In the Woods

Starring:DJ Perry, Aimee Tenaglia, Tim Jeffrey, Jim Greulich, Stuart MacDonald, Buck Schirner, Renee Pulse, Jim Petersen, Rachel Walker, John Hosek, Lane Glenn, Todd Dunfield, Andy Campbell, Bradley Wilson, Ed Halcomb, Larry Osterman, Michael Melik Brown, Cheo Ramey, Larry D. Osterman II, Chad Randau
Director: Lynn Drzick
Studio: Spectrum Entertain
Product Type: DVD
Average customer rating:
- Nostalgia
- Different sci-fi story...
- I loved it
- A must-see for SF lovers
- Different
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Enemy Mine
Starring: Dennis Quaid , Louis Gossett Jr. , Brion James , Richard Marcus , and Carolyn McCormick
Director: Wolfgang Petersen
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ASIN: B000059HAC
Release Date: 2001-03-27 |
Amazon.com essential video
Lizard-like Draconian Louis Gossett Jr. and his mortal enemy, earthling Dennis Quaid, crash-land on a hostile planet during a brutal space battle. Forced to rely on one another for survival, they overcome their differences and become fast friends. You can almost hear them break into an off-key version of "It's a Small World." German director Wolfgang Petersen, so brutally honest with his film Das Boot, turns warm and cuddly on us with this intergalactic buddy movie. Much of the problem, though, is that the script sets us up for an intriguing encounter, then settles for a simple and sentimental resolution. Noteworthy set design and strong performances, especially by Gossett, push this beyond mere mediocrity. His performance is fascinating, as he must speak in an alien tongue, which he maintains with artistry and consistency. --Rochelle O'Gorman
Description
In this visually stunning sci-fi adventure, two warriors engaged in a savage, futuristic war between Earth and the planet Dracon. Crash-land on a desolate, fiery planet. At first, the human, (Dennis Quaid) and his reptilian, alien opponent (Louis Gossett, JR) are intent on destroying each other, the two stranded pilots gradually realize that the only way either of them will survive is to overcome their undying hatred.
Customer Reviews:
Nostalgia.......2007-06-21
Excellent story line. However, you may be turned off by the old props and sets. Nothing close to what we have today. I'd buy it only if I wanted to take a stroll down memory lane.
Different sci-fi story..........2007-04-04
This film teaches a lesson from the other side of the political isle than I usually sit, but it tells it well. It is vaguely reminiscent of other films from the 1940's but I can't remember a title. It is a "know thy enemy" film, and teaches about culture clash. I'm not one to respect another culture if it demands it, but if it earns it I do. This film is about two warriors that get stranded together on a dangerously hostile world and have to work together to survive. They learn each other's languages, and culture in a way even a die-hard conservative like me cannot argue with. Perhaps everyone can learn something from this. The film is about right and wrong, and it can change one's perspective. In the end, I remember the audience cheering in the theatres.
I loved it.......2007-03-09
What a great movie. good time you have watchign this one.
Its a one of a kind movie.
if your a star wars or star gate fan like my girlfriend, you will truly like this movie. its the only sci-fi movie with ''sad'' part in it. really good movie suited for nearly anyone. watch this one with your girlfriend rather then your beer drinking pals.
A must-see for SF lovers.......2007-01-11
Great touching story of friendship between enemies and in this case, species.
Good lesson to learn an apply.
A classic movie I wanted to own and show to my kids.
Different .......2007-01-08
I have seen this movie many times while growing up. Its definately a different approach to Science Fiction, but not too bad. Basically, you get to see how mortal enemies can work out their differences, and work together. A movie with a message.
Average customer rating:
- What a ride ...
- An old but still robust oak!
- How to fix image quality
- Big problem with the image qualtiy in this movie
- This review is on the special edition
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True Grit (Special Collector's Edition)
Starring: John Wayne , Glen Campbell , Kim Darby , Jeremy Slate , and Robert Duvall
Director: Henry Hathaway
Manufacturer: Paramount
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- El Dorado
ASIN: B000O179FY
Release Date: 2007-05-22 |
Amazon.com essential video
A wonderful/rueful running gag in El Dorado involves the Edgar Allan Poe line "Ride, boldly ride" being mangled by toupee-wearer Wayne into "Ride, baldy, ride." Two years later, in True Grit, Wayne put the joke in italics by donning an eyepatch and several inches of girth to play cantankerous territorial marshal Rooster Cogburn. Critics belatedly noticed that he could be a marvelously entertaining actor, and Hollywood finally gave him the Oscar they'd failed to nominate him for in Red River, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, The Quiet Man, The Searchers, et al. But make no mistake: True Grit is a splendid movie, with lovingly textured storytelling and sturdy characters, Henry Hathaway's finest high-country action set-pieces, intoxicatingly ornate frontier language, and a couple of formidable bad guys (Jeff Corey's Tom Cheney and Robert Duvall's "Lucky" Ned Pepper). It's a compliment to say that, from a technical standpoint, the movie could have been made any time in Hathaway's 40-year career, yet its feeling for the reality of violence ceded no ground to The Wild Bunch, released around the same time. Still, the film's most sublime passage falls between bursts of gunplay: Rooster sitting on a hilltop at night recounting his life story, as John Wayne metamorphoses ineluctably into W.C. Fields. --Richard T. Jameson
Customer Reviews:
What a ride ... .......2007-06-11
John Wayne's belated Oscar came for 1969's True Grit," a rousing entertainment that didn't stand quite as tall as, say, "Red River" or "The Searchers." Paramount Home Entertainment has released the double-disc set as part of the studio's 100th-year Wayne promotion with Warner Home Video.
The Duke plays one-eyed bounty hunter Rooster Cogburn. Valley girl Kim Darby plays a teen bent on avenging her father's death. Darby, who gives a sensational performance, stood toe-to-toe with Wayne onscreen and off, the bonus features note. Critics of the time thought Darby was in for a major league career, but she went on to a modest but long-running tenure in the business.
The extras aren't deep, but the docu "Working With the Duke" does a decent job of positioning "True Grit" in Wayne's sunsetting career. Perhaps mellowing with age, right-winger Wayne went to bat for the hiring of blacklisted screenwriter Marguerite Roberts, who was "weaned on stories about gunfighters."
The images of Colorado (2.35:1) are suitably sweeping and majestic. An extra feature returns to some of the "True Grit" locations, such as the graphic triple hanging. I experienced none of the softness cited by some of the other reviewers.
An old but still robust oak!.......2007-06-02
"True grit" is a humanizing Western that obviously doesn't lack of the main ingredients, but provided of a superior vision. Booster Cogburn is a one-eye crotchety U.S. Marshall who still can shoot straight.
In this sense we must acknowledge an absolute and even worthy treatment in which concerns originality and profound honesty about the genre that definitively has achieved a true mythic feature.
And so, being Wayne the most complete icon of this genre was more than obvious to suppose he had to star the most variegated gamut of characters in his successful artistic trajectory.
On the other hand, this was the film in which Dennis hopper and Henry Hathaway smoked the cask of the peace after a long chain of misfortunate events between them.
How to fix image quality.......2007-06-01
I had the same problem with image quality as previously posted by another reviewer on May 27, 2007. Mine was blurred, NOT in 2.35:1 and the "Enhanced" setting did not work on my DVD player. Here is what I had to do to fix the image quality problem: go back to startup DVD menu before you select "Play" and change your "Display" to "4:3 Letterbox".
Big problem with the image qualtiy in this movie.......2007-05-27
We have a big mystery here. All the reviews I have read about this movie say the picture quality is great, but the focus is soft. Here is a note I sent to a reviewer on a prominent DVD website. I haven't received a reply yet. If anybody on Amazon knows what the problem is please write in and let us know. Here is my note mentioned above:
"I am puzzled about the lack of sharpness in the focus in this movie. All the long shots and medium shots are definitely soft. I have a top of the line 50" plasma monitor with a lot of DVDs and I worked as a film cameraman for 15 years so I know what a sharp image is supposed to look like. The movie plays in what looks like 1.85 with narrow letterboxing at the top and bottom as normal. The Internet Movie Database says this is a 1.85 film. In that 1.85 aspect ratio the image is soft as I said. However, in the supplemental documentary there are several scenes from the movie that appear to be in about 2.35 or close that look sharp just like they should. But True Grit wasn't a 2.35 scope process movie! What is going on here? I understand if a scope movie is shown in 1.85 the image has been enlarged and it would look soft, but it is a 1.85 movie and it looks soft which usually means the studio messed up the transfer. But your review says the picture is great. I am really puzzled. Can you explain what the problem might be?"
This review is on the special edition.......2007-05-27
Let me be the first to review this Special Edition presentation of True Grit. Since so much reviews have been written about the plot and all, I will go straight to the gest of this review. The special edition is a definite improvement over the previous released editions of True Grit. The colors, image and everything appears to be more clearer, vivid and cleaner. The sound also improved as well and overall, any true fan of this movie will upgrade to this edition. The extra features also proves to be quite nice and they are well worth the time and effort to view as well.
This movie may not be one of John Wayne's finest effort (I thought his work in the Searchers was superior) but it represent everything there is about John Wayne in one package. His Oscar is well deserved and the captured of his character, Rooster Cogburn, is near perfect. As a friend of mine's once said, "Wayne can only play Wayne", but he does it so superbly that it virtually off set most actors playing other characters. True Grit is a great movie and this Special Edition does pretty good justice to the film.
Average customer rating:
- Haunting and Brilliant.
- LONG AND DRAWN OUT
- I still say its the best
- Great movie...
- not a gangster film, but a love story
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Once Upon a Time in America (Two-Disc Special Edition)
Starring: Robert De Niro , James Woods , Elizabeth McGovern , Treat Williams , and Tuesday Weld
Director: Sergio Leone
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ASIN: B0000DI87S
Release Date: 2003-06-10 |
Amazon.com essential video
This movie has a checkered history, having been chopped from its original 227-minute director's cut to 139 minutes for its U.S. release. This longer edition benefits from having the complete story (the short version has huge gaps) about turn-of-the-century Jewish immigrants in America finding their way into lives of crime, as told in flashback by an aging Jewish gangster named Noodles (Robert De Niro). On the other hand, it's almost four hours long, and this sometimes-indulgent Sergio Leone film is no Godfather. Still, it is notable for the contrast between Leone's elegiac take on the gangster film and his occasional explosive action, as well as for the mix of the stoic, inexpressive De Niro and the hyperactive James Woods as his lifelong friend and rival. --Marshall Fine
Customer Reviews:
Haunting and Brilliant. .......2007-06-19
This is an unbelievably beautiful story which is multi-layered and textured to a great extent. Yes, it certainly is a gangster movie and it also is a love story; although, one about as politically incorrect as they come. Both aspects of the film are conceptually executed well. I can't say the same thing about many of its technical aspects, however. At 3:45, this movie is far too long and moves too slow. It could easily have been just as good if an hour had been cut out of it. Furthermore, Sergio Leone is no Martin Scorsese. There's an element of amateurism inherent to the production as the reunion of Elizabeth McGovern and DeNiro is rendered ridiculous as he was an old man despite her not aging a day after 35 years.
Once Upon a Time in America is a very unique film as unlike a Goodfellas or Casino it is rich in sentimentality and the effect is mesmerizing but also very depressing. Ennio Morricone's musical score adds to the film's melancholic feel. It's not the type of thing you can see more than a couple of times but there's no denying that it's excellent.
LONG AND DRAWN OUT.......2007-06-13
WITH AN ALLSTAR CAST YOU WOULD THINK IT WOULD BE SUPER. BUT IT'S NOTHING MORE THAN A SLEEPER. THIS MOVIE WAS TERRIBLE! I FELT TORTURED SITTING THROUGH THIS BOMB! DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME WITH THIS ONE.
I still say its the best .......2007-05-21
I'll see your "Godfather" your "Godfellas" your "Departed" and your "Scarface" and still beat you every time with "Once Upon a Time in America".
Now outright violence in these types of movies has its place and so does subtly of plot but I think it is only "Once Upon a Time in America" that manages to walk the line between both aspects. It also has something that many other movies, not just mobster movies forget, great charecter development. It has a great cast and a great story to go with it although it can throw people off with the quick pace with which it changes points of view.
If you can't get everything on the first try don't worry watch it a 2nd or 3rd time if you have to that is why god made good movies.
When you finally get it you will be amazed how attached and interested you get in the affairs of David 'Noodles' Aaronson and his friends.
Give it a shot if you like a good movie
Great movie..........2007-05-20
One of the best mob movies ever.. I wish they released this dvd with more features and deleted scenes which would have given us more about the story...Great film.
not a gangster film, but a love story .......2007-05-13
Robert De Niro and James Woods star in this Sergio Leone flick as two Jewish gangsters, "Noodles" and Max, who share a forbidden love for each other that the hyper-macho world they inhabit both creates and scorns. Unable to admit their love, they pursue a series of troubling, violent love affairs (especially Noodles - whose idea of intimacy is rape) with a number of women, whom unfailingly either conform to the stereotypes of the virgin or, more commonly, the whore (the women in this film, oddly enough, are either able to enjoy or forget the times that Noodles rapes them.) By the end of this nearly four hour exploration of unrequited love, Noodles has come to love Max so much that he's unable to take rightful revenge for all the heartbreak and hardship he's caused him. Kudos to Leone, well-known for his tough guy anti-hero films, for having the courage to explore such a taboo subject.
Average customer rating:
- Pretty good
- Riding in Cars with Boys
- A True Account of a Young Mother's Life
- Wonderfully Acted!!!
- Riding in cars "ON" boys
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Riding in Cars with Boys (Special Edition)
Starring: Drew Barrymore , Lorraine Bracco , Damien Garcia , Sara Gilbert , and Maggie Gyllenhaal
Director: Penny Marshall
Manufacturer: Sony Pictures
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- Boys on the Side
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ASIN: B00005JKJS
Release Date: 2002-03-19 |
Amazon.com
Riding in Cars with Boys achieves broad appeal as a tearjerker laced with hardscrabble humor. In the crowd-pleasing hands of director Penny Marshall, Beverly Donofrio's bestselling memoir loses much of its real-life gravity, but its rich humanity remains in abundance, especially since Drew Barrymore plays Donofrio with effortless charm. The movie spans 20 years, from Bev's pregnancy at 15 in 1963 (actually 17 in the book), through welfare parenthood with a heroin-addicted husband (Steve Zahn), and semi-adult resentment as her teenaged son (Adam Garcia) takes priority over her ultimate goal of finishing college and publishing her memoir. For all of Barrymore's winning tenacity, it's Zahn's goodhearted loser who gives the film its genuine soul while lending an edge to Marshall's cloying sentiment. The material begs for the subtler touch of James L. Brooks (who produced this and Marshall's more delicate hit Big), but that won't stop this movie from attracting a legion of admirers. --Jeff Shannon
Customer Reviews:
Pretty good.......2007-06-16
I didn't plan on watching this, but it turned out to be one of those slow evenings and quite frankly there was nothing else on. To my surprise I found myself drawn into the story. Mainly because our heroine, Bev, was certainly a flawed character and was unable to see her contribution to the direction her life took. Though I was a little confused in the begining to how old she was. Not until it was revealed that she was riding with her son and not a boyfriend did the clouds finally part-though it was pretty laughable given Drew Barrymore didn't even look twenty-five herself next to her "son". However, for the most part, this film was interesting but I'm unclear the point of this journey. When Bev gives the speech about how her son saved her, I'm not sure I believed her or believed that she believed it. When did this revealation occur to her? And when she whines to her father in the car, it's clear to me that even then she doesn't believe that she screwed up her son's life. But overall, it's a descent story-especially if there's nothing else on.
Riding in Cars with Boys.......2007-03-09
My wife and I find the storyline to be realistic. The characters portrayed people who were believable in spite of their dysfunctions.
This movie has been added to our collection of movies to be viewed often.
A True Account of a Young Mother's Life.......2006-08-30
This is the heart-warming, tear-jerking, yet still comical tale of a young girl named Beverly growing up during the 1950s; a time when sexual promiscuity was forbidden and, should an "accident" occur, the young couple wed right away.
And that is what happens when Beverly meets Ray. Forced to put aside her dreams of college and becoming a writer, Beverly and Ray wed and then along comes Jason, their son. Beverly finds herself still holding on to her dreams while trying to tame Ray into fatherhood and raise her baby boy. Needless to say, the marriage does last but your children are always your children; thus the story focuses on Beverly and Jason.
Anyone who has had a child at a young age, wed or unwed, can relate to this tale of lost dreams and life's struggles told from Jason's point of view. Essentially, it is the tale of how young mothers and their offspring grow-up together; how they depend on and learn from one another.
To me, the most touching part of this movie came with the confrontation between Beverly and grown-up Jason soon after Jason sees his father, Ray, after many years of absence from his life. I won't spoil it telling what occurs, but it is the most truthful yet touching part of the movie.
Definitely a chick flick. Guys won't get it under any circumstance. Ladies, save it for a night that you need to laugh through tears.
Wonderfully Acted!!!.......2006-04-21
I really enjoy this film because despite that is sad its also very funny.This is a movie about the outside world, about what its really like to be a mother at young age. I recommend it especially to young teenagers that think being a mother would be EASY. When in reality its not!!
Riding in cars "ON" boys.......2006-03-17
Nothing but a lame excuse to show the overrated Barrymore's face on the screen again.
Average customer rating:
- A Tale of Two Cities
- A marvelous example of David Selznick's way with literature, and why Ronald Colman was a star
- A Tale of Two Cities
- Movie of a literature classic
- From the Producer of "Gone With the Wind".
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A Tale of Two Cities (1935)
Starring: Ronald Colman , Elizabeth Allan , Edna May Oliver , Reginald Owen , and Basil Rathbone
Director: Jack Conway , Robert Z. Leonard , and Jacob Leventhal
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
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Similar Items:
- David Copperfield (1935)
- Marie Antoinette
- Treasure Island
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- A Tale of Two Cities (Masterpiece Theatre, 1989)
ASIN: B000GRUQL0
Release Date: 2006-10-10 |
Amazon.com
Ronald Colman isn't even on screen for the most famous lines of his career ("It's a far, far better thing I do..."), but such is the power of the moment and the performance that everybody remembers it anyway. A Tale of Two Cities was the follow-up for producer David O. Selznick and high-class studio MGM to their hit adaptation of another Charles Dickens novel, Great Expectations. While not scaling the heights of that impeccable production, Tale gives a tight, straightforward reading of Dickens' story of the French Revolution. Colman plays the drunken romantic Sydney Carton, who pines for the lovely Lucie Manette (Elizabeth Allan) even though she marries former French aristocrat Charles Darnay (Donald Woods). Meanwhile, back in Paris, the Revolution erupts, and Darnay is fated for the guillotine... perhaps. Along with Colman's expert study in melancholy, the film is crammed with fragrant supporting players, such as Edna May Oliver, Reginald Owen, and the uniquely unsettling Blanche Yurka as the endlessly-knitting Madame Defarge. In a handful of scenes, Basil Rathbone makes the Marquis de Evremonde the quintessence of clueless privilege ("With what I get from these peasants, I can hardly afford to pay my perfume bill"). Journeyman director Jack Conway doesn't have the lovely touch that George Cukor brought to Copperfield, but Selznick hired him because "the picture is melodrama, it must have pace and it must 'pack a wallop.'" It still does. Footnote to film history: Selznick's assistant, Val Lewton, supervised the Revolutionary montage, and hired director Jacques Tourneur for the job; later they would team up on Lewton's great run of B-horror pictures, beginning with Cat People. --Robert Horton
Description
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...." Charles Dickens' tale of love and tumult during the French Revolution comes to the screen in a sumptuous film version by the producer famed for nurturing sprawling literary works: David O. Selznick (David Copperfield, Anna Karenina, Gone with the Wind). Ronald Colman (The Prisoner of Zenda) stars as Sydney Carton ? sardonic, dissolute, a wastrel...and destined to redeem himself in an act of courageous sacrifice. "It's a far, far better thing I do than I've ever done," Carton muses at that defining moment. This is far, far better filmmaking, too: a Golden Era marvel of uncanny performances top to bottom, eye-filling crowd scenes (the storming of the Bastille, thronged courtrooms, an eerie festival of public execution) and lasting emotional power. Revolution is in the air!
DVD Features:
Other:Oscar?-Nominated Short Audioscopicks 2 Classic Cartoons: Hey, Hey Fever and Honeyland Audio-Only Bonus: Radio Show Adaptation Starring Colman
Theatrical Trailer
Customer Reviews:
A Tale of Two Cities.......2007-06-20
Conway's rich, peerless adaptation of Charles Dickens's famous novel ("It was the best of times, it was the worst of times") succeeds on the merits of its lavish production design and exquisite, tone-perfect acting from the entire cast--overseen, of course, by MGM honcho David O. Selznick. Colman delivers his crowning screen performance as the cynical, boozing Carton, and when he utters the famously cathartic line "It is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done," only the most hardened could fail to be moved. Great support from Blanche Yurka, Basil Rathbone, and Edna May Oliver make this a sumptuous gem worth visiting again and again.
A marvelous example of David Selznick's way with literature, and why Ronald Colman was a star.......2007-05-04
A Tale of Two Cities is an outstanding example of a film which in memory seemed great and a classic, but when seen again is just a classic. That's not faint praise, either. Jack Conway may be listed as director, but make no mistake...this is David O. Selznick's film. It carries his strengths with great emotional impact, but it carries Selznick's flaws just as emphatically. Thanks to Charles Dickens, we have a hugely empathetic tale of noble sacrifice and redemption, played out against the extremes of injustice represented by the French Revolution. Thanks to Selznick, that story has been brought to life with cinematic fervor, strong actors, melodramatic situations, vast and detailed settings, and a screenplay which may run for over two hours but which never loses our interest. But Selznick was a man who was convinced that if one blow of the cinematic hammer could drive a nail home, then two or three more would naturally do the job better. And so at regular intervals we have characters, major and minor, over-acting. We are left in absolutely no doubt of the nobility of the noble of the heart; how evil the evil are; how dedicated and chirpy the servants are; or when we should tear up, or smile at amusing antics, or be repulsed by the evil madness of the revolutionaries. Selznick even employs message cards to remind us where we are and what we should be feeling, a technique that went out of fashion with the death of the silent movies.
Still, A Tale of Two Cities is undoubtedly a classic of movie making. Thanks to Dickens and to Ronald Colman as Sydney Carlton, thanks to some vivid casting, thanks to a great mise en scene, as they say, and thanks to Selznick's showmanship and craft, one would have to be a cynic among cynics not to be carried away by Carlton's sadness and his natural nobility. Just as importantly, you'd have to be dead in the heart and head not to be moved by his sacrifice, at how Carlton redeems himself for a friend and the woman they both love. "This I know," he tells Lucie Manette one afternoon. "I would embrace any sacrifice for you and for those dear to you. Will you hold me in your mind as being ardent and sincere in this one thing? Think now and then that there is a man who would give his life to keep a life you love beside you." The courage he gives a young seamstress as they prepare to meet their deaths, the drum roll for the blade to descend, his walk up the stairs to the guillotine, those last words as the camera moves up from the crowds, up past the blade and up to the sunlit clouds...well, I was choking back tears. The ending is melodramatic, flawed for me by a syrupy score and by the over-acting of the young woman playing the seamstress. But, I'll tell you, it works.
It's Sydney Carlton who drives the movie. Without a first-rate actor with whom we can empathize and admire, the part would either be awash in self-pity or simply become tiresome. Ronald Colman may seem a bit old fashioned now. We've come to expect our heros to be much more direct, younger and less idealistically romantic. Colman exuded breeding and intelligence even when he was sword-fighting. He made no enemies of men and he gave women someone to dream about. His portrayal of the dissolute, drunken, self-loathing Carlton never falls into simple sloshing about or petulance. He can see himself with a clear eye and a sense of ironic understanding. He makes Carlton not only a man who has wasted his talents and his life, but a man who we are willing to believe is able to find redemption. That redemption is the unexpected love for Lucie Manette that even extends to deliberately sacrificing of himself to save the man Lucie Manette loves. His love for her is that great.
Selznick peopled his film with vivid caricatures. Some work, some don't. The greasy, revolutionary enthusiasts of the guillotine all begin to look and act alike. The haughty, mannered French aristos are so self-centered we wind up kind of admiring them, and the last scenes showing some of them being noble in the face of the blade is a little phony. Still, Basil Rathbone as the Marquis St. Evremonde wearing a white, powdered wig is a sight to enjoy. His concern for his horses, after they've just run down a peasant boy, is touching. "It's extraordinary to me that you people cannot take care of yourselves and your children," he says, with impeccable Rathbonian diction. "One or the other of you is forever in the way. How do you know what injury you might do to my horses?" And Blanche Yurka as Madame Defarge should make us all extremely wary of women who knit.
A Tale of Two Cities is nothing less than a marvelous, coarsened Selznick "literary" production. It remains an immensely watchable film. If it fails at being "great," it certainly ranks after seventy years as a classic. The DVD transfer looks very good. The extras include a couple of cartoons and a radio adaption of the story.
A Tale of Two Cities.......2007-03-09
Finding this movie on DVD was first a surprise and then a genuine pleasure. This is a time honored story brought to life on the screen with an excellent performance by Ronald Colman and a superb supporting cast. A Tale of Two Cities is a literary classic on its own merit but the cinematic version is just a pleasure and worth every penny for those that treasure movies from the Golden Age of Hollywood. For devoted movie collectors this is a "must-have".
Movie of a literature classic.......2007-03-09
Good job of restoring and digitally remastering this movie. Fans of Charles Dickens and Ronald Colman will enjoy it.
From the Producer of "Gone With the Wind"........2006-11-03
The story of a family and a friendship in the French Revolution of 1789.
Based on the history novel of the great writer, Charles Dickens, who wrote "Oliver Twist" and "A Christmas Carol". Good script, and some likeable characters. A lively drama. A couple large-scale scenes.
The French Revolution was brought by: prior kings spending the country's money on wars, failed crops, starving peasants, hopelessness of renters farming for the wealthy, the seeming unconcern of some of the rich, and Courts favoring the rich over justice. Some 18,000 to 40,000 persons were executed by guillotine during the French Revolution. It meant death to have been a member of the "uncaring" rich, to be an aristocrat.
King Louis XVI married at 15-years-old, his wife of 14-years-old, Marie Antoinette. Marie Antoinette had been sent from Austria, all alone, at 14-years-old, leaving family and friends, to marry a young man she had never met. It is no wonder she turned to pleasures. They became king and queen at 20 and 19-years old. The king, himself, said "We are too young to rule".
Some revolutions start with good intent, such as democracy with land reform; giving hoarded land back to the peasants to farm and own. Then in the confusion, evil men struck, seized power, and formed a dictatorship. So in Russia, in World War I, 1917, Lenin and Stalin did not start the Russian Revolution. Rather, men who sought democracy, began the Russian Revolution, and were murdered by Stalin and Lenin, who then usurped power, lied, lied, lied, and oppressed the people. The French Revolution started with some good intent, but, out-of-control, lack-of-values, led to mob rule, and murder of innocent people. The French Revolution gave rise to Napoleon Bonaparte ten years later. Napoleon would lead over a million Frenchmen to their deaths in war. Napoleon saw 600,000 men die in his retreat from Moscow, during the harsh winter war.
This film also comes in a 5 movie set, of black & white, 1930's films, with: "Pride & Prejudice" (excellent), "David Copperfield" (very good), "Treasure Island" (good), and "Marie Antoinette" (some interest with sadness) within "Motion Picture Masterpieces Collection".
The "Scarlet Pimpernel"-1935 is an excellent film of this same subject, but much happier; starring Leslie Howard, who played Ashley Wilkes in "Gone With the Wind", and was a real-life spy in World War II; also starring the beautiful actress, Merle Oberon. A clever adventure.
Average customer rating:
- Adult Popcorn
- The very latest models for 1953
- Great 50s Classic
- ONE OF RAY'S FINEST CLASSIC MONSTER ON THE LOOSE!
- Nice Transfer Of An Early 'Creature Feature'
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The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms
Starring: Paul Hubschmid , Paula Raymond , Cecil Kellaway , Kenneth Tobey , and Donald Woods
Director: Eugène Lourié
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
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ASIN: B0000B1OGE
Release Date: 2003-10-21 |
Amazon.com
A matinee programmer with lofty ambitions, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms is best appreciated as a vintage showcase for the stop-motion animation of special-effects legend Ray Harryhausen. The hoary plot follows the cold-war formula that dominated science fiction movies of the 1950s: After an atomic bomb test in the northern polar ice cap, a gigantic dinosaur--the fictional "Rhedosaurus"--is awakened from eons of dormancy, plots an undersea course for the Eastern seaboard, and proceeds to wreak havoc on New York City, culminating in a showdown with military marksmen at the Coney Island amusement park. Stock footage and tissue-thin drama make this a by-the-numbers monster flick, further hampered by Eugene Lourie's lackluster direction and a wooden B-movie cast. And yet, Harryhausen's first independent effort retains its atomic-age fascination: Beast marked yet another technical milestone for Harryhausen's impeccable techniques, and its perpetual status as a sci-fi classic is duly acknowledged in the DVD bonus features, including a retrospective featurette and a latter-day reunion of Harryhausen and longtime friend Ray Bradbury, whose short story "The Fog Horn" served as this film's inspiration. --Jeff Shannon
Description
Near the Arctic Circle, an atomic bomb is detonated. This fearsome experiment disturbs the sleep of a giant rhedosaurus encased in ice for more than 100-million years and sends it southward on a destructive, deadly rampage. The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms is a film of firsts. It spawned a new era of atomic-age creature features. It was the first screen adaptation of a work by fantasy fiction titan Ray Bradbury. And it marked the first time Ray Harryhausen had control over special effects. He came up with a fantastic creature (constructed at full scale, all 50 tons of it) that swims down from the north to run amok through New York City before being conquered in a spectacular Coney Island roller coaster finale. Take a classic ride. Unleash The Beast. Year: 1953
DVD Features:
Documentaries:Two commemorative 50th anniversary documentaries - The Rhedosaurus and the Roller Coaster: Making the Beast; Harryhausen & Bradbury: An Unfathomable Friendship
Production Notes
Theatrical Trailer:Giant monsters trailer gallery featurnig this film, The Black Scorpion, Clash of the Titans and The Valley of Gwangi
Customer Reviews:
Adult Popcorn.......2007-07-06
This movie is what I call "Adult Popcorn." That doesn't mean you have to be one, but it helps.
When you are asked what movie you want to rent or buy, try this one.
Corny yes. Not great special affects. This is Jurasic Park 50 years before that movie was released. Old yes and fun to. Don't forget the popcorn.
The very latest models for 1953.......2007-06-28
It's hard to realize why this early stop-motion animation "beast on the loose" film is so warmly remembered until you actually see it, since it doesn't seem from its description like it should be that special. Its plot of a monster released by atomic radiation attacking a city has been repeated again and again, and owes much to both the 1933 KING KONG and the 1925 THE LOST WORLD (as Ray Bradbury and Ray Harryhausen, who respectively wrote its original story and created its effects, cheerfully admit in the accompaying feature). But in many ways this set the standard for the films of this sort that dominated the sci-fi films of the 50s, and the beast itself is really a marvel. Whereas King Kong was childlike, given to charming bits of curiosity and childish tantrums of rage, and the later (much inferior) Godzilla simply incarnated pure chaos, the Beast here has become much beloved over the decades because it is so ornery. It attacks fishing trawlers, lighthouses, diving bells and the docks of Manhattan for no good reason other than that it's particularly grumpy and ill-tempered, which makes it all the more adorable. (It even looks like a cross between a pit bull and a gila monster.)
As with most 1950s monster films, the stuff that comes in-between the Beast's rampages is pretty forgettable, although the Swiss Paul Hubschmid (here called Paul Christian) is a pretty unusual choice as the hero, and Paula Raymond, as the fretful assistant to a paleontology professor, is for some reason given a hilarious array of the very latest in New Look fashions in every scene she's in. Probably the film's producers figured if they couldn't give us the animated Harryhausen model of the rhedosaurus they'd have to give us something, so there she is sporting others sorts of the very latest models.
Great 50s Classic.......2007-03-10
I remember watching this as a kid on MONA LISA Monster Theatre.Still a great 50s SCI-FI Flick. Harry Harryhausen is the best at his creature animations. This movie ia a must for all SCI-FI fans.
ONE OF RAY'S FINEST CLASSIC MONSTER ON THE LOOSE!.......2007-03-08
This is the one that set off a surge of giant monsters trampling through our cities in the 50's. I know The Lost World and King Kong were first,but there was a lull for quite some time before this Harryhausen classic set the fifties on fire! The DVD has a very nice transfer and some extra material. If you like old monster movies this one is well worth owning. It is a Stop Motion Masterpiece!
Nice Transfer Of An Early 'Creature Feature'.......2007-02-14
It would be a mistake to write off "The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms" as being too cliché; for to do so would be to forget that most of the clichés that are in the movie originated with this movie. What you have with this movie is undoubtedly one of many movies which are put into the creature feature category. It also uses the Godzilla like premise of an ancient monster being reawakened due to nuclear testing. Throw in the hero who isn't believed by his colleagues, and the woman scientist who is the only one who listens to him, and you have the elements of more 50's science fiction movies than I care to count.
The storyline is simple, atomic testing releases a Rhedosaurus from the arctic ice. When two observers are measuring the results of the test, one is killed while the other, Professor Tom Nesbitt, is injured but manages to survive. His story is attributed to stress and he is shipped back to New York for treatment. As he recovers, stories begin to appear about sea monsters which convince him that what he remembers is true. He gets the aid from Professor Thurgood Elson and his assistant Lee Hunter. Together they finally convince the armed forces, but not until it is too late and the beast has made it too New York City. Panic ensues as the beast destroys sections of the city until the final climactic scene at the Coney Island Rollercoaster.
This was a very low budget movie, costing around $210,000 to make. Not surprisingly it doesn't have any big stars, although you may recognize some character actors from other roles. Paul Hubschmid plays Professor Nesbitt, and Paula Raymond plays Lee Hunter. Two names which do stand out are those of Ray Harryhausen who was responsible for the animation, and Ray Bradbury who wrote the short story "The Fog Horn", on which this film is somewhat based. The film was directed by Eugène Lourié.
Make no mistake, this is not a great film, but it is fun and it has an undeniable place in the history of science fiction and the movies. It was nominated in 2004 for the Retro Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form for pieces which debuted in the year 1953. The film is just 79 minutes long, and yet it probably could have been shortened a bit as it does drag at times. The pace does pick up at the end as they fight the beast in the streets of New York.
The transfer of the movie for the most part looks very good. The special features are decent, with a couple of short documentaries. The first is "The Rhedosaurus and the Roller Coaster: Making the Beast" which is just a short feature about the movie. The second is "Harryhausen & Bradbury" which features the two men talking about their long friendship and their love of dinosaurs. There are also four trailers, including one for his movie, and then ones for "The Black Scorpion", The Valley of Gwangi", and "Clash of the Titans".
Average customer rating:
- What a ride ...
- An old but still robust oak!
- How to fix image quality
- Big problem with the image qualtiy in this movie
- This review is on the special edition
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True Grit
Starring: John Wayne , Glen Campbell , Kim Darby , Jeremy Slate , and Robert Duvall
Director: Henry Hathaway
Manufacturer: Paramount
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- El Dorado
ASIN: 6305754934
Release Date: 2000-03-21 |
Amazon.com essential video
A wonderful/rueful running gag in El Dorado involves the Edgar Allan Poe line "Ride, boldly ride" being mangled by toupee-wearer Wayne into "Ride, baldy, ride." Two years later, in True Grit, Wayne put the joke in italics by donning an eyepatch and several inches of girth to play cantankerous territorial marshal Rooster Cogburn. Critics belatedly noticed that he could be a marvelously entertaining actor, and Hollywood finally gave him the Oscar they'd failed to nominate him for in Red River, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, The Quiet Man, The Searchers, et al. But make no mistake: True Grit is a splendid movie, with lovingly textured storytelling and sturdy characters, Henry Hathaway's finest high-country action set-pieces, intoxicatingly ornate frontier language, and a couple of formidable bad guys (Jeff Corey's Tom Cheney and Robert Duvall's "Lucky" Ned Pepper). It's a compliment to say that, from a technical standpoint, the movie could have been made any time in Hathaway's 40-year career, yet its feeling for the reality of violence ceded no ground to The Wild Bunch, released around the same time. Still, the film's most sublime passage falls between bursts of gunplay: Rooster sitting on a hilltop at night recounting his life story, as John Wayne metamorphoses ineluctably into W.C. Fields. --Richard T. Jameson
Customer Reviews:
What a ride ... .......2007-06-11
John Wayne's belated Oscar came for 1969's True Grit," a rousing entertainment that didn't stand quite as tall as, say, "Red River" or "The Searchers." Paramount Home Entertainment has released the double-disc set as part of the studio's 100th-year Wayne promotion with Warner Home Video.
The Duke plays one-eyed bounty hunter Rooster Cogburn. Valley girl Kim Darby plays a teen bent on avenging her father's death. Darby, who gives a sensational performance, stood toe-to-toe with Wayne onscreen and off, the bonus features note. Critics of the time thought Darby was in for a major league career, but she went on to a modest but long-running tenure in the business.
The extras aren't deep, but the docu "Working With the Duke" does a decent job of positioning "True Grit" in Wayne's sunsetting career. Perhaps mellowing with age, right-winger Wayne went to bat for the hiring of blacklisted screenwriter Marguerite Roberts, who was "weaned on stories about gunfighters."
The images of Colorado (2.35:1) are suitably sweeping and majestic. An extra feature returns to some of the "True Grit" locations, such as the graphic triple hanging. I experienced none of the softness cited by some of the other reviewers.
An old but still robust oak!.......2007-06-02
"True grit" is a humanizing Western that obviously doesn't lack of the main ingredients, but provided of a superior vision. Booster Cogburn is a one-eye crotchety U.S. Marshall who still can shoot straight.
In this sense we must acknowledge an absolute and even worthy treatment in which concerns originality and profound honesty about the genre that definitively has achieved a true mythic feature.
And so, being Wayne the most complete icon of this genre was more than obvious to suppose he had to star the most variegated gamut of characters in his successful artistic trajectory.
On the other hand, this was the film in which Dennis hopper and Henry Hathaway smoked the cask of the peace after a long chain of misfortunate events between them.
How to fix image quality.......2007-06-01
I had the same problem with image quality as previously posted by another reviewer on May 27, 2007. Mine was blurred, NOT in 2.35:1 and the "Enhanced" setting did not work on my DVD player. Here is what I had to do to fix the image quality problem: go back to startup DVD menu before you select "Play" and change your "Display" to "4:3 Letterbox".
Big problem with the image qualtiy in this movie.......2007-05-27
We have a big mystery here. All the reviews I have read about this movie say the picture quality is great, but the focus is soft. Here is a note I sent to a reviewer on a prominent DVD website. I haven't received a reply yet. If anybody on Amazon knows what the problem is please write in and let us know. Here is my note mentioned above:
"I am puzzled about the lack of sharpness in the focus in this movie. All the long shots and medium shots are definitely soft. I have a top of the line 50" plasma monitor with a lot of DVDs and I worked as a film cameraman for 15 years so I know what a sharp image is supposed to look like. The movie plays in what looks like 1.85 with narrow letterboxing at the top and bottom as normal. The Internet Movie Database says this is a 1.85 film. In that 1.85 aspect ratio the image is soft as I said. However, in the supplemental documentary there are several scenes from the movie that appear to be in about 2.35 or close that look sharp just like they should. But True Grit wasn't a 2.35 scope process movie! What is going on here? I understand if a scope movie is shown in 1.85 the image has been enlarged and it would look soft, but it is a 1.85 movie and it looks soft which usually means the studio messed up the transfer. But your review says the picture is great. I am really puzzled. Can you explain what the problem might be?"
This review is on the special edition.......2007-05-27
Let me be the first to review this Special Edition presentation of True Grit. Since so much reviews have been written about the plot and all, I will go straight to the gest of this review. The special edition is a definite improvement over the previous released editions of True Grit. The colors, image and everything appears to be more clearer, vivid and cleaner. The sound also improved as well and overall, any true fan of this movie will upgrade to this edition. The extra features also proves to be quite nice and they are well worth the time and effort to view as well.
This movie may not be one of John Wayne's finest effort (I thought his work in the Searchers was superior) but it represent everything there is about John Wayne in one package. His Oscar is well deserved and the captured of his character, Rooster Cogburn, is near perfect. As a friend of mine's once said, "Wayne can only play Wayne", but he does it so superbly that it virtually off set most actors playing other characters. True Grit is a great movie and this Special Edition does pretty good justice to the film.
Average customer rating:
- In Short...wowtf!
- Don't Touch That Dial
- Here's the Deal...
- still cronenberg's most terrifying movie
- From The Mind Of David Cronenberg
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Videodrome
Starring: James Woods , Sonja Smits , Deborah Harry , Peter Dvorsky , and Leslie Carlson
Director: David Cronenberg
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ASIN: 0783228457
Release Date: 1998-09-08 |
Amazon.com essential video
Love it or loathe it, David Cronenberg's 1983 horror film Videodrome is a movie to be reckoned with. Inviting extremes of response from disdain (critic Roger Ebert called it "one of the least entertaining films ever made") to academic euphoria, it's the kind of film that is simultaneously sickening and seemingly devoid of humanity, but also blessed with provocative ideas and a compelling subtext of social commentary. Giving yet another powerful and disturbing performance, James Woods stars as the operator of a low-budget cable-TV station who accidentally intercepts a mysterious cable transmission that features the apparent torture and death of women in its programming. He traces the show to its source and discovers a mysterious plot to broadcast a subliminally influential signal into the homes of millions, masterminded by a quasi-religious character named Brian O'Blivion and his overly reverent daughter. Meanwhile Woods is falling under the spell, becoming a victim of video, and losing his grip--both physically and psychologically--on the distinction between reality and television. A potent treatise on the effects of total immersion into our mass-media culture, Videodrome is also (to the delight of Cronenberg's loyal fans) a showcase for obsessions manifested in the tangible world of the flesh. It's a hallucinogenic world in which a television set seems to breathe with a life of its own, and where the body itself can become a VCR repository for disturbing imagery. Featuring bizarre makeup effects by Rick Baker and a daring performance by Deborah Harry (of Blondie fame) as Wood's sadomasochistic girlfriend, Videodrome is pure Cronenberg--unsettling, intelligent, and decidedly not for every taste. --Jeff Shannon
Customer Reviews:
In Short...wowtf!.......2007-04-02
i just don't know what to say about this movie...
It's good, don't get me wrong, just that it's one of those movies that messes with your head.
watch this if you need to feel normal...
Don't Touch That Dial.......2007-02-16
"Videodrome" is 24 years old, but the points it makes are just as relevant as ever. Max Renn (masterfully underplayed by a top-of-his-game James Woods) runs a television station that specializes in airing cutting-edge shows (most of which involve pornography and violence). While pirating the airwaves for new, unharvested material, he stumbles across a previously unheard of viewing experience: Videodrome. At first, the show seems like nothing more than a serialized snuff film, but Max soon learns there is more there than meets the eye. Literally.
Like most of Cronenberg's films, "Videodrome" is a viscerally dizzying experience, and one that is bound to leave you scratching your head. For its time, the special effects are well done: televisions pulse like living blocks of veined flesh, guns graft themselves to hands with bone-wires, reality warps and bends until it is completely and utterly unrecognizable. Cronenberg is famous for adopting a sort of gutteral, sinewy take on life, and most of his movies are social commentaries that wield their symbols like gore-covered swords.
"Videodrome" is, most obviously, an unabashed critique of the culture of mass media (and, yes, the movie is aware of the hyper-irony of using a film to decry television). In some ways, this is what makes the flick a wonderful thing to watch -- the underlying message itself isn't spelled out for the viewer. Cronenberg takes pains to blend his motives within his films.
However, the cues he gives the viewer -- the sickening viscera, the fever-dreamish worlds, the overtly metaphorical names (Max, Brian O'Blivion, Nicki Brand, Barry Convex, Moses and Raphael to name a few) -- can sometimes be rather heavy-handed. Cronenberg might be playing around with the audience, but that's not all he's doing, and for viewers with less patience (for those who don't enjoy philosophical sucker-punches, that is) the film may prove more nauseating than entertaining, let alone something to spark thoughtful debate.
Cronenberg snaps a lot of bones and rends a lot of skin in this film, telling the tale of a man trying to come to terms with the duplicity and manipulativeness of his own art (and I use the word "art" loosely). Max once used the tool of television to mold societies, and now that tool has developed a life of its own, has turned on its maker, has become its own legitimacy. Viewing life through the lens of the T.V. screen, "Videodrome" seems to say, means that it is ever harder to understand just what is real and what is not and whether there's a legitimate difference between the two.
Like Max himself, the viewer is enticed further down the corridors of madness with the old-fashioned carrot-on-a-stick trick. The carrot, in this case, is the promise of meaning and cognizance. Although the movie offers some kind of release at the end, it's not necessarily filling. It poses as many questions as answers. But, again, that's Cronenberg for you. For him, it is the ride that counts, the scenery that spins by on the way, and not the sputtering cough of the engine as it is shut off just before the credits roll.
Didacticism, especially when it is dressed with this kind of throbbing, unsettling flesh, can be distasteful for some, and it goes without saying that, for most, Cronenberg is an acquired taste. But beyond the validity of any point he is trying to make with "Videodrome," it must be said that the way he makes that point is certainly compelling. Films like this don't achieve cult status for nothing. Some people may find "Videodrome" a repellent, disorienting experience.
Others will very likely be sucked right in.
Here's the Deal..........2007-02-12
I own Scanners, Dead Zone, Videodrome, and The Fly. Overall, I like these movies, but they all have one thing in common for sure, and that is they all start out good and have a good idea, but by the end of the movie, you are like, "What was that?" or "Why didn't they go this way with the film?" For example, "Scanners", the guy had the ability to do what he could do, but didn't use it convincingly or very well. I felt Ironside in that movie should have been the good guy, not the bad guy, which he played very well I might add. The last scene where him and his brother have a scan off, his transformation was very intense. It could have been used as his comeback on a bad guy, the ultimate Michael Ironside Scan. And with "Videodrome", how cutting edge and creepy it was until he started having the hallucinations(?), then it got way too out of control and over the top, which I've come to expect from a Cronenberg film. But it would have been even better had they kept the over-the-top sci-fi stuff out and made it about the cable company broadcasting such trashy stuff and maybe finding out it was real death they were watching. That could have been the mystery. Finding out where this was going on. They should have stuck with the whole "snuff" t.v./ S&M stuff.
I watched Videodrome last night and was really really into it, until he lost his gun in his stomach, the gun grew into his hand sometimes, and sometimes it wasn't. If you buy this, don't get Criterion version, you might be disappointed. But this release for like 8 or 10 bucks is well worth it, especially for Cronenberg fans. I do believe I'm done buying Cronenberg for now though. I might get "Naked Lunch" or "Dead Ringers". David Lynch movies will be my next project.
My favorite Cronenberg, in order is...Haven't seen any others....
1. The Dead Zone
2. Videodrome
3. Scanners
4. The Fly
still cronenberg's most terrifying movie.......2007-02-03
Videodrome is a sort of look at virtual reality but not in the way you would expect.. It is more of a look at perception and the drug like manifestations of technology on the mind.. One of Cronenbergs best and most startling movies - 'videodrome' will have you very wary of computers, television, and technology long after you thought you shook away the Kafka like anxiety of modern times.. Who knows maybe we are the victims of a similar plot (we really wouldn't know it if we were would we?).. All of Cronenberg's movies confront some aspect of hallucination and perception - making them almost abstract in their significance.
From The Mind Of David Cronenberg.......2006-10-10
Most people I know either like Cronenberg's film's, or vehemently detest his work. I fall in between. Some of his work I enjoy, others I really don't wish to watch again. This film, "Videodrome," is one I initially really liked when I first viewed it. Then, years later I really didn't care for it that much. Viewing it again a few years later I liked it. Maybe it's because what Cronenberg is showing the viewers in this film is a bit of a reflection of our times. When I see many of the films, and especially reality shows that are on the air, it reminds me of this film.
I don't watch Television [very little of it anyway], and had my cable-channel removed 5 years ago when I found that I missed reading. Most of my time is spent in reading: I am a voracious reader. However, when visiting friends or relatives, I see that they are really into these reality shows, and I have always thought it was a little creepy. Just like the main protagonist in the film "Videodrome." When fiction becomes tame and reality becomes a necessary [maybe the voyeurism] then there is a problem [or maybe not]. I don't have the answers.
In Cronenberg's film, we see that James Woods is fixated on obtaining copies of tapes from a pirated cable station. His secret obsession for sex and violence; with torture and murder thrown in, fascinates him, and in his desire to locate the station and tapes he finds himself caught in a web of his own desires. Maybe Cronenberg is saying something here about society itself. I have the Criterion collection DVD, and although have not heard the commentary, I intend to. However, I always like to form my own opinions of what I watch, not the commentators. [With the exception of Akira Kurosawa's film's] I recommend the film, although it is not for all tastes.
Average customer rating:
- THIS is the version you want, even if it's used!!
- Beautiful & Spiritual 80s Dark Fantasy!
- Scared of going into the woods? You should be...
- Worth the vigilance - in the darkling farrest
- Betty had to be hard up for money!
|
The Watcher in the Woods
Starring: Bette Davis , Lynn-Holly Johnson , Kyle Richards (II) , Carroll Baker , and David McCallum
Director: Vincent McEveety , and John Hough
Manufacturer: Walt Disney Video
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ASIN: B0001I55UQ
Release Date: 2004-08-03 |
Amazon.com
Ghost story meets paranormal mystery in Disney's PG family spookfest, a rare kid-friendly scary movie that still manages to frighten. American girls Lynn-Holly Johnson (Ice Castles) and little sister Kyle Richards move into a secluded British manor cradled in a mist-shrouded forest, home to a ghostly guardian angel and a decades-old mystery that still haunts the place. Director John Hough (whose Legend of Hell House is a classic of supernatural suspense) delivers all the right shiver-inducing ingredients: flashes of light, whispers in the wind, eerie visions of a blindfolded little girl lost (the long-lost daughter of withered widow Bette Davis) reaching out from mirrors, as if trapped behind them. Though tame by today's bloody standards and a flop on its original release in 1981, this handsome little gothic ghost story has become something of a cult film for its suggestive direction, impressionistic imagery, and spooky sense of the unknown. Ages 9 and up, although more sophisticated younger kids should enjoy this. --Sean Axmaker
Description
Legendary actress and two-time Oscar(R)-winner Bette Davis (DANGEROUS, 1935; JEZEBEL, 1938) stars in this frightening and atmospheric thriller. When an American teenager joins her family in an English country house, she experiences strange and supernatural occurrences. Mrs. Alywood (Davis), the kindly caretaker, knows the dark secret behind the happenings ... and prepares for the return of a young girl who died mysteriously some 30 years earlier! THE WATCHER IN THE WOODS weaves a haunting, riveting tale that stays with you long after the explosive ending!
Customer Reviews:
THIS is the version you want, even if it's used!!.......2007-04-04
The other versions don't include all the bonuses this one has. Even if you're not interested in the director's commentary and such, you will be interested in the strange and creepy alternate endings that Disney first had attached to this film, endings you cannot see anywhere else unless you buy this discontinued version.
Well worth it. :)
Beautiful & Spiritual 80s Dark Fantasy!.......2007-04-04
As a major lover of all things eighties, I was shocked when I recently heard of this movie in comparison with "Escape To Witch Mountain," one movie which I'd seen as a child and was wanting to see again now, as an adult. But I'd never even HEARD of "The Watcher In The Woods," so after seeing the many glowing reviews, I was determined to download it and see it as soon as humanly possible.
I just finished watching this excellently crafted movie from 1980 and must say, it REALLY stands the test of time. Though it actually feels set in the mid-Seventies (probably was filmed around 1978, which fits), it really holds up incredibly well close to thirty years later. It started off feeling quite a bit like a horror film, then started moving into territory closer to that of the recent gem "Pan's Labyrinth," introducing a decidedly magical element that really got under my skin, and stayed there for the remainder of the movie.
I totally agree with another person's review stating that Disney really doesn't make films like this anymore. It's a shame, too, because they SHOULD. The way the world is these days, a little magic and spiritual feel injected into their movies could really help things and bring back some of the long-lost feeling of beauty and wonder in our lives. Though I never managed to see this film as a child, I can't help but imagine what a major influence this would've been on me if I HAD seen it back then. It's really a great movie, and it's only a shame that Disney has wandered so far away from their original path of actively and passionately exploring our imaginations.
Fortunately we still have plenty of creative geniuses out there like Guillermo del Toro, Terry Gilliam, Darren Aronofsky and others who determinedly follow their hearts and continue to create stunningly passionate visions that simply and powerfully resonate within our souls. "The Watcher In The Woods" is one such vision, and although I wouldn't go so far as to call it a MASTERPIECE, it's definitely a great piece of movie-making history, and one which I wouldn't hesitate to recommend to any fans of dark fantasy or magical fiction. [ Peace - Love - Unity - Respect ]
Scared of going into the woods? You should be..........2007-03-21
Yes, this is an "eerie" movie. Yes, some scenes will give you the creeps. But you can enjoy it without being scared. Look at it this way;
!SPOILER WARNING! The "Ghost" is good( it saves people's lives), nobody dies, there are no "badguys," and nothing bad happened to Karen(Katherine Levy.) I found it entertaining, with just the right amount of scaryness. I hope you do to!
I recommend Disney's "Child of Glass" to anyone who liked this movie.
Worth the vigilance - in the darkling farrest.......2007-01-31
Watch for those Eyes - Bette's - she's looking - are you? between the sheets? The Watcher is not always in the wood - I've seen this movie at least 3 times throughout my life and still have not quite figured out (let alone remembered) how it is 'resolved' at the end - and it doesn't matter - it's the Way, The Journey there, the tale told that grips and touches the watcher (on the couch) - having first seen this film in the movie theater when it came out (I was about 12), a distinct sense of nostalgia is there for me when watching it - (and back then, was in the movies with my 2 younger sisters - my Mother was shocked that Disney would make such a scary film... *G* my poor sisters... apparently had nightmares for days/wks. afterwards... *G*) I know I was damn frightened in the big, 'ole movie theatre in Toronto...
Enjoy the slowness, the subtly growing puzzlement - a riddle whose answer only the Watcher knows (I keep forgetting it... )
