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Triggered!

My parents divorced when I was about nine. My father had traveled a lot for years, so the difference in my daily life wasn’t great, but it did mean the occasional formal Day of Visitation with my dad.

This is one of the first movies he took me to. If you haven’t seen it, Tora! Tora! Tora! is a two and a half hour WWII epic largely in Japanese with subtitles. It’s possible a major film was released that year that would be more horrible and boring to a nine year old girl, but I kinda doubt it.

Anytime the damn thing is on TV here — and it seems to be once a month or so — Uncle B sings out, “Weaselllll! Your movie is onnnnn!”

Anyhoo, mojo recommended it as one of his favorite Memorial Day flicks in the thread below, so I figured I’d share. I can’t say as I’d recommend it to the little girl in your life.

Hope you’re all having a decent long weekend; we sure have.

Comments


Comment from mojo
Time: May 25, 2015, 8:22 pm

Buck up, Weas. You want boring and stupid (the whole love story could have been left out), try “Midway”.

It’s kind of a sequel, in a way.


Comment from QuasiModo
Time: May 25, 2015, 9:50 pm

Good movie!…Midway was good too. My all time favourite is still Patton though.


Comment from Skandia Recluse
Time: May 25, 2015, 10:39 pm

Memorial Day is bringing back repressed memories I don’t want to remember. That and the jerking of emotional chains and the mashing of emotional hot buttons. I have to keep quiet or my remarks start fights. It’s made worse by who ‘they’ have elected President, twice.


Comment from Fritzworth
Time: May 26, 2015, 1:02 am

Had about as all-American a Memorial Day as you could ask for. My wife and I visited and left flowers (potted mums) on the graves of her former husband (who served in the USN) and of her parents. Had our oldest son, his wife, and their four grandkids come over afterwards; I grilled hamburgers and hot dogs over real lump charcoal; my daughter-in-law brought a strawberry fruit salad over; we drank cold soda out of bottles chilled in a cooler full of ice and water. Murica!


Comment from Some Vegetable
Time: May 26, 2015, 1:43 am

I lived in Japan for about 8 years starting in 1979… Once I went to see a Japanese movie about Pearl Harbor. When the movie opened, the first thing that appeared on the screen was:

December 8 1941

That was my first realization that Everything looks different when you’re on the other side.

*The above does not constitute any approval of the conduct of the Japanese during WWII. They were horrific savages


Comment from Davem123
Time: May 26, 2015, 6:14 am

I like Tora! Tora! Tora! but it’s definitely not a movie to take a 9 yoa little girl to, though.

Speaking of “Everything looks different when you’re on the other side”: http://t.co/TMBSu187Pb

Those asshats don’t even understand why this is offensive.


Comment from harry
Time: May 26, 2015, 6:18 am

As a Navy vet (Vietnam era) “Tora3” has great emotional impact for me, along with “Midway” and “In Harm’s Way”. I always watch my DVD on December 7 — and the Japs keep winning…


Comment from SCOTTtheBADGER
Time: May 26, 2015, 7:01 am

Harry. every time I watch it, the Japanese win. Honestly, you would think we would learn after 4 or 5 times.


Comment from Wolfus Aurelius
Time: May 26, 2015, 1:59 pm

All I know about “Tora3” is that it was originally in wide-screen, whatever they called it back then (Cinerama?), and that Rhoda on “The Mary Tyler Moore” show commented that she’d tried to watch it on a compact TV: “The title was ‘Tora! Tor’.”


Comment from JeffS
Time: May 26, 2015, 4:19 pm

I saw it at about the same age, Swease, but boys are supposed to be different from girls. Besides, playing “Army” was a major past time in our neighborhood.

Plus, Dad was a WWII fighter jock, and had spent some time at Hickam Field just prior to the attack. And he patrolled the California coast following the attack. So, there was the personal link. So, I like the flick, and have it on DVD.

Interesting fact: the Navy was reluctant to support filming the movie. Lots of bad memories, I suppose.


Comment from Deborah HH
Time: May 26, 2015, 5:49 pm

Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo. First saw the movie when I was eight or so, and then in the 1990s I got to meet Richard Cole, Bob Hite, and Richard Knobloch, three of the Doolittle Raider pilots.

The Great Escape (And not just because my one and only Hollywood heart-throb was James Garner.)


Comment from mojo
Time: May 26, 2015, 7:49 pm

Ever watch “The Americanization of Emily”?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057840/

Great anti-war film.


Comment from Veeshir
Time: May 26, 2015, 8:01 pm

you could have written this about me
My parents divorced when I was about nine. My father had traveled a lot for years, so the difference in my daily life wasn’t great, but it did mean the occasional formal Day of Visitation with my dad.

This is one of the first movies he took me to

Except my father took me to Deliverance.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: May 26, 2015, 8:30 pm

Oh, Veeshir.

My mother took me to Sunday Bloody Sunday and Last Tango in Paris. Which, come to think of it, were probably miles worse than Tora! Tora! Tora!

It was really more carelessness and ignorance than bad parenting. OH, wait — that is bad parenting.


Comment from Rich Rostrom
Time: May 27, 2015, 1:01 am

For those who are tired of the Japanese winning:

This thread at AlternateHistory.com.

It’s actually a seriously developed scenario of how things could have gone really bad for the Japanese, by a fellow who’s got the details down cold.

Hey, if Hollywood can make Inglourious Basterds


Comment from JeffS
Time: May 27, 2015, 2:30 am

Bad link, Rob.


Comment from Fritzworth
Time: May 27, 2015, 5:52 am

Rich Rostrom: your link isn’t a link. There’s dozens of posts at AlternateHistory.com with ‘Japan’ in the title, so I’m not sure which one you were posting at.


Comment from Beyond Bibb Store
Time: May 27, 2015, 10:25 am

My father was returning to San Diego from a WESTPAC cruise in a diesel submarine when the production crew was filming the movie. He said they’d received no notice of the goings on, and the first sight of Zeros through the periscope as they neared Pearl Harbor was pretty bizarre.


Comment from Feynmangroupie
Time: May 27, 2015, 1:07 pm

Wow, I’m not the only one then, who had a parent take them to questionable movies.

My father took me to see Jaws when I was about 5 and then too a double feature including Altered States and Excalibur.

Now, I realize why I was so terrified at the prospect of seeing E.T. when I was a kid. I was still scarred from my father’s questionable movie selection.

I am slowly catching up on watching all those great old WWII war flicks.


Comment from mojo
Time: May 27, 2015, 5:23 pm

Wow.

My dad took me to the premiere (in SF) of “2001: A Space Odyssey”. Still have the booklet somewhere, probably.


Comment from Rich Rostrom
Time: May 29, 2015, 3:33 am

Oops. Coulda sworn the URL was in the tag. This time, confirmed with preview.

For those who are tired of the Japanese winning: This thread at AlternateHistory.com.

It’s actually a seriously developed scenario of how things could have gone really bad for the Japanese, by a fellow who’s got the details down cold.

Hey, if Hollywood can make Inglourious Basterds

Incidentally, a few years ago, my mom kept company for a while with a Nisei gentleman who lived in Hawaii at the time. He was out delivering papers or some such when he saw the explosions and smoke clouds rising from the harbor.

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