Don, that's a wonderful account of a great evening.

I've actually seen both versions of Dune (I liked the books), and had the same complaint about both, and that is that they both seemed to go overboard on theatrics (in the oldfashioned sense, as opposed to special effects) and hammy acting. Mind you, I'd watch both again, since at least they didn't do too much damage to the story line of the books, and they were both visually pleasing. If you've ever seen Fellini's Cassanova, the movie tended to have that sort of feel.