The Border

Starring:Jack Nicholson, Harvey Keitel, Valerie Perrine, Warren Oates, Elpidia Carrillo, Shannon Wilcox, Manuel Viescas, Jeff Morris, Mike Gomez, Dirk Blocker, Lonny Chapman, Stacey Pickren, Floyd Levine, James Jeter, Alan Fudge, William Russ, Gary Grubbs, Gary Sexton, Billy Silva, Bill McLaughlin
Director: Tony Richardson
Studio: Universal Studios
Product Type: DVD

Amazon.com essential video

Considered by many to be the greatest B movie ever made, the original-release version of Orson Welles's film noir masterpiece Touch of Evil was, ironically, never intended as a B movie at all--it merely suffered that fate after it was taken away from writer-director Welles, then reedited and released in 1958 as the second half of a double feature. Time and critical acclaim would eventually elevate the film to classic status (and Welles's original vision was meticulously followed for the film's 1998 restoration), but for four decades this original version stood as a testament to Welles's directorial genius. From its astonishing, miraculously choreographed opening shot (lasting over three minutes) to Marlene Dietrich's classic final line of dialogue, this sordid tale of murder and police corruption is like a valentine for the cinematic medium, with Welles as its love-struck suitor. As the corpulent cop who may be involved in a border-town murder, Welles faces opposition from a narcotics officer (Charlton Heston) whose wife (Janet Leigh) is abducted and held as the pawn in a struggle between Heston's quest for truth and Welles's control of carefully hidden secrets. The twisting plot is wildly entertaining (even though it's harder to follow in this original version), but even greater pleasure is found in the pulpy dialogue and the sheer exuberance of the dazzling directorial style. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews:

Touch of Evil.......2007-06-27

The director's original version is restored for this DVD, to powerful effect. Welles creates a desolate night-time world in the dirty town of Los Robles, a forgotten speck on the map where everyone seems to carry a nasty secret. Lurid, almost surreal atmosphere is complemented by uniformly first-rate performances, with Heston and Leigh never better, Welles himself a bloated symbol of moral decay, and Akim Tamiroff memorably slimy as a local crime boss. Don't miss Marlene Dietrich playing a gypsy- as you might guess, she gets the final word. A cult movie with a capital "C".

Orson Wells.......2007-03-19

well worth seeing. A Wells classic, that just has not aged

Touch of a master........2007-02-28

Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958)

The American Experience documentary The Battle Over Citizen Kane concludes with the observation that after the scandal that erupted over Kane, Orson Welles "never worked on another major Hollywood production." Which is pretty amazing, when you consider how many of Welles' post-Kane movies are acknowledged as classics nowadays. After Kane, Welles plunged himself deep into the world of noir (one wonders what Jung would have to say about that) and continued cranking out fantastic movies. Seventeen years later, Welles made his second-best movie-- Touch of Evil, the very epitome of the things that make noir great.

Mike Vargas (Charlton Heston) is a Mexican (yeah, yeah, but suspend your disbelief) narcotics officer who's just gotten married to Susan (Janet Leigh), a Philadelphia socialite. On the eve of their honeymoon, someone plants a bomb in the car of a rich American on the Mexican side of the border, and the bomb explodes on the American side. This brings Vargas into contact with Hank Quinlan (Welles), a corrupt, racist American detective who tries to railroad Manelo Sanchez (Victor Millan, last seen in Scarface), the victim's daughter's boyfriend, by planting evidence at the crime scene. Vargas, meanwhile, is also being pursued by Joe Grandi (Justine's Akim Tamiroff), a crime boss whose brother Vargas arrested. All the threads eventually come together in the most entertaining of ways; the movie's climactic scene has been copied (and parodied) so many times that by now it's a cliché. But remember that it wasn't in 1958; this is as good as it gets.

Orson Welles' directorial prowess was as legendary as his excesses. Rent a Welles movie at random, and you're pretty much guaranteed a good time. Some of his movies, though, deliver more universally than others; Citizen Kane seems to be the favorite of most folks. Mine has always been The Stranger. But Touch of Evil stands with both. This is great stuff, an absolute must for film fans. **** ½

Touch of Evil.......2007-02-27

"Touch of Evil" is the movie that ended Orson Welles' reign in Hollywood, a huge failure at the time of its release. Now, it's considered his 2nd best film (hopefully I don't need to tell you what #1 is). "Touch of Evil" is a slice of film-noir, written and directed by Welles', set in Los Robles, a Mexican-American border town. As the movie opens (in one of the best shots I've ever seen) with an unbroken shot lasting three minutes and twenty seconds, a bomb is placed in a car. The camera follows the car, but stops as we're introduced to a newlywed couple: Mike Vargas (Charlton Heston), a Mexican narcotics official and his wife Susan (Janet Leigh). As they're going through a border checkpoint, the car drives past them and then we hear an off-screen explosion. As the police descend upon the scene like vultures, the tension slowly builds as we wait for Captain Hank Quinlan (Welles). The Welles' we finally see is quite different from the Welles' that once played Charles Foster Kane. The new Welles' is a fat, sweaty man who seems to be standing above the camera in almost every shot he's in. Quinlan comes in and states that the explosion was caused by dynamite, he cites "intuition" as his proof. As Vargas gets involved with the investigation, much to the dismay of Quinlan, Susan is set up at a secluded motel. Meanwhile, a local crime boss named "Uncle Joe" Grandi (Akim Tamiroff) is trying to harm Susan because Vargas is testifying against his brother and harming Vargas directly will get his brother convicted. Meanwhile, we watch as Quinlan investigates the explosion and realize that he has his own agenda. He's a dirty cop, distraught over the unsolved murder of his wife, who has no problem planting evidence to get someone arrested. One of the best scenes in the movie (which seems to reflect a passage from Welles' own life) is when Quinlan, drunk, goes to see a fortune-telling madam (Marlene Dietrich). The scene reads as follows:
Welles-Come on, read my future for me.
Dietrich-You haven't got any.
Welles-Uhh...What do you mean?
Dietrich-Your future is all used up.
"Touch of Evil" is a film that embodies what film-noir is supposed to be. Dark cinematography and low camera angles and there's a lot of that. This DVD is a terrific edition. The story behind the making of "Touch of Evil" is almost as well known as the film itself. After the studio drastically re-edited the film, Welles' wrote a pleading 58-page memo to the studio. Now, all these years later, we see the version that Welles' wanted. The cinematography of this film is an absolute gem. There are a lot of legendary and very well done shots that should rank up there with the best Gregg Toland shots in "Citizen Kane." Touch of Evil is a terrific, underrated film by "The Boy Genius."
GRADE: A-

WIDESCREEN DEBATE.......2007-01-25

I have read reviews on this site suggesting that this dvd release cropped the top and bottom of the original aspect ratio. I have seen the late '90s release of Touch Of Evil in the theater. I remember the top and bottom of the Universal globe was (slightly) chopped off of this theatrical release and looks just like the aspet ratio of this dvd release. I believe this dvd portrays the aspect ratio accurately. Besides, I have never heard of movies in the late 1950's released in the theaters having a "square" or "television" type of aspect ratio like most movies released in the 30's and 40's.

A Fistful of Dollars (2-Disc Collector's Edition)

Average customer rating:

Kills 4 guys, in 3 seconds, for laughing at his mule
Yo! Jimbo!
Terrific restoration
Beatiful Movie
A DVD worth many fistfuls of dollars

A Fistful of Dollars (2-Disc Collector's Edition)
Starring: Clint Eastwood , Marianne Koch , Gian Maria Volontè , Wolfgang Lukschy , and Sieghardt Rupp
Director: Monte Hellman , and Sergio Leone
Manufacturer: MGM (Video & DVD)
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Westerns | Genres | DVD | Video

Classics | Westerns | Genres | DVD | Video

For A Few Dollars More
For a Few Dollars More (2-Disc Collector's Edition)
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly - Extended Cut (Two-Disc Collector's Edition)
Hang 'em High
High Plains Drifter

ASIN: B000OPOAOI
Release Date: 2007-06-05

Amazon.com essential video

A Fistful of Dollars launched the spaghetti Western and catapulted Clint Eastwood to stardom. Based on Akira Kurosawa's 1961 samurai picture Yojimbo, it scored a resounding success (in Italy in 1964 and the U.S. in 1967), as did its sequels, For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. The advertising campaign promoted Eastwood's character--laconic, amoral, dangerous--as the Man with No Name (though in the film he's clearly referred to as Joe), and audiences loved the movie's refreshing new take on the Western genre. Gone are the pieties about making the streets safe for women and children. Instead it's every man for himself. Striking, too, was a new emphasis on violence, with stylized, almost balletic gunfights and baroque touches such as Eastwood's armored breastplate. The Dollars films had a marked influence on the Hollywood Western--for example, Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch--but their most enduring legacy is Clint Eastwood himself. --Edward Buscombe

Description

Clint Eastwood's legendary "Man With No Name" makes his powerful debut in this thrilling, action-packed "new breed of western" (Motion Picture Herald) from the acclaimed director of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and For a Few Dollars More. Exploding with blistering shootouts, dynamic performances and atmospheric cinematography, it's an undisputed classic of the genre. A mysterious gunman (Eastwood) has just arrived in San Miguel, a grim, dusty border town where two rival bands of smugglers are terrorizing the impoverished citizens. A master of the "quick-draw,"the stranger soon receives offers of employment from each gang. But his loyalty cannot be bought; he accepts both jobs...and sets in motion a plan to destroy both groups of criminals, pitting one against the other in a series of brilliantly orchestrated setups, showdowns and deadly confrontations.

Customer Reviews:

Kills 4 guys, in 3 seconds, for laughing at his mule.......2007-07-03

This was a cynical hero, but still with a sense of right and wrong, who had learned how to survive and thrive in a dog eat dog world. By smarts, gun skills, and an aloof cavalier regard for killing those who deserved it...he perseveres. After 50 years of cinematic goody goody two shoes cowboy heroes...this was an eye popping fresh concept. Also for me one of the treats were the sets. Interiors, exteriors, the props...all looked real, not the usual hollywood fakey. Like they had gone back in time and filmed at a real location. The Ennio Morricone music turned the story situations into high drama, that somehow made things mean more than guys shooting each other on a dusty street. All the actors "looked" like their characters...making scenes and the eventual deserved outcomes for them all that more enjoyable. Gian Maria Volontè makes a great villian, energetic, deadly, simultaneously attractive and repulsive. Also for me this take on "Yojimbo" is very Italian, with bigger than life operatic bad guys and an myth-like good guy. Very enjoyable. The DVD is crisp and clear. A must have for any of us middle aged futs who saw it back when it was released originally.

Yo! Jimbo!.......2007-06-24

The opening credit montage heralds something new and exciting. A majestic Ennio Morricone score played over silhouettes of cowboys and the sound of gunshots. What follows doesn't fail to disappointment. Director Sergio Leone reimagines the West with a flavor unknown in these parts. Star Clint Eastwood,at the time wallowing on TV's "Rawhide", presents a new archetype with his drifter whose motives are unknown. He wanders into a lawless Mexican town playing two warring crime families against each other. His intentions aren't so much altruistic rather it involves a profit motive. This film is unlike anything that came before it and influenced generations to come. Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill-Volume 2" is one example of Leone's influence. So what if Leone cribbed Kurasawa's story. In this case imitation is the best form of flattery. Both Leone and Sam Peckinpah reinvigorated a genre that may have been on it's death bed.

Terrific restoration.......2007-06-13

I don't know why it took almost two years after the special edition of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly to get a region 1 release of the restored Fistful of Dollars, but it was worth waiting for. The restoration is clean and beautiful. The commentary by Christopher Frayling is genuinely interesting and insightful, unlike most DVD commentaries. I learned a lot of new details. The complete version of the network prologue with Harry Dean Stanton and a hilariously bad standin for Clint is a real hoot. That's on the second disc, along with a nice interview with Clint and some other featurettes.

Beatiful Movie.......2007-06-11

I would've given this 5 stars if it wasnt for the previous special edition of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. The actual box was cool and unique, it was accompanied with post card size versions of all the movie posters (international), as well as the extra disc of special features. Fist Full of Dollars has the extra disc, but didnt come with as many goodies. On-line, the picture looks the same, but it was different... it is packaged in a regular dvd box that slides into a cardboard like case instead of the unique, slightly bigger case that came with the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Granted, this is a minor complaint... the movie looks and sounds excellent. Of course, we all know the movie itself is a classic and it is worth the price to own. I produce and direct music videos for local artist and I have to say that this movie has made a powerful impression on in terms of camera angles. As well as having a cool story and characters, this is an extremely artistic movie (in my opinion).
I got my products from amazon within two days of ordering... so, if you get in online, this is the place to do that.

A DVD worth many fistfuls of dollars.......2007-06-11

(This review refers to the new 2-disc "collector's edition" released in 2007.)

A Fistful of Dollars kicked off a new era for the western, a tried and true--and, by 1964, almost exhausted--cinematic genre that needed a fresh start. Audiences had grown cynical and tired of the white-hat/black-hat simplicity of most western classics and, as with the waning war-film genre, were looking for something different.

Enter Sergio Leone and A Fistful of Dollars, a gritty "Italian western" shot in Spain on a shoestring budget and starring an up-and-coming--but still virtually unknown--television actor named Clint Eastwood. The movie was a huge international hit, launched Eastwood into stardom, and spawned two subsequent "Man With No Name" westerns and dozens of imitations.

MGM's new release of this classic "new western" is outstanding. In recent years, I've been pleased every time MGM has issued a new release of a classic from its library, as every new edition has improved vastly upon those previous.

Picture quality: Excellent anamorphic transfer, diligently tidied up and restored. Outstanding.

Sound quality: Includes the requisite original mono track and an excellent new surround-sound mix.

Special features: Very good. An informative commentary track by film historian Sir Christopher Frayling is accompanied by a second disc including several nice featurettes, none of which are boring and none of which are so long that they wear out their welcome. I watched most of them while getting ready in the morning.

If you've been waiting for a good edition of A Fistful of Dollars, this is it.

Highly recommended.

Average customer rating:

Remarkable
At times gripping, at times kind of slow
Knowing all about drugs and feeling superior in our knowledge: is the method educators and entertainers use to keep us off them
Great film - wrong HD image to show-off
Very real drug life

Traffic
Starring: Benicio Del Toro , Jacob Vargas , Andrew Chavez , Michael Saucedo , and Tomas Milian
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Manufacturer: Universal Studios
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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Blow (Infinifilm Edition)
Training Day
21 Grams
Spy Game (Widescreen Edition)
The Departed (Two-Disc Special Edition)

ASIN: B000067IZ3
Release Date: 2002-06-25

Amazon.com essential video

Featuring a huge cast of characters, the ambitious and breathtaking Traffic is a tapestry of three separate stories woven together by a common theme: the war on drugs. In Ohio, there's the newly appointed government drug czar (Michael Douglas) who realizes after he's accepted the job that he may have gotten into a no-win situation. Not only that, his teenage daughter (Erika Christensen) is herself quietly developing a nasty addiction problem. In San Diego, a drug kingpin (Steven Bauer) is arrested on information provided by an informant (Miguel Ferrer) who was nabbed by two undercover detectives (Don Cheadle and Luis Guzmán). The kingpin's wife (Catherine Zeta-Jones), heretofore ignorant of where her husband's wealth comes from, gets a crash course in the drug business and its nasty side effects. And south of the border, a Mexican cop (Benicio Del Toro) finds himself caught between both his home country and the U.S., as corrupt government officials duke it out with the drug cartel for control of trafficking various drugs back and forth across the border.

Bold in scope, Traffic showcases Steven Soderbergh at the top of his game, directing a peerless ensemble cast in a gritty, multifaceted tale that will captivate you from beginning to end. Utilizing the no-frills techniques of the Dogme 95 school, Soderbergh enhances his hand-held filming with imaginative editing and film-stock manipulation that eerily captures the atmosphere of each location: a washed-out, grainy Mexico; a blue and chilly Ohio; and a sleek, sun-dappled San Diego. But Traffic is more than a film-school exercise. Soderbergh and screenwriter Stephen Gaghan (adapting the British TV miniseries Traffik to the U.S.) seamlessly weave the threads of each separate plotline into one solid tale, with the actions of one plot having quiet repercussions on the other two. And if you needed more proof that Soderbergh takes unparalleled care with his actors, practically all the members of this cast turn in their best work ever, the standout being an Oscar-worthy Del Toro as the conflicted moral conscience of the film. While no story is fully resolved in the film, you'll be haunted by these characters days after you've seen the film. By far one of the best movies of 2000. --Mark Englehart

Customer Reviews:

Remarkable.......2007-05-23

Thought provoking, suspenseful, illuminating and candid. Actors love working for Steven Soderbergh and it shows. Each role was well developed and fully realized on screen. This movie is powerful!

At times gripping, at times kind of slow.......2007-02-19

I still don't understand the love for Crash, the recent film centering on the racism issue. It seemed like a film that had a couple good ideas but they were featured in a bad movie which makes its win for Best Picture all the more confusing. That film for some reason reminded me of Traffic which centers on another important issue; this one being about the drug war and its effects on addicts and non-addicts. While you can obviously tell Traffic is an important film and it is indeed a good one, it's also slightly marred by erratic pacing and a bit of uninteresting characters.

The film, unlike let's say, Magnolia or Short Cuts, is 3 separate storylines with one thing in common: the drug trade. In one story set in Ohio, Robert Wakefield is the newly-appointed "drug czar" crusading against decreasing the amount of drugs in the country. However, he has a daughter that's quickly starting to get addicted. In San Diego, Helena sees her husband arrested while she's unaware he's a key player in the drug trade with another captured by DEA agents who is going to testify. And finally in Mexico, a highway patrol cop gets involved in the corruption between drug cartels and the want for control of the drugs going in and out of Mexico and the US.

To help the audience differentiate the different places, a color code has been given to each segment. The Wakefield story looks so unbelievably blue that you wouldn't be surprised if character blood looked blue too. San Diego looks more traditional but a bit overexposed making it more brighter while Mexico looks like an indie movie with a very gritty and raw feel and a jittery looking camera. It helps keep track of where you are but like I said, you've never seen skin tones look so blue before; they really overdid it in some cases.

The best storyline is most likely Mexico since it's anchored by Benicio Del Toro who certainly deserved his Oscar. It's also got a more interesting story and a better look to it despite its intentional amateurishness. The one that isn't that great is probably the Wakefield story since it never gripped me all that much. San Diego was alright but nothing to special. Ultimately the problem with the film was that the film just felt slow. Ever watch one of those movies where it feels like you've been watching for longer than the movie is? Not to mention that sometimes one storyline is starting to get interesting then whoosh! off to somewhere else. A similar problem plagued Babel since the Chieko story was ultimately more emotional and gripping than the others. Some will probably disagree and say all stories in Traffic were good but I always groaned slightly when we moved away from Mexico.

It's certainly an ambitious film so not going to argue there and it's a great film at times but I wouldn't say it was my favorite film of 2000.

Knowing all about drugs and feeling superior in our knowledge: is the method educators and entertainers use to keep us off them.......2007-02-03

A bunch of people lie to and kill each other. Everyone in the movie is either corrupt or incompetent, with the exception of a Mexican police official/crime lord and a black American DEA agent. The crime boss is a good-guy because, no matter the body count, he has a playground built for kids. The drug agent is a good-guy because, he keeps plugging along trying to get drugs off his streets. Oh, and it's a good idea not to get your girlfriend high in the hopes of having fun, because, not only will a bunch of people lie to and kill each other, your girlfriend may end up the property of a drug dealer/pimp.

It's an interesting menagerie.

It may all sound pleasant (if yer some kind of masochist I suppose). Regardless, plus considering the movies lack of humor or drama, I didn't find it pleasant. Actually, even with humor and drama, I usually don't find these crime shows pleasant. There was only one scene I found pleasant. The humor I found in this scene is probably due to the fact Drug Czar Robert Wakefield (Michael Douglas) reacted to the scene, in the movie, almost exactly the way I was reacting in my seat.

This is a movie for those who feel the need to know about the illegal drug industry. I'm sure there was a huge audience for this movie, in that this (knowing all about drugs and feeling superior in our knowledge) is the method educators and entertainers use to keep us off them in our 'tolerant' world. Not to mention the potential audience of criminals and former players.

Great film - wrong HD image to show-off.......2007-01-17

Traffic is difficult for me to review since I really enjoyed the film but before you purchase be aware that the intent of the Director is to deliver a grainy, washed-out picture throughout the film. In the places where Traffic is intended to deliver an oustanding picture without washed-out images it certainly does.

Images of the early bust, courtroom and 'life at home' are rich and detailed - via projector in 1080i.

If you appreciate the story and have a nice system, Traffic in HD is a good investment; it is NOT the movie to show-off your new High Definition home Theater system; for that I would recommend The Searchers, Seabiscuit, King Kong or Casino in HD-DVD.

Very real drug life.......2006-12-06

I just watched this movie and was very moved by the story. The story is very close to real life of the "drug cartel" as well as the user and drug enforcerment. What I really liked about this movie is the honesty that is protrayed in all aspects of drugs itself. What the drug does for a person, how it comes in to this country and other countries, also how it is acquired by the user. The honesty includes those that are from the underprivilaged comunities to the "silver spoon" communities as well. Bravo to the writer and the director of this movie!!! I recommend this movie HIGHLY!!!

Film Noir Classic Collection, Vol. 3 (Border Incident / His Kind of Woman / Lady in the Lake / On Dangerous Ground / The Racket)

Average customer rating:

awesome noir
A must-have
Good copies of good films
Film Noir Classics of the second rank, Very Good indeed
Noir 3 Collection

Film Noir Classic Collection, Vol. 3 (Border Incident / His Kind of Woman / Lady in the Lake / On Dangerous Ground / The Racket)
Starring: Film Noir Classics Collection
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Drama | Genres | DVD | Video

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Warner Bros. Pictures Tough Guys Collection (Bullets or Ballots / City for Conquest / Each Dawn I Die / G Men / San Quentin / A Slight Case of Murder)
Film Noir Classic Collection, Vol. 2 (Born to Kill / Clash by Night / Crossfire / Dillinger (1945) / The Narrow Margin (1952))
I Wake Up Screaming (Fox Film Noir)
Double Indemnity (Universal Legacy Series)
House of Strangers (Fox Film Noir)

ASIN: B000FI9OCW
Release Date: 2006-07-18

Amazon.com

Two peak achievements by as many top noir directors ... a customized vehicle for one of noir's premier icons ... an oddball experiment in making a truly "private eye" movie ... and a Howard Hughes remake of his earliest contribution to the gangster genre. Such are the five titles corralled for Warner Home Video's third box set of film noir classics.

For eye-popping dynamism coupled with ferocious intensity, no noir director matched Anthony Mann. Border Incident (1949) was Mann's and cinematographer John Alton's first film for MGM following a string of darkly dazzling low-budget beauties at Eagle-Lion (T-Men, Raw Deal, The Black Book, et al.). In structure it's virtually a remake of T-Men, transposed from the shadowy city where a Secret Service team battled counterfeiters, to California's Imperial Valley where the Immigration Service sets out to infiltrate a gang exploiting--and often murdering--Mexicans eager to work the farms. From the opening night scene of three laborers trying to recross the border and meeting a grisly end, the movie relentlessly imagines ways the human body can merge with the earth. Visually stunning, and replete with memorable villains (headed by Howard Da Silva, a past master at making affability lethal), this is one of Mann's strongest noirs and surely his most inventive. Its neglect can be explained only by people's assumption that nothing worthwhile could come of a movie top-billing Ricardo Montalban and George Murphy (as the government agents). Wrong, wrong, wrong.

After a scalding first reel in big-city night streets, Nicholas Ray's On Dangerous Ground (RKO, 1951) likewise forsakes familiar noir terrain for the countryside--the mountains and snowfields where city cop Robert Ryan seeks a psychotic killer. For both the actor and the director, Ryan's character is an exemplary creation: a man with personal demons whose overzealous pursuit of criminals has pushed him into sadism. His passage from urban darkness into the silent white mountain country becomes a redemptive journey, thanks largely to his interaction with a blind woman (Ida Lupino) in an isolated farmhouse whose younger brother may be the quarry he's after. Ray developed the screenplay with A.I. Bezzerides under the supervision of producer John Houseman (for whom Ray had made his feature debut, They Live By Night). The film boasts a thrilling music score by Bernard Herrmann, anticipating his great soundtrack for North by Northwest.

His Kind of Woman (also RKO, 1951) is a vehicle for both RKO's reigning bad boy, Robert Mitchum, and Howard Hughes' definitive coup of distaff engineering, Jane Russell. Their characters cross paths en route to a seaside Mexican resort, where she aims to continue her gold-digger pursuit of Hollywood ham Vincent Price, and Mitchum will figure in a plot to get deported mobster Raymond Burr back into the U.S.A. The slow-brewing romance between this dauntingly tall, broad-shouldered pair gives off little heat, but the players' good-natured, weary-pro rapport as they go through their mostly preposterous paces makes for very good fun. Still more is supplied by Price, who just about steals the movie when he gets to extend his sub-Errol Flynn screen heroism into real life--all the while supplying his own florid running commentary on the action. The urbane director John Farrow filled the movie with one delicious, what-the-hell-is-going-on-here scene after another (highlight: a bored Mitchum ironing his money), but that wasn't enough for studio boss Hughes. Richard Fleischer was brought in to stretch the climactic melodrama aboard Burr's yacht in the harbor, and the picture grew to an overblown two hours in length. Not that you're likely to regret a minute of it.

Robert Montgomery directed and played Phillip Marlowe in Lady in the Lake (MGM, 1947), Raymond Chandler's novel as adapted by Steve Fisher (I Wake Up Screaming). The gimmick is that, apart from a few scenes of private detective Marlowe chatting us up in his office, everything is viewed through his eyes, with Marlowe himself remaining unseen unless he glances in a mirror. This literal-minded conceit is more curious than compelling; the camera simply doesn't see the way the human eye does, and the artificiality constantly calls attention to itself. Montgomery, a suave actor who enjoyed playing it coarse and obnoxious on occasion, makes his screen Marlowe more smartass than any other ("dumb, brave, and cheap"). With him cracking wise off-camera, much of the movie is really carried by Audrey Totter, a swell late-'40s dame who has to stand up under more relentless scrutiny than even her shifty character deserves.

The Racket (RKO, 1951) is the second film version of a 1920s play about municipal corruption, gangsterism, and the attempt to squash an honest police precinct captain. John Cromwell had acted in the original Broadway production, which may help explain why, as director, he let so much of this movie turn back into a play. Eventually studio boss Howard Hughes, who had produced the 1928 film version (directed by Lewis Milestone), once again called in another director to do salvage work.

That was Nicholas Ray, whose scenes include police captain Robert Mitchum's pursuit of the man who has just bombed his home. Mitchum's fellow cast members include Robert Ryan as the ultra-paranoid gangster; husky-voiced noir blonde Lizabeth Scott as a nightclub thrush romanced by Ryan's brother; future Perry Mason D.A. William Talman as a dedicated street cop; and Ray Collins and William Conrad as two municipal officials negotiating a delicate dance with morality and expediency. --Richard T. Jameson

Description

Five more film noir classics lined up with genre stars such as Robert Mitchum, Robert Montgomery, Robert Ryan, and Jane Russell, are now available in Volume 3 of the Film Noir Classics Collection series. The new 6-Disc DVD set is only available as a collection and includes a bonus documentary disc on the Noir genre.

Customer Reviews:

awesome noir.......2007-04-20

like the other 2 volumes in this series vol 3 outshines even them. found all dvd's compelling viewing,well remastered for excellent sound and picture quality. if film noir from the 40's and 50's is your penchant then look no further than these releases. i have only one question, when or where are we getting volume 4? Jim Boggan, Dublin, Ireland

A must-have .......2007-03-23

The Noir genre appears as the most original cinematographic legacy of the American cinema along the Century.

Unlike the Western whose emblematic epic feature (with their few exceptions), the Noir is supported by the unbearable lightness of the being in which twists of fate, ironic designs, existential instability, lack of center, cosmic nasty tricks hovered by an irrational universe in which nobody is like it seems.

This manifest incapacity of distinguishing what's right or what's wrong, the awful sensation of diffidence respect your beloved couple, the new friend you met last night, was systematically enhancing with new visions, fed by the plethora of European filmmakers that certainly had experienced his particular fears and anguishes with the dark shadows of a raising Nazism and the emerging void's perception that you could feel and even breath in your environment.

All this set of new factors, enriched, enhanced and expanded the vision of many layers of a society, seers, salesmen, boxers, gangsters, false policemen, doctors, sideshow performers, psychologists or depressive characters.

The WW2 in good measure, renovated the internal demons of the alcoholism, gangster's rivalries, corruption, sexual frustrations or the figure of the classic antihero of the thirties ( The petrified forest or High Sierra) frequently ex cons or orphans youngsters whose parents died in the WW1 or committed suicide during the great Depression.

Good copies of good films.......2007-01-13

An excellent product, good copies of some really good films

Film Noir Classics of the second rank, Very Good indeed.......2007-01-06

Lady in the Lake is the weakest and On Dangerous Ground/The Racket are the strongest Border Incident and His Kind of Woman quite good as well. The other two volumes are as good or better but where can you see good prints of these exciting noir movies for a great price? The only other set to recommend to those new to the genre is the Kino's noir set with star performers (and some non-star performers) with great directors. Don't miss out on these four sets, they're terrific entertainment (after a noir movie, we watch a Charley Chase, Keaton or Lloyd short). Great night at home watching these movies before our time (born 1956).

Noir 3 Collection.......2007-01-05

Border Incident and Lady in the Lake are particularly important films in the noir tradition. Though they are all B films, Lady carries the imprint of Raymond Chandler.

The collection is worth having if one is interested in studying noir films, but don't expect any great films here...or even really good ones.

Average customer rating:

A Quite Musical Western
Classic Western Movie with an outstanding actor.
Rio Grande: The start of a great pairing
The most sentimental of Ford's movies...
Very Fine 3rd Calvary Movie

Rio Grande
Starring: John Wayne , Maureen O'Hara , Ben Johnson , Claude Jarman Jr. , and Harry Carey Jr.
Director: John Ford
Manufacturer: Republic Pictures
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ASIN: 0782010059
Release Date: 1998-07-14

Amazon.com

The last and least memorable of John Ford's famous cavalry trilogy (following Fort Apache and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon), Rio Grande nonetheless has an interesting continuity about the gentlemanly rules of military conduct. Here the focus is on the family. While creating a heated controversy over his handling of the Apache war, John Wayne must also contend with disgruntled wife Maureen O'Hara and estranged son Claude Jarman Jr., a new recruit trying to earn his father's love and respect. Ford seems to suggest that there are two conflicting codes of honor in every cavalry officer's life, the personal as well as the professional, and that it takes an act of heroism to maintain both. It's fascinating to observe Wayne's progression throughout the trilogy, as his personal stakes intensify. Also, this is the first of five onscreen appearances between the Duke and O'Hara, each filled with a competitive spirit and stormy sexuality. --Bill Desowitz

Customer Reviews:

A Quite Musical Western.......2007-05-24

One characteristic of this old black-and-white flick is the singing of old folk songs by the men of the US Cavalry. There is also a display of various cavalry skills. For instance, the mounted men must jump over a 6-foot fence.

Lt. Colonel Yorke (John Wayne) has his son in the cavalry unit, but pledges to treat him equally to everyone else. Yorke's son had failed West Point, and now wants to redeem himself in the US Cavalry. His mother (Maureen O'Hara) comes, and tries to have him removed from the unit. The other soldiers think that the son is privileged, and this leads to a fistfight.

The US Cavalry is fighting against the Apache Indians. Yorke is limited by the fact that he is forbidden to cross into Mexico to pursue the Apaches. The Mexicans have the opposite problem. This becomes obvious when Yorke meets with his Mexican counterpart on an isle in the middle of the Rio Grande.

In time, there is a savage Apache attack, and some children are kidnapped and taken across the border into Mexico. Yorke decides to disobey the directive and to cross the Rio Grande in pursuit of the Apaches and their hostages. Will his unexpected move catch the Apaches by surprise? Will he succeed in freeing the hostages? During the operation, he takes an arrow in the chest. Will he live?

Classic Western Movie with an outstanding actor........2007-03-11

This John Wayne Western movie is great.
I intend to make it a part of my DVD library
including other Western classics.

Rio Grande: The start of a great pairing.......2007-03-08

Rio Grande was conceived as a movie to pay for the making of another film. John Ford wanted to make a little film called "The Quiet Man" but Columbia Studios wanted a quick money maker to pay for the next production. The result was "Rio Grande." A classic in its own right, one that should not be missed. Directed by John Ford and starring Maureen O'Hara and John Wayne together for the first time. The story is what hyou should expect from Ford, good action and get characters. Look for many familar faces in this film, like Victor MacLagen, Chill Wills, Ben Johnson and Harry Carey Jr. This film is part of the fabled cavalry trilogy. It is rousing and exciting. Atrue classic, don't miss it.

The most sentimental of Ford's movies..........2006-11-08

Ford's cavalry trilogy is, in its way, just as much Victor McLaglen's trilogy, for he appears once again in 'Rio Grande', still superbly filling the tough-soft sergeant part, still providing the Ford horse-play comedy element with just a touch of parody, still, one might add, probably fulfilling Ford's own particular vision of revering the heroes who have helped conquer the West...

The McLaglen sergeant seems drawn on the spreading of lines, but in retrospect, one realizes that somehow, paradoxically, he has inspired a remarkable degree of realism into the three motion pictures... (They would be not the same without him.)

'Rio Grande' has a very strong domestic flavor...

John Wayne - a casualty of the Civil War - is a cavalry officer, under strict orders, with great family problems... He's a northerner who, not surprisingly, has left his wife, a southerner, because he obediently did his military duty and burned several southern plantations - including the one owned by his wife's family... Maureen O'Hara - bringing a fitting maturity to her stereotyped assignment in the film - never forgives her husband for burning her plantation, and abruptly takes their son and goes away, effectively ending their marriage...

Fifteen years later, Wayne, promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Cavalry officer, attempts to maintain the truce calm at his southwestern post, which is besieged by marauding renegade Apaches who are continually using the border with Mexico as an escape route after their raids, a lost cause since the U.S. and Mexican governments agreed that their military forces will not cross the Rio Grande under any circumstances...

He hurries to put down an Indian uprising when his past and his wife cross his path again... He is confronted by a new recruit: his West Point dropout son (Claude Jarman Jr.) and, later, the arrival of his frigid wife, desperate to buy her son out of the cavalry...

Everything, domestically and militarily is, of course, resolved successfully and, indeed, predictably, but it is the texture of the film that gives it its enjoyment - the gentle study of the reconciliation of a colonel and his estranged wife; the interplay of a father compelled to send his son on a dangerous mission; the peculiar supporting contributions of the 'beloved brute sergeant,' or the cavalry side-kicks, Ben Johnson and Harry Carey, Jr.

The three films (even considered singly) give a feeling of frontier military life, however colored by a director's highly personal viewpoint, that has hardly been approached, let alone surpassed...

There's a beautiful scene in which Wayne and Maureen are serenaded by soldiers of his troop... We can observe a husband meditating about all that went wrong with his marriage, and watch the inclination and desire that exist in his longing sideways brief look at his wife...

With first rate acting and lushly sentimental score, 'Rio Grande' can never be missed... It is the last of John Ford's cavalry movies and the most sentimental...

Very Fine 3rd Calvary Movie.......2006-09-24

The third and last of the calvary is also the weakest. That's not to say its a bad film. Rio Grande explores the Army officer's conflicted devotions to his family and to his uniform. The first half is quite good with Wayne contending with having both his son and his estranged wife (who's house he burned down in the Civil War) underfoot as he tries to do his job fighting the Indian Wars. Unfortunately, the second half of the film is a bit of a letdown. Instead of further developing the fascinating character of Wayne as an excellent soldier and poor father and husband, Ford gives the viewer far too many singing cowboy interludes and an elaborate and unconvincing fight sequence and daring rescue mission. Can't help but feel Ford and Wayne ducked a great opportunity in favor of easy action entertainment.

Average customer rating:

MORE PEOPLE NEED TO SEE THIS FILM
Ride with the Devil Student Review
~Tobey as a Cowboy~
brilliant film
A Very Fine "Period Piece."

Ride with the Devil
Starring: Tobey Maguire , Jeremy W. Auman , Scott C. Sener , Skeet Ulrich , and Glenn Q. Pierce
Director: Ang Lee
Manufacturer: Universal Studios
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ASIN: 0783241909
Release Date: 2000-07-18

Amazon.com

Great period pictures make you feel as if you've stepped into another era, heard its language, breathed its spirit, and come away with a fresh perspective on that time as well as your own. Ride with the Devil is one of those special films--why wasn't it more widely embraced by reviewers and filmgoers? Did it rely too much on our patience for slow accumulation of unforced rhythms and meanings (as opposed to The Patriot, which "moved" audiences with cattle-prod simplicity and manipulation)? Ride with the Devil--smart, handsome, tenderly awed by how individual lives get ambushed by history--is ripe for rediscovery.

The Civil War of battlefields and plantation houses is nowhere to be seen here. Instead we see the war as an improvised and largely blundering but very bloody feud among neighbors in the border state of Missouri. In this bucolic war zone--more than a little reminiscent of the Balkans in the late 1990s--the Taiwanese-born director Ang Lee (Sense and Sensibility) traces the destinies of several young Southern bushwhackers (guerrilla fighters) as they experience violence, the seasons, and different kinds of love. Skeet Ulrich draws the aristocratic glamour role (and top billing), but he's overshadowed by Tobey Maguire as a first-generation American, the magnificent Jeffrey Wright (a shameful oversight at Oscar time) as a freed slave fighting beside his former master, and singer Jewel in a very natural acting debut as the young widow who graces all their lives. The title The Birth of a Nation was already taken, but by the end of this movie you feel it would have applied here. -- Richard T. Jameson

Customer Reviews:

MORE PEOPLE NEED TO SEE THIS FILM.......2007-06-28

Mr. Lee's excellent depiction of the Border War on the Missouri/Kansas frontier provides a much-need context for that struggle that may help people of today to better understand what happened and why. The acting is uniformly impressive, the clothing is perfect, the film's location shots were filmed where the story actually took place for the most part, and most of all, the dialogue exactly captures the feel and flavour of the period. This is not a plot-driven film, it is carried along by the character developement and interaction. If you are looking for slam-bang action or set-piece Civil War battles, try another film. But if you want to explore causes, motivations and effects, check this film out. I'm glad that I did.

Ride with the Devil Student Review.......2007-06-12

Ride with the Devil is a thrilling movie about four rebels fighting for the south but were neither in the Union nor the Confederacy, they were individual rebels. They fight when they know they can win, although one time in the movie they are over powered and one of their friends is shot. Along with the fighting there is a romance theme in the movie when they meet a woman and the man who was shot fell in love with her but died. Unfortuanaly he got her pregnant, and his other friend becomes the father. Where he no longer is a rebel causing problems in the south.

This is a pro-south movie where the plot is changed to make the south look good, and the north look bad. Some of the events were changed to alter the plot and make the north look bad. These "individual rebels" were actually like the mafia of today. They would destroy houses, business, kill people, unless they got some type of payment for them not to do that, and the people would have to continue to pay these rebels for their "protection." They tried to stay out of the war, and work behind the scene causing trouble in towns, but everyone and a while they would need to fight off the army. In the very beginning of the movie, these rebels burn down a trading post and kill the owner, he did not pay for his protection, and to make matters worst, he was working with the Union. The movie does not portray it that way, but from a historical context that was what happened. There was also a point when a man on a horse gathers everyone together to ride up to Kansas and fight off the northerners, which could be a parallel to when Jefferson Davis had as many as seventy-five thousand men ride to Richmond, Virginia to fight off the Union. The historical context is there, but you need to know background information to recognize it, if you do not have any background information, you would believe that the south was virtually innocent and there never should have been a war.

~Tobey as a Cowboy~.......2007-05-10

This is an Amazing Film. Not only is Tobey Maguire in it. But the story is very interesting. The battle scenes were really good. Its one of those films that you would watch over and over again.

brilliant film.......2007-05-08

Set during the civil war in bleeding kansas and Missouri the film follows two young men who join 'Quantrills Raiders' and take revenge upon the union for its greivious acts against southerners. During the savage war an entire town, Lawrence, is massacred by these 'bushwackers'. However the group falls apart and Jack and hsi friend, who is a freed slave, end up living with a single pregnant woman in a small town untouched by the fighting. THe story follows as Jack falls in love with Sue, placyed by Tobey Meguire and Bjork respectively the cast is wonderful and the acting superb.

The movie however is inexoribly drawn towards a confrontation where an enemy from Jack's past and the Civil war may catch up with the love nest. The timidity and virginity of Jack is also a problem as are the conservative morals of the local menfolk. The interplay between the men in the film, the action, and the fact that it is modelled on real events that took place along the mason-dixon line, makes for a wonderful film.

Seth J. Frantzman

A Very Fine "Period Piece.".......2007-05-05

A very Fine "Period Piece."

It does it's Job very well. This movie has great Heart, great Dialog, and many suprising Performances.

It's a Keeper :-)

Average customer rating:

Very enjoyable.
Excellent job opening an intimate window on life in Golan Heights.
"Perhaps I'm going from one jail to another."
Eran Riklis continues the string of brilliant releases from Israel
The human aspect of political complexities in the Middle East

The Syrian Bride
Starring: Hiam Abbass , Makram Khoury , Clara Khoury , Ashraf Barhom , and Eyad Sheety
Director: Eran Riklis , Corey Yuen , and David Lai
Manufacturer: Koch Lorber Films
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ASIN: B000EHQ7JC
Release Date: 2006-06-06

Amazon.com

A statement about borders--and the absurdity of bureaucracy--The Syrian Bride strides sucessfully between tragedy and comedy. Mona (olive-eyed Clara Khoury, Rana's Wedding) is the bride. She lives in Majdal Shams, a Druze village in the Israel-occupied Golan Heights. According to the opening title, "Druze loyalty is split between Syria and Israel." Tallel (Derar Sliman), her husband-to-be, resides in Damascus. She has never met him--though she has seen him on TV (he's a soap star). Once Mona crosses into Syria, she won't be allowed to return. Hence her wedding day begins on a somber note. Mona's family has problems of its own. Political dissident father Hammed (Makram J. Khoury, Clara's real-life paterfamilias) has recently been released from jail, and it looks as if he may be sent back again (for defying parole). Older sister Amal (Paradise Now's Hiam Abbass, who steals the show with her slow-burning intensity) is experiencing her own marital strife, while her daughter is seeing a pro-Israeli Druze. As for Mona's brothers, Hammed refuses to speak to Hattem (Eyad Sheety), who moved to Russia eight years ago and has returned for the wedding, non-Muslim wife and son in tow. And just in from shady business dealing in Italy is Marwan (Ashraf Barhom), the family screw-up, i.e. a gap-toothed charmer devoid of scruples. Directed by Israel's Eran Riklis (Borders ) and co-written by Suha Arraf, a Palestinian-Israeli, The Syrian Bride takes an occasionally schematic, if admirably even-handed look at ordinary people caught up in extraordinary circumstances. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Description

Mona's wedding day is the saddest day of her life. She knows that once she crosses the border between Israel and Syria to get married, she will never be allowed back to her beloved family in the Golan Heights, occupied by Israel since 1967. Once you cross the border there is no way back and at the end of a long day, the family, the government and military officials and all those gathered on both sides of the border find themselves facing an uncertain future, trapped in No-Man's land between Israel and Syria.

Awards:
Winner 2004 Montreal World Film Festival; FIPRESCI Prize
Winner 2004 Montreal World Film Festival; Grand Prix des Amériques
Winner 2004 Montreal World Film Festival; People's Choice Award
Winner 2004 Montreal World Film Festival; Prize of the Ecumenical Jury
Winner 2004 Locarno International Film Festival; Audience Award
Winner 2004 Flanders International Film Festival; Audience Award
Winner 2004 Flanders International Film Festival; Best Screenplay

Customer Reviews:

Very enjoyable........2007-04-10

Great story. This drama is lightened with touches of humor; it's not too heavy or too light. It is very real and humane, and the characters are likable and engaging.

Excellent job opening an intimate window on life in Golan Heights. .......2007-02-13

Loved this film because it really [...] me into their world on that day. It was a very intimate film. There was no real excitement but lots of suspense in the many relationships portrayed within one fascinating family torn apart by various things yet still coming together. There was also suspense in the family's relationships to the political states it had to live with, i.e. Israel and Syria. Even though this story would seem about an existence Americans just can't identify with, I found it very easy to identify with. It was like anyone's life but in higher stress. The pressures on the family members were more, the pressures on the family unit itself was more, the pressures placed on them by their local and national governments were more. The long climax of the film played out on the border was an experience of Orwellian red tape again MORE than an American has to deal with. I also learned about the Druze people and the situation they live in in Israel and Syria. There are just so many "situations" in that part of the world that I often feel overwhelmed when I try to research it to figure it out. I know one shouldn't rely on fictional movies to explain reality, but this movie did a good job of taking one day and using it to open a window on life for many Druze trapped in the Golan Heights apart from their relatives in Syria. There was never a dull moment . The acting was very good to excellent. This is the second film I've seen with Haim Abbass who played the older sister of the bride. I find her mesmerizing for some reason. She's just got "it". One can't explain it but one knows it when one sees it. Your eyes immediately go to her and don't leave because you just really want to see what she does next and to try to fathom her feelings and thoughts from her very expressive face. She's just the icing on the cake in this lovely piece of gifted film making. If you like this film, try Paradise Now which I actually preferred.

"Perhaps I'm going from one jail to another.".......2007-01-15

In "The Syrian Bride" a wedding is about to take place, but instead of being an occasion of pure joy, it's an occasion mixed with the pangs of indecision, regret and imminent loss. This is due to the fact that the bride, Mona (Clara Khoury) is a Druze woman who lives in the Golan Heights in Israel. Her status is officially termed "Undefined" and when she travels to Syria to meet her new husband, she will never be allowed to return.

The film covers the last few hours of Mona's life in her hometown of Majda Shams before she travels with her family members to the militarized zone at the border between Israel and Syria. Here, her family will say goodbye to their daughter forever, and Mona will cross the zone alone to her new life in Syria. Her father, political activist Hammed (Makram Khoury--he's also the actress's real-life father) has just been released from an Israeli jail, and he's on probation. According to Israeli authorities, Hammed will not be allowed to accompany his daughter to the militarized zone and the border; they will have to say their farewells before she begins her journey. This is a particularly sensitive time politically as the Syrian president is dead, and his son is about to succeed him. The Israeli authorities anticipate demonstrations and possible violence in the Golan Heights.

Israeli director Eran Riklis takes the story of a fairly simple event--a family wedding, and places it in the context of the political turmoil of the Middle East and then explores the dichotomy between his characters' political and personal selves. Hammed's son, Hatten, for example, travels to Israel to say goodbye to Mona, and he brings his Russian wife and their son with him. He's been gone for eight years, but according to his father, Hatten has betrayed the family by marrying an outsider. Hammed is pressured by Druze elders to shun Hatten, so there's an awkward tension in the home when Hatten arrives. Hammed would like to welcome his son home, but he's pressured in his role as a political leader. Similarly, Mona's sister Amal (the splendid Palestinian actress Haim Abbass) is caught between her role as an obedient wife and her desire to enter university. Meanwhile, Amal's teenage daughter has a forbidden relationship with a boy termed an "Israeli collaborator." No one, it seems, is left unaffected by the volatile political situation.

What makes this film work so well is the fact that all the characters are treated sympathetically and with great humanity. No one is seen as the villain here--instead we see people caught in the roles dictated to them by their birth. And the person most trapped by her role is the Syrian Bride--a woman who is forced to choose simply because of the bureaucratic dictates of her birth. The fiasco at the border epitomizes the subjugation of the individual into the vast faceless political system that discounts the human side of things and instead relies on rules and regulations that are created without the consideration of the individual. In Arabic, French, Russian, English and Hebrew with subtitles--displacedhuman

Eran Riklis continues the string of brilliant releases from Israel.......2007-01-07

Wow, is there great cinema coming out of Israel these days! Director/co-writer Eran Riklis has come up with this masterpiece, 'Syrian Bride', which ranks right up there with the very strong list of brilliant Israeli-produced movies from the past couple of years, including 'Broken Wings', 'Time of Favor', 'Walk on Water', 'Late Marriage', 'Bonjour Monsieur Shlomi'...the list goes on. Each of those is compelling, five-star viewing in my book.

The brilliance of 'Syrian Bride' is in its simple, straightforward depiction of a situation of almost unimaginable political, religious and societal complexity - a Druze family in the Golan Heights, neither Syrian nor Israeli (indeed, it's duly noted that on this family's passports, 'Nationality' is marked 'None'), with a soon-to-be young bride engaged to a Syrian she has never met. The heart of the matter is this: once the young bride-to-be, Mona, crosses the border, there's no going back. She's saying good-bye to her family forever. But, the trick is...crossing that border.

Two small, special things to point out about Riklis' masterpiece (among many):

- The score, original music by French composer Cyril Morin. I'm listening to it right now as I write this review (you can listen to a short loop of it at the syrianbride dot com web site). It perfectly captures the mood of the film.

- The relationship between patriarch Makram Khoury and real-life daughter, the stunning beauty, Clara Khoury as The Bride. There's palpable, real emotion between the two. [In the DVD extras, Ms. Khoury relates that it wasn't hard to tear up in the emotional final scene, given that it was quite easy to envision the emotions that would well up were she to leave her 'real' father - there he was right there.]

Eagle-eyed viewers will spot Makram Khoury and 'Bride' star Hiam Abbass from their all-too-brief appearances in Steven Spielberg's 'Munich.'

The human aspect of political complexities in the Middle East .......2006-12-18

This 2004 Israeli film was co-written by a Palestinian with crews from various populations in Israel. The theme is one we've seen before but that is timely, political and frustrating. Wisely, it keeps the story simple, focusing on one particular family and the unbelievable red tape that occurs at a border crossing.

This is a story of an arranged marriage between a Druze woman and a Syrian man.

In the remote area of the Golan Heights, where the bride's family live, the Druze community is considered part of Israel by the Israelis and Syrian by the Syrians. The Druze are a distinct religious community based mostly in the Middle East who are an offshoot of Islam and influenced by other religions and philosophies, including Greek philosophy, Gnosticism and Christianity, among others. The Druze consider themselves politically an Islamic reformatory sect although they are not considered Muslims by most Muslims in the region.

It is a sad time for the bride because she knows that once she crosses the border into Syria, she will never be able to return to Israel again. However, since her future husband is a television personality with a sizable income, it is not inconceivable to realize that the families would be able to meet for a vacation in a neutral vacation place somewhere.

The internal relationships within the bride's family seem to represent all the complex aspects of the political spectrum in Israel today. Her father has recently been in an Israeli prison and is forbidden to attend a celebration in honor of the new Syrian president. Her older sister has just been accepted to further her education in an Israeli university much to her husband's displeasure as he feels he is losing control of his family, especially when he discovers that his teenage daughter is sneaking around with a young man who tends to favor Israel. One of the bride's brothers lives in Russia with his Russian wife and son and brings his family back home for the wedding. The Russian wife, who is a doctor in Russia, has to deal with her female Druze relatives who complain about her kitchen skills. Another brother seems a bit shady as he travels all over the world importing and exporting items which are never named. He romances a French U.N. worker and any other woman who he meets. The bride herself has conflicts about her future husband. She and the filmgoers only see him as his TV personality and he seems a bit of a buffoon.

Most of the high drama happens at the border where the bride, all dressed up in her wedding dress, is literally stopped from entering Syria because she has an Israeli stamp on her papers and the Syrian government doesn't recognize Israel. How it all plays out is a little silly but I guess that's expected because this film is supposed to be a comedy even though I never laughed once. The question was also never answered as to why the bride and groom want to marry each other in the first place.

I rather enjoyed this film because it was set in a part of the world which I know very little about. I felt frustrated throughout though because of the constant red tape but that was what the intent of the film which was only 97 minutes long but still seemed to drag. I had gotten the point long before that.

However, I do recommend this film. It opens up an understanding about the political complexities in the Middle East in a very human way.

Average customer rating:

Hey! THAT was pretty good!
zzzzzzzz.....
charming but ultimately disappointing
Toilet - The Movie
Pitt And Roberts Just Shine...

The Mexican
Starring: Michael Cerveris , Richard Coca , James Gandolfini , Castulo Guerra , and Gene Hackman
Director: Gore Verbinski
Manufacturer: Dreamworks Video
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America's Sweethearts
The Devil's Own
Kalifornia
Spy Game (Widescreen Edition)
Conspiracy Theory

ASIN: B00003CXRY
Release Date: 2001-08-07

Amazon.com

Part road movie, part romantic comedy, part thriller, and a whole lotta fun, The Mexican could get by on star power alone, but it offers Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, and a clever plot full of delightful surprises. It's a thoroughly enjoyable shaggy-dog story in which the downtrodden Jerry Welbach (Pitt) copes with a dual dilemma: his girlfriend Samantha (Roberts) has just dumped him to pursue solo ambitions in Las Vegas, and a manipulative mobster has ordered Jerry to Mexico to retrieve a coveted antique pistol (the "Mexican" of the title) that carries a legacy of legend, death, and danger. Jerry soon has his hands full with bandits, bloodshed, and a grizzly hound dog that vanishes and reappears with amusing regularity. En route to Vegas, Samantha's taken hostage by a burly assassin (James Gandolfini) who's attached to the gun-fetching scheme and is, in more ways than one, not who he seems to be.

Like a good magic act, J.H. Wyman's original screenplay distracts you from its gaps of logic, using unexpected revelations to fuel its strategic vitality. It also provides a wealth of character development, and director Gore Verbinski (Mouse Hunt) gives his stellar cast equal time to shine. It hardly matters that Pitt and Roberts spend most of the film apart; their time together is worth waiting for, and the machinations that separate them play out like a cross between vintage Peckinpah and Romancing the Stone. And why is the accursed pistola so valuable? That's just another surprise, setting the stage for the arrival of yet another big-name star, whose motivations are pure in a film full of double-crosses and darkly shaded humor. With a giddy plot like this, star power is just icing on the cake. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews:

Hey! THAT was pretty good!.......2007-06-11

I bought this DVD for a single scene I had seen once. The scene was worth purchasing the DVD, or so I thought. Wrong! Much of the movie was worth the price of the DVD. Actually, I more than got my money's worth. The acting is great, the plot is a great tease, and it never stops moving. I would have given it 4 stars, but the language was unnecessarily much thicker than I cared for. But all in all, a VERY solid movie.

zzzzzzzz............2007-01-28

Unfortunately the acting of Brad Pitt & Julia Roberts is insufficient to make this a great film. The storyline and the script in general is quite average.

Pitt is sent to Mexico by a mob chief to pick up a cursed but valuable gun called the Mexican, but things turn sour as you can expect, while his girlfriend (Julia Roberts) is kidnapped by a fruity hitman. It felt a bit like a children's film to me.

The film is worth watching and is fairly enjoyable, but you probably won't want to watch it again anytime soon.

charming but ultimately disappointing.......2007-01-24

WARNING! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS!

Brad Pitt is utterly irresistable as the hapless Jerry. I am continually amazed that someone as good looking as Brad can convincingly play such backward people (Think 12 Monkeys, Snatch, Fight Club, etc).

Julia is Julia. She's fluffy, adorable, and like Brad, a beautiful person playing a kind of dork--she's not as convincing as Brad, but still good.

James Gandolfini steals the show. He's wonderful, lovable, and the chemistry between him and Julia is great. HOWEVER, just when you're completely in love with him, and you're thinking he's the greatest thing in the movie, Brad's character, Jerry, shoots him dead.

What were the producers thinking? To kill off the character that everyone loves the most? Didn't they have a test audience? Couldn't they have given him a bulletproof vest and shown him walking away at the end? Wasn't it enough that they killed off his boyfriend? Did they have to kill him too?

I probably would have given the movie 4 stars if they hadn't killed him off. If you don't mind movies where the main character is unexpectedly offed, then you'll love this film. Not for me.

Toilet - The Movie.......2007-01-10

I recently tried to watch this movie by just looking at the case of the movie and thinking that this would be a very romantic movie starring Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt but i could not watch the whole movie, i had to stop it because of too many toilet related scenes. Because of these scenes it made me think that this movie should not have named The Mexican, it should have named "Toilet" or "Ugly Toilet" or "Toilet Exchangers". There was not a single character in this movie whom the director did not show us going to the toilet. One character comes out of the toilet and the other goes in and this carries on making the viewer think that they do not have any thing else to do. This was an ugliest and worst movie i have seen in my life time. This was an ugly movie by ugly Americans named "The Mexican". I think Mexicans should have sued the director. By looking at the above comments, would any body think that i would recommend this movie. Nada

Pitt And Roberts Just Shine..........2006-11-18

Jerry (Brad Pitt) And Samantha (Julia Roberts) Need SERIOUS Couples' Counselling.You See,Jerry Is Working For The Mob.And Was Supposed To Be Doing His Last Job For Them.But The Mob Has Another Idea.They Want Jerry To Go Down To Mexico And Pick Up A Gun-"The Mexican".Sam Decides Enough Is Enough And Heads For Vegas On The Vacation Jerry Promised Her.
But It Is Tough Going Against The Mob.Sam Is Kidnapped To Ensure Jerry Gets The Job Done.Add To The Fun The Fact That Sam Tries To Get Her Hitman On Her Side Against Jerry.Poor Naive Simpleton Jerry Just Doesn't Stand A Snowball's Chance In Hell.
And To Top It All Off,Jerry Is Being Double-Crossed.Will He Find Out In Time?
Roberts And Pitt Shine.Some Of Their Best Work Is Done Here.And Brad Shows He Can Not Only Hold His Own In Comedy,He Is Hilarious.James Gandolfini Also Turns In A Great Performance As The Hitman.There's Also A Wonderful Cameo By Gene Hackman As Margoles,J.T. Simmons As Ted.There Is Not ONE Character In This Film You Won't Like.(Even The Second,Yes,SECOND,Evil Hitman Is Terrific).
Great Cast And Script.Great Crew.Kudos All Around.This Comedy-Drama Is

A ROLLICKING ROLLERCOASTER RIDE YOU WON'T WANT TO MISS!

Average customer rating:

Kills 4 guys, in 3 seconds, for laughing at his mule
Yo! Jimbo!
Terrific restoration
Beatiful Movie
A DVD worth many fistfuls of dollars

A Fistful of Dollars
Starring: Clint Eastwood , Marianne Koch , Gian Maria Volontè , Wolfgang Lukschy , and Sieghardt Rupp
Director: Monte Hellman , and Sergio Leone
Manufacturer: MGM (Video & DVD)
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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( F ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
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ASIN: B00000K0DM
Release Date: 1999-10-05

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Description

Customer Reviews:

Kills 4 guys, in 3 seconds, for laughing at his mule.......2007-07-03

Yo! Jimbo!.......2007-06-24

Terrific restoration.......2007-06-13

Beatiful Movie.......2007-06-11