# 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:** 468
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2024, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/9360 "2024-05-18T19:28:33Z")
I started **Dune.** We don’t have time to watch it all in one go. About an hour in. So far I like it better than the 1/3 of the book I read. It sets things up more clearly for me. The problem I have with such books is that I have difficulty following complex world-building. So I was very bored and probably missed some important things in the novel. I’m interested to see where the movie goes. Very well cast, good acting, and the planet looks exactly how I had pictured it. Let’s be honest. I’m really here for the sandworms. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2024, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/9361 "2024-05-19T02:27:56Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > **Hundreds of Beavers** (2022). Pretty much defies description, but I’ll try. Imagine a cross between an old silent slapstick comedy and a Wiley Coyote cartoon, and imagine that it was made on almost no budget. A drunken applejack salesman pursues rabbits, beavers, and squirrels, all of whom are actors in comical costumes. You can tell when one of them is dead because their eyes turn into Xs. There are also sled dogs (also actors in costumes). It’s certainly creative and innovative and amusing for a while, but probably should have been shorter than its nearly two-hour run time. I just saw it tonight. I think I’d describe it as Buster Keaton on acid. It does go a little long, but it’s so relentlessly good-natured that I can fogive that. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2024, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/9362 "2024-05-19T04:43:36Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > I started **Dune.** We don’t have time to watch it all in one go. About an hour in. > … > … I’m interested to see where the movie goes. Very well cast, good acting, and the planet looks exactly how I had pictured it. As good as the movie is, you’ve got a real treat coming in _Dune 2_, which is even better by a wide margin! ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2024, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/9363 "2024-05-19T14:50:34Z")
_Nowhere Special._ A single dad in Northern Ireland has to make a really hard choice regarding his son. Very much a downer movie in most ways but extremely well done. Here’s the IMDb [link](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11286640/) but it’s spoilerish. Like many TV shows and movies I’ve seen over the years I am amazed at the acting ability of this little kid. Where to they find these kids? Also pay attention to the social worker. The ending was exactly what I hoped it would be. It’s 100% (critics), 94% (audience) at Rotten Tomatoes. Well deserved. Give it 5 squeegees. ---
**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:** [May 19, 2024, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/9364 "2024-05-19T15:39:59Z")
**Rashomon** Recommended. My first Kurosawa movie. Just another gap in my movie-viewing experience. This was quite good. I admit…I would like to know what the true story of the Lady, the Samurai, and the Bandit really is. From what I’ve read, it is unknowable. Everyone has gaps, falsehoods, and unlikely events in their story. In the end, we can’t tell for sure what happened. Very interesting, well made. I love budget film-making and this movie was definitely on a low budget. Only three locations filmed and all done very well. Good movie, definitely check it out. Only just a bit over 90 minutes and I am still thinking about it. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2024, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/9365 "2024-05-19T16:50:21Z")
I love that movie. There’s a reason it’s a cultural touchstone. ---
**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:** [May 19, 2024, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/9366 "2024-05-19T17:01:38Z")
> [@Maserschmidt](#): > > I love that movie. There’s a reason it’s a cultural touchstone I now get the Simpson’s joke. Homer: Oh, I don’t like movies with subtitles! Marge: Homer, you liked Rashomon. Homer: That’s not how I remember it! ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2024, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/9367 "2024-05-19T19:54:17Z")
An awfully long time ago I started a thread asking [what was the most beautiful movie ever made.](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-beautiful-movie-ever-made/62763/38) Eve probably won the discussion with **Sunrise** , but then yesterday I watched **Vertigo** for the first time in decades. The color saturation would have made it worthwhile even with the audio turned off. Unfortunately, I also recently watched **A Portrait of Jenny** again, but it wasn’t as beautiful as I’d remembered it. It wasn’t the schmaltziness that put me off. If I faulted old movies for that I’d be left with nothing to watch. The Debussy-filled score was still enjoyable, and Ethel Barrymore remains the most self-assured American actor of all time. But if any old movie could be improved by an update rather than insulted by one, this story of an artist repeatedly encountering the ghost of a young girl/woman as she reaches different stages of life has unrealized potential. ---
**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:** [May 19, 2024, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/9368 "2024-05-19T19:55:07Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > An awfully long time ago I started a thread asking [what was the most beautiful movie ever made.](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-beautiful-movie-ever-made/62763/38) Eve probably won the discussion with **Sunrise** , but then yesterday I watched **Vertigo** for the first time in decades. The color saturation would have made it worthwhile even with the audio turned off. Have you ever seen The Reflecting Skin? The cinematography is amazing. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2024, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/9369 "2024-05-19T20:09:26Z")
I watched that a month or so ago, and of course the mise-en-scène (admit it: you guys have been waiting to use the term yourselves) has to compete with **Days of Heaven,** which is a losing battle. However it did surpass DoH in portraying the isolation found in vast spaces that turns into a paradox of claustrophobia. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2024, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/9370 "2024-05-19T20:29:36Z")
Saw Godzilla x Kong last weekend. It was about what you’d expect: Mindless action of giant monsters fighting each other, as seen through the eyes of one-dimensional human characters. You don’t need a more thorough review, because you already know if that’s the sort of movie for you or not. One negative point I thought: In the subterranean scenes where Kong is fighting the other giant apes, there wasn’t really anything to give a sense of scale. They could just as well have been 8’ apes fighting as 80’ (or whatever his actual size is supposed to be). ---
**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:** [May 19, 2024, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/9371 "2024-05-19T23:41:28Z")
_Midway_ 1976 Charlton Heston, Henry Fonda, Glenn Ford, Robert Mitchum, Hal Holbrook It’s one of the last big blockbusters starring the Golden era actors. There is also many up and coming actors like Robert Wagner, Tom Selleck, Erik Estrada, and Dabney Coleman in small roles. The massive scope of this battle makes it difficult to film. I think they did a good job telling the story of the Intelligence codebreakers. They could only understand 10 to 15% of the Japanese coded messages. Learning about their plans to attack Midway with a huge force was a major achievement and turning point in the Pacific war. The battle scenes are chaotic and hard to follow. But that’s how it was in real life. They were still depending on scout planes to locate enemy ships. The fog of war was thick. Memorial Day is approaching and films like this reminds me again of the [sacrifice and loss of life.](https://www.britannica.com/study/casualties-from-battle-of-midway) Japan lost 4 heavy carriers, 320 planes and had 3,000 casualties. The US lost 1 carrier, 150 planes, and 317 dead. Definitely a US victory, but at a high cost. Very good film. It’s worth seeing at least once. I saw it in the theater as a teen. Rented it on Prime this evening. ---
**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:** [May 19, 2024, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/9372 "2024-05-19T23:58:55Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > My first Kurosawa movie. This is a great one to start with, but he has so many of so many different styles and subject matter. A couple of more offbeat ones are _The Bad Sleep Well_ and _Drunken Angel_ and _Stray Dog._ ---
**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:** [May 20, 2024, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/9373 "2024-05-20T00:04:27Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > The massive scope of this battle makes it difficult to film. I think they did a good job telling the story of the Intelligence codebreakers. They could only understand 10 to 15% of the Japanese coded messages. This sounds like a low estimate to me. I just finished reading a biography of Elizebeth (correct spelling) Smith Friedman. She and her husband were both codebreakers before, during and after WWII. William Friedman was the one working on the Japanese version of Enigma (actually a different type machine code named “Purple”), and he broke the code. They could read a huge amount of Japanese communications then. Maybe some of this was not disclassified by the time the movie was made. A lot of Elizebeth’s work was classified even longer…long enough for J. Edgar Hoover to take credit for her work. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2024, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/9374 "2024-05-20T00:19:45Z")
We broke the Japanese ciphers, but not all of their codes. There’s a difference. Breaking the ciphers let us know that the Japanese were planning an attack on target AF. But it took a clever bit of intelligence to determine that AF was Midway. ---
**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:** [May 20, 2024, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/9375 "2024-05-20T00:23:06Z")
They weren’t too specific about code breaking. The movie features Hal Holbrook as the intelligence officer that says 15% and sometimes only 10%. He doesn’t say which Japanese code. There are known inaccuracies in the film. They didn’t have the correct planes for some scenes. They invented characters etc. I just rented the new _Midway_ film from 2019. Wikipedia says it was a passion project for Producer and Director Roland Emmerich. He stressed accuracy over story telling. There’s been a lot more historical research on the Battle of Midway. I’m curious what they’ll show differently from the 1976 film. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2024, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/9376 "2024-05-20T00:37:27Z")
More **Dune.** I saw the first glorious glimpse of a sandworm maw. I’m impressed by how much the world looks like I imagined it from the book. I don’t know if that’s a credit to the writer or the creative team for the film but it’s really nice to see. Also: I want Oscar Isaac to be my Dad. ---
**Author:** ![XOldiesJock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/ec9cab/32.png) [@XOldiesJock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XOldiesJock)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2024, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/9377 "2024-05-20T00:54:10Z")
We watched **American Fiction** , a Best Picture nominee, now streaming on Amazon Prime. We knew little about the story except what we had seen from the trailer and had already read. Promoted as a comedy/drama, it’s much more serious than funny, though there are some solid laughs sprinkled in, but it’s a tragedy in the first 20 minutes that sets the pace for what’s to come. And then there’s that ending, that flips everything you’ve seen for the last two hours upside down. I won’t spoil it for you, but there was a lot of conversation about it all over the place online if you want to check it out first. Good story and fine performances from all. Recommended. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2024, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/9378 "2024-05-20T00:55:42Z")
> [@XOldiesJock](#): > > And then there’s that ending, that flips everything you’ve seen for the last two hours upside down. I won’t spoil it for you, but there was a lot of conversation about it all over the place online if you want to check it out first. It reminded me of _Adaptation_ a little bit in the way it plays with form and audience expectations. ---
**Author:** ![Dropo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ce7236/32.png) [@Dropo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dropo)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2024, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906/9379 "2024-05-20T01:51:37Z")
Re: _Midway_: > [@aceplace57](#): > > I’m curious what they’ll show differently from the 1976 film. They probably won’t be so heavily dependent on stock footage. > **[Midway (1976) - Connections - IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074899/movieconnections/?ref_=tt_trv_cnn)** > > Midway (1976) - Referenced in, Featured in, Spoofed and more... [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906.md?page=467) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-1/699906.md?page=469)