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'Midway': Boomer's Delight . . .

162.232.81.100
Posted on November 8, 2019 at 15:30:26
Billy Wonka
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 When I wheeled around wall to climb the tiers I was confronted with a horde of blue-hairs with spousal units. (Afterall, most kids don't even know what WW2 was.)

I strapped in for what I thought was going to be the usual uninspired rehash of the battle that kept Japan off our necks. It has a solid B Tier Cast with the addition of Harrelson and Eckhardt. The story begins in 1937 and goes forward through Midway, heavy losses and all. Great attention to the timeline and detail (such as all the officers apparel were wrinkled not starched as in all the other movies) was paid. Not neccessarily overdramatic but pointed in making us aware of how costly the battle was to us. Good effects with characters that have some dimension.

Good Boomer show.

 

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Woody Harrelson), posted on November 18, 2019 at 05:39:35
troutbum
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 Is it just me or is Woody the new Morgan Freeman in the "race to appear in the most movies"? Seriously, he was a poor fit for such a great military hero.

 

Gene Hackman comes to mind., posted on November 22, 2019 at 09:16:55
free.ranger
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 For a while, awhile back, he seemed to be in 3 to 5 releases per year. He racked them up like billiards, then quit altogether. He and wife reside here in the Santa Fake area, said to be writing these days. Haven't seen any of his written work, but he pops out now and then for some art opening. Mostly stays private.

A multi-year flurry of activity, then complete dropout. Stash the cash I guess, while the stashing is good.

 

I like war movies and enjoyed this one.. Also watched..., posted on November 14, 2019 at 11:08:50
jeffreybehr
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 ...the '76 version last nite, a day after I saw the new one.

The CGI in the new 'Midway' was plenty good enough the vast majority of the time, but one distant scene of a B-17 landing at Midway looks as if they spent about $10 on it...but I saw one of those snort-inducing cheapies in the '76 version too.

Plenty-good-enough script, acting, special effects; go see it.

Meanwhile, I'm off this afternoon to see 'Ford v Ferrari' at its Thursday-evening opening at our local IMAX theater*. ... :-)


* This is owned and operated by the Harkins company, the best in our BIG city (and the ONLY movie theater I'll go to), so it ought to be really good.. It'll be my first IMAX in maybe 20 years.
.

 

The B-17 landing scene (Midway 1976) . . ., posted on November 14, 2019 at 15:35:40
dwill123
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is the exact same seen frame for frame (as are a few others) from 1976 Midway's stable mate film ("Tora! Tora! Tora!") 1970. I can't remember all of them but one for certain was the scene (during the bombing of Midway) of the large jeep like vehicle, driver losing control and the vehicle turning on its side. In "Tora! Tora! Tora!" the B-17 was landing in the airport at Pearl Harbor during the that bombing. Another scene from "Tora! Tora! Tora!" (in Midway 1976) was two Curtiss P-40 Tomahawks taking of from Hickam Field some where near Pearl Harbor. There is a write up somewhere why they recycled the footage.

 

RE: The B-17 landing scene (Midway 1976) . . ., posted on November 15, 2019 at 12:54:17
mark.korda@myfairpoint.net
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 Hi,
I love history and thought it was a great movie. One thing that kind of ruined it for me was seeing some certain stars that seemed out of place.
When they showed Admiral Halsey it was played by Dennis Quaid.That didn't work for me. They needed a character to look or act like William Demerest.
The 3rd Rock from the Sun kid popped up and distracted from the story some.
Woody Harrelson as Admiral Nimitz? I don't think any Academy Awards are going his way.
I did always wonder when they would do computer animation to a major sea battle and they did that here and it's fantastic.

 

RE: The B-17 landing scene (Midway 1976) . . ., posted on November 16, 2019 at 07:02:09
mark.korda@myfairpoint.net
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 Hi,
There were 2 other things I forgot.
In the new movie there was a scene about the Hiryu and it's captain going down with the ship but there was nary a mention of the Yorktown and the destroyer Hamman,in rescue, sinking and the Yorktown finally sunk by I-168 a Japanese sub.This was covered in the first movie,1976.
Another part which distracted me from the seriousness of the movie was the brief appearance of the actor playing John Ford the movie director. Who ever it was did a better job of playing Phil Silvers as Sgt. Bilko than John Ford.
It is still a great movie and even with my nit-picking of various scenes it is a must see....Mark

 

I am interested in how the new flic compares to, posted on November 10, 2019 at 15:16:02
Ross
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 History and the c1976 movie.

Basic facts are we fought to a stalemate at Coral Sea. Moved heaven and earth to have a carrier fleet ready within a short period of time.

We previously broke the Japanese Imperial Navy Code, and got lucky in determining that Midway was their next target.

We were VERY lucky in how weather fronts developed, and in malfunctions of Japanese recon planes.

We almost blew it in our first wave as our planes were blown from the sky.

We were EXTREMELY lucky to have our 2nd wave attack as the Japanese were refueling and rearming their dive bombers. We caught them flatfooted as was said at the time.

We suffered HEAVY losses and had the Japanese realized this they could have attacked again, possibly in the Aleutians where they would have been unopposed. Instead they went back to Japan, having lost 3 carriers.

We worked hard, and got lucky. You need luck in war.

Those are the facts as having been relayed to me by military historians, and mostly conveyed in the c1976 movie.

The 76 movie had the whole Charleston Heston, son, interned Japanese love interest sub plot. It was also a vehicle for Hollywood stars as was the trend at the time, to cram as many stars into a movie as possible.

Hope they don't screw it up in the remake. Midway was a good movie (sub plot issues aside), that was mostly accurate to the facts.

 

This goes more into the "realities" of code breaking . . ., posted on November 11, 2019 at 15:30:42
Billy Wonka
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 Assembling clues and offering opinions on them. It starts out in 1937 with a background look at Yamamoto and progresses from there. I think there is a lot of good history shown through selected characters that aren't the "rock stars" of the '76 film.

Just go see it. The CGI gives it a new life over the '76 film.

 

1976 'Midway' may be a better bet, posted on November 9, 2019 at 03:04:40
dwill123
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I have not yet seen the 2019 'Midway'. Only the trailers and early reviews. I did see the 1976 'Midway' in the theater when it was released. I was at "Jump School" at Fort Benning, Georgia. It was the night before the first jump and a group of us (thinking it might be the last thing we ever did) decided to go the movies. The movie itself was a C+ to B- at best but it was entertaining. Over the years the 1976 version has been credited with being one of the most historically accurate WW2 movies and that may be enough to give it a look see. 1976 'Midway' was the second movie to use the audio presentation known back then as "Sensurround". This was supposed to give you the "feel" when bombs went off and planes crashed. Most of us thought it was more like big bass speakers pointed down on the floor. You could feel a little something.

 

Sensurround, it was just a speaker in the seat., posted on November 13, 2019 at 23:34:01
beach cruiser
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 only an audiophile would care, but I remember a small newspaper article about the sensurround system installed in the chinese theatre for the movie Earthquake.

Paper said the cerwen vega woofers in the seats were getting hot and failing, they were all replaced with JBL . Makes sense, those old theatres used the voice of the theatre stuff, which would lead them to believe the other products were also top quality, I suppose.

The thing that made the 76 midway a major cut above was the inclusion of actual war footage, in color. You had the stars stomping around, then had these these action shots of some poor bastard loosing a wing and rolling over to start his crash, and it is not CGI. Real fighting and dying is not often woven into a hollywood blockbuster.

I don't think this new film was planned as a block buster, but how would I know. All I know is that it is tough to make a good movie, and there are many a slip between the cup and the lip.

 

RE: 1976 'Midway' may be a better bet, posted on November 9, 2019 at 22:01:45
Billy Wonka
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 I barely remember that version. Looking at the cast it was a studio picture based on famous actors not on facts, so much. I'll try to find the '76 version somewhere.

 

It's currently streaming on NF or Prime...N/T, posted on November 10, 2019 at 00:37:50
musetap
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 aa
"Once this was all Black Plasma and Imagination"-Michael McClure



 

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