# Movies you've seen recently (Part 2) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [August 27, 2024, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-2/1006288 "2024-08-27T05:10:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 161
**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:** [August 25, 2025, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-2/1006288/3201 "2025-08-25T01:06:14Z")
We saw this in the theater in 1985, unprepared, and loved it, but I suspect it wouldn’t age well for us if we watched it again. ---
**Author:** ![dirtball](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dirtball/32/18772_2.png) [@dirtball](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dirtball)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2025, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-2/1006288/3202 "2025-08-25T01:20:10Z")
**After Hours** has been one of my favorites through the years. And yeah, if I had to classify it, “dark comedy” would be the label for sure. But if I were recommending it, I wouldn’t want to say anything that might lead the recommendee to expect any significant amount of laughter, and maybe not even much chuckling. It’s just a relentless buildup of horrible absurdity. That said, I get it that it might not be to everyone’s taste. So I’m not about to even think about defending it against someone who finds it “depressing.” That’s fair. ---
**Author:** ![peccavi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peccavi/32/388_2.png) [@peccavi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peccavi)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2025, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-2/1006288/3203 "2025-08-25T01:47:54Z")
**Honey Don’t** Another ribald tale from Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke (who seem determined to bring gratuitous lesbian sex to an equal level with gratuitous heterosexual sex in the movies). I was really looking forward to this based on the trailer, but I can’t say this film completely succeeds, albeit it does provide some memorable dialog and characters from top to bottom. It’s a desert noir, spins out a nicely twisty plot, but in the end it kind of fizzles out. If you liked _Drive Away Dolls_, you will probably enjoy this outing for what it is. Others will probably walk away a bit confused at what they just saw. **The Shadows Edge** A Chinese heist move, starring Jackie Chan as the grizzled retired cop brought in to catch a band of super thieves led by an old nemesis, The Shadow. I went in with low expectations, but I have to say, it is one of the more effective heist movies I’ve seen in quite a few years. The rapid fire choreography of the opening heist sets the stage for a cavalcade of action, including some (well edited) fight scenes from Jackie. Beyond the action, there is a well done plot of Chan pulling a team together and a cat and mouse thread with the Shadow (who is realistically psychopathic enough to be scary). Highly recommended. Stay for the usual Jackie Chan stunt fails during the credits and an after credit scene that sets up a follow-on, which I eagerly anticipate. **Suspended Time** A French film set in the first year of COVID. A filmmaker, his brother and their SOs are confined in their childhood home, with the usual sibling rivalry surfacing. But this movie is French, not American, so there is no violence and everyone emerges wiser and still a family. As with a lot of French movies of a type, there is no real ending as such, just leaving the characters to continue their lives. Enjoyable if it shows up in your recommendations, but not a film to seek out. ---
**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:** [August 25, 2025, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-2/1006288/3204 "2025-08-25T02:17:53Z")
I should mention, in response to @Maserschmidt and @dirtball, that Scorsese’s directorial artistry was evident in much of _After Hours_. It’s a well-crafted film. It just wasn’t to my taste, especially with my misplaced expectations for a light comedy. ---
**Author:** ![ekedolphin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ekedolphin/32/10003_2.png) [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2025, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-2/1006288/3205 "2025-08-25T02:58:37Z")
**Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit** on Disney Plus: Whoopi Goldberg is back as Doloris van Cartier/Sister Mary Clarence, this time on a mission to save an inner-city Catholic school by turning the music class into an award-winning choir. I watched this with my landlady, and though it had the usual school music competition tropes, it was a fun little movie. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2025, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-2/1006288/3206 "2025-08-25T04:08:46Z")
_After Hours_ has always been a well received film. It has a rating of 7.6 on the IMDb, 90% on Rotten Tomatoes, and 89 out of 100 on Metacritic. It won Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival and the Independent Spirit Awards. It also won Best Feature at the Independent Spirit Awards. It’s on Roger Ebert’s list of the 364 greatest movies ever made. It’s one of the films in the Criterion Collection. And, yes, it’s one of my favorite films. i see no point in getting into a discussion about it, since doubtlessly many people have many different feelings about it. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2025, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-2/1006288/3207 "2025-08-25T11:21:01Z")
I’ve never seen this except in bits and pieces, but it’s been unavailable – even on Disney Plus. And people are charging premium prices for the DVD. So I was delighted when I found an unopened DVD copy really cheap, and finally got a chance to see Patrick McGoohan as **The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh**. The DVD has both the 90 minute feature film version and the three episodes of _walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color_ that it got turned into (which is longer, with more material). And they did it right – they have the episodes complete, with the teaser, the complete intro (“The world is a carousel of color….” the intro song written by the brothers Sherman before they scored _Mary Poppins_), and Walt Disney’s host introduction (as well as the concluding section and Previews of Next Week’s attraction). Great stuff. We’ll have to watch the feature version sometime. We also watched several episodes of MST3K that I hadn’t seen. ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2025, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-2/1006288/3208 "2025-08-25T14:01:44Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > I told her that, to me, MP isn’t necessarily LOL-funny in the viewing, but they are fantastic in the retelling, and she may be proving that to herself as she made a couple of MP references this morning. I totally get what you’re saying. When I was growing up, we used to watch Monty Python on PBS every Sunday night. My parents never really thought it was funny when watching it, but would laugh their asses off as we three kids would toss lines around during dinner. ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2025, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-2/1006288/3209 "2025-08-25T14:23:28Z")
I started watching Zero Hour (the basis for Airplane!) and was explaining to my wife the connection between the 2 films, when she revealed that she’d never seen **Airplane!** So we rectified that situation immediately. (I’ve seen it countless times) It’s still funny. However, a good percentage of the gags only make sense if you were alive in 1980. An annotated version may be necessary. For example: Howard Jarvis, Anita Bryant, Ethel Merman How a full-service gas station worked, including how you used a credit card That airport terminals used to be filled with people soliciting for religious cults, until there was a firm “no soliciting” policy. That everyone was sick of disco by 1980. ---
**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:** [August 25, 2025, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-2/1006288/3210 "2025-08-25T14:26:14Z")
_ **The Princess and the Frog** _ (2009) This was a gap in the Disney catalog for me, so I decided to check it out yesterday. I really enjoyed it. A Disney heroine with strength and agency, a cool menacing villain, some fun side characters, and a classic hand-drawn\* animation look. I love New Orleans, and this film captured the feel of the city very nicely. The plot moved along quickly, if a bit predictably. And dammit, they got me to care about a dead firefly. \*I have no idea how much (if any) of it was actually hand-drawn. But in an age when most animated films are very obviously 100% computer-generated, the old-school look of this was refreshing. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2025, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-2/1006288/3211 "2025-08-25T15:02:51Z")
> [@peccavi](#): > > **Honey Don’t** Is that a period-piece movie, or is it set in the present but everyone just lives like it is the 70s? I can’t tell from the trailer. > [@jsc1953](#): > > That everyone was sick of disco by 1980. When the jet knocked out the radio antenna (“Where disco lives forever”) the theater audience cheered! ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2025, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-2/1006288/3212 "2025-08-25T15:10:51Z")
Which was exactly what the writers intended. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2025, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-2/1006288/3213 "2025-08-25T15:13:37Z")
You know your reply could apply to both of my questions? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![peccavi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peccavi/32/388_2.png) [@peccavi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peccavi)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2025, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-2/1006288/3214 "2025-08-25T15:23:21Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > Is that a period-piece movie, or is it set in the present but everyone just lives like it is the 70s? I can’t tell from the trailer. It’s more or less set in the present, but in a milieu that’s sort of stuck in the 90’s. But if you’ve ever spent time in the high desert of Southern California, you will realize it isn’t that far from reality. ---
**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:** [August 25, 2025, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-2/1006288/3215 "2025-08-25T15:46:45Z")
> [@jsc1953](#): > > However, a good percentage of the gags only make sense if you were alive in 1980. An annotated version may be necessary. Even the setup - being familiar with a movie like Airport (or its 3 sequels) helps with a lot of the framing. ---
**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:** [August 25, 2025, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-2/1006288/3216 "2025-08-25T15:53:40Z")
**The Amateur** (2025) on Hulu Rami Malek is a nerdy CIA analyst bent on revenging his wife’s murder by black ops mercenaries. But he doesn’t have the “killer instinct” required to just walk up to someone and pull the trigger. So, like some kind of Batman villain he conceives ridiculously complex ways to kill his enemies. It was an interesting enough thriller, although Lawrence Fishburne was given nothing to work with and little screen time. As soon as it ended, the streaming app went right to the 1981 John Savage / Christopher Plumber film that this movie was based on. I watched the first fifteen minutes before going to bed and I kinda wish I’d watched that one instead. ---
**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:** [August 25, 2025, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-2/1006288/3217 "2025-08-25T16:09:37Z")
Watched **Broke** on NFLX. A man is stranded in a late spring blizzard and the movie is done in flashbacks of his life up to that point. Pretty good for what it is. Solid acting by all. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2025, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-2/1006288/3218 "2025-08-25T16:56:56Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > I watched the first fifteen minutes before going to bed and I kinda wish I’d watched that one instead. Was that Hulu (which I don’t have)? because I haven’t been able to see that one since it was new. Bummer. Come on, TCM! I preferred the original ending by a lot, where the killer is a deep cover CIA operative, and killing the wife was just to build his cover. I find that much more cynical than the current “we’re just using CIA assets for our own operations” regular corruption from the new movie. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2025, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-2/1006288/3219 "2025-08-25T17:10:26Z")
I watched the first of the two John Wayne “modern westerns”, 1974’s _McQ_. Wayne is a cop who finds his partner (and several other cops) are corrupt and have been stealing dope and selling it. (The biggest street gang is always the police!) I found it odd that, if you forget the murders and the drugs, the difference between the obvious corrupt cops and McQ is virtually nonexistent. He’s a thug that beats up criminals, defies authority, shoots people in the back, and basically does what he wants. He’s also too old for the part. which for some reason did not seem to be as obvious in the later _Brannigan_. The biggest “star” of the film wasn’t Wayne, but the then-new Ingram MAC-10. They even gave it equal billing! [![](https://i5.walmartimages.com/seo/McQ-movie-POSTER-Style-D-11-x-14-1974_cb984958-7e85-459f-87e3-c03c5efd99ac.e7a99edadc2d7c76e5a626a3b87249c6.jpeg?odnHeight=768&odnWidth=768&odnBg=FFFFFF) ](https://i5.walmartimages.com/seo/McQ-movie-POSTER-Style-D-11-x-14-1974_cb984958-7e85-459f-87e3-c03c5efd99ac.e7a99edadc2d7c76e5a626a3b87249c6.jpeg?odnHeight=768&odnWidth=768&odnBg=FFFFFF) One IMDB reviewer called it the most depressing John Wayne film: his friends are corrupt, his romantic interest is corrupt, and his boss thinks _McQ_ is corrupt, and his cop inside informant/friend is working for IA (and thinks he’s corrupt). He should just retire to his boat! ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2025, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-2/1006288/3220 "2025-08-25T17:56:48Z")
Just watched Hellboy: the crooked man, which is apparently a very low budget reboot from last year. This one stars Jack Kesy who I had never heard from before as Hellboy. Great movie, probably the most comic book accurate representation of Hellboy so far. This movie cost 20 million, and it shows, but they did the best with what they had. I hope we get a well funded sequel. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-2/1006288.md?page=160) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youve-seen-recently-part-2/1006288.md?page=162)