Film Reviews - what have you seen lately, what did you think?

• who as a kid (and I mean before 6th Grade) had read every book in our libraries (school and public) about the entire war in the Pacific, and LOTS of books on Midway. There was even a time where I had a journal (still have it in a box somewhere) and could recite, damn near EVERY ship involved in both the attack on Pear Harbor, Coral Sea, Midway, Solomon battles... and I don't just mean capital ships/carriers, I mean down to oilers.
• has over his lifetime watched just about every war movie I possible could.
• Have been in and around the military for 35 years.
• Saw the 1976 version of Midway in 1976 on opening weekend at a very special theater in the Detroit area called the Mai Kai (HUGE screen and could seat 1400 people and had a very special sound system by Cerwin-Vega (Sensurround or something like that) that was only used for 5 movies ever (Earthquake was the first movie) and was in very few theaters nationally... there were cases where it actually cracked the buildings it was in and when bombs dropped on the Japs, it fukkin shook the theater and scared the piss outta everyone in the theater... there is NOTHING like it today for that feeling). It was 1976, it was Detroit, there were a lot of living WWI vets only in their 50's, and people fukkin cheered like a pick 6 vs LSU at the Swamp when our schitty little F4F's and Buffalos off of Midway so much as scratched a Zero. It was epic at the time, especially in that theater.

• 1976 version focuses more on the Battle of Midway, while this version covers Pearl Harbor, Doolittle Raid, Battle of the Coral Sea (a bit) and then Midway. Therefore, the 76 version covers more of the little pieces of the Battle of Midway than the new version. For instance: if you saw the first movie, you will remember they followed the PBY flown by "Strawberry 5" that spotted the Japanese fleet. In the new version, finding the fleet is a snippet almost like an afterthought. Because this movie covered more ground (from Pearl Harbor), the one thing it lacks is the real tension felt about the two fleets, each trying to find the other first.
• It's actually much more historically accurate than the first movie. Even the scene with Nick Jonas and the machine gun on the carrier was true, but most will think they made it up for "dramatic effect."
• There is no silly assed love story like in Pearl Harbor or the story line in the original Midway with loving the locked up (thanks for the concentration camp FDR!) Jap-American girl.
• It doesn't cover as many historical characters as the 1976 version, but it hits all the key players, but it woulda been kinda nice if they put the subtitle rank/names of people under the characters so you "get to know them" if you didn't know. The 76 version did this.
• I actually thought Woody Harrelson was fine as Nimitz.
• The movie moves at a good pace, and while both movies are almost the same exact length in minutes, the 1976 movie covers more of the events in the battle because it is more battle specific.
• The CGI stuff is good, especially on a big screen, but c'mon... it'll probably only bother people like me, or actual military pilots like Zambo, but the bombing at ridiculously low levels got annoying. I know it sounds small, but c'mon! ;)
• Another thing given the age of 70" 4K TVs and watching kids that play video "war" games with phenomenal graphics... the "awe of the big screen" that I was hoping for is starting to wane. While great, and am glad I saw it on the big screen for the dive bombing type scenes, it's losing it's luster and that makes the kid in me sad.
• The dialogue is done in a corny 1940's way, and while correct, seemed dated. While accurate, it kinda has a negative effect ("affect" for Zambo!) in that it keeps you a little distant from the movie instead of pulling you in. Saving Private Ryan pulled you right into the screen because they "sounded like people today"... there was no "gee whiz, sarge! do we hafta do that?" Nitpicky for sure, but noticeable to me, and i felt like i was in a theater watching a movie instead of pulled in nose to the screen "there with them".
• Apparently, ALL women in the 1940's look like they have GREAT tits under their 1940's sundresses!

Zambo said:

Sounds good. My buddy saw it and said he was pretty pleased with it. Instead of what, the Yorktown or something, this movie followed Enterprise I guess. I'll have to see.

Not sure about the bombing stuff, but I know they dropped pretty darn low because accuracy really sucked back then. Bottom line is that in real life, flying isn't anything like what you see on the screen because basically when you're in the cockpit there little relative motion. They tried to film Top Gun with realistic scenes back in the 80s but when the footage was put together it was boring as all get out, so they just substituted a bunch of formation and stunt flying to make it look good on the screen.

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gatorev12 said:

Saw the matinee yesterday and overall thought it was nicely done. Echo a lot of Detroit's comments/impressions.

Personal take: actually didn't mind the CGI--we don't have fleets of early WWII airplanes and ships rolling around and in order to show what the battle was like, you're going to need to embrace it to some extent. It's come a long way since the early 2000s and wasn't distracting for me.

One area where I thought the original was better was the portrayal of how much the battle was in doubt and both sides knowing the stakes. Outside of a few mild lines of bedside talk between husband/wife...the movie didn't really make it seem like the battle was in doubt. Partly that's due to the jingoistic dialogue, but felt the original was better at conveying the tense trepidation both sides felt. Overall a good movie though.

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Zambo said:

Saw Midway last night. I thought it was pretty great. A little corny at times (pic of wife and kid on the instrument panel, typical cheese) especially at the end. But pretty well done regardless. I thought the flying scenes at times were pretty well done and at other times way too sci-fi. Planes don't dive bomb (or do any sort of real fighting) that close together for the same reason that grunts don't walk too close together on patrol. Every time I see planes "attacking" in formation I cringe. Also, the planes whizzing inches away from the ships and doing the "bunny hop" landing weren't really necessary, but overall at least they looked like they maneuvered within the bounds of reality for the most part. I thought the CGI was amazing frankly.

Agree they could have spent more time showing the maps and discussions about the two fleets finding each other and was disappointed that there was barely a mention of the scout planes, particularly the Jap plane that found the US fleet but couldn't signal his fleet because of a bad radio. Stuff like that IMO would have made the drama of the battle more palpable. The real time constraints IMO are due to the fact that a LOT of time early in the movie was dedicated to events leading up to the war, Pearl Harbor attack, and the Doolittle raid. All good by me though.

One thing that struck me was that in the original, Charlton Heston's son was engaged to a Japanese girl who was thrown into a detention camp with her parents in Hawaii. They actually made a big deal about this part of American history in the 1976 version of the movie, but there was zero mention of anything like this in the remake. In fact, rather than stirring up sympathy for the Japanese, several scenes show how particularly barbaric they could be.

I know I'm in the minority because others aren't as into this sort of genre but they could have added 2 more hours to this movie and I would have happily sat through all of it.

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Gator By Marriage said:

Went to see "Knives Out" last night with Mrs G. and our daughter. While it was a little hard to take Daniel Craig putting on a southern accent, it was a good movie overall. Reminded me of an Agatha Christie type whodunnit. Definitely the kind of movie one has to play close attention to - all the clues are provided.

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DocZaius said:

Frozen 2 was awful. Should have been straight to video.

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