Greyfriars Bobby [HD]

Disney At Its Best, With The Master's Touch
I first saw this movie as a child in the early sixties and never forgot it, even though I never saw it again. I came across it again shopping here and ordered it.

What a beautiful, and beautifully made movie! The video quality for VHS was great. This was one of those Disney movies made during their 'golden age' when Mr. Disney was still alive and running his company. It shows. The quality of production, the sets, the luminous quality of the filming, all speak of an integrity and sincerity that are so sadly missing from Eisner's Disney today. I showed this movie to a young child who was unaware that Disney ever made anything this well! She was thinking of the newer, much cheaper movies cranked out by Disney today.

As with many of Walt Disney's old movies, this is a film that can be viewed with pleasure by everyone. I didn't find it corny at all. Of course, this movie was set in the 'olden times' so we wouldn't expect to see modern clothing, etc. anyway. This movie is...

Beautiful
"Greyfriars Bobby" is undoubtedly the greatest love story of all time, proving once and for all that true love can last for all eternity - beyond this life and into the next. What makes this story all the more remarkable is the fact that it's true, and the central character is a dog that slept every night without fail on the grave of his master for fourteen years! Such devotion should bring tears to the eyes of even the most hard hearted viewers, and it is convincing proof that dogs possess souls, and they also possess the greatest ability of all - the ability to love unconditionally.

Loyalty and the Transformng Power of Love
Greyfriars Bobby is one of the finest children's movies of all time. Based on a true story, it is a deep-feeling, understated exploration of how a "pound-hound" transformed an entire city. In detail it shows the the mutual transformation of a lonely, impoverished older man and the stray dog who befriends him. They become a fixture in their Scottish neighborhood -- the dog greeting schoolchildren, etc. -- until the old man's death. Scruffy-looking Bobby develops a routine of staying on his dead master's grave each day, still taking the time to greet the kids on their way to and from school. Upon the old dog's death, the people of Greyfriar's built a statue to Bobby, by his master's grave: a testament to loyalty and love. A several handkerchief movie but very uplifting, for adults and kids alike.

Click to Editorial Reviews

Not Easily Broken [HD]

Not Easily Dismissed
As a fan of Taraji P. Henson ("Hustle & Flow," "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"), I was curious to see what she would bring to her role as a wife dealing with a struggling marriage. My own involvement in "Fireproof," as the one who wrote the novel based on the screenplay, gave me appreciation for this important subject, and yet I'd heard little about this film. My expectations for the overall story were low.

What a nice surprise! Without being crass or gratuitous, the script allows these characters to portray real problems in believable ways. Soon after the rosy opening, in which they tie the knot with the bishop's wise words barely sinking in, they find their marriage crumbling beneath financial pressures, different goals, and a drought of physical intimacy. Dave wants a child, while Clarice is career-minded and wanting to build a comfortable lifestyle--even if it means "faking it till you make it." Dave compensates by coaching Little League, an activity that Clarice...

Highly Enjoyable
T.D. Jakes previous novel Women Thou Art Loosed was adapted into animpressive film, five years and his follow up film Not Easily Broken isjust as good. Directed by the underrated Bill Duke whose previous work includes Hoodlum and Deep Cover, Not Easily Broken tells the story of a couple (Morris Chestnut & Taraji P. Henson) whose marriage is crisis.After a car accident, injurers Henson's character things only get worseand their marriage but more importantly their faith is tested. I watchedthe film with my wife. It was a treat to discuss the film with her onthe way out of the theater to our car. And during the ride home we cameto understand a little more about each other. The acting considering the religious material is first rate, Morris Chestnut displays the sameleading man charm he always does and fresh off her Oscar Worthy turn in Benjamin Button, Henson does wonders. Jenifer Lewis steals every sceneshe's in as the mother-in-law, and Kevin Hart provides tons of comicrelief as a life...

Predictable, but worth watching....
And I only say 'predictable' because after seeing the trailers/commercials, you see the movie is one of those 'doesn't miss what she has until it's gone' type of things. Chestnut plays a husband who has fallen on hard times in his career & only longs to have children, while his wife, Henson, plays a corp.ladder-climbing woman who can't tolerate anything less than the 'all that 'life-style & has no time for children. But instead of trying to work on the relationship w/her hubby, she uses him for her whipping post, only compounded when her 'mother from hell' arrives (J. Lewis is ALWAYS amazing in her roles - this fit her perfectly!)& they kinda mother-daughter tag team him until he snaps under the weight. THEN when Henson suspects hubby of leaning toward someone else who'll give him the time of day, she FINALLY sees the bitchiness of her & her mother's ways (Duh!), she goes after her man & begs forgiveness. I like 'relationship' movies w/a message, so this was all good. Nothing wrong...

Click to Editorial Reviews

Gun Shy [HD]

Warm-hearted and hilarious!
I found this to be a wonderful and engaging film. The plot has been criticized for being a tad meandering and while I do agree with that, it didn't detract from my enjoyment at all. I found it a little hard to get into at first, I think because there was so much of Liam Neeson in the first several scenes and he is not one of my favorite actors. He won me over in this, however. People also have stated that the "bowel humor" was a bit gross, but I felt the sound effects were funny and also made you really feel the charactor's discomfort and fear in the scene. Remember, everybody poops.

Oliver Platt is one of my favorite actors, and he does not disapoint in this movie. This is definitely a charactor driven movie, with a lot of conversations and not much action, but the action was well placed and hilarious. There are also small nuances that really develop the charactors further such as when Oliver Platt's charator, Fulvio, spends the night cleaning his kitchen. I found it both...

Boy, you think YOUR job is tough?
Five stars for this cleverly made dark comedy about a DEA Agent's last assignment, to catch the players in a drug ring.

Liam Neeson plays Charlie, whose last assignment with the DEA went south badly, resulting in his partner being killed and him being literally tied up on a large platter of watermelon, but is rescued before he is executed.

The very opening scene of this movie is a kick, with Charlie sitting pants-less on the bathroom floor of an airport, talking to himself and reliving his arguments with his boss and the execution of his partner; complete with a hilarious fantasy of the bad guys doing ballet leaps as they are shot, surrealistic and funny, choreographed along with the tune "Blue Skies For Everyone".

Charlie meets a psychiatrist on the airplane, and decides to see him. Dr. Bleckner talks Charlie into joining his group therapy session, where Charlie unloads the stresses of his job, to the astonishment of the group. He also talks Charlie into seeing a...

An Underrated, Underseen Gem
Apparently this movie got lost in the shuffle somehow (see other reviews)and it is a shame, because it is a very funny, semi-black comedy that deserved a broader audience. While Liam Neeson is not usually cast in comedies, he should do more of them because he was very good as Charlie, the burned-out drug agent and he was surrounded by a great cast, topped by Oliver Platt, who was, as usual, excellent, and Sandra Bullock, who had a small but effective part as Charlie's no-nonsense girlfriend. Mary McCormick was hilarious in a tiny, almost unrecognized part as Fluvio's (Pratt's) caustic wife and the group of sadsacks who made up Charlie's therapy group added their own comic note. I would recommend this to anyone who just wants to relax and have a nice, uncomplicated laugh and enjoy two very attractive leading actors.

Click to Editorial Reviews

crazy/beautiful [HD]

Kirsten Dunst shines in an engaging character study
I hesitated to see this film because having seen my share of Kristen Dunst movies, I wasn't sure I was ready for another teen sugar attack. However, this film turned out to be a pleasant departure from the perky candy coated parts Dunst has played in the past. In fact, this might be a watershed role for her, marking her transition from teen roles to adult roles.

Dunst plays Nicole Oakley, a troubled teenager from a privileged family who falls in love with Carlos (Jay Hernandez), a boy from the wrong side of the tracks. The story is nothing new, but the presentation is remarkably good, with far greater maturity than one would expect from a high school flick.

This film is exceptional considering its limited budget and the fact that most of the major players have very little experience at this level. For writers Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi, this is their first feature film screenplay. For director John Stockwell, it is only his second feature film. Likewise for Jay Hernandez and...

Crazy/Beautiful
Crazy/Beautiful is a groundbreaking emotional story about two young lovers, Carlos(Jay Hernandez) and Nicole(Kirsten Dunst), on the opposite sides of the spectrum. Carlos is a straight-A-student whose priorities are to graduate and gain acceptance into the naval academy. Nicole is a disgruntled 17-year-old whose priorities include finding distractions to cope with the loss of her mother. She has no college ambition, she likes to get lost in wide variety of drugs and sexual activities and she swears she will never trust anyone again after her mother's suicide. When Carlos meets Nicole for the first time, he finds her "scary" because she is extremely unpredictable with her wild behavior. Nicole falls strangely in love with Carlos and believes that they should always be together. When Carlos finds himself in the position in which he must choose between Nicole and his school work, he chooses her. The two fall madly in love and a number of situations fall into play because...

Upside down cliches
I live with an LA High School teacher; we are both in our fifties yet we both enjoy teen oriented movies, at least to some degree. However, we are also highly sensitive to the distance from reality in most of these movies, and this one kept us awake and interested. Crazy/Beautiful may be another fairly tale reworking of the star-crossed lovers theme, but it also presents its characters with a gritty realism. These kids in this movie are a lot like real kids that we know and see everyday.

Kirsten Dunst is still portraying a teenager, but proves she can handle adult complexity. Jay Hernandez is wonderfully unaffected. The story is in many respects by the numbers, but it turns most of the movie cliches upside down - the rich kids father approves of the poor kid - it's his own daughter he has trouble with. The Latino kid is appealing to the white girls, but he isn't a white boy in a Latino skin, he is comfortable in his identity. I don't want to say too much more because I...

Click to Editorial Reviews

Born Yesterday [HD]

Eliza Doolittle Meets Betty Boop.
From the moment she enters the picture and screeches "Whaaaaattttt??", in a voice that could peel wallpaper, you can't take your eyes off Judy Hollidays "Billie Dawn." In this movie adaptation of the Garson Kanin play, directed by famed "womans director" George Cukor, she takes a wonderfully written character and turns her into a classic movie performance that no one else could have played. Her crass, monosyllabic Billie is SO dumb, that, when her corrupt bully boyfriend, played by Broderick Crawford, first proposes to the owlish journalist, played by William Holden, that he refine Billies rough edges so she can be presented into the Washington society that he hopes to manipulate, well...you wonder how he can EVER mold this dim-witted clay. Along the way, she, for the first time, begins to actually THINK, and her development of a conscience and awareness of her self worth is as moving as it is comical. The backdrop of corrupt politicians who can be bought for a price (some things...

Flawless!
Delightful! Hilarious!

How often do we get to see a perfect performance? We're closing in on a century of movies and, as we can see, it's pretty rare. So flawless was Judy Holliday's portrayal of Billie Dawn that, as a relative unknown, she came from behind to beat out two heavyweights for the Oscar in 1950. I'm sure this was due in no small part to her refining the role for nearly three years on stage.

Everything else fell into place as well. Broderick Crawford was just excellent as Harry Brock. Crawford is able to swing you back and forth between anger and sympathy for his character. Not an easy task! William Holden is perfectly calm and reserved as Paul Verrall. His character forms a wonderful opposite to Billie. And, with direction, George Cukor worked his usual magic.

Most of the themes are timeless. A person lives in ignorant bliss until their eyes are opened. They realize that there is a better life for them and begin their struggle...

Razor Sharp and Lots of Fun
Judy Holiday won an Oscar for this film, and no wonder: her performance of Billie Dawn, a "dumb broad" who suddenly wises up in a most unexpected way, is certainly one of the finest and most original film performances in 20th Century American cinema. The story, from the stage success, concerns a crass junk yard tycoon (Broderick Crawford) who goes to Washington to buy a Senator--and promptly considers that his blonde-bimbo mistress Billie Dawn (Holiday) lacks enough poise for such refined circles. He accordingly entices a reporter (William Holden) to "smarten her up." But things soon get out of hand: once her mind is awakened, Billie Dawn begins to perceive her lover and his political intrigues in a very different light.

The comedy is genuine, and Crawford and Holden are as memorable as Holiday herself. But there is some serious stuff behind the hilarity: issues of personal integrity, honesty, and civic duty become increasingly important as Billie evolves, and...

Click to Editorial Reviews

The Collector (1965) [HD]

Brilliant, despite the editing
"The Collector" falls within the "Psycho" tradition in focusing on the repressed sexual longings of a quietly alienated loner, but it's closer to "Peeping Tom" in portraying the sympathetic side of the killer. This is highlighted, first, by the performances themselves, which are superficially cold but in reality display a great deal of underlying warmth. But it's also underscored by the fact that William Wyler's madman is only an accidental murderer, his intention being only to harbor his object of desire, not murder her (murder, as it happens, being simply the "collateral" result of his own perversity).

"The Collector," in fact, is probably the most humanized portrait of a sociopath ever put on film, and Terence Stamp makes us realize in every scene just how starved for affection he is. Not even "Peeping Tom" rivals it in this respect, since the analytical approach of Michael Powell toward his deranged protagonist, not to mention the peculiar fetishism involved, prevents us from...

BAD BAD Video Transfer - Shame on you Sony/Columbia
One STAR is too many, but there was no goose egg!

I really hate to slam this beautiful movie, but after buying it, I felt betrayed and wanted to try to prevent others from having the same problem.

Wyler's work is always fabulous, which makes it especially hurtful to see his film butchered in this fashion - yes I said BUTCHERED.

I just purchased "The Collector" on DVD (Columbia 07893 - ISBN 0-7678-8288-1) after already owning the same title on LaserDisk.

I have criticisms of both the TRANSFER, and the CONTENT.

Transfer:

IMDB Lists the original film as "Spherical 1.78:1 aspect ratio" - If this is true, then the DVD has been way over-masked because the LaserDisk version has a mask that shows about 30% more picture content on the top and bottom of the field. It appears that the studio simply took a 4:3 version of the film and transferred it to DVD by cutting off the top and bottom to make it 16x9, rather than finding an...

Belongs In Your Collection
This 40-year-old specimen by legendary director William Wyler will enhance any collection of fine film. You may have trouble recognizing a very young Terence Stamp, whose performance as a painfully shy office clerk who hits the lottery will give you chills. Samantha Eggar, lovely as the focus of his attention, gives a compelling performance and is in many ways the film's centerpiece. Based on the novel by truly gifted author John Fowles, The Collector chronicles a subtle, incremental descent into madness and cruelty with such skill that viewers are engaged throughout, indeed, it is the ability of the film to penetrate the viewer's own psychology that gives it its real power.

Stamp's Freddie Clegg, newly rich, is free to indulge his eccentricities fully, without fear of repercussion. While his passion has always been butterfly collecting, Freddie, socially inept and pathologically lonely, slips into another level; he "collects" Eggar's Miranda Grey and keeps her captive...

Click to Editorial Reviews

Experiment In Terror [HD]

TENSE, EXCITING THRILLER.....
Take an early, lean Blake Edwards, a tension filled script, a cast of fine actors, great San Francisco location shooting and a suspenseful score by Henry Mancini and you have "Experiment in Terror"---one of the best suspense thrillers ever made. Adapted by the story's authors, it pits innocent bank clerk Lee Remick against asthmatic madman Ross Martin who terrorizes her in an extortion plot to rob her bank. His threats include harming her kid sister Stefanie Powers. When Remick contacts the FBI, agent Glenn Ford and his associates barrel into action. The result is a bizarre cat & mouse game between Remick, Martin and Ford. Martin is slick and murderous. But he manages to finance expensive hip surgery for a 6 yr.old Asian boy whose mother he's seeing. His heavy breathing is some of the most realistic I've ever heard in a film. Edwards directs "Experiment" in a fast paced style that keeps you glued to the screen all the way to the Giants game finale. Again, his on location shooting is...

"Next Time, Kelly, I'll Kill You For Sure!"
The calendar year of 1962 sure was a fantastic year for movies! Just look at this impressive lineup of cinematic gems released in '62 ---

"Lawrence Of Arabia", "To Kill A Mockingbird", "The Longest Day", "The Music Man", "Mutiny On The Bounty", "The Miracle Worker", "Cape Fear", "Days Of Wine And Roses", "The Manchurian Candidate", "How The West Was Won", "What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?", "Advise & Consent", "Birdman Of Alcatraz", "Requiem For A Heavyweight", "Lonely Are The Brave", "Long Day's Journey Into Night", "Knife In The Water", "Dr. No", and "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance".

Holy smoke! What a great year for moving pictures it was. (The first five films I listed above were the five nominees for "Best Picture" at the Academy Awards, with "Lawrence", starring Peter O'Toole, taking home first prize.)

And -- in addition to that grand laundry list of goodies above -- there is also the 1962 film contained on this exceptional DVD -- "Experiment...

DARING
this one was very daring for it's time. the opening score is one of the most ominous music compositions i've ever heard. it's simple but terrifying. you know from the beginning that "something" is going to happen and it does. a woman is manipulated and extorted and threatened all in the first 10 minutes, inevitably compelled to involve the FBI. to divulge any more of this ominous little film would be unfair. a thriller in the most definitive form of the word. it boasts two of the best actors ever to grace the silver screen: Glenn Ford and Lee Remick. this was director Blake Edwards sole attempt at a dramatic film. this attempt proved to be sufficient. it's a cinematic masterpiece. watch it with the lights out!!!!

as for the DVD, not much in extras but the transfer and audio are very good.

Click to Editorial Reviews