Dances With Wolves

I remembered this being a long movie, but four hours!?! It even has an intermission in the middle! You’d think it would come off as overindulgent (being Costner’s directorial debut and all) but I found myself really enjoying this, and didn’t really feel like there are parts that shouldn’t be there (although I did watch it over two nights). Sure, “white savior” trope and all that, but I did appreciate how it really does embrace the culture of the people he encounters, and there’s a lot to like about how those interactions develop. It’s also a beautiful movie, with so many gorgeous shots of the “frontier.” Oh, and I didn’t realize (or at least didn’t remember) that John Barry had done the score for this! All in all, still a very good movie, and pretty astonishing that Costner was able to achieve something like this his first time at bat.