# 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:** 458
**Author:** ![Push\_You\_Down](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/push_you_down/32/9095_2.png) [@Push\_You\_Down](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Push_You_Down)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2024, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/9160 "2024-04-21T23:42:04Z")
I watched Late Night with the Devil last night and really enjoyed it… except… -spoilers for the ending- They abandoned the premise of this being found footage in the last 5 minutes to do a very drawn out ‘tv is hell’ sequence. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2024, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/9161 "2024-04-22T00:22:47Z")
> [@ShadowFacts](#): > > That said, I think I actually preferred the theatrical release to the director’s cut, which to my mind had too much extra opera in it. It felt a touch bloated at three hours and lost a bit of its momentum. S I’ve come back around to agreeing generally - the theatrical cut is probably the better, certainly tighter edit. However as I’ve mentioned here before the one thing the director’s does add which I thought was lost in the theatrical is why Constanze so despises Salieri. When I first watched the film I found her strong hostility towards him in the final act kind of out-of-left-field. I mean they had hardly interacted before, where was this coming from? Just the job thing? It was only after seeing the director’s cut that I was like “ohhhh, I get it now.” It’s useful, but not essential character development lost in the tighter cut. ---
**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:** [April 22, 2024, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/9162 "2024-04-22T00:28:44Z")
Regarding the film (and play) Amadeus, I remember someone posted here that it’s historically inaccurate. I get that, but I still like the story; the idea that Salieri is devout and wants to honor God through his music but the vulgar and childish Mozart was given much bigger gifts for creating music. There’s that one scene in which Salieri presents a simple melody that he composed, but then Mozart effortlessly improves it. ---
**Author:** ![ShadowFacts](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shadowfacts/32/2934_2.png) [@ShadowFacts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShadowFacts)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2024, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/9163 "2024-04-22T00:29:43Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > When I first watched the film I found her strong hostility towards him in the final act kind of out-of-left-field. I mean they had hardly interacted before, where was this coming from? It was only after seeing the director’s cut that I was like “ohhhh, I get it now.” It’s useful, but not essential character development lost in the tighter cut. That’s a good point, I agree. ---
**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:** [April 22, 2024, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/9164 "2024-04-22T01:43:40Z")
Magnum Force 1973 Clint Eastwood My favorite in the Dirty Harry series. It had several actors that went on to stardom David Soul, Tim Matheson, Robert Urich, and Hal Holbrook. What a cast! Sundance channel ran the first three Dirty Harry films this afternoon. I recommend all of them. ---
**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:** [April 22, 2024, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/9165 "2024-04-22T02:20:24Z")
**Tank Girl** Not recommended. I don’t know why, but I had always heard this movie was fairly cute and was pretty much overlooked. No, it’s mostly boring and really feels incomplete. It has some kind of cool animated inserts, but I actually read those were inserted because the movie was unfinished, multiple scenes/shots not being filmed. Really just kind of lame and boring. Perhaps they should remake movies like this. The effort/attempt was there, but it didn’t work. Skip it. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2024, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/9166 "2024-04-22T03:59:46Z")
Lori Petty is fun and the soundtrack is great. But the rest is pretty disappointing. ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2024, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/9167 "2024-04-22T05:53:36Z")
> [@Push\_You\_Down](#): > > I watched Late Night with the Devil last night and really enjoyed it… except… > -spoilers for the ending- > > They abandoned the premise of this being found footage in the last 5 minutes to do a very drawn out ‘tv is hell’ sequence. Yeah that was the one problem I had with it. Other than those last five minutes I loved it! ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2024, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/9168 "2024-04-22T07:20:20Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > No, it’s mostly boring and really feels incomplete. The comic book it is based on had little in the way of coherent narrative and they really didn’t succeed well in trying to graft one on for the film. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2024, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/9169 "2024-04-22T18:33:25Z")
I watched a few old ones this weekend. I’d seen both before (long before). _Bad New Bears._ This is almost a perfect movie. Funny, sad, dramatic, with a great soundtrack. Good acting from the kids and the adults. It also had a real nostalgic feeling for me now, too. I can barely remember when the Valley had so much open land. It brought back memories _hard._ I only just found out that they’d originally filmed two endings: one with the Bears winning; one with them losing. The screenings with the winning ending was hated by the preview crowds. I agree it was much better that they lost. Should I have spoilered a 50 year old film? “Portrait of Jennie.” This is one that not everyone will like but it’s one I love. Just a lovely spooky romantic wallow. Great work by Joseph Cotton, Jennifer Jones, and Ethel Barrymore. Nice small part with Lillian Gish. The dramatic climax was almost too much, even for me, but I did like the “special effects.” ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2024, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/9170 "2024-04-22T19:21:41Z")
I agree re: _The Bad News Bears_. Terrific movie with outstanding performances and social commentary. I hadn’t heard the two endings story. I’m glad they went with the one they did. ---
**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:** [April 22, 2024, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/9171 "2024-04-22T19:27:30Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > … the one thing the director’s [cut of _Amadeus_] does add which I thought was lost in the theatrical is why Constanze so despises Salieri. When I first watched the film I found her strong hostility towards him in the final act kind of out-of-left-field. I mean they had hardly interacted before, where was this coming from? Just the job thing? It was only after seeing the director’s cut that I was like “ohhhh, I get it now.” It’s useful, but not essential character development lost in the tighter cut. Hmm. I haven’t seen the director’s cut. Why _is_ she so hostile to him? Spoiler it, if you wish. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2024, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/9172 "2024-04-22T21:42:19Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Hmm. I haven’t seen the director’s cut. Why _is_ she so hostile to him? Spoiler it, if you wish. In the scene where she tries to get Salieri to recommend Amadeus for a teaching post, Salieri doesn’t just request some of Mozart’s works to inspect. He also broadly hints she’ll have to prostitute herself to him. Which she is hesitantly willing to acquiesce to for her husband’s sake. So when she brings him the operas, while Salieri is obsessing over them she is stripping topless and offering herself up. Overwrought by the visible evidence Amadeus’ undeserved genius, Salieri contemptuously dismisses her, humiliating her for nothing (as Amadeus never gets those plum paying jobs that would have kept him out of debt and alive). ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2024, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/9173 "2024-04-22T22:13:34Z")
In case anyone cares, in the real world, Mozart made between $100k-$500k per year equivalent in his Vienna years, according to Maynard Solomon’s _Mozart: A Life_, with his peak earnings year being his last (_Magic Flute_ and _Cosi Fan Tutti_ helped to fill that till). He was just bad with money. Imho, I agree with @ShadowFacts - the theatrical cut was the better cut. I don’t care for the Constanze nude scene, as… in a weird way… it debases Salieri. ---
**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:** [April 22, 2024, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/9174 "2024-04-22T22:13:54Z")
**Se7en** Highly recommended. I haven’t seen this movie in a long time and let me tell you, it holds up completely. Just a terrific movie all the way through and edited masterfully. I actually don’t think Morgan Freeman is excellent in every single performance he gives, but he is great in this. Brad Pitt? Yes, he does a fine job, but he has been better in other movies. Overall, though, this movie is just top notch. A very intense movie and I believe it is far and away the best David Fincher movie I’ve seen. You could release it today without changing a thing and this movie turns, get this, 30 years old next year. Reminds me a bit of I Saw The Devil, though I’ll give the edge to I Saw The Devil if forced to pick. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2024, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/9175 "2024-04-23T01:31:21Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > Regarding the film (and play) Amadeus, I remember someone posted here that it’s historically inaccurate. From what I’ve heard, it should definitely not be taken as an accurate depiction of the real-life Mozart nor of the real-life Salieri. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2024, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/9176 "2024-04-23T01:32:43Z")
My wife and I watched a film called **The Luckiest Girl Alive** on Netflix. The way it was shot, it felt very much like it wanted to be a David Fincher or Steven Soderbergh film. Mila Kunis stars as this ambitious writer for some magazine on the eve of her wedding to some rich banker dealing with this huge trauma from when she was younger. Mostly it just sort of felt like horrible things happening to horrible people and the flashbacks were a bit weird because we know that “high school Mila Kunis” looks like Jackie from That 70s Show, but the character in the movie did not. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2024, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/9177 "2024-04-23T02:18:12Z")
How many of you have noticed that a movie affects you differently after repeated viewings? On TCM I have been watching _ **How the West Was Won** _ for about the fourth time. I was a kid when I watched it for the first time. I thought it was a grand adventure film. I watched it a couple more times as the years went by, and got some idea of how history works, the gains and the losses. But tonight I have been kind of depressed. In the scene where Zeb Rawlings(George Peppard) comes back to the family farm, and finds the family cemetery plot now has him mother and father, the graves are reminding me of the style of places I saw recently when my sister and I went to see the eclipse. One timy place out in the country, abandoned, the stones tumbled mostly and it’s all but forgotten. I have a four greats grandfather and grandmother there. And in all likelihood I will never be back. That’s what is going to happen to me eventually. I have no children, so I never even accomplished sending my genes on, little though they may be worth. If I am remembered fifty years after I die I’ll be surprised. What was the point of my even arranging for a stone, nobody will visit. But it’s still a good movie, even better than I recall. ---
**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:** [April 23, 2024, 9:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/9178 "2024-04-23T09:26:25Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > From what I’ve heard, it should definitely not be taken as an accurate depiction of the real-life Mozart nor of the real-life Salieri. It should not. And the timeline is materially wrong (I mean, Mozart wrote a whole other opera after _The Magic Flute_). But he _was_ a foul-mouthed and immature jerk (as Peter Shaffer famously revealed to Margaret Thatcher to her horror). ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2024, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/9179 "2024-04-23T14:30:35Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > **Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie** (1995). Narrated by Captain Kirk, aka William “the Shat” Shatner. Initially annoying, but eventually actually got me pretty angry. This really should have been titled “The Folly of Man”. The movie itself consists of nothing more than a few bits of narrative connecting an incessant series of videos showing nuclear explosions in the atmosphere or underwater, and documenting the mad rush by both the Soviet Union and the US to bring on the age of Mutually Assured Destruction. > > It was incredible to me to see the number of such tests that were conducted. A single code-named “operation” was usually not a single nuclear explosion, but as many as 35 to 37 separate ones, wreaking devastation over beautiful South Pacific islands, contaminating land, air, and water with deadly radioactivity and sending radioactive fallout around the globe. And there were many dozens of these “operations”, in the south Pacific, in Nevada, and elsewhere, even one in outer space that created an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that disrupted radio communication in parts of the southern hemisphere for up to 8 hours and destroyed electronic equipment. Innocent goats and pigs and other animals were intentionally left in the blast area to judge the effects of the explosion and subsequent radiation. When the Soviet Union violated the voluntary moratorium on nuclear testing, the US retaliated with no less than 100 more tests in the aftermath of that alone. > > It didn’t help that each video of yet another massive explosion was celebrated by an orchestral soundtrack and, believe it or not, a choir. Then returning to the Shat’s droning narration. One wonders why the hell he ever agreed to do this until one realized that Shatner has a reputation for being willing to do just about anything for a buck. I actually don’t really mind the guy but this movie sucks. A sober account of our mad rush to destroy ourselves would have been depressing but acceptable, but this film took altogether too much delight in what big explosions we could make. Definitely NOT recommended. [Atomic Cafe](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AymBFIo2-sM) is just newsreel footage of life in the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s and involves many tests. It’s dry as a desert so it’s hard to tell, but it’s intent is wall to wall black humor for just the stuff you point out. It’s pretty good, maybe not right now, but in the future I think it’s worth your while. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906.md?page=457) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906.md?page=459)