The Butcher's Wife

Starring:Demi Moore, Jeff Daniels, George Dzundza, Mary Steenburgen, Frances McDormand, Margaret Colin, Max Perlich, Miriam Margolyes, Helen Hanft, Christopher Durang, Luis Avalos, Charles Pierce, Elizabeth Lawrence, Stephanie Laurence, Barry Neikrug, Ed Kenney, Diane Salinger, Cameron Milzer, Thomas Mikal Ford, Scott Thompson Baker
Director: Terry Hughes
Studio: Paramount
Product Type: DVD

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Marina (Demi Moore), a blonde Southern belle with a clairvoyant streak, sees signs--a shooting star with two tails, a snowglobe that washes up on the beach, a wedding band inside of a fish--telling her that her true love is about to come ashore. And soon enough, a boat lands on the beach in front of her home; only the guy inside is a stout butcher from New York City named Leo (George Dzundza). Still, portents are portents, and the next thing you know she's married and running barefoot around a butcher's shop in Greenwich Village, where she inspires various residents with her predictions. Leo, however, is creeped out by his wife's abilities, and encourages her to see Alex (Jeff Daniels), a psychiatrist who works across the street. To placate him, she does--and soon begins to suspect that she's misread her signs and married the wrong man. The Butcher's Wife could use a little more humor about Marina's powers (her pronouncements are dizzyingly earnest), but the movie is buoyed by a fantastic supporting cast, particularly Margaret Colin as a soap-opera actress, Frances McDormand as a lesbian dress-shop owner, and Mary Steenburgen as a dowdy church choir leader who just wants to sing the blues. Like Marina, you know what's going to happen, but the cast manages to make getting there charming. --Bret Fetzer

Customer Reviews:

Very funny.......2007-02-16

This is not a very credible love story but a very funny one between Demi Moore (the fey butcher's wife) and Jeff Daniels (the hard-nosed shrink).

If you believe in "Once upon a time...", you can buy it.

Excellent.......2007-01-09

Love this movie! Great entertainment and alternative perspectives that foster thought. Well done.

Enjoyed greatly! But as usual, there are flaws........2006-11-13

Is there a rule in Hollywood that no movie can be almost perfect or better
yet, perfect? No.1:As much as I like Demi,I don't think she was the best
choice for this role. So what do they do? Color her hair blonde with the
spaghetti curls. This touch didn't help her interpretation of the role any. But she has her moments. No.2: As for her character, a clairvoyant
with a heart of gold I found it too far fetched that she would fall for a
man making a living selling the flesh of innocent animals. I wished the
story would have been called "The Baker's Wife". It would have given the
story more special moments since the bakery would be selling birthday, wedding cakes,etc. The supporting cast was wonderful. Nothing but great actors here. I think I will file this dvd in my "reference section" area.
That's where I keep movies with actors I greatly admire but the movie has
serious flaws.

Absolutely delightful..........2006-07-11

This movie is like a breath of fresh air.

A great cast, a fluid and entertaining script, and solid production and direction, all combine to produce a classic romantic comedy, with a difference.

Yet behind the hilarious situations and the enchanting spontaneous psychic revelations, The Butcher's Wife is a story of the transforming power of the Feminine - like Mary Poppins, Chocolat and a number of other classic movies.

While her Carolina accent is a little shaky at times, Demi is just superb, as are Jeff, Frances, Margaret, Mary and George, above all.

It certainly is a Feel Good movie, and a highly original one at that. Go for it.

GOTTA SING THE BLUES.......2005-09-15

THE BUTCHER'S WIFE was critically reviled in its release; star Demi Moore was even given the dubious honor of being nominated for a Razzy award for her performance in this and NOTHING BUT TROUBLE. But I liked the movie. It's charming simplicity and romantic themes are contrived and hardly original, but they're done with such unabashed sentimentality, you can't help but get moony-eyed too. Moore plays a clairvoyant somewhat naive Southern girl who decides butcher George Dzunda is the man of her dreams, and she proposes to him and he whisks her off to his butcher shop in Manhattan. There she uses her beguiling witchery to drastically alter the lives of the people she encounters: Jeff Daniels, a stuffy psychiatrist who sees Moore as a threat to his psychological world; Frances McDormand as a closet lesbian who decides to go with her feelings and admit her attraction to Margaret Colin, who just happens to be Daniels' squeeze. Moore also gives stuffy choral director Mary Steenburgen the confidence to pursue her secret desire of a career as a blues singer (Steenburgen does her own singing and she's quite effective). All of the confusion eventually works its way out and the appropriate couples find love after all. The movie is practically stolen by Steenburgen, whose performance is simply marvelous. The rest of the cast, particularly Max Perlich as a troubled teen and Colin and McDormand are fabulous. It certainly isn't a classic movie, but it's warmheartedness and glowing performances made it extremely enjoyable to this viewer.

Average customer rating:

Great movie
Lives of Quiet Desperation ...
Great movie
The prison of Northeastern poverty seen through the panopticon of Southeastern cinema
"Modesty is the most intelligent form of perversion."

Mango Yellow
Starring: Matheus Nachtergaele , Jonas Bloch , Leona Cavalli , Dira Paes , and Chico Díaz
Director: Cláudio Assis
Manufacturer: First Run Features
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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God Is Brazilian
Chronically Unfeasible
THE MIDDLE OF THE WORLD (O Caminho das Nuvens)
Carandiru
Bus 174

ASIN: B0006Z2NKE
Release Date: 2005-03-22

Customer Reviews:

Great movie.......2007-06-27

It's a great movie, shows the real life in Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil, one of the beautest cities from Brazil.

Lives of Quiet Desperation ..........2007-05-26

Mango Yellow provides a look into the lower class life in Brazil in the city of Recife. There is a surreal atmosphere to the film because the characters are eccentric and exaggerated to emphasize certain aspects of their behavior and personalities. It is a film which allows raw expressions of feeling by those who are on the economic edge of life. The viewer is first introduced to a waitress who may also be the bar owner.. She is tired of her job and the lifestyle she leads but continues on ... providing philosophical treatistes while she serves her customers their favorite beverage. Her bar is the local hang out for many people. She fights off the sexual advances of her customers while also testing her sexuality and appeal ... They come to her rescue when she is challenged by a new customer, not one of her regulars.

The viewer is introduced to several residents and employees at the Texas Hotel which is a seedy run down place, the only home to several unique characters. Isaac, also called "the German" has a peculiar fetish and obsession. It is very bizarre ... There is a lonely, elderly retired asthmatic woman named Aurora, who recalls her life during more exciting times. There is a gay cook named Dunga, who has the 'hots" for a heterosexual butcher named Wellington whom he knows he can not "have"... Wellington is shown doing his work at the local slaughterhouse where a cow is killed and butchered, all of which is graphcally shown. The gay cook knows Wellington is cheating on his wife Kika. Wellington is very proud that his wife is a very religious Evangelical Christian. She reveals during a discussion at dinner that although she can forgive just about anything, the thing she absolutely can not tolerate is infidelity. Dunga wants to create trouble in Wellington's marriage when he realizes he will never have a relationship the way he would like with Wellington. The cook sends an anonymous note to Kika, telling her about a rendevous between her husband and his lover, he provides the time and the location.

It is at this point in the film when everything heats up and comes to a climax, literally and figurately. The owner of the Texas Hotel is discovered dead, likely of natural causes. Dunga is the only one who cares enough to find the priest and try to provide him a decent funeral and burial. Wellington is caught by his wife ... cheating with his lover. Kika engages in a most shocking un-Christian action. After this event, she walks home but is offered a ride by Isaac who happens to be driving by. The two of them engage in some very needy sexual behavior. The film concludes with the camera recording different people who live in the neighborhood going about their lives in their usual manner ... with some unsual musical accompaniment. This film records the desperate lives of people who live on the edge of survival and who have very little hope. It provides a glimpse into the bleak existence of many well fleshed out characters whose lives are very twisted and troubled ...This film will not appeal to everyone but viewers who like a strong film which makes a bold statement about life within a narrow part of the globe will appreciate this creative impression on celluloid left by the Brazilian director Claudio Assis. Erika Borsos [pepper flower]

Great movie.......2007-03-19

This movie really give a unique portrait of Brazil. It's well written and very well constructed. This story is MUCH different from the tons of movies that come out of Rio or Sao Paulo. It's a must see for Brazilian film lovers.

The prison of Northeastern poverty seen through the panopticon of Southeastern cinema.......2006-12-08

This movie is part of an ongoing trend in Brazilian cinema (and arts) - the artistic representation of the low brow poor (in this case northeastern) other for the consumption of the high brow modern Brazilian art consumer. It is a motif of Brazilian art that goes at least as far back as Aluizio Azevedo's depictions of 19th century poor people in Casa de Pensao and o Cortico (and includes paintings by Portinari and books by authors like Graciliano Ramos). When done right, I suppose such art serves to bridge the gap between the represented other - the Sertanejo, the urban poor, the nordestino - and the art consumer - the urban Paulistano or Carioca moviegoer or book reader. When done right, the sophisticated, urban Brazilian consumer might feel more empathy with and sympathy for the social classes whose very selection as the object of artistic representation is testament to great distance that separates such modern, urban Brazilians from the people whose lives are represented in such films and books.

But this film does it all wrong. Every character in the film produces a certain repulsion in the viewer. We are shown the grotesque private perversions of each character, their crude habits, lack of manners, lack of morals, and secret fantasies - there is the necrophiliac, the drunken leftists, the girl who never wears panties, the girl whose sexual fantasies include raping a man with a hair brush handle, the uncontrollably faithless and disloyal husband, the corrupt city bureacrat, the ridiculously stereotyped gay cook, the hotel owner who uses his underwear as a wallet, the old lady who masturbates with an oxygen machine, the girl who can only form sexual and emotional attachments to married men... the list goes on. The style of the plotting was very Altman-esque, but that where Robert Altman sought to give a cross-section of society in "Short Cuts", here we are left with Azevedo's "O Cortico" recreated as the "Texas Hotel" and "Avenida Bar" in the 21st century. This movie is just a widening of the psychological gap between rich and poor, nordestino and Paulistano/carioca, a gap that continues to warp Brazilian social life. It is disappointing to see artists reinforce so many stereotypes in their art.

"Modesty is the most intelligent form of perversion.".......2006-06-28

The plot synopsis of the Brazilian film "Mango Yellow" states that it's a film that weaves together several stories revolving around a seedy hotel and a cafe in the coastal city of Recife. "Mango Yellow" is one of the Global Film Initiative titles, so I had high expectations and was hoping for something along the lines of Robert Altman's clever and entertaining film, "Short Cuts." Unfortunately, nowhere did I read a warning of how unspeakably ugly "Mango Yellow" is, and this disappointing film's attraction to the lurid became glaringly apparent within the first few scenes.

With the camera taking a bird's eye view (and the director uses this technique frequently), the film begins with slovenly waitress Ligia (Leona Cavalli) stepping naked from bed, grabbing a dress, and dragging herself to work. Her world weary attitude can be summed up by her unoriginal statement that she wishes "the whole world would go #### itself." Her knickerless days are spent avoiding gropes from leering customers.

Another main character is the butcher Diaz known as "Cannibal." He delivers meat to the rundown Texas Hotel and to drooling, smitten hotel worker Dunga (Matheus Nachtergaele). Diaz, however, is unavailable--he's married to an "evangelical" but also juggles another woman on the side. While most of the hotel's residents sit glued, zombie-like to the television, brutish, unwashed, loudmouth resident Isaac (Jonas Bloch) pays to have corpses delivered to him for his sport.

The film includes a very, very long repulsive scene in a slaughterhouse. Diaz (and other men) work on animals carving them up amidst a floor full of blood and gore. Isaac (he likes to play with dead people) tastes the human corpses for ripeness. It's all sick stuff, and sick, bizarre stuff is not the same as entertainment--at least not in my book. While the film's multiple stories are well weaved together, the plot's ugliness is repulsive. To each his own, I suppose, but I'll pass on this one. Directed by Claudio Assis, the film is in Portuguese with English subtitles--displacedhuman

Average customer rating:

Very funny
Excellent
Enjoyed greatly! But as usual, there are flaws.
Absolutely delightful...
GOTTA SING THE BLUES

The Butcher's Wife [Region 2]
Starring: Demi Moore , Jeff Daniels , George Dzundza , Mary Steenburgen , and Frances McDormand
Director: Terry Hughes
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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