10T03:02:40Z")
_Robin and Marian_ 1976. Audrey Hepburn came out of retirement to work with Sean Connery, Robert Shaw, and director Dick Lester. Lester made a lot of acclaimed movies. Hard Days Night, Help, The Three Musketeers (1973), The Ritz, Superman II etc. I would encourage people to watch _Robin and Marian_. I throughly enjoyed it. Robin Hood has been away fighting in the Crusades with King Richard. Robin is much older and tired of war. He returns to England with Little John to reconnect with Marian. A final conflict with the Sheriff of Nottingham is inevitable. The story is a fitting and noble end to a legendary character. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906.md?page=176) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906.md?page=178)