Rewatched Where Eagles Dare for the first time in ~20 years. Too young when I first watched it to catch most of the espionage/spy stuff and double-triple-reverse betrayals and games it plays up, and the first half up to a kind of action-movie analogue to a 'courtroom scene' is, besides one big explosion-exception, this wonderful building-tension and intrigue-heavy movie of guessing-games, so it was actually like watching part of a whole new movie because most of what I recalled was the shooting and Nazi-exploding that takes off in the second half.
Burton makes for a great 'getting too old for this shit' Brit, and Eastwood brings trademark Eastwood...I suppose before 'trademark Eastwood' was even really a thing? Or when it was still Western-movie squinting-Eastwood rather than Dirty Harry squinting-Eastwood? I dunnow, the point is he plays the part well and it's fun to see him and Burton's characters bounce off one another.
Also cool to watch because now that young-prinCZess isn't wide-eyed at all the flashing colors and heroism depicted, she could see where and when green-screen and painted backgrounds were used, when cuts were made and mannequins inserted in-place of actors...And get another giggle out of the 'exploding blood-packet' era of dramatic death scenes. It's an interesting phenomenon, really--to be able to notice the offness of things but still willingly let yourself be taken along for the ride because it's fun., and I think I almost might like it more than the more 'convincing' route modern films and special effects can manage? Even in the audience, there's times where how something being off on-screen shakes me into noticing it, and then piecing together what they did, and then having to come up with a reason why is something of an entertaining process itself that fills the space while on-screen Eastwood is rat-tat-tatting.
Boils down to a good time.