All the Pretty Horses
Starring:Matt Damon, Henry Thomas, Penélope Cruz, J.D. Young, Laura Poe, Sam Shepard, Robert Patrick, Lucas Black (II), Yvette Diaz, Imelda Colindres, Augustin Solis, Rubén Blades, Elizabeth Ibarra, Miriam Colon, Lonnie Rodriguez, Raul Malo, Fredrick Lopez, Ferron Lucero Jr., Manuel Sanchez (II), Katie Harro
Director: Billy Bob Thornton
Studio: Sony Pictures
Product Type: DVD
Editorial Review:
Amazon.com
Adapted from Cormac McCarthy's award-winning novel, All the Pretty Horses cries for epic length but runs only 112 minutes for theatrical release. Drastically shortened during a lengthy stretch between production and release, this operatic drama feels as if huge chunks are missing, and what remains are fragments of a masterpiece that might have been. Unless a more definitive version is revealed, we must settle for this faint echo of McCarthy's ambitious narrative, in which dispossessed Texas rancher John Grady Cole (Matt Damon) ventures to Mexico in 1949 to revive his fading dreams of cowboy glory. With best friend Lacey Rawlins (Henry Thomas), Cole's odyssey takes him from youthful idealism to rugged, often horrific, and ultimately ennobling tests of integrity.
Much of Cole's ordeal is sparked by his forbidden love for Alejandra (Penelope Cruz), the beautiful daughter of his Mexican employer, whose family honor is threatened by their mutual attraction. A gunslinging teenager (Lucas Black) casts a black cloud over them all, and All the Pretty Horses becomes a test of Cole's ability to navigate a labyrinth of distorted truth, imprisonment, and hard-fought redemption. All of which begs for emotional depth and carefully developed characters, but this truncated film lacks both. Scenes jump from one to the next with obvious gaps between them, lending no opportunity for emotional investment. It's clear that director Billy Bob Thornton is attempting to redefine the Western, and the effort is laudable on many points, notably in its perfect match of visuals and a flavorful musical score. There's much to admire in this film, making its shortcomings all the more lamentable. --Jeff Shannon
Average customer rating:
- this one's just awful...
- What is UP with all the negative reviews ?!!
- McCarthy this ain't.....
- We all choose which horses we pursue
- Beautiful, wrenching movie.
|
All the Pretty Horses
Starring: Matt Damon , Henry Thomas , Penélope Cruz , J.D. Young , and Laura Poe
Director: Billy Bob Thornton
Manufacturer: Sony Pictures
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD
 General
| Drama
| Genres
| DVD
| Video
Coming of Age
| By Theme
| Drama
| Genres
| DVD
| Video
Americans Abroad
| By Theme
| Drama
| Genres
| DVD
| Video
Innocence Lost
| By Theme
| Drama
| Genres
| DVD
| Video
Miscarriage of Justice
| By Theme
| Drama
| Genres
| DVD
| Video
Star-Crossed Lovers
| Love & Romance
| Drama
| Genres
| DVD
| Video
General
| Westerns
| Genres
| DVD
| Video
Prison Films
| Crime
| Mystery & Suspense
| Genres
| DVD
| Video
Colon, Miriam
| ( C )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Cruz, Penelope
| ( C )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Damon, Matt
| ( D )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Patrick, Robert
| ( P )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Shepard, Sam
| ( S )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Thomas, Henry
| ( T )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Thornton, Billy Bob
| ( T )
| Directors
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
All Sony Pictures Titles
| Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
| Studio Specials
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Used DVDs
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
| Action & Adventure
| African American Cinema
| Animation
| Anime & Manga
| Art House & International
| Classics
| Comedy
| Cult Movies
| Documentary
| Drama
| Educational
| Fitness & Yoga
| Gay & Lesbian
| Horror
| Kids & Family
| Military & War
| Music Video & Concerts
| Musicals & Performing Arts
| Mystery & Suspense
| Science Fiction & Fantasy
| Special Interests
| Sports
| Television
| Westerns
DVDs Under $7.49
| Today's Deals in DVD
| Special Features
| DVD
| Video
General
| Drama
| Today's Deals in DVD
| Special Features
| DVD
| Video
( A )
| Titles
| Features
| DVD
| Video
Similar Items:
- All the Pretty Horses (2001 Film)
- All the Pretty Horses
- Cities of the Plain
- The Talented Mr. Ripley
- The Rainmaker
ASIN: B000059XTH
Release Date: 2001-05-08 |
Amazon.com
Adapted from Cormac McCarthy's award-winning novel, All the Pretty Horses cries for epic length but runs only 112 minutes for theatrical release. Drastically shortened during a lengthy stretch between production and release, this operatic drama feels as if huge chunks are missing, and what remains are fragments of a masterpiece that might have been. Unless a more definitive version is revealed, we must settle for this faint echo of McCarthy's ambitious narrative, in which dispossessed Texas rancher John Grady Cole (Matt Damon) ventures to Mexico in 1949 to revive his fading dreams of cowboy glory. With best friend Lacey Rawlins (Henry Thomas), Cole's odyssey takes him from youthful idealism to rugged, often horrific, and ultimately ennobling tests of integrity.
Much of Cole's ordeal is sparked by his forbidden love for Alejandra (Penelope Cruz), the beautiful daughter of his Mexican employer, whose family honor is threatened by their mutual attraction. A gunslinging teenager (Lucas Black) casts a black cloud over them all, and All the Pretty Horses becomes a test of Cole's ability to navigate a labyrinth of distorted truth, imprisonment, and hard-fought redemption. All of which begs for emotional depth and carefully developed characters, but this truncated film lacks both. Scenes jump from one to the next with obvious gaps between them, lending no opportunity for emotional investment. It's clear that director Billy Bob Thornton is attempting to redefine the Western, and the effort is laudable on many points, notably in its perfect match of visuals and a flavorful musical score. There's much to admire in this film, making its shortcomings all the more lamentable. --Jeff Shannon
Customer Reviews:
this one's just awful..........2007-06-12
Not much I can say here that hasn't been said by others. "All the Pretty Horses" (the book) was one of the best novels to be written in the past 20 years. "All the Pretty Horses" (the movie) has been edited to a point where it makes no sense.
Also, John Grady and Alejandra are supposed to be 16 and 17 years old, respectively. In a coming-of-age story, that's kind of important. Matt Damon and Penelope Cruz are WAY too old for the roles.
What is UP with all the negative reviews ?!!.......2007-02-25
I think this is a good film as I explain below. Others on this review area disagree. I can only attribute the many negative reviews for this film to a few possibilities: The movie is certainly not as 'complete' as the book. As with any film-adaptation, the movie bears differences from the book ( though it follows the main theme and plot closely ). The main differences being that scenes had to be deleted from the movie that were in the book. Perhaps many reviewers had read the book and were disappointed by the differences. If the movie is viewed as its own entity, I believe it stands very well by itself and is a great work of art
Other reasons that I can only attribute the bad reviews to are these; Maybe the reviewers wanted the cowboy-main characters to be wise-crack, cocky, with-an-attitude kind of guys like sutherland and harrelson in "The Cowboy Way" and other modern westerns. Or, as other reviewers have said, this wasn't a predominately love-story movie, as perhaps billed.
In any event, All The Pretty Horses definitely makes my list of top movies I've ever seen. The main characters have a certain humility and quietness to their character and their way. I imagine this is the way men who roamed the range in the 1940's probably were - Not like today's urban, fast-talking, slick, always having a witty in-your-face comeback, like so many protanganists in movies today. It's refreshing to see the aforementioned humble and courageous type of character pitted against the unfairness of life.
This movie is about decisions. It is about events that we don't want to happen. That we may try to prevent. And then, when these events happen, more bad fortune follows....almost as we knew it would....and it does. This is the unfairness that is real life. But more than unfairness, the theme of courage and holding to one's honor culminate at the end of the movie.
The music is wonderful and appropriate for the western setting. The acting is very good. There is drama, action, the proper building of expectations and tension and then its resolution, and humorous scenes as well. I agree that the movie could have been longer as I was wanting to watch these characters more. But Hollywood wanted a nice, compact, 'western-romance'.....and Billy Bob, the director, wanted to tell his story of the novel on film.....the compromise that resulted was a shorter film than he wanted. Nonetheless, this film is a well-directed and powerful drama which gives life to the mythic frontiers of the old southwest.
McCarthy this ain't............2007-01-29
If you haven't read the book, you will have a much tougher time enjoying this as it is very difficult to follow standing on it's own. If you've read the book before you saw the movie, then feel perfectly free to B!tch about how it doesn't do any justice to McCarthy's novel, because it doesn't. This movie is flawed and edited to the point of incoherence, you are unable to connect with the characters if you are not already familiar with them. It might have one of the worst soundtracks for a piece of this magnitude that I have ever heard. The reason I am able to give it three stars is because I have read all of McCarthy's books and can find some level of enjoyment watching his work be produced visually, but it just doesn't hold up to the novel in any way. If you're expecting a good old love story, then this is definitely not for you. McCarthy doesn't write heartwarming happy-tales for young lovers. His work deals with grittiness, vast landscapes, morality, mortality, and manhood. I think this is actually the happiest of all of his stories, and it ain't that happy. I hope if they make the second book of the trilogy into a movie, which is actually better than this book, they get a production team capable of handling such a large quantity of material. Billy Bob is just not suited to handle something so big. His strength lies in smaller details and stories, like Sling Blade. The supporting cast is fine, however, and Damon as good of a performance as you could give for a flawed script and being miscast.
Their just aren't to many happy endings when it comes to Cormac McCarthy.
We all choose which horses we pursue.......2006-12-18
I recommend this movie because it touches on the following ideas:
1) In the course of your life, you we love someone more than they love you. They will not return your love, for any number of good reasons. This concept is illustrated in the main relationship between Matt Damon's and Penelope Cruz's characters.
2) You will make some promises in your youth, promises that seem like the best solution at the time. No matter how "good" or "moral" of a person you become, you will likely have to choose to break some of those promises, spoken and unspoken. And as you grow older, you will be defined not by whether you kept all your promises, because that is likely impossible, but rather by what concepts you ultimately choose to prioritize and to live by. Alejandra chooses to keep her spoken promise to her Aunt and to not to see or communicate with John Grady further. And Alejandro chooses to break her unspoken and spoken representations to John Grady that she would love him and be with him. And Alejandro also breaks any promises she may have ever made to herself to live free, to pursue her loves and aspirations, and to not repeat the mistakes of her mother's generation. As the Aunt states early in the film, women in that culture do not get the same freedoms and second chances as men. The women in that culture choose whether to acquiesce and promote those double standards or fight against them. Alejandro makes her choice.
3) You may not be able to achieve your own personal dreams or freedoms, but in understanding the pain involved in that concession, you will have tremendous motivation to take advantage of every opportunity to help others achieve their dreams and freedoms. John Grady is not able to get what he wants, but he takes risks to free the old man from his unfair prison, and he returns Rawlins' horse to him.
To be honest, I thought the cinematography was below average, the editing was not fluent, the movie is a little too long, and the shot framings were often 2-dimensional and too close. The opening lighting on the horses running at night looked like they were lit with giant spotlights - totally artificial and wrong for the time period the movie was set in. But I'm a sucker for stories with complex and intelligent moral reasoning, so I recommend this movie with a fast forward remote firmly in hand.
Beautiful, wrenching movie........2006-11-19
With great acting by Damon and company. I could wish for the directing to be a bit better -- probably the editing that was at fault. I could easily have watched another hour of this movie. It's possible that some of the bad reviews come from the promotion of All the Pretty Horses as a love story between Damon and Cruz. It simply isn't the focus of the movie. The focus is more about what you love and lose, your home, your horses, your friends, your honor, and the west itself, being sold to developers at the time.
Average customer rating:
- Interesting
- Eye Opener Film
|
Venus of Mars
Starring: Venus of "All The Pretty Horses" , and Lynette Reini-Grandell
Director: Emily Goldberg
Manufacturer: Media Gratification
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD
General
| Musicals & Performing Arts
| Genres
| DVD
| Video
Independently Distributed
| Musicals & Performing Arts
| Genres
| DVD
| Video
Documentary
| Independently Distributed
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Used DVDs
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
| Action & Adventure
| African American Cinema
| Animation
| Anime & Manga
| Art House & International
| Classics
| Comedy
| Cult Movies
| Documentary
| Drama
| Educational
| Fitness & Yoga
| Gay & Lesbian
| Horror
| Kids & Family
| Military & War
| Music Video & Concerts
| Musicals & Performing Arts
| Mystery & Suspense
| Science Fiction & Fantasy
| Special Interests
| Sports
| Television
| Westerns
Independently Distributed
| Indie & Art House
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
( V )
| Titles
| Features
| DVD
| Video
Similar Items:
- Southern Comfort
ASIN: B0006OU654
Release Date: 2004-11-09 |
Description
VENUS OF MARS
The eye-catching transgender singer of a Minneapolis glam rock band and her wife negotiate the frontiers of love and gender.Born male, Venus is transgender. S/he's "in between" ? taking female hormones, but not planning to have sexual reassignment surgery. To some, s/he's a pioneer, courageously exploring a brave new world of gender identity, free of categorization. To others, s/he's a freak. Emily Goldberg's award-winning documentary,
VENUS OF MARS, is both the unique coming out story of Venus' gender-redefining journey, and the truly contemporary love story of a couple weathering dramatic changes in uncharted relationship territory.
Customer Reviews:
Interesting.......2007-04-19
This movie was very entertaining. It showed the transformation of a little boy from Duluth, Minnesota as he turned into a cross-dresser into finally a transgendered, Goth performer. I couldn't help but feel badly for his/her wife throughout the film. It talked about her struggles to accept him/her as he/she changed and I kept thinking that the wife was remarkably patient, accepting, and maybe a bit long-suffering. It was sad to see the pair together as a young couple, apparently happy, and then later in the film to see the husband as he is now--really a performance artist without gainful employment--and the wife, middle-aged and full of insecurities about herself now that her husband is a woman.
Eye Opener Film.......2005-10-26
This is an entertaining and informative video about a group of people who have followed a different lifestyle with love, joy and music.
Average customer rating:
|
All the Pretty Horses / Geronimo: An American Legend
Starring: Matt Damon , Henry Thomas , Penélope Cruz , J.D. Young , and Laura Poe
Director: Billy Bob Thornton , and Walter Hill
Manufacturer: Sony Pictures
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD
General
| Drama
| Genres
| DVD
| Video
General
| Westerns
| Genres
| DVD
| Video
Colon, Miriam
| ( C )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Damon, Matt
| ( D )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Patrick, Robert
| ( P )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Shepard, Sam
| ( S )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Thomas, Henry
| ( T )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Hill, Walter
| ( H )
| Directors
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Thornton, Billy Bob
| ( T )
| Directors
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
All Sony Pictures Titles
| Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
| Studio Specials
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Used DVDs
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
| Action & Adventure
| African American Cinema
| Animation
| Anime & Manga
| Art House & International
| Classics
| Comedy
| Cult Movies
| Documentary
| Drama
| Educational
| Fitness & Yoga
| Gay & Lesbian
| Horror
| Kids & Family
| Military & War
| Music Video & Concerts
| Musicals & Performing Arts
| Mystery & Suspense
| Science Fiction & Fantasy
| Special Interests
| Sports
| Television
| Westerns
DVDs Under $14.99
| Today's Deals in DVD
| Special Features
| DVD
| Video
( A )
| Titles
| Features
| DVD
| Video
Similar Items:
- The Last of His Tribe
- The Doe Boy
- The Desperate Trail
- The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
- Thunderheart
ASIN: B000F48D3M
Release Date: 2006-06-06 |
![All the Pretty Horses [Region 2]](http://www.germanelectronics88.com/noimage.gif)
Average customer rating:
- this one's just awful...
- What is UP with all the negative reviews ?!!
- McCarthy this ain't.....
- We all choose which horses we pursue
- Beautiful, wrenching movie.
|
All the Pretty Horses [Region 2]
Starring: Matt Damon , Henry Thomas , Penélope Cruz , J.D. Young , and Laura Poe
Director: Billy Bob Thornton
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD
General
| Westerns
| Genres
| DVD
| Video
Colon, Miriam
| ( C )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Damon, Matt
| ( D )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Patrick, Robert
| ( P )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Shepard, Sam
| ( S )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Thomas, Henry
| ( T )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Thornton, Billy Bob
| ( T )
| Directors
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Used DVDs
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
| Action & Adventure
| African American Cinema
| Animation
| Anime & Manga
| Art House & International
| Classics
| Comedy
| Cult Movies
| Documentary
| Drama
| Educational
| Fitness & Yoga
| Gay & Lesbian
| Horror
| Kids & Family
| Military & War
| Music Video & Concerts
| Musicals & Performing Arts
| Mystery & Suspense
| Science Fiction & Fantasy
| Special Interests
| Sports
| Television
| Westerns
DVDs Under $7.49
| Today's Deals in DVD
| Special Features
| DVD
| Video
( A )
| Titles
| Features
| DVD
| Video
Similar Items:
- All the Pretty Horses (2001 Film)
- All the Pretty Horses
- Cities of the Plain
- The Talented Mr. Ripley
- The Rainmaker
ASIN: B00005N52W |
Amazon.com
Adapted from Cormac McCarthy's award-winning novel, All the Pretty Horses cries for epic length but runs only 112 minutes for theatrical release. Drastically shortened during a lengthy stretch between production and release, this operatic drama feels as if huge chunks are missing, and what remains are fragments of a masterpiece that might have been. Unless a more definitive version is revealed, we must settle for this faint echo of McCarthy's ambitious narrative, in which dispossessed Texas rancher John Grady Cole (Matt Damon) ventures to Mexico in 1949 to revive his fading dreams of cowboy glory. With best friend Lacey Rawlins (Henry Thomas), Cole's odyssey takes him from youthful idealism to rugged, often horrific, and ultimately ennobling tests of integrity.
Much of Cole's ordeal is sparked by his forbidden love for Alejandra (Penelope Cruz), the beautiful daughter of his Mexican employer, whose family honor is threatened by their mutual attraction. A gunslinging teenager (Lucas Black) casts a black cloud over them all, and All the Pretty Horses becomes a test of Cole's ability to navigate a labyrinth of distorted truth, imprisonment, and hard-fought redemption. All of which begs for emotional depth and carefully developed characters, but this truncated film lacks both. Scenes jump from one to the next with obvious gaps between them, lending no opportunity for emotional investment. It's clear that director Billy Bob Thornton is attempting to redefine the Western, and the effort is laudable on many points, notably in its perfect match of visuals and a flavorful musical score. There's much to admire in this film, making its shortcomings all the more lamentable. --Jeff Shannon
Customer Reviews:
this one's just awful..........2007-06-12
Not much I can say here that hasn't been said by others. "All the Pretty Horses" (the book) was one of the best novels to be written in the past 20 years. "All the Pretty Horses" (the movie) has been edited to a point where it makes no sense.
Also, John Grady and Alejandra are supposed to be 16 and 17 years old, respectively. In a coming-of-age story, that's kind of important. Matt Damon and Penelope Cruz are WAY too old for the roles.
What is UP with all the negative reviews ?!!.......2007-02-25
I think this is a good film as I explain below. Others on this review area disagree. I can only attribute the many negative reviews for this film to a few possibilities: The movie is certainly not as 'complete' as the book. As with any film-adaptation, the movie bears differences from the book ( though it follows the main theme and plot closely ). The main differences being that scenes had to be deleted from the movie that were in the book. Perhaps many reviewers had read the book and were disappointed by the differences. If the movie is viewed as its own entity, I believe it stands very well by itself and is a great work of art
Other reasons that I can only attribute the bad reviews to are these; Maybe the reviewers wanted the cowboy-main characters to be wise-crack, cocky, with-an-attitude kind of guys like sutherland and harrelson in "The Cowboy Way" and other modern westerns. Or, as other reviewers have said, this wasn't a predominately love-story movie, as perhaps billed.
In any event, All The Pretty Horses definitely makes my list of top movies I've ever seen. The main characters have a certain humility and quietness to their character and their way. I imagine this is the way men who roamed the range in the 1940's probably were - Not like today's urban, fast-talking, slick, always having a witty in-your-face comeback, like so many protanganists in movies today. It's refreshing to see the aforementioned humble and courageous type of character pitted against the unfairness of life.
This movie is about decisions. It is about events that we don't want to happen. That we may try to prevent. And then, when these events happen, more bad fortune follows....almost as we knew it would....and it does. This is the unfairness that is real life. But more than unfairness, the theme of courage and holding to one's honor culminate at the end of the movie.
The music is wonderful and appropriate for the western setting. The acting is very good. There is drama, action, the proper building of expectations and tension and then its resolution, and humorous scenes as well. I agree that the movie could have been longer as I was wanting to watch these characters more. But Hollywood wanted a nice, compact, 'western-romance'.....and Billy Bob, the director, wanted to tell his story of the novel on film.....the compromise that resulted was a shorter film than he wanted. Nonetheless, this film is a well-directed and powerful drama which gives life to the mythic frontiers of the old southwest.
McCarthy this ain't............2007-01-29
If you haven't read the book, you will have a much tougher time enjoying this as it is very difficult to follow standing on it's own. If you've read the book before you saw the movie, then feel perfectly free to B!tch about how it doesn't do any justice to McCarthy's novel, because it doesn't. This movie is flawed and edited to the point of incoherence, you are unable to connect with the characters if you are not already familiar with them. It might have one of the worst soundtracks for a piece of this magnitude that I have ever heard. The reason I am able to give it three stars is because I have read all of McCarthy's books and can find some level of enjoyment watching his work be produced visually, but it just doesn't hold up to the novel in any way. If you're expecting a good old love story, then this is definitely not for you. McCarthy doesn't write heartwarming happy-tales for young lovers. His work deals with grittiness, vast landscapes, morality, mortality, and manhood. I think this is actually the happiest of all of his stories, and it ain't that happy. I hope if they make the second book of the trilogy into a movie, which is actually better than this book, they get a production team capable of handling such a large quantity of material. Billy Bob is just not suited to handle something so big. His strength lies in smaller details and stories, like Sling Blade. The supporting cast is fine, however, and Damon as good of a performance as you could give for a flawed script and being miscast.
Their just aren't to many happy endings when it comes to Cormac McCarthy.
We all choose which horses we pursue.......2006-12-18
I recommend this movie because it touches on the following ideas:
1) In the course of your life, you we love someone more than they love you. They will not return your love, for any number of good reasons. This concept is illustrated in the main relationship between Matt Damon's and Penelope Cruz's characters.
2) You will make some promises in your youth, promises that seem like the best solution at the time. No matter how "good" or "moral" of a person you become, you will likely have to choose to break some of those promises, spoken and unspoken. And as you grow older, you will be defined not by whether you kept all your promises, because that is likely impossible, but rather by what concepts you ultimately choose to prioritize and to live by. Alejandra chooses to keep her spoken promise to her Aunt and to not to see or communicate with John Grady further. And Alejandro chooses to break her unspoken and spoken representations to John Grady that she would love him and be with him. And Alejandro also breaks any promises she may have ever made to herself to live free, to pursue her loves and aspirations, and to not repeat the mistakes of her mother's generation. As the Aunt states early in the film, women in that culture do not get the same freedoms and second chances as men. The women in that culture choose whether to acquiesce and promote those double standards or fight against them. Alejandro makes her choice.
3) You may not be able to achieve your own personal dreams or freedoms, but in understanding the pain involved in that concession, you will have tremendous motivation to take advantage of every opportunity to help others achieve their dreams and freedoms. John Grady is not able to get what he wants, but he takes risks to free the old man from his unfair prison, and he returns Rawlins' horse to him.
To be honest, I thought the cinematography was below average, the editing was not fluent, the movie is a little too long, and the shot framings were often 2-dimensional and too close. The opening lighting on the horses running at night looked like they were lit with giant spotlights - totally artificial and wrong for the time period the movie was set in. But I'm a sucker for stories with complex and intelligent moral reasoning, so I recommend this movie with a fast forward remote firmly in hand.
Beautiful, wrenching movie........2006-11-19
With great acting by Damon and company. I could wish for the directing to be a bit better -- probably the editing that was at fault. I could easily have watched another hour of this movie. It's possible that some of the bad reviews come from the promotion of All the Pretty Horses as a love story between Damon and Cruz. It simply isn't the focus of the movie. The focus is more about what you love and lose, your home, your horses, your friends, your honor, and the west itself, being sold to developers at the time.
Average customer rating:
- this one's just awful...
- What is UP with all the negative reviews ?!!
- McCarthy this ain't.....
- We all choose which horses we pursue
- Beautiful, wrenching movie.
|
Espiritu Salvaje (All the Pretty Horses)
Starring: Matt Damon , Henry Thomas , Penélope Cruz , J.D. Young , and Laura Poe
Director: Billy Bob Thornton
Manufacturer: Sony Pictures
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD
General
| Drama
| Genres
| DVD
| Video
General
| Westerns
| Genres
| DVD
| Video
Colon, Miriam
| ( C )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Damon, Matt
| ( D )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Patrick, Robert
| ( P )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Shepard, Sam
| ( S )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Thomas, Henry
| ( T )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Thornton, Billy Bob
| ( T )
| Directors
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
All Sony Pictures Titles
| Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
| Studio Specials
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Used DVDs
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
| Action & Adventure
| African American Cinema
| Animation
| Anime & Manga
| Art House & International
| Classics
| Comedy
| Cult Movies
| Documentary
| Drama
| Educational
| Fitness & Yoga
| Gay & Lesbian
| Horror
| Kids & Family
| Military & War
| Music Video & Concerts
| Musicals & Performing Arts
| Mystery & Suspense
| Science Fiction & Fantasy
| Special Interests
| Sports
| Television
| Westerns
DVDs Under $7.49
| Today's Deals in DVD
| Special Features
| DVD
| Video
( E )
| Titles
| Features
| DVD
| Video
Similar Items:
- All the Pretty Horses (2001 Film)
- All the Pretty Horses
- Cities of the Plain
- The Talented Mr. Ripley
- The Rainmaker
ASIN: B00006AUHV
Release Date: 2002-09-03 |
Amazon.com
Adapted from Cormac McCarthy's award-winning novel, All the Pretty Horses cries for epic length but runs only 112 minutes for theatrical release. Drastically shortened during a lengthy stretch between production and release, this operatic drama feels as if huge chunks are missing, and what remains are fragments of a masterpiece that might have been. Unless a more definitive version is revealed, we must settle for this faint echo of McCarthy's ambitious narrative, in which dispossessed Texas rancher John Grady Cole (Matt Damon) ventures to Mexico in 1949 to revive his fading dreams of cowboy glory. With best friend Lacey Rawlins (Henry Thomas), Cole's odyssey takes him from youthful idealism to rugged, often horrific, and ultimately ennobling tests of integrity.
Much of Cole's ordeal is sparked by his forbidden love for Alejandra (Penelope Cruz), the beautiful daughter of his Mexican employer, whose family honor is threatened by their mutual attraction. A gunslinging teenager (Lucas Black) casts a black cloud over them all, and All the Pretty Horses becomes a test of Cole's ability to navigate a labyrinth of distorted truth, imprisonment, and hard-fought redemption. All of which begs for emotional depth and carefully developed characters, but this truncated film lacks both. Scenes jump from one to the next with obvious gaps between them, lending no opportunity for emotional investment. It's clear that director Billy Bob Thornton is attempting to redefine the Western, and the effort is laudable on many points, notably in its perfect match of visuals and a flavorful musical score. There's much to admire in this film, making its shortcomings all the more lamentable. --Jeff Shannon
Customer Reviews:
this one's just awful..........2007-06-12
Not much I can say here that hasn't been said by others. "All the Pretty Horses" (the book) was one of the best novels to be written in the past 20 years. "All the Pretty Horses" (the movie) has been edited to a point where it makes no sense.
Also, John Grady and Alejandra are supposed to be 16 and 17 years old, respectively. In a coming-of-age story, that's kind of important. Matt Damon and Penelope Cruz are WAY too old for the roles.
What is UP with all the negative reviews ?!!.......2007-02-25
I think this is a good film as I explain below. Others on this review area disagree. I can only attribute the many negative reviews for this film to a few possibilities: The movie is certainly not as 'complete' as the book. As with any film-adaptation, the movie bears differences from the book ( though it follows the main theme and plot closely ). The main differences being that scenes had to be deleted from the movie that were in the book. Perhaps many reviewers had read the book and were disappointed by the differences. If the movie is viewed as its own entity, I believe it stands very well by itself and is a great work of art
Other reasons that I can only attribute the bad reviews to are these; Maybe the reviewers wanted the cowboy-main characters to be wise-crack, cocky, with-an-attitude kind of guys like sutherland and harrelson in "The Cowboy Way" and other modern westerns. Or, as other reviewers have said, this wasn't a predominately love-story movie, as perhaps billed.
In any event, All The Pretty Horses definitely makes my list of top movies I've ever seen. The main characters have a certain humility and quietness to their character and their way. I imagine this is the way men who roamed the range in the 1940's probably were - Not like today's urban, fast-talking, slick, always having a witty in-your-face comeback, like so many protanganists in movies today. It's refreshing to see the aforementioned humble and courageous type of character pitted against the unfairness of life.
This movie is about decisions. It is about events that we don't want to happen. That we may try to prevent. And then, when these events happen, more bad fortune follows....almost as we knew it would....and it does. This is the unfairness that is real life. But more than unfairness, the theme of courage and holding to one's honor culminate at the end of the movie.
The music is wonderful and appropriate for the western setting. The acting is very good. There is drama, action, the proper building of expectations and tension and then its resolution, and humorous scenes as well. I agree that the movie could have been longer as I was wanting to watch these characters more. But Hollywood wanted a nice, compact, 'western-romance'.....and Billy Bob, the director, wanted to tell his story of the novel on film.....the compromise that resulted was a shorter film than he wanted. Nonetheless, this film is a well-directed and powerful drama which gives life to the mythic frontiers of the old southwest.
McCarthy this ain't............2007-01-29
If you haven't read the book, you will have a much tougher time enjoying this as it is very difficult to follow standing on it's own. If you've read the book before you saw the movie, then feel perfectly free to B!tch about how it doesn't do any justice to McCarthy's novel, because it doesn't. This movie is flawed and edited to the point of incoherence, you are unable to connect with the characters if you are not already familiar with them. It might have one of the worst soundtracks for a piece of this magnitude that I have ever heard. The reason I am able to give it three stars is because I have read all of McCarthy's books and can find some level of enjoyment watching his work be produced visually, but it just doesn't hold up to the novel in any way. If you're expecting a good old love story, then this is definitely not for you. McCarthy doesn't write heartwarming happy-tales for young lovers. His work deals with grittiness, vast landscapes, morality, mortality, and manhood. I think this is actually the happiest of all of his stories, and it ain't that happy. I hope if they make the second book of the trilogy into a movie, which is actually better than this book, they get a production team capable of handling such a large quantity of material. Billy Bob is just not suited to handle something so big. His strength lies in smaller details and stories, like Sling Blade. The supporting cast is fine, however, and Damon as good of a performance as you could give for a flawed script and being miscast.
Their just aren't to many happy endings when it comes to Cormac McCarthy.
We all choose which horses we pursue.......2006-12-18
I recommend this movie because it touches on the following ideas:
1) In the course of your life, you we love someone more than they love you. They will not return your love, for any number of good reasons. This concept is illustrated in the main relationship between Matt Damon's and Penelope Cruz's characters.
2) You will make some promises in your youth, promises that seem like the best solution at the time. No matter how "good" or "moral" of a person you become, you will likely have to choose to break some of those promises, spoken and unspoken. And as you grow older, you will be defined not by whether you kept all your promises, because that is likely impossible, but rather by what concepts you ultimately choose to prioritize and to live by. Alejandra chooses to keep her spoken promise to her Aunt and to not to see or communicate with John Grady further. And Alejandro chooses to break her unspoken and spoken representations to John Grady that she would love him and be with him. And Alejandro also breaks any promises she may have ever made to herself to live free, to pursue her loves and aspirations, and to not repeat the mistakes of her mother's generation. As the Aunt states early in the film, women in that culture do not get the same freedoms and second chances as men. The women in that culture choose whether to acquiesce and promote those double standards or fight against them. Alejandro makes her choice.
3) You may not be able to achieve your own personal dreams or freedoms, but in understanding the pain involved in that concession, you will have tremendous motivation to take advantage of every opportunity to help others achieve their dreams and freedoms. John Grady is not able to get what he wants, but he takes risks to free the old man from his unfair prison, and he returns Rawlins' horse to him.
To be honest, I thought the cinematography was below average, the editing was not fluent, the movie is a little too long, and the shot framings were often 2-dimensional and too close. The opening lighting on the horses running at night looked like they were lit with giant spotlights - totally artificial and wrong for the time period the movie was set in. But I'm a sucker for stories with complex and intelligent moral reasoning, so I recommend this movie with a fast forward remote firmly in hand.
Beautiful, wrenching movie........2006-11-19
With great acting by Damon and company. I could wish for the directing to be a bit better -- probably the editing that was at fault. I could easily have watched another hour of this movie. It's possible that some of the bad reviews come from the promotion of All the Pretty Horses as a love story between Damon and Cruz. It simply isn't the focus of the movie. The focus is more about what you love and lose, your home, your horses, your friends, your honor, and the west itself, being sold to developers at the time.
Average customer rating:
|
All the Pretty Horses/The Missing
Starring: Matt Damon , Henry Thomas , Penélope Cruz , J.D. Young , and Laura Poe
Director: Billy Bob Thornton , and Ron Howard
Manufacturer: Sony Pictures
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD
General
| Drama
| Genres
| DVD
| Video
Colon, Miriam
| ( C )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Damon, Matt
| ( D )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Patrick, Robert
| ( P )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Shepard, Sam
| ( S )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Thomas, Henry
| ( T )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Howard, Ron
| ( H )
| Directors
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Thornton, Billy Bob
| ( T )
| Directors
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
All Sony Pictures Titles
| Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
| Studio Specials
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Used DVDs
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
| Action & Adventure
| African American Cinema
| Animation
| Anime & Manga
| Art House & International
| Classics
| Comedy
| Cult Movies
| Documentary
| Drama
| Educational
| Fitness & Yoga
| Gay & Lesbian
| Horror
| Kids & Family
| Military & War
| Music Video & Concerts
| Musicals & Performing Arts
| Mystery & Suspense
| Science Fiction & Fantasy
| Special Interests
| Sports
| Television
| Westerns
( A )
| Titles
| Features
| DVD
| Video
ASIN: B0007V6ITO
Release Date: 2005-05-03 |
![All the Pretty Horses [Region 2]](http://g-ec2.images-amazon.com/images/I/21B13VC5BZL.jpg)
Average customer rating:
- this one's just awful...
- What is UP with all the negative reviews ?!!
- McCarthy this ain't.....
- We all choose which horses we pursue
- Beautiful, wrenching movie.
|
All the Pretty Horses [Region 2]
Starring: Matt Damon , Henry Thomas , Penélope Cruz , J.D. Young , and Laura Poe
Director: Billy Bob Thornton
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD
General
| Westerns
| Genres
| DVD
| Video
Colon, Miriam
| ( C )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Damon, Matt
| ( D )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Patrick, Robert
| ( P )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Shepard, Sam
| ( S )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Thomas, Henry
| ( T )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Thornton, Billy Bob
| ( T )
| Directors
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Used DVDs
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
| Action & Adventure
| African American Cinema
| Animation
| Anime & Manga
| Art House & International
| Classics
| Comedy
| Cult Movies
| Documentary
| Drama
| Educational
| Fitness & Yoga
| Gay & Lesbian
| Horror
| Kids & Family
| Military & War
| Music Video & Concerts
| Musicals & Performing Arts
| Mystery & Suspense
| Science Fiction & Fantasy
| Special Interests
| Sports
| Television
| Westerns
( A )
| Titles
| Features
| DVD
| Video
Similar Items:
- All the Pretty Horses (2001 Film)
- All the Pretty Horses
- Cities of the Plain
- The Talented Mr. Ripley
- The Rainmaker
ASIN: B00005RZP6 |
Amazon.com
Adapted from Cormac McCarthy's award-winning novel, All the Pretty Horses cries for epic length but runs only 112 minutes for theatrical release. Drastically shortened during a lengthy stretch between production and release, this operatic drama feels as if huge chunks are missing, and what remains are fragments of a masterpiece that might have been. Unless a more definitive version is revealed, we must settle for this faint echo of McCarthy's ambitious narrative, in which dispossessed Texas rancher John Grady Cole (Matt Damon) ventures to Mexico in 1949 to revive his fading dreams of cowboy glory. With best friend Lacey Rawlins (Henry Thomas), Cole's odyssey takes him from youthful idealism to rugged, often horrific, and ultimately ennobling tests of integrity.
Much of Cole's ordeal is sparked by his forbidden love for Alejandra (Penelope Cruz), the beautiful daughter of his Mexican employer, whose family honor is threatened by their mutual attraction. A gunslinging teenager (Lucas Black) casts a black cloud over them all, and All the Pretty Horses becomes a test of Cole's ability to navigate a labyrinth of distorted truth, imprisonment, and hard-fought redemption. All of which begs for emotional depth and carefully developed characters, but this truncated film lacks both. Scenes jump from one to the next with obvious gaps between them, lending no opportunity for emotional investment. It's clear that director Billy Bob Thornton is attempting to redefine the Western, and the effort is laudable on many points, notably in its perfect match of visuals and a flavorful musical score. There's much to admire in this film, making its shortcomings all the more lamentable. --Jeff Shannon
Customer Reviews:
this one's just awful..........2007-06-12
Not much I can say here that hasn't been said by others. "All the Pretty Horses" (the book) was one of the best novels to be written in the past 20 years. "All the Pretty Horses" (the movie) has been edited to a point where it makes no sense.
Also, John Grady and Alejandra are supposed to be 16 and 17 years old, respectively. In a coming-of-age story, that's kind of important. Matt Damon and Penelope Cruz are WAY too old for the roles.
What is UP with all the negative reviews ?!!.......2007-02-25
I think this is a good film as I explain below. Others on this review area disagree. I can only attribute the many negative reviews for this film to a few possibilities: The movie is certainly not as 'complete' as the book. As with any film-adaptation, the movie bears differences from the book ( though it follows the main theme and plot closely ). The main differences being that scenes had to be deleted from the movie that were in the book. Perhaps many reviewers had read the book and were disappointed by the differences. If the movie is viewed as its own entity, I believe it stands very well by itself and is a great work of art
Other reasons that I can only attribute the bad reviews to are these; Maybe the reviewers wanted the cowboy-main characters to be wise-crack, cocky, with-an-attitude kind of guys like sutherland and harrelson in "The Cowboy Way" and other modern westerns. Or, as other reviewers have said, this wasn't a predominately love-story movie, as perhaps billed.
In any event, All The Pretty Horses definitely makes my list of top movies I've ever seen. The main characters have a certain humility and quietness to their character and their way. I imagine this is the way men who roamed the range in the 1940's probably were - Not like today's urban, fast-talking, slick, always having a witty in-your-face comeback, like so many protanganists in movies today. It's refreshing to see the aforementioned humble and courageous type of character pitted against the unfairness of life.
This movie is about decisions. It is about events that we don't want to happen. That we may try to prevent. And then, when these events happen, more bad fortune follows....almost as we knew it would....and it does. This is the unfairness that is real life. But more than unfairness, the theme of courage and holding to one's honor culminate at the end of the movie.
The music is wonderful and appropriate for the western setting. The acting is very good. There is drama, action, the proper building of expectations and tension and then its resolution, and humorous scenes as well. I agree that the movie could have been longer as I was wanting to watch these characters more. But Hollywood wanted a nice, compact, 'western-romance'.....and Billy Bob, the director, wanted to tell his story of the novel on film.....the compromise that resulted was a shorter film than he wanted. Nonetheless, this film is a well-directed and powerful drama which gives life to the mythic frontiers of the old southwest.
McCarthy this ain't............2007-01-29
If you haven't read the book, you will have a much tougher time enjoying this as it is very difficult to follow standing on it's own. If you've read the book before you saw the movie, then feel perfectly free to B!tch about how it doesn't do any justice to McCarthy's novel, because it doesn't. This movie is flawed and edited to the point of incoherence, you are unable to connect with the characters if you are not already familiar with them. It might have one of the worst soundtracks for a piece of this magnitude that I have ever heard. The reason I am able to give it three stars is because I have read all of McCarthy's books and can find some level of enjoyment watching his work be produced visually, but it just doesn't hold up to the novel in any way. If you're expecting a good old love story, then this is definitely not for you. McCarthy doesn't write heartwarming happy-tales for young lovers. His work deals with grittiness, vast landscapes, morality, mortality, and manhood. I think this is actually the happiest of all of his stories, and it ain't that happy. I hope if they make the second book of the trilogy into a movie, which is actually better than this book, they get a production team capable of handling such a large quantity of material. Billy Bob is just not suited to handle something so big. His strength lies in smaller details and stories, like Sling Blade. The supporting cast is fine, however, and Damon as good of a performance as you could give for a flawed script and being miscast.
Their just aren't to many happy endings when it comes to Cormac McCarthy.
We all choose which horses we pursue.......2006-12-18
I recommend this movie because it touches on the following ideas:
1) In the course of your life, you we love someone more than they love you. They will not return your love, for any number of good reasons. This concept is illustrated in the main relationship between Matt Damon's and Penelope Cruz's characters.
2) You will make some promises in your youth, promises that seem like the best solution at the time. No matter how "good" or "moral" of a person you become, you will likely have to choose to break some of those promises, spoken and unspoken. And as you grow older, you will be defined not by whether you kept all your promises, because that is likely impossible, but rather by what concepts you ultimately choose to prioritize and to live by. Alejandra chooses to keep her spoken promise to her Aunt and to not to see or communicate with John Grady further. And Alejandro chooses to break her unspoken and spoken representations to John Grady that she would love him and be with him. And Alejandro also breaks any promises she may have ever made to herself to live free, to pursue her loves and aspirations, and to not repeat the mistakes of her mother's generation. As the Aunt states early in the film, women in that culture do not get the same freedoms and second chances as men. The women in that culture choose whether to acquiesce and promote those double standards or fight against them. Alejandro makes her choice.
3) You may not be able to achieve your own personal dreams or freedoms, but in understanding the pain involved in that concession, you will have tremendous motivation to take advantage of every opportunity to help others achieve their dreams and freedoms. John Grady is not able to get what he wants, but he takes risks to free the old man from his unfair prison, and he returns Rawlins' horse to him.
To be honest, I thought the cinematography was below average, the editing was not fluent, the movie is a little too long, and the shot framings were often 2-dimensional and too close. The opening lighting on the horses running at night looked like they were lit with giant spotlights - totally artificial and wrong for the time period the movie was set in. But I'm a sucker for stories with complex and intelligent moral reasoning, so I recommend this movie with a fast forward remote firmly in hand.
Beautiful, wrenching movie........2006-11-19
With great acting by Damon and company. I could wish for the directing to be a bit better -- probably the editing that was at fault. I could easily have watched another hour of this movie. It's possible that some of the bad reviews come from the promotion of All the Pretty Horses as a love story between Damon and Cruz. It simply isn't the focus of the movie. The focus is more about what you love and lose, your home, your horses, your friends, your honor, and the west itself, being sold to developers at the time.
DVD:
- Poolhall Junkies
- The Ipcress File
- Bordertown (3pc)
- Big Bad Love
- Where the Red Fern Grows
- Double Jeopardy
- The Heart of Me
- Judith Krantz Collection
- The Laughing Policeman
- Morituri
DVD
DVD
DVD
Fear No Man!- Jujitsu Self-Defense
The Thin Blue Line
Richard III (REGION 1) (NTSC)
DVD: Loving Father
Menschenjagd in San Francisco