Grown Ups

Starring:Philip Davis, Brenda Blethyn, Janine Duvitski, Sam Kelly, Lesley Manville, Lindsay Duncan
Director: Mike Leigh
Studio: Water Bearer Films, Inc
Product Type: DVD

Average customer rating:

A Time Machine for 40-Something "Waterdogs".....
Naked Narcissists
Big Chill on the River
really good documentary

The Same River Twice
Director: Robb Moss
Manufacturer: New Video Group
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Action & Adventure | Genres | DVD | Video

General | Documentary | Genres | DVD | Video

( S ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video

Naked World
Naked in the 21st Century
Maslin Beach
Naked States
Anarchy TV

ASIN: B000742G2Y
Release Date: 2005-02-22

Description

An instant hit at the Sundance Film Festival and nominated for an Independent Spirit Award, THE SAME RIVER TWICE is a rich and warmly insightful mosaic of change, choices and communal living, highly acclaimed as "piercingly poignant" (The New York Times) and "a [four-star] masterpiece! Powerful, compelling and graceful!" (Chicago Reader). In 1978, award-winning filmmaker Robb Moss and a close-knit group of free-spirited friends and lovers took a month-long trip through the depths of the Grand Canyon; a breathtaking, white-water rafting adventure down the Colorado River. Cutting between footage of their youthful--often naked--live-in-the-moment existences and the complex realities of their adulthood today, the film travels the road from peyote to Prozac, creating a compelling portrait of cultural metamorphosis and the struggle to find one's place in the world. From running rapids to running for mayor, THE SAME RIVER TWICE is an intimate depiction of those baby-boomers who took the Sixties seriously, and then grew up. DVD Features: Audio Commentary with Filmmaker Robb Moss; Filmmaker Interview; Filmmaker Q&A; Theatrical Trailer; Filmmaker and Crew Biographies; Interactive Menus; Scene Selection

Customer Reviews:

A Time Machine for 40-Something "Waterdogs"............2007-01-07

If you've ever spent any time on a river -- without a motor -- and were a young adult in the 70's...this film is like somebody opening a window in a stuffy room. The sights, sounds, and abundant nudity will wash over you like a icy jade wave....it's a joy to see brother & sisters of the "Royal Order of the Rocket Box" who went there too, fellow veterans of multi-day raft trips with all the attendant psuedo-philosophizing, coitus, group & individual angst, transactional dynamics and joyful dysfunction.

Juxtaposing the archival footage with the "where are they today?" clips was brilliant filmmaking...kind of like Michael Apted's 48-up, but with better scenery and more dramatic hydraulics!

If you've ever stuffed all your worldly possessions in a drybag, hoisted a 200 quart cooler and suffered 3rd degree Teva tan.....you'll love it!

Naked Narcissists.......2006-08-30

Just about what I had expected, a bunch of self-indulgent fools, playing Adam & Eve, then turning gray having learned nothing. I hoped perhaps one of them might just wise up, break with the hippie orthodoxy, maybe join the Marine Corps, open a gun shop in Kingman, Arizona. Anything! But no. They all grew up to be meddling busy-bodies, imposing their Utopian "think globally/ act locally" claptrap as small town mayors and such. It's significant that the guy they all viewed as their guru, is the most vapid and apparently brain-damaged of the bunch.

Perhaps the most striking thing about the movie is how uniformly unlikable these people were, and are. It is a fitting tribute to the 'Woodstock generation'.

Big Chill on the River.......2006-03-29

This is a good documentary of a group of river guides that contrasts footage of the unavailable movie "River Dogs" with their current lives. Some moved on, some stayed where they were and all split up. It would have been more valuable if the original documentary, River Dogs, had also been included because it would have served as a better bridge to the past (it would have also been nice to see more of the Grand Canyon Trip, a truely awe inspiring place). Having said that Robb Moss does a solid job putting everything together, and avoids any pendantic conclusions, but lets the work speak for itself. Definitely worth viewing, it's not just a movie, it's real life.

really good documentary.......2005-07-17

This is a really good documentary about a group of raft guides that spent this one summer back in the 70's rafting naked through the Grand Canyon. The same guy that filmed that trip revisits with some of those people within the last few years and shows what they are doing now. This is definetely worth watching. My wife watched it three times in two days.

Mike Leigh Collection, Vol. 1 (Abigail's Party / Grown-Ups / Hard Labour)

Average customer rating:

Mike Leigh Collection, Vol. 1 (Abigail's Party / Grown-Ups / Hard Labour)
Starring: Alison Steadman , Tim Stern , Janine Duvitski , John Salthouse , and Harriet Reynolds
Director: Mike Leigh
Manufacturer: Water Bearer Films, Inc
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Art House & International | Genres | DVD | Video

General | Drama | Genres | DVD | Video

Art House & International | Independently Distributed | Stores | DVD | Video

Drama | Independently Distributed | Stores | DVD | Video

Drama | Boxed Sets | Stores | DVD | Video

General | Foreign & International | Stores | DVD | Video

Independently Distributed | Indie & Art House | Stores | DVD | Video

( M ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

Mike Leigh Collection, Vol. 2 (Bleak Moments / Nuts in May / Who's Who)
Mike Leigh Vol 3 (Four Days in July, Home Sweet Home, Kiss of Death)
Career Girls
Naked - Criterion Collection
Secrets and Lies

ASIN: B00018D34G
Release Date: 2004-02-24

Average customer rating:

Quite simply.....the best ever.
"We're back to normal now, aren't we?"
Classic Bristish Comedy
Another excellent Mike Leigh film
Very funny, very dark

Grown Ups
Starring: Philip Davis , Janine Duvitski , Lesley Manville , Lindsay Duncan , and Brenda Blethyn
Director: Mike Leigh
Manufacturer: Water Bearer Films, Inc
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Art House & International | Genres | DVD | Video

General | Comedy | Genres | DVD | Video

Domestic Comedies | Comedy | Genres | DVD | Video

General | Drama | Genres | DVD | Video

Art House & International | Independently Distributed | Stores | DVD | Video

Drama | Independently Distributed | Stores | DVD | Video

General | Foreign & International | Stores | DVD | Video

Independently Distributed | Indie & Art House | Stores | DVD | Video

( G ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

Nuts in May
Career Girls
Bleak Moments
All Or Nothing (2002)
Secrets and Lies

ASIN: B00018D364
Release Date: 2004-02-24

Customer Reviews:

Quite simply.....the best ever........2004-10-02

I don't want to sound like I'm patronising your reviewer 'displacedhuman' but I found his/her concise review of Mike Leighs GROWN UPS quite superb. I watched this play in disbelief in the late 1970s when it was first televised on the BBC. When they repeated it in the early 80s I taped it on Betamax (RIP)! Then when my Betamax recorder finally expired I had the tape transferred to VHS. This is without doubt, the funniest, darkest and most touching of all Mike Leighs films. All the actors are superb, but Brenda Blethyns performance is stratospheric. AT LAST it's on DVD !! Goodness knows what anyone who isn't British will make of it, but try it, you just might like it too.

"We're back to normal now, aren't we?".......2004-09-21

"Grown Ups" is an early Mike Leigh made-for-television film. Director Leigh has a special talent for creating British working class characters, and in this film the subjects are Mandy (Lesley Manville) and Dick (Philip Davis), a young newlywed couple. Mandy and Dick move into their new home--a tatty council house--and the move is an 'arrival' in more ways than one. Now that they have a council house, Mandy feels that they are ready to start a family, but Dick doesn't want to take that step yet. Their tatty council house is right next door to the perfectly maintained private home of a former teacher, Mr. Butcher and his wife, fellow teacher Christine. It's a unpleasant shock for Mr. Butcher to have his former pupils living right next door, and he'd rather have nothing at all to do with the new neighbours.

"Grown Ups" is a portrait of two marriages, and neither couple is destined for much happiness. Dick is sullen, resentful, and unpleasant. He clings to old-fashioned notions rather desperately, and he would be a pitiful character if he weren't so utterly unappealing. Mandy's annoying sister, Gloria, won't leave the couple alone. She finds every excuse to pester Dick and Mandy and is constantly 'dropping in'. The Butchers' marriage isn't much happier. Mr. Butcher has some rather annoying habits, and it takes the patience of a saint to suffer through every day life with him. Christine, apparently, does have that much patience. She's long-suffering, undemanding, and self-contained, and all those qualities result in her being ignored at times and taken for granted at others. But at least Mr. Butcher's self-righteous pomposity is more benign than Dick's brutal and crude approaches to domestic tranquility.

All of the performances are perfect. Brenda Blethyn, who plays Mandy's loony spinster sister, Gloria, is a wonderful comedienne. In "Grown Ups", she's neurotic, deranged, and needy. Some of her screechy speeches tend to grate after a while, and one longs to eject Gloria oneself ... permanently. As with other Mike Leigh films, the characters are not pleasant, and they are sometimes painful to watch. While touted as a comedy film, the style of humor is uniquely Mike Leigh's, and that means it's black, bleak, pessimistic humor. If you are a fan of Mike Leigh films, then I would recommend "Grown-Ups." Non-British viewers may find some of the accents difficult to understand, and they may also bored by the film as it emphasizes and skewers British class differences--displacedhuman

Classic Bristish Comedy.......2004-02-06

I remember watching this along time ago.... In a couple of Weeks i will own it on Dvd.....The Story goes there is a New couple that move into a New house, Only to have the Sister in-law calling round EVERY DAY...Until the Brother in-law had enough and throws her out..Just like a Woman she SCREAMMS the street down..With this the Sister in-law Is then Chase into the Neighbours house ((Who just happened to been there old school teachers))The comedy Really starts there, You will witness a tug of war between the new Couple and Teachers, as They all end up on the Stairs with the Sister in-law holding onto the stair rail for dear life, With her sister and brother in-law (New couple) trying to get her out of the Neighbours House....If you got a good sense of Humour and want a GOOD OLD FASHION BRITISH FILM, then BUY THIS..!!! Promise u will Laugh..!!!

Another excellent Mike Leigh film.......2002-02-10

This movie has gradually crept to the top of my Mike-Leigh favorites list. Overall it is a positive, sometimes funny, sometimes agonizing movie with a number of scenes and tics (the male neighbor's throat-clearing in particular) that stick in my mind. Philip Davis is a not-too-bright dishwasher married to Leslie Manville, the backbone of the marriage. The realistically-quirky people with whom they interact are Brenda Blethyn, her frequently-visiting sister who is going downhill slowly and painfully, two neighbors, and a friend of Manville. How the husband and wife deal with the strains caused by relatives and neighbors illumines the ultimate importance and strength of the nuclear family that Leigh has approached from different directions in Life is Sweet, Secrets and Lies, and even Meantime. The movie's modest scope is a large part of its offbeat charm.

Very funny, very dark.......2001-03-02

I grew up in England and can totally relate to this film. I'd recommend it to anyone who knows what it's like to 'pop round' for a cup of tea. It's another dark yet hillarious Mike Leigh movie. Don't buy this movie if you are looking for light hearted humour and a happy ending.

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