Children Of Heaven [HD]

Fascinating story of two children and one pair of shoes.
This movie is a perfect example of how a film can be made beautifully effective without having to resort to raw sex, constant violence, or complicated plots. It is the simple but charming story of two poor children, a brother and a sister, who must share one pair of shoes because the brother, during his walk home from the shoe repair loses his sister's shoes.The loss of the shoes brings on all the difficulties with which they must now cope. The film tenderly shows how they strive toward resolution of their problem. The dialogue is kept minimal, and yet the director has achieved a very solid tension that keeps your eyes glued to the screen from the opening frames till the very end. This film beautifully shows a world of which most Westerners are completley unaware, a world that is so different from our own. The bulk of the film is carried very capably, on the shoulders of two small, young children, and they do a totally magnificant job of making you believe this very...

Wonderful story of a brother's love for his little sister
This 1997 film is from Iran. And it's the kind of film that the whole family can enjoy. It's about a 9-year old boy who loses his 7-year old sister's shoes through no fault of his own. They are very poor and they both want to keep it a secret from their parents. And so they share his only pair of worn-out sneakers. She wears them to school in the morning, and then runs through the streets, gives him the shoes and he wears them in the afternoon. Such a plan is not without its challenges, however. She almost loses a shoe when it falls into a gutter. He's late for school. The shoes are worn. Both of them crave a pair of their own.

Amir Farrokh Hasherman is cast as the boy. He has the biggest, most expressive eyes I've ever seen and my heart immediately went out to him. Bahare Seddiqi is the little sister. She wears a long dress and a white head covering just like all the other little girls. It's their shoes that show their individuality and she is always looking at all...

work of art
The wonderful Iranian film, "Children of Heaven," and its companion piece, "The White Balloon", remind one of those great Czechoslovakian films of the 1960's ("The Shop on Main Street" and "Loves of a Blonde" etc.) in that they achieve their artistry by providing keenly observed glimpses into the minutiae of everyday life. They also help to humanize a culture often regarded as alien and even incomprehensible to western eyes. Above all, this magnificent film reminds us that real drama comes not in the form of overplotted special effects laden extravaganzas, but from films that examine the universal simplicities of life as we all know it. When it is distilled through the eyes of a poet - this is when art is achieved.

"Children of Heaven" has its roots planted firmly in the neorealist tradition. Its simple story echoes not merely the earlier "The White Balloon" but the original Italian classic, "The Bicycle...

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K-9: P.I.

3 very funny and exciting films!
This is a fantastic bargain. There is one disc here, but you get all 3 K-9 films. The first 2 films on side one. The 3rd film of the trilogy on side 2.

James Belushi is perfectly comfortable in his ad-lib role as the cop with the German Shepheard partner. The timing is right on and the action non-stop. Bravo!

A Dog lovers must.
What a great buy!!! All 3 of the K-9 movies for the price of one. The first movie is the best, Jerry Lee really has an attitude in that one, but I loved them all. James Belushi is funny in all of the movies. This set is a must for every dog lover.

awesome
a must have! this pack is well-priced, and lots of laughs.

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Unfaithfully Yours [HD]

His Last Bow
In hindsight, Paramount's decision to terminate their relationship with Preston Sturges occupies the region between 'insane', 'irresponsible' and that old standby, 'stupid'. Sturges' subsequent relocation to Fox was, of course, utterly disastrous; which makes UNFAITHFULLY YOURS as much a miracle as it is a great comedy. His stock company (save for a very funny Rudy Vallee) was now a thing of the past; although the cast he assembled here is game and lively, Edgar Kennedy foremost among them. Nevertheless, UNFAITHFULLY YOURS is Sturges' second consecutive attempt (after MAD WEDNESDAY) to move away from his trademark of the inspired dialogue-comedy and towards a more visual (or in this case, audio-visual) farce. Fortunately for us, he succeeded brilliantly (not that it cut him any ice in an increasingly desperate studio-system that not only didn't know what to do with its few geniuses but began to openly despise them). Rex Harrison plays a vain, high-strung symphony conductor who -thanks...

One of Sturges' very best
Only The Lady Eve forces me to edge this movie out of number-one spot among Preston Sturges' comedies. The dialogue is snappy as ever (Doltish husband: "Too much temperament! Give me the simple viewpoint!" His wisecracking wife: "You've got it, kid. You don't have to yearn for it.") but the slapstick of the finale is cleverer by far than any in his other movies. The use of music is inspired, both in Harrison's concert revenge-fantasies and in his later attempts to put them into action, when the music is spiked with comic effects. A little slow to get started, this movie soon enough develops a quirky, unpredictable, and completely fascinating story line. Don't deprive yourself of seeing this!

Classic Struges comedy finally comes to DVD
In "Unfaithfully Yours" Rex Harrison plays a conductor who imagines what he would do to his wife (who he believes to be cheating on him)during a performance. Unfortunately, he discovers that real life never works as smoothly as one's fantasies. A classic Preston Sturges comedy, "Unfaithfully Yours" captures the brilliant comedy director in top form. Although there was an anemic remake with Dudley Moore in 1984 (with a screenplay co-written by Valerie Curtain the cousin of Jane Curtain of "Saturday Night Live" fame and one of the original cast members of "Three's Company"), all it does is prove not to mess with a classic film.

This new Criterion edition has some really cool extras and the image quality is very, very good. The audio Audio commentary by Sturges scholars James Harvey, Diane Jacobs, and Brian Henderson are fascinating but I honestly preferred the video appreciation by Terry Jones (of Monty Python fame) as well as the video interview with Sandy Sturges. There's...

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Love'S Labour'S Lost [HD]

You will be smiling...
I've always loved Branagh. From the moment he made film history with HENRY V (by being the first person since Orson Welles to earn Oscar nominations for both actor and director for the same film) to the light touch he brough to his voice acting in the animated ROAD TO EL DORADO, he has always been a favorite.

But--a film musical based on one of Shakespeare's least-important works? Set in the late 1930's no less? Sounds almost as bad an idea as MOULIN ROUGE. Intrigued, we rented the film from Netflix.

AND FELL IN LOVE. Who cares about the chop-job he did on the "sacred" text? Who cares about the lack of voice in some of his singers? What we watched was a film that made us smile from the opening credits all the way through the final act.
Set aside your preconceptions about what a Shakespeare film should be. Set aside your ideas about what a musical should look like. Enjoy the fun of the film, the glamour of its costuming, its very likable cast. When most movies try to...

LLL 40% Shakespeare, 100% fun
Love's Labour's Lost is true to the spirit of Shakespeare's comedy if not the text itself. A delightfully entertaining blend of Gershwin, Porter, and a little bit of the Bard, LLL is highly recommended for musical theatre lovers and anyone willing to consider Renaissance theatre in ways not involving pantaloons and talking to skulls. Nathan Lane is brilliant as Costard, here interpreted as a struggling vaudevillian; Lane lends vocal support (the weakest area of the cast) to the eleven o'clock number "There's No Business Like Show Business." Though the ensemble struggles through some of the musical numbers, the bittersweet "They Can't Take That Away From Me" is all the more moving because of their difficulties. The only number which seems not to fit within the framework of the play/musical/film is also its chief selling point; LLL publicity has focused upon the Fosse-esque "Let's Face the Music and Dance," which stands out in an otherwise charmingly coquettish production as a...

Much Ado About a Musical
This film was not widely released, but being an avid Branagh fan I made a trip to go see it, hoping it would become a favorite like his earlier film, Much Ado About Nothing. Alas, this was not the case. Although very cute, I felt like I was watching a high school drama production -mind you, a very good one- but I didn't think it was as up to par as some of his earlier films. The movie definitely does have a feeling of a MGM musical (I think that's what they were going for) and the songs are old favorites by Cole Porter, the Gershwins, and Irving Berlin. Amazingly enough, the actors sing, and quite well. Adrian Lester (previously seen in Primary Colors) has a great voice and was the best dancer in the cast. At times I felt that Alicia Silverstone (The Princess) seemed a little too southern California for Shakespeare, but even she began to grow on me during the movie.

Love's Labour's Lost is one of the Bard's lesser known plays and is very easy to understand. Although I seemed...

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Reindeer Games [HD]

Great Video and Audio Quality
Please describe the audio and video quality of any Blu-Ray you review. Thanks to those who do this.

I am reviewing the Director's Cut Blu-Ray version released on 03/06/12. I noticed no difference in the movie with this Director's Cut compared to the version I recently saw on satellite TV. The aspect ratio is 2.35:1, not 1.85:1. Sound is DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio, which is really great (lot's of surround sound and sub-woofer bass). Video quality is outstanding.

I think this is a good movie, and a very good Blu-Ray purchase (especially at this price).

Mr. Ben's Mild Ride
After trashing "Pearl Harbor" last year and "The Sum of All Fears" this year, I felt the pangs of guilt telling me I was picking on local boy Ben Affleck. Therefore, to appease my conscience, I decided to review a Ben Affleck film I enjoy - John Frankenheimer's "Reindeer Games".

"Reindeer Games" is just about the most unremarkable, low-stakes thriller you could ever expect to see, featuring all the obvious twists, all the obvious turns, and set in locations and in pursuit of prizes that do not exactly get the viewer buzzing with excitement. What makes the film work, in its own modest way, are the director and the cast.

Frankenheimer is covering old territory here, but it is like watching a veteran baseball player at the plate or in the field - you've seen it a thousand times before but it is still fun to watch. Frankenheimer knows how to edit his films just right, and he always gets a kinky, dark edge out of all his scripts...

One extremely thrilling and suspenseful ride
I didn't think Reindeer Games was anywhere near as mediocre as the critics thought it was. As a matter of fact, I loved the film, and it's certainly much better than that other much overrated plot twisting thriller Wild Things (a mostly suspenseless which might hold some sort of cinematic record for most plot twists ever).

The film is about a car thief named Rudy Duncan (Ben Affleck). His best friend, Nick, who has a pen pal named he plans on meeting after he's released-which is also the same day Rudy will be let out-is killed during a food fight. Rudy, in a very tough decision, decides to pretend he's Nick and meets the beautiful Ashley, Nick's pen pal. At first, everything seems to be going right for him for the first time, until Ashley's brother Gabriel arrives and demands Rudy, whom he thinks is Nick, to help him and his band of cronies rob a casino since Nick used to work as a security guard there. Now, Rudy has to try to pretend he's Nick and convince Gabriel...

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The Barbarian Invasions [HD]

Death of a bon vivant
Infrequently, if at all, does a film for general release revolve around normal, natural death, i.e. one not brought on by fanged space aliens, world-renting cataclysms, wild gunfights, or some other Tinseltown special FX. Hollywood script writers should walk though any cemetery sometime. Not since the 2001 tour de force, WIT, starring Emma Thompson, has the topic been intelligently portrayed. Now comes THE BARBARIAN INVASIONS, a powerful French Canadian film of albeit misleading title.

London investor Sebastien (Stephane Rousseau) is summoned home to Quebec by his mother, Louise (Dorothee Berryman) to attend the approaching death of his father, Remy (Remy Girard). Father and son have been long estranged - ever since Remy and Louise divorced. Remy, an outspoken Professor of History and a self-described "sensuous socialist", has spent his life indulging in wine, women, song, and learned conversation. Especially women. The reunion shows little promise of succeeding,...

The Decline and Fall of Quebecois Utopia
It was rather surprising to learn that this anti-socialist movie won a Foreign Film Oscar. Denys Arcand is well-know for his biting satire of Québécois society, against the clergy in Jésus of Montréal and against Québécois politics in this movie. Invasions Barbares is a sequel to the famous Le Déclin de l'Empire Américan (The Decline of the American Empire), where he philosophizes on the end of the American hegemony based on history and some fast-and-dirty sociology.

In this movie, the Fall of the American Empire is represented by the WTC attack, but the bulk of the movie is not concerned with the United States but with Quebec. In this, Rémy (Rémy Girard), the history professor with a high libido, is dying of cancer and his previous relationships give him no solace. Everyone from Déclin comes back to support him in his hard times, including his estrangled son Sébastien (Stéphane...

AMIDST IDEOLOGICAL CHITCHAT, A FULL-BODIED ODE TO LIFE
The Barbarian Invasions is nothing if not a chatty movie, almost every character is well developed and most of what is said is amusing without the self-satisfied piety or strenuous jokiness of garden variety Hollywood flicks.

A man on his death bed, Remy, invites all his friends and family hoping in such a reunion to pass on his pearls of wisdom, and to reconcile all that has remained undone or that shouldn't have been done.

Woven around this seemingly simple frame are many relationships, all explored richly and with fluid rhythm, and some fabulous dialogue veering around insightful ideologies.

For instance, Remy and his son wage what seems to be a lifelong argument, the young man defending his free-market values, faith in technological progress and ascetic lifestyle, and Remy extolling the virtues of socialism and epicurean excess. I was surprised to see some footage of 9/11 in support for the negatives that accompany American-style capitalism...

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Reindeer Games (Director's Cut) [HD]

Great Video and Audio Quality
Please describe the audio and video quality of any Blu-Ray you review. Thanks to those who do this.

I am reviewing the Director's Cut Blu-Ray version released on 03/06/12. I noticed no difference in the movie with this Director's Cut compared to the version I recently saw on satellite TV. The aspect ratio is 2.35:1, not 1.85:1. Sound is DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio, which is really great (lot's of surround sound and sub-woofer bass). Video quality is outstanding.

I think this is a good movie, and a very good Blu-Ray purchase (especially at this price).

Mr. Ben's Mild Ride
After trashing "Pearl Harbor" last year and "The Sum of All Fears" this year, I felt the pangs of guilt telling me I was picking on local boy Ben Affleck. Therefore, to appease my conscience, I decided to review a Ben Affleck film I enjoy - John Frankenheimer's "Reindeer Games".

"Reindeer Games" is just about the most unremarkable, low-stakes thriller you could ever expect to see, featuring all the obvious twists, all the obvious turns, and set in locations and in pursuit of prizes that do not exactly get the viewer buzzing with excitement. What makes the film work, in its own modest way, are the director and the cast.

Frankenheimer is covering old territory here, but it is like watching a veteran baseball player at the plate or in the field - you've seen it a thousand times before but it is still fun to watch. Frankenheimer knows how to edit his films just right, and he always gets a kinky, dark edge out of all his scripts...

One extremely thrilling and suspenseful ride
I didn't think Reindeer Games was anywhere near as mediocre as the critics thought it was. As a matter of fact, I loved the film, and it's certainly much better than that other much overrated plot twisting thriller Wild Things (a mostly suspenseless which might hold some sort of cinematic record for most plot twists ever).

The film is about a car thief named Rudy Duncan (Ben Affleck). His best friend, Nick, who has a pen pal named he plans on meeting after he's released-which is also the same day Rudy will be let out-is killed during a food fight. Rudy, in a very tough decision, decides to pretend he's Nick and meets the beautiful Ashley, Nick's pen pal. At first, everything seems to be going right for him for the first time, until Ashley's brother Gabriel arrives and demands Rudy, whom he thinks is Nick, to help him and his band of cronies rob a casino since Nick used to work as a security guard there. Now, Rudy has to try to pretend he's Nick and convince Gabriel...

Click to Editorial Reviews