Ringmaster & My 5 Wives (2pc)

Starring:Rodney Dangerfield, Andrew Dice Clay, John Byner, Molly Shannon, Jerry Stiller, John Pinette, Rob deLeeuw, Fred Keating (II), Jud Tylor, Angelika Libera, Kate Luyben, Emmanuelle Vaugier, Anita Brown (II), Karin Konoval, Brandy Ledford, Anaya Farrell, Peter Hanlon, Don MacKay, Kevin Blatch, Mary McDonald
Director: Sidney J. Furie, Neil Abramson
Studio: Live / Artisan
Product Type: DVD

Average customer rating:

Ay Ay Aye....
Just a few remarks from a viewer over in Scandinavia
Garbage
Tha White Trash Talk Show Host!
Amazingly Trashy From 1998

Ringmaster
Starring: Jerry Springer , Jaime Pressly , William McNamara , Molly Hagan , and John Capodice
Director: Neil Abramson
Manufacturer: Lions Gate
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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Similar Items:

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ASIN: 630529335X
Release Date: 1999-03-30

Amazon.com

Shock-talk TV host Jerry Springer makes his feature-film debut in Ringmaster and is, unfortunately, the least interesting aspect of this ragtag comedy that purports to be a behind-the-scenes look at the kind of people who regularly appear on his show. To be fair, Springer doesn't have much to do except play the often-befuddled moderator. The only time he breaks loose is to defend his guests' right to air their dirty laundry on national television. But most of the juicy lines and situations are assigned to the competent cast of trailer-park denizens who pop in and out of each other's beds and then go on TV to tell everyone about it. There's a hair-pulling scene about every 10 minutes or so. But unlike the nationally televised syndicated program, there is also a great deal of real nudity and unbleeped profanity. There aren't many surprises here, but the actors are amiable and attractive and don't play down to their characters. For all its raunchiness, Ringmaster doesn't have a mean bone in its body. The DVD is formatted in widescreen. Additional features include the film's trailer, a music video, production information, and a commentary from the director, Neil Abramson. --Richard Natale

Customer Reviews:

Ay Ay Aye...........2007-01-16

Another Round DVD, it plays a movie. If you're seriously interested in this movie, you're probably still using Beta Max tapes...

Just a few remarks from a viewer over in Scandinavia.......2006-06-07

With 49 reviews currently in here, I don't need to go in depth on this one. I am sure that premise, synopsis etc. has been discussed at length by prior reviewers.

This movie happened on me a few days ago, as leaves on trees clouded my sattelite dish and all I could receive was national television channels in Norway (including a couple of commercial ones). I had read nothing about it, and just came across the opening titles as I zapped through the 4 sorry channels at my disposal.

It immediately caught my eye.

I watched it all the way through, promising myself at the very beginning that once this film gets boring or stupid, I'll do what I had previously intented to do, which was watch a DVD I had borrowed from a friend. At no point during the film did I feel the urge to stop watching.

Obviously, a lot of people will thrash a movie like this. It's main charachters engage in lewd, obscene and morally questionable acts all the way throughout the film. Many people will be put off by this nasty and/or downright trashy behaviour, but it resonnated with me.

I know people like this. I have at least one friend who has slept with bot mother and daughter in some backwaters place in Florida. I have at least one ex-girlfriend who has done a guy that also her mother has done. And as to this x-gf; the things she put me through, would have been solid Jerry Springer and/or Ricki Lake show, had we had those in Scandinavia. And she had similar stories with most other boyfriends she had done. I'd compare her with the trailer trash daughter in this movie without a second of hesitation. According to the eyes of the beholder, she could be either slightly more or slightly less sexy than this charachter in "Ringmaster".

After seeing it, I conferred with my Video & DVD guide, a book from 2003 (paperback). It awarded the film with a turkey symbol, and discarded it as pure and utter sleaze. Well, this particular paperback has families as target audiences, but still, that was too easy a dismissal. I couldn't quite believe that everybody would miss the point completely, and later conferred with Rottentomatoes.com. It didn't have a 0% fresh rating, as one might expect. Instead it had an 18% fresh rating. Most memorably, Roger Ebert, arguably America's (and perhaps the world's) finest movie critic, awarded it two - 2 - out of four possible stars, and provided a decent and just comment on it.

But Ebert probably never experienced people and/or conditions like these in his own life. Had he had such experiences, I believe he would have awarded it three stars.

I give it four out of five stars. I don't see how a movie like this one could have been made much more realistically. The finish is very much like that of a TV movie, but I gather that it was in wide theatrical release. I believe the TV movie finish is justifiable, as these are NOT larger-than-life charachters on display here. On the contrary, they are everyday people of the somewhat less fortunate kind, and should be portrayed as such.

This story is not earth-shattering. It is pretty much a feel-good film, and has no big central theme that is intended to be revelatory or remarkably uplifting. It is a movie that paints probably a quite fair picture of both ex-politician (mayor of Cincinnati, was he?) -turned-talk-show-host Jerry Springer, and of the knd of people who one would think constitutes a mean average of the ususal fair he and his TV show collaborators and henchmen deal with on a daily basis.

For the sake of entertainment, the charachters are to varying degrees more animated than one would expect from such a demographic, and maybe in some instances slightly less. Like Ebert states, the actors mostly do a fine job of portraying their charachters in a decent but somewhat superficial manner (this IS a comedy-drama, not pure comedy or pure parody), and no charachter is taken to the level of ridicule and/or outright parody.

We can empathize with these people - or at least we can if we have actual real life experience that compels us to believe that these people could be for real. (If one reflects upon it, an all-out-realistic and down to the nitty-gritty movie about people from these demographics, could just as well have played as Oliver Stone's "Natural Born Killers"; all-be-it at the opposite and most extreme end of the scale of mild-to-excessive portrayal of the denizens of trailer parks and such).

There are touching moments, such as the very plausible emptyness, lonelyness and doubts felt by the trailer park mother when she is all alone in her hotel room.

I can recommend this movie. It's not Saturday night fare or a "date movie". It's something you could watch on your laptop while on a Greyhound-bus or an interstate train. It's something to watch in your dorm room on a night that your schedule is empty, or if you're in sick from work with the flu. It won't change your life, but it'll be a whole lot more easy-going on your senses than actually watching an episode of the televised Jerry Springer show... Where the TV-show is chaotic and in-your-face, this little flick gives you enough background to actually empathize, more or less understand and possibly even believe the "guests" Springer has on his usual shows.

No small feat that.

Garbage.......2006-01-04

If you live in a mobile home, have to drive an old car with no wheel covers, do your laundry at a laundomat, or have a menial job such as operating a lunchwagon or cleaning motel rooms --- and you enjoy being mocked for it by a millionaire opportunist ---- then this movie is for you! This film exploits and is insulting to the black culture, women, members of broken homes, homosexuals, poor people, the religiously chaste, et al. Alas, we are all just a bunch of voyeuristic trash . . . except for Jerry Springer. Jerry, of course, is totally balanced but slightly befuddled as chaos reigns around him. BALONEY. He attepts to redeem himself near the close by browbeating a "religious fanatic" in the audience in defense of his guests. Then the teary-eyed closing scenes which suggest that "poor trailer trash people" might actually have some positive values and emotions (OH, REALLY?!). This guy is a parasite.

Tha White Trash Talk Show Host!.......2005-11-06

This is 1 funny-ass movie, I watched in the summer when I was watching Comedy Central, I was already a fan of Jerry Springer & his show, yet I just weared to him because all of his episode were the same, till' I saw Ring Master!!!!!

This is a tight-ass White trash movie, about a strugglin' couple that live in a Trailer Park, in somewhere in Tampa Bay, FL......where this 1 Hoe with a nice Ass pretends that her own Dad got her prgenant, and her own Mom plays along, while her Boyfriend is confused & opressed! They make it to the Jerry Springer show, where they have to take a plane from Tampa Bay, FL to Los Angeles, CA! Now, lots goes on in this movie and it is Trailer Park madness! Lots of Fyne hoochies, and plenty of Booty-tang 2! Jerry Springer-4-Life!

Amazingly Trashy From 1998.......2005-03-22

People having sordid affairs appear with their loved ones on a talk-show host's popular, controversial TV program. Very trashy. Jerry Springer plays himself. I can't believe that he was going to campaign for US Senator. This is like the TV show, except the guests in this movie are actors.

Drama/Talk-Show (USA 363/5)

Average customer rating:

suspend logic
Very Entertaining
Interesting!
This film is underappreciated
Interesting ideas, but falls flat on all levels.

Roberto Benigni's Pinocchio
Starring: Bruno Arena , Giorgio Ariani , Peppe Barra , Mino Bellei , and Alessandro Bergonzoni
Manufacturer: Miramax Home Entertainment
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B00005JLNB
Release Date: 2003-07-15

Amazon.com

Nearly abandoned by its distributor and savaged by critics, Roberto Benigni's Pinocchio is an object lesson in the hazards of success. Bolstered by his Oscar®-winning triumph Life Is Beautiful, the popular Italian actor-director-comedian was given carte blanche and chose Carlo Collodi's classic 1885 fairy tale as his next lavish project. This sumptuous production literally glows with traditional Italian craftsmanship, from delightful costumes and storybook sets by the late, great production designer Danilo Donati (whose last film this was) to the radiant palette of Dante Spinotti's masterful cinematography. This is one of the most beautiful of all Italian films, which only makes its shortcomings more conspicuous. At 50, Benigni is utterly wrong as the puppet who yearns to be a real boy, and his wife Nicoletta Braschi is similarly miscast as the Blue Fairy. Even worse, Breckin Meyer's English dubbing for Pinocchio is insufferably shrill, draining the appeal of Benigni's own performance. Pinocchio has many laudable qualities, but genuine enchantment is nowhere to be found. --Jeff Shannon

Description

Academy Award(R)-winner Roberto Benigni (Best Actor, LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL, 1998) brings one of the world's most beloved characters to the screen with this delightful live action adaptation of Carlo Collodi's classic story! The enchanting journey begins when the wooden puppet named Pinocchio (Benigni) comes magically to life! Then the fun takes off as -- despite guidance from the beautiful Blue Fairy and the love of his father, Geppetto -- Pinocchio's ever-curious spirit opens the door to one wild adventure after another! Through the irrepressible comic genius of writer, director, and star Roberto Benigni, everyone can share in this fantastic tale of wonder and imagination featurung the voices of Hollywood stars Breckin Meyer, Glenn Close, Queen Latifah, James Bleushi, Regis Philbin, John Cleese, Eddie Griffin, Erick Idle, and Cheech Marin.

Customer Reviews:

suspend logic.......2007-06-05

Odd, so many people writing that Begnini at 50 wasn't believable as a puppet who talks. What is believable about a puppet who talks? Boys who turn into donkeys? People who are swallowed by sea monsters? Maybe the idea WAS to depict the idea that the self-centered, tantrum-prine child is still there at some level, even in adults - yes ... seeing people's behavior in traffic, I think it is.

I loved this movie, and more importantly, so did my 2 and 1/2 year-old son, who is able to suspend all logic. When we watch the scene in the soon-to-be-donkey land, with Begnini swinging above the playing "boys", he says "Again". We watch it again, and he giggles with delight, again. He doesn't turn to me and say - you know - all those adults playing children are really miscast.

Very Entertaining.......2005-11-18

I don't see what all of the criticism is about. Just because a film doesn't fit into the Americanized-Hollywood mold is no reason to toss it out. It's clear from reading these reviews that some of us have lost our ability to see life through the simplicity of a child's eyes.

I found this film delivers on it's goal: to be entertaining and enjoyable to watch. The directing of this movie was above creative standards and it really showed in the photography and editing. I would highly recommend the original Italian version to others without reservation.

As for the English-overdubbed version... well, it's overdubbed... what else can you say? If you watch it, you'll receive a mixed performance because you're watching Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde play the same character. I wouldn't even consider it.

Interesting!.......2004-12-22

Without regurgitating what seemingly every reviewer of this film felt HAD to be said, I will say that this is certainly the most interesting of ALL Pincchio movies/adaptations in history!

For one, and this MUST be said again, to watch a 50 year old man play the part of a little wooden puppet is a exercise in sheer open-mindedness and tolerance!

In fact, watching the entitre film (ORIGINAL VERSION ONLY PLEASE) one get's the impression that Benigni favors adults over children, even in a childrens' story, as ALL characters are played by grossly overaged/sized adult actors.

The movies is funny though...in a strange way.
The biggest drawback aside from his age, is Benigni's un-naturally high pitched voice and penchant for rambling dialogue.
As a student of the Italian language, it can be hard to follow his incessant jumble of non-sensical jibberish.
At the same token, it is Benigni's annoying acting style that makes this film fun to watch.

What makes this film even quirkier is the relationship between a very grown Pinocchio and a rather attractive Blue Haired Fairy. There were times when I thought Pinocchio would just grab his beloved fairy and use his long nose to work his own brand of magic on HER. Sounds bad I know, but if you've seen this film you'll have no choice but to agree that there is waaayyy more physical chemistry between Pinocchio and the Fairy than ANY childrens story ought to have.

I can see why the critics AND the vast majority of viewers hated this one. It really isn't a GOOD film in a traditional sense.
Where this film shines is with those of us who have an appreciation for the off-beat and downright different.
This movie is both, which is why I bought it in the first place.

Will I recommend this to all you dear morally upright, purist partents out there for your kids to watch? Certainly not!
This is a non-sexual, but yet very adult oriented movie. Especially for dumbed down Disney raised US viewers.

Is this really a 45 million dollar flop? Absolutely!
Do I enjoy this film whenever I watch it? I most certainly do.

This film is underappreciated.......2004-04-09

This is a very well crafted and entertaining movie, but of course must be watched in Italian, with the subtitles. If you like Benigni you will certainly enjoy this film--as usual he shines with comedic brilliance. The movie is absolutely hilarious in some parts, and very touching in others. Benigni's acting is great, but there are also great performances by the supporting cast members. This movie is beautifully photographed and cleverly written and it's a shame it was released in 'dubbed' form in the U.S. Dubbed movies are always bad, but the actor who did the voice for Benigni's Pinocchio was just not a good choice at all!

Interesting ideas, but falls flat on all levels........2003-10-26

Roberto Benigni received extremely harsh critical attack for his recent rendition of Collidi's classic fairy tale of a puppet who wished to become a wooden boy. Part of this is because Miramax decided to cut the film from 110 minutes to 99(!) -- often a bad mistake, as it can damage the effect of a film. But they added another slapping blow by overdubbing the character voices. In a foreign animated film, this works more successfully because an animation cel stands on its own. Unfortunately, it's not so in the case of live action. The line-readings of the voice actors clash horrendously with the moving mouth of the foreign language, and, here, in PINOCCHIO, it's just really awful. I only listened to bits and pieces of the dub, and although the voice cast is certainly talented and does a respectable job (except for Breckin Meyer as Pinocchio himself), their words are so poorly synchronized with the moving mouth that the results come across as disastrous.

Although the film holds well together in its native tongue and uncut version, one cannot help but wonder just what went wrong with this production. PINOCCHIO is definitely an ambitious picture; the costumes, set designs and cinematography are all strikingly beautiful. There are also lots of staggering special effects shots, from a carriage drawn by mice to an enormous shark in the sea. Such effects made the movie the most expensive in Italy --$45 million in total--; and Benigni should consider himself fortunate that it broke even in box office receipts. In America, however, it didn't have the same reception. Either because of the cutting and disastrous dubbing (despite the presence of big names in the cast such as John Cleese, Eric Idle, Cheech Marin, and Glen Close), or the fact that people could not accept this version, the movie was a dismal failure.

Part of the problem is the decision of having Benigni himself playing Pinocchio. I mean, come on! Benigni is WAY too old for Pinocchio, and a lot of the other "kids" in this picture are played by grown-ups! Somehow it didn't come off on me as glaring that such was the case, but I can just imagine why critics and film buffs would slamdunk this film for that cause. There are plenty of interesting concepts and ideas for the film; the Blue Fairy's costumes are gorgeous, and the image of a butterfly present in the film is very nice, but that's not enough to save this poor, troubled picture. There's hardly a sympathetic character in the movie; Pinocchio is supposed to be disobedient, yes, but here he's portrayed as a crazy maniac, refusing to behave or do anything good until he is goaded into it. The Talking Cricket is not much better. If you were spoiled by Jiminy Cricket from the (far superior) Disney version, prepare to be shocked - he not only looks a man with artificial antennas placed on his head, he also acts condescendingly. Instead of being encouraging, he comes across as a sarcastic, unhelping little jerk who just badmouths the "boy" instead of coaching him. Granted, I'm aware that this is true of the original Collidi tale (Disney "softened up" Pinocchio's personality for his film), yet here it's executed so awkwardly that it becomes difficult to become involved in this film. It also is not a very clear, focused picture: it's too dark and menacing for youngsters and too insane to appeal to older audiences.

A modern misfire, this version of PINOCCHIO is more likely to be remembered for its cinematography rather than its misguided story and below-average dubbing. (Even on the Italian original, there is some gratingly bad acting.)

amazon.com

Follow The Ringmaster into a peculiar world of morals, mischief, and marvels, in this series of modern fairy tales filled with nice children, naughty children, and a second helping of imagination, all set in a far away part of the world, long, long forgot

Average customer rating:

Ay Ay Aye....
Just a few remarks from a viewer over in Scandinavia
Garbage
Tha White Trash Talk Show Host!
Amazingly Trashy From 1998

Ringmaster
Starring: Jerry Springer , Jaime Pressly , William McNamara , Molly Hagan , and John Capodice
Director: Neil Abramson
Manufacturer: Artisan Entertainment
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Comedy | Genres | DVD | Video

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

Poor White Trash
Banned From TV 3
Death to the Supermodels
The Best of Jerry Springer
Jerry Springer: Secrets & Surprises

ASIN: B00000I1KL
Release Date: 1999-03-23

Amazon.com

Customer Reviews:

Ay Ay Aye...........2007-01-16

Another Round DVD, it plays a movie. If you're seriously interested in this movie, you're probably still using Beta Max tapes...

Just a few remarks from a viewer over in Scandinavia.......2006-06-07

Garbage.......2006-01-04

Tha White Trash Talk Show Host!.......2005-11-06

Amazingly Trashy From 1998.......2005-03-22

Average customer rating:

Ringmaster [Region 2]
Starring: Jerry Springer , Jaime Pressly , William McNamara , Molly Hagan , and John Capodice
Director: Neil Abramson
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Comedy | Genres | DVD | Video

( R ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
ASIN: B00009KOZ2

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