Purple Rain (1984)

Leonard Maltin's review missed the main point of this movie. The movie is not primarily about a young musician who "struggles to gain acceptance for his own brand of ... rock music". Instead, the movie is about a man who has acquired his not only some of his father's musical interest and talent, but also his father's emotional instability and occasional abusiveness towards others, especially women. Maltin is correct that Prince's character is sexist and unappealing, but that's crucial to the movie. By playing his character as emotionally unstable, insensitive, and occasionally cruel, Prince de-glamourizes the cool, rebellious rock star image, showing that fame and talent are neither a guaranteed road to happiness nor a good excuse for being cruel to your girlfriend. This movie, rather than being a "soppy story" wrapped around concert footage, is instead genuinely literary. The concert footage is not an excuse for a movie; some of the concert footage is integral to the story. The title song, "Purple Rain", is used very effectively in the movie as a point of conflict between Prince and two of his female bandmates.

This movie, like Quadrophenia, would make a good subject for an English literature class targeted towards aimlessly rebellious under-achievers (rather than the 4.0 GPA high school students that most English literature classes are designed for).

[This review is based on the VHS version of the movie.]

I remember when I recently saw Jay and Silent Bob Strikes Back,Jay showed his affinity towards Morris Day and the Time.Then some teenagers called Purple Rain "a crappy 80's movie".Although most of Y generation view Purple Rain like the second coming of Grease 2,Purple Rain rocked back in '84 with people actually dancing in the isles.

This movie finally brought Prince into the mainstream and showed the genius that he was.Although he'd been making records since 1978,he made his mark with such albums as Dirty Mind, Controversy,and 1999(his breakout album with his first top ten hit Little Red Corvette)but only to a limited R&B and underground market.But once Purple Rain hit,things were never the same.The movie also brought Morris Day and The Time to the mainstream which unfortunately they would soon break up to never enjoy the fruits.

The movie is pretty much about a musician called The Kid (Prince) who dreams of making it despite his troubled homelife and a rival band, The Time.The movie has it's fair share of bad acting as well as misogyny ("That ain't Lake Minnitonka")it's the musical numbers as well as Morris Day's comic timing that steals the show.The music still sounds fresh, especially the minimalist When Doves Cry which could even be released today.

Hopefully Warner brothers will release a 20th anniversary edition DVD with loads of extras as well as deleted scenes which were featured in the trailer.And with Prince's comeback in 2004 including his Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame induction, Grammy performance and tour,it would really be the year of Prince.

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Okay, okay, okay-only 3 stars for one of the greatest rock movies ever made... but it received very poor DVD treatment. This was one of the highest grossing theatrical releases of 1984. It took everyone by surprise that summer, and made Warner Bros. a LOT of money. So are there any music videos as bonus materials? NO. Are there any interview clips, new or old? NO. Is there any commentary from director or screenwriter? NO. IS THE MOVIE PRESENTED IN WIDESCREEN FORMAT?? Inexplicably, NO!! This was an OSCAR winning film (Best Song Score). Yes, it is relatively inexpensive, but c'mon-it could have at least been letter boxed!! The only features are some production notes and a trailer. I wouldn't recommend purchasing this, especially if you already own the VHS version. The movie? For what it is, 5 stars. The DVD? 1 star. I split the difference. Hopefully Warner Bros. will wise up and release all four of Prince's films in a deluxe box set.

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Features on this two-disc set include:

1.85:1 Anamorphic Widescreen

English DD5.1 Surround

French DD1.0 Mono

English, French and Spanish subtitles

Audio Commentary with Director Albert Magnoli, Producer Robert Cavallo and Cinematographer Donald E. Thorin

All-new documentary on the Minneapolis music scene, the importance of the First Avenue club and Prince?s career prior to Purple Rain

All-new documentary on the making of the movie and the Academy Award winning music

All-new documentary on the impact of the movie and music on Pop Culture, the response from Prince?s fans and the enduring legacy of Purple Rain

Music Videos:

Let's go Crazy Prince

take me with u Prince

When Doves Cry Prince

I Would Die 4 U/Baby I'm a Star Prince

Purple Rain Prince

Jungle Love The Time

The Bird The Time

Sex Shooter Apollonia 6

TV Special : The 1984 MTV Premiere Party

Theatrical Trailer : Purple Rain, Graffiti Bridge and Under the Cherry Moon

This is a vast improvement on the bare bones FULLSCREEN version of PURPLE RAIN out there. Go ahead and trade those in! This looks like the real deal. Prince has never been more electric, and the film is pretty good. The music is what makes it! And it's a great piece of 80s nostalgia to boot. I'm putting on my purple raincoat, my hoop earring, and sitting down to watch a simpler time when all we had to worry about was if Wendy and Lisa were happy being in the Revolution! If you own one Prince movie ... this one's it!

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The script is full of non sequiturs, melodrama, and makeup with streaks of ghastly color that could only come from the 80s. Other than the two actors playing Prince's parents, Apollonia Kotero is the only castmember with acting experience, and only from a toothpaste commercial at that! If you've ever wondered what drummer Bobby Z's speaking voice is like, here's your big chance! Oddly, the best looking member of Prince's band, Brown Mark, is the only one without lines (though he purses his lips with the technique of a DeNiro). The sound is great and the print in good shape. The DVD extras (movie trailer, production notes) are okay but not significant enough on their own to purchase it. The moment Morris Day wickedly asks the depressed Prince "How's the family?" is enough to justify the purchase. Get it as a time capsule, wonder why most questions in the dialogue aren't acknowledged by the character being asked. Ponder why large plastic buttons over the front trouser flap never took off as a fashion. Prepare to explain to your children why hair back then was so tall and thick, and don't just blame it on Minnesota. Feel shame at the time in your life or your friend's life when harlequin/clown masks and dolls seemed oh-so-poignant lingering on display in candle-fortified rooms. Get your bag of Doritos and enjoy a time when popular music held the imagination of both the selective and the hoi polloi at the same time. The best special effect of the movie? Apollonia putting on her skin-tight leather outfit seconds after jumping into a lake. This was before CGI! Marvel at the time when Prince aspired to mean something more than solid music, and actually did.

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Bride of Frankenstein (Import)

I am one of the legion of admirers who believe that this film represents the apex of both James Whale's directorial career and Universal Studios' first cycle of monster movies. Cleverly scripted, flawlessly acted, wittily directed, and hauntingly scored, it's a marvel of a movie on many levels; it works as a horror film, a satire, a black comedy, a social commentary -even as a romantic melodrama -depending on your individual interpretation.

It's a real pity, then, that this rich cinematic treasure has received such a disappointing transfer to the DVD format. After experiencing the sharply focused, pristine prints presented on Universal's DVD releases of "Frankenstein" and "The Mummy", my expectations for "Bride" were enthusiastically high. What a letdown! The film is grainy, with distractingly poor contrast -the actors appear to have microcrobes running across their faces, like amoeba that you might observe under a microscope. And there were a couple of pops and jumps inherent in the source material that I don't recall having seen on the VHS tape release of this film.

The extras are the only features that keep this disc from being a complete fiasco. The poster and still archive is remarkable, and the "making of" featurette is informative and enjoyable. The theatrical trailer is the one used for the film's Realart re-release and not the Universal original. I strongly suspect (and hope) there will some day be a "restored" edition of this movie available. Unless you just can't wait to add this title to your DVD collection, I have to regretfully advise that until such an improved version comes along, you spend your hard-earned pennies on an alternate selection.

As mentioned by many others, the film, commentary, documentary etc are all excellent. No need to repeat. But a major flaw in the film transfer itself is the amount of information removed at the top. The tops of heads are chopped and the glowing crudifix at the climax of the blind hermit scene is cropped so much you cannot tell it is a cross. I have compared the laser and vhs copies of this film to the dvd. The laser and vhs crop information from the bottom, a FAR better choice. I consider the cropping on the dvd so bad as to make the film almost unwatchable. I'll be keeping my laserdisc and videotape.

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I was waiting with great anticipation the release of The Bride of Frankenstein DVD. I ,like many others, consider this movie to be the greatest horror film of all time. I already own the movie on VHS but I couldn't wait to see the sparkling, crystal clear picture that I know the DVD format can deliver. Unfortunately, Universal decided to dig up the worst print they could find to put on DVD.

The worst thing about it is the horrible grainy look of the film. There are so many tiny little black dots on the picture that it is almost impossible to concentrate on the actors. It is a terrible looking picture. And somehow or other they have managed to mess up the framing of the picture even though it is a 1.33:1 image. You only get to see about 85% of the picture compared to the VHS. Universal....how could you?

The extras on the DVD are quite good but it's the movie that counts! Other titles in the series of classic Universal horror movies are better but none of them so far are what true DVD enthusiasts and real movie fans want to see. I really hope that Universal quickly decides to remaster The Bride of Frankenstein DVD and then allows us poor souls to exchange our current copies for a new one.

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Rarely is a sequel, particularly a horror sequel, better than its predecessor, but Bride of Frankenstein (1935) easily replaced the 1931 original classic as the definitive Universal Frankenstein movie. Director James Whale did not want to do another Frankenstein movie for the most admirable of reasons, and largely because of his feelings on the matter he brought to a life a sequel that sought perfection in every discernible way and provided a much deeper and more poignant look at the monster of Frankenstein's creation the comedic exploitation of the monster did not begin on his watch. The addition of a full-scale musical score added depth and its own emotional layers to the drama, Karloff brought amazing pathos and humanity to the creature, and Elsa Lanchester, in a few short minutes, gave the world one of the truly eternal horror images and icons in the form of the Bride of Frankenstein's Monster (which is what the film should have been called).

Most of the principal cast members of the original Frankenstein movie reprise their roles here, including Colin Clive as Frankenstein and the inimitable Boris Karloff as the monster. Mae Clarke, however, was unavailable for health reasons, and a seventeen-year-old Valerie Hobson took on the role of Elizabeth, Frankenstein's fiancée. This is a noticeable change, as Hobson played Elizabeth in a strikingly different manner. As you may have guessed, Frankenstein's monster did not actually die in the big fire that ended the first motion picture. The windmill was built over a cistern (more like a great big underground pond, if you ask me), and the monster escapes the conflagration, not before killing a couple of people and scaring Minnie, this film's version of interminable comic relief, half to death. Dr. Frankenstein, for his part, also survives (although we already knew this thanks to the last-minute concluding scene of the first movie). He regrets his foolish attempts to play God, even though he still speaks with a mad zeal about the dreams he pursued so dangerously. Enter Dr. Praetorius (Ernest Thesiger), a former professor of Frankenstein's and the kind of evil genius our reformed young doctor should have become. Praetorius has been doing his own God-like experiments and now seeks to join his knowledge with that of Frankenstein to make not a man, but a woman. In the film's only borderline ridiculous moments, we see the products of Praetorius' work the film work and special effects are brilliantly done, but the whole idea is just laughably silly. Still, you can't help liking old Praetorius because he is everything a mad scientist should be. Frankenstein has now become well, (...) a cowardly man who seems incapable of acting on his own accord. Luckily, Dr. Praetorius knows how to deal with a man such as Frankenstein, and he eventually succeeds in getting the good doctor back in the lab for one final experiment.

As for Frankenstein's monster, we finally get to see the humanity of the character emerge. Seeking friendship, he is met only with fear, screams, and malice. He does manage to find a friend in the countryside, however the sound of violin music takes him to the home of a blind hermit. In one of the most touching scenes in cinema history, the blind man takes the monster in, thanks God for finally sending him a friend to assuage his loneliness, and shines the full light of humanity, all too briefly, on the lonely creature. Naturally, this time of happiness does not last long, but the monster does develop the ability to speak before he is separated forever from his friend. He ends up crossing paths with Dr. Praetorius, who quickly sells him on the idea of a mate, setting the stage for another pyrotechnic creation scene that gives us the unforgettable Bride of Frankenstein.

The cinematography, musical score, and basically everything else are well-nigh perfect in this film; despite the ridiculous editing demands of the censors, Bride of Frankenstein achieves the pinnacle of monster movie success. Still, it bothers me that these films have defined Frankenstein's monster as a creature much different than the literary monster of Mary Shelley's creation. The first film completely stood Shelley's story on its head, missing the point entirely. How ironic it is for Bride of Frankenstein to feature a prologue featuring the character of Mary Shelley herself, in company with her companion Percy Bysse Shelley and the flamboyant Lord Byron, explaining the meaning of her work and then introducing yet another bastardization of the real Mary Shelley's literary masterpiece. The original monster, as envisioned by Shelley, was not the creature at all; it was Dr. Frankenstein, not so much because he played God but because he abandoned his monstrous creation and left him alone to fend for himself. Bride of Frankenstein rights some of this wrong by showing the depth of humanity in the monster, but it cannot undo the wrongs already done the character. In the context of the cinema, he will forever be a "monster," a shadow of his true literary self, forced to suffer at the hands of man while the true villain of the story fails to even attempt to redeem himself or to suffer the harsh yet noble fate that he so rightfully earned in Shelley's original story.

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"Bride of Frankenstein" is not only the greatest film of its genre, it is also one of the finest films ever produced in Hollywood. The acting, lighting, sets and direction are all in a class of their own. The mix of horror and humor has never been so well accomplished as it is in this film. Director James Whale's sardonic sense of humor is in full view here, so much so that audiences of 1935 were unsure as to the intent of the film, especially after the all out horror that was on

display in the original "Frankenstein". Karloff gives the performance of his career as the misshapen but strangely loveable monster, and Ernest Thesiger is astounding as the effete Dr. Pretorious. Elsa Lanchester is stunning as the Bride, and Colin Clive is at his nerve frayed best as Baron Henry Frankenstein. Franz Waxman's score, an inspiration for Rodgers and Hammerstein's "South Pacific(believe it or not, is perhaps the finest in the history of motion picture scoring. The DVD is a mixed blessing. The washed out quality of the previous video incarnations gives way here to a much darker film, ccloser in intent to Whale's vision. But the film stock used is slightly grainy, and the sound has ssome deficiencies. Also, the darker print makes it more difficult to see details in the many low lit situations. No doubt a major restoration of this film is in order, similiar to what was done to "Vertigo" and "My Fair LAdy". The extras-the documentary and audio commentary are superb, as is a rarely seen trailer and a great archive of rare stills. The minor visual and aural shortcomings are forgivable; you must own this DVD.

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Wall Street (2012)

When Oliver Stone made Wall Street, he was riding high from the commercial and critical success of Platoon (Special Edition). His father, Lou Stone, had been a stockbroker on Wall Street in New York City and this film was a son's way of paying tribute to his father. Almost twenty years later, it has become one of the quintessential snapshots of the financial scene in the United States and epitomizes the essence of capitalism, greed and materialism that was so prevalent in the 1980s.

Michael Douglas owns the role of Gekko and by extension dominates the movie with his larger than life character. He gets most of the film's best dialogue and delivers it with such conviction. There is a scene between Bud and Gekko in a limousine where he tells the younger man how the financial world works, how it operates and lays it all out, pushing Bud hard to go into business with him. It is one of the strongest scenes in the movie because you really believe what Gekko is saying and how Bud could be seduced by his words.

The culmination of Douglas' performance is his much lauded, often quoted, "Greed is good" speech that his character gives to a shareholders' meeting of Teldar Paper, a company he is planning to take over. He concludes by saying, "Greed is right; greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms, greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge -has marked the upward surge of mankind and greed, you mark my words -will save not only Teldar Paper but that other malfunctioning corporation called the U.S.A." This is one of the best delivered monologues ever put to film as Douglas goes from charming to downright threatening and back again, succinctly summing up the essence of '80 capitalism and greed.

The original DVD did not have many extras but the quality of what was included was excellent. They have all been carried over to this new release (minus the trailers) but do the new extras really merit a double dip?

There is an audio commentary by co-writer and director Oliver Stone. Stone talks about Michael Douglas' early struggles with the huge amount of dialogue he had to deliver and how he dealt with it. The filmmaker is candid with his shortcomings and those of others (i.e. Daryl Hannah, Charlie Sheen, etc.). As always, Stone delivers the goods, offering all kinds of fascinating insights into the making of the film.

The second disc features a new introduction by Oliver Stone that is brief and really should have been put on the first disc.

Another new extra is "Greed is Good," an hour-long retrospective documentary with Hal Hoolbrook, John C. McGinley, Charlie Sheen and Michael Douglas amongst others returning to offer their impressions of the financial world depicted in the movie. This substantial doc examines the appeal of Gekko and why he inspired people in the business world.

Also new to this edition is over 20 minutes of deleted scenes with optional commentary by Stone. There is a nice little scene with Penn Jillette of Penn & Teller as one of Bud's clients. Also included is an earlier scene where Bud and Darian (Hannah) meet in a bar but Stone cut it because the Hamptons scene at Gekko's house was stronger. The filmmaker puts all of these scenes into context and why there were cut.

Finally, carried over from the original edition is "Money Never Sleeps: The Making of Wall Street," a top-notch, 47-minute making of documentary. There is very little overlap with the "Greed is Good" documentary.

If you're a fan of this film and already own the previous edition, the new extras definitely warrant a double dip. They are quite substantial in nature and shed more light on this excellent film.

To watch this movie in Moscow in 1988 as a student was a liberating and exhilarating experience. Here is the capitalism close-up, warts and all. And we loved it. In three more years the Soviet communism will be dismantled, free market hurriedly introduced, and some of my friends and fellow students will proceed to become very rich people themselves. I did not know then, that Gordon Gekko, a villain who incidentally was much admired by me, was a thinly veiled portrait of Ivan Boesky. Boesky, who incidentally was a son of Russian immigrants, became a center of the biggest insider trading scandal and government investigation in the 1980s, which let to the collapse of junk bond powerhouse firm Drexel Burnham. However, I knew that Gekko must be much more than a villain, otherwise how this ugly character could be so attractive? Of course, a huge part of it was a superb acting by Michael Douglas. But watching this film now, 17 years later, gave me an opportunity to ponder more on the subject from a different perspective. I think now that Gekko's character is archetypal and has the same qualities as Bulgakov's Woland from `Master and Margarita'. He is the Wall Street Mephistopheles, the Grand seducer, not just some greedy upstart and `faux bonhomme'. But one of the qualities of Lucifer is that he `brings out the light', he helps to illuminate things, partly because of his own darkness. Untimely, in the movie it was his turbulent encounter with Gekko, which helped Bud Fox to find his character and, in a way, redeem himself. So in some strange way, the movie is a Wall-Street-version of age-old story of Faust.

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2 Disc Set Insider Trading Edition, released September 7, 2010

Wallstreet was made in 1987 by writer and director Oliver Stone and starring Michael Douglas, Charlie Sheen, Martin Sheen, Darryl Hannah, and John C. McGinley. A young stockbroker after months of persistence finally bags the big fish, Gordon Gekko, a man whose presence and lifestyle he idolizes. He shuns his blue collar background in pursuit of greed and impatiently engages in illegal insider trading.

I first watched this movie after a book called "Now Showing" claimed it to be one of the best 25 movies....ever, I guess. I must say, all in all, it was a good movie. I actually really liked Charlie Sheen and Martin Sheen's work in it and I believed their relationship. The pull of an actual father and son relationship really added to the authenticity of the roles. I finally got to see Michael Douglas just the way I like him -being a bad guy, someone getting the best of him, and not seducing women.

Michael Douglas plays a big Wallstreet player who has money falling out of his eyeballs and is idolized by Charlie Sheen's Bud Fox. Fox is taught to bend and eventually break the rules to get ahead and get that cold hard cash. This movie is all about greed. Douglas' character likes to buy out the majority of shares in a company and then liquidate it getting away with a quick buck. When Douglas gets going into a lengthy monologue, he oozes confidence which is amazing considering the pressure he was under. Bud Fox grows a conscience when he sells out his father's company to this same fate and decides to fight against it ruining everything he's worked for. This was one of those roles that really made Charlie Sheen stand out and become a celebrity in his own right and brought the extra challenges of that responsibility with it.

There is an appearance by Darryl Hannah as random home decorating girlfriend who is very comfortable in her way of living and leaves Fox the first time it gets tough. I thought it would be more dramatic and more of a point of her being in the movie, but there really isn't and it ended up being a waste of screen time and just one more thing for him to lose on his fall from grace. She is a symbol of the rewards that can be earned by a fast way of living stepping on others and her substance is very shallow. Again I really loved seeing someone get the best of Michael Douglas, even if they couldn't get away scot-free and had to face the music. Shows the value of time, hard work, and morals over getting rich quick with some family values thrown in too.

Probably an undervalued asset to this film is one of my favorites, John C. McGinley whom you'll remember as one of the Bob's from Office Space and his role of Dr. Cox on Scrubs. Always there to heckle and mock his good friend and has some of the best one-liners in the movie. Actually three of the main five lines people quote from this movie can all be attributed to this character he developed.

This is especially a great movie for men and/or people who love business and stocks. This is one of my husband's all-time favorites and many men can quote it readily.

DVD Extras:

First, there is a new commentary by director, Oliver Stone. He is a precise fellow! Stories are told of how filming is going on and he isn't even looking through the camera, he is following along word for word in the script to make sure his actors don't miss a moment of his dialogue. Before Michael Douglas, Stone considered Warren Beatty and Richard Gere for the role of Gordon Gekko which both declined when the script was in an earlier form. Apparently Gere still wonders where his career would have gone if he had gotten the script that Michael Douglas got to shoot. Douglas had a heck of a time with the lines. There was so much to his monologues and dialogue and much was shot in long takes. When he finally put in the time and memorized his part better, he was able to put in the performance that was needed. The commentary reveals more behind-the-scenes information as well as Stone's apparently neurotic tendencies. So many times after a line is said, he commented on how so-and-so of some magazine or whatever complained about THAT line but why he justified it being important to the script. If he really was that confident behind each one, he probably wouldn't need to expain, right? He had a LOT of issues working with Darryl Hannah and in retrospect wouldn't have cast her in the role if he could do it over again.

On Disc 2, you can watch the entire film with a Trivia Track that pops up helpful facts like when it's Gekko's birthday that he is a Taurus and other facts that are actually interesting about the making of the film and New York and the stock exchange in general.

"Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps" is a very short few minute conversation with the main actors in the new film: Michael Douglas, Shia LaBeouf, Carey Mulligan, and Josh Brolin about their characters and new situations. "Fox Legacy with Tom Rothman" talks about a generation of men who took up "Wall Street" as something to be quoted and idolized Gekko, whom was intended to be a villain but was a hero to these young, hungry executives.

So really when it boils down to it, this version is just to make a few bucks with the new movie coming out and does not provide much that the 20th anniversary edition didn't out-do.

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While the subject of the stock market and trading on Wall Street doesn't interest me in the least, I loved how Oliver Stone made it interesting is "Wall Street". It stands as one of his most intellegent and accomplished films, with a smart (if overly-technical) script and superb acting.

Charlie Sheen, the quintessential 80's heartthrob, takes on a new role as Bud Fox, an ambitious young stock trader. He works his days selling stocks, all the while hoping to be a player in the same league as the big guys. One such big guy is Gordon Gekko (Michaek Douglas, in a standout performance), a millionaire tycoon who makes his living buying out companies and liquidating them for profit. He takes Fox under his wing, gives him a taste of the wealth and power, and Fox becomes insatiable. So much that he makes some wrong decisions, not realizing that this new power and wealth comes at a higher cost, one that he cannot afford.

The 80's was characterized by hotshot young executives looking for the quick and easy buck, and Oliver Stones portrayed that very well here. Gordon Gekko is the benchmark corporate villian, someone who one see's the world only in shades of green. The acting in this movie is first rate, especially from Michael Douglas. The long lines of dialogue, the speeches, and the emotional undertones are a challenge for any actor, and all involved here did an excellent job. I often watch "Wall Street" just for the acting.

The DVD is not a full-blown Special Edition, but it's a quality release nonetheless. Oliver Stone's commentary is insightful and articulate, even though he rambles and speaks in an annoying deep voice. The "Making Of" documentary is a real treat. Simply titled "Money Never Sleeps", it is over 1 hour of new interviews with the cast and crew, discussing all major points of the movie and the stories behind the scenes. It is one of the better DVD-exclusive documentaries I have seen.

Whether or not you find the subject interesting, "Wall Street" is a great movie in almost every way. While the script wanders off into technical stock jargon, it is one of the best scripts I have ever seen put to film. The acting is top notch, and Oliver Stone directs with panache and style. A must have.

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I thoroughly enjoyed "Wall Street" when it first came out 25-odd years ago.

I was looking forward to the BD version, thinking it would look spectacular compared to the DVD copy was I wrong! The transfer to BD looks herendous in fact, it looks like you are watching a DVD copy of the movie, not some digital remastering at 1080p.

Save your money buy the DVD copy and enjoy.

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Once Upon a Time in America (2011)

Okay, a four hour gangster movie is not going to be everyone's cup of tea, especially when the pacing is absolutely glacial and DeNiro and Woods aren't on-screen for about half that time because of a childhood flashback that's longer than some full movies. But, if you take this movie on the terms director Sergio Leone sets, it's a richly rewarding cinemeatic experience. I've heard the film described as "an opium dream of a gangster movie" and the pacing seems to justify such a response. But it's slow and richly detailed, and a little odd at times, for very good reasons that pay off in spades by the film's emotionally titanic (though slightly anti-climactic} finale.

Despite what can seem like turgidness on first viewing, this film is likely to stick to your ribs and merit repeat screenings. DeNiro smolders throughout, while James Woods delivers a teriffic scenery-chewing performance. The story is friendship (and betrayal, of course)--or is it Romulus and Remus? Greek tragedy, perhaps? Godfather parts 1 and 2 rolled into one film? Yes, and more. And viewers familliar with Leone only through his spagetti westerns are in for a surprise: Leone is a world-class film-maker here, capable of stunning beauty and cruelty, often within the same frame.

Does it really need to be this slow? Does the flashback to childhood need to be almost and hour and a half long (don't worry--it's absorbing enough in its own right to keep you from noticing)? Does the the chronology need to be so screwy? Does that darn phone need to ring so long? Absolutely.

Fans of Woods, DeNiro, Leone, or gangster movies in general canot afford to pass this film up. The supporting cast, especially the young actors playing the gang members in thier childhood, is also consistently stellar. Best viewed on a cold wintry afternoon when you've got plenty of time. Opium not provided.

When "Once Upon A Time in America" was initially released, there wasn't much of a stir in America due to the well-documented excision of around an hour and half of footage. But, on its release to home video, the restored, uncut version was suddenly available to American viewers. Thank God. This is a deeply moving, emotionally-wrenching film that deserves its ranks in the annals of some of the greatest motion pictures ever filmed. Movie lovers will delight in this film from frame to frame. Top-notch performances, extended sequences with attention to detail that rival the best Kubrick films, and plot twists told through inventive flashback sequences make this a movie-lovers paradise.

I remember when it first came out, I was mesmerized by it for three reasons. Firstly, when it was released there was possibly never a more violent film than this one, with the possible exception of Scarface. Thus, the action is first-rate. Secondly, the performances were all compelling. One performance that went overlooked, I think, was Tuesday Weld's volatile performance as the damaged and emotionally scarred girlfriend of the equally volatile Woods. DeNiro, of course, holds every scene he's in; there's a great sequence in the film involving crooked cop Danny Aiello and a sick practical joke played on him by the gangsters seeking to influence him; additionally, a young Jennifer Connelly gives a fine performance as the childhood sweetheart of one of the gang-members. Thirdly, the pacing of the film was deliberately extended in several sequences to allow for Ennio Morricone's haunting, melancholic, and most deeply felt musical score. When Morricone's music swells, so collectively do we, and the play on the screen becomes the ultimate tragedy that can never have a happy ending.

Some of the visuals of the film are especially striking, not the least of which is the aerial shot of DeNiro lying under a mesh cover on a mattress in an opium den, grinning goofily while he allows the opium to take its effect, and wipe away the memories of his betrayal. Other standout visuals include the shot of a frisbee flying through the air to introduce yet another flashback sequence, the opening sequences of horrifying violence, and a final sequence involving a garbage truck.

All of this together creates an unforgettable movie experience, one that will stay with the viewer for a long time.

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"Once Upon A Time In America" is director, Sergio Leone's stunning tale of organized crime and the destruction it unleashes into the lives of four life-long friends. Robert DeNiro headlines a cast of great talent that includes Joe Pesci, Treat Williams and James Woods. When this film first premiered in 1984 it was 229 minutes. However, the subject matter was considered so violent and shocking, and the pace so methodically slow that nearly 40 minutes were excised for general exhibition, rendering the story line practically incomprehensible. I am pleased to say that this new 2-disc set at last gives us the story as it was originally intended, full of robust characterizations, enthralling action sequences and filled with the sort of memorable moments that have reminded me why we all go to the movies to be entertained (not overwhelmed with way-too-many, ultra-slick digital effects!).

Warner Brothers 2 disc set does have its drawbacks. First, the movie itself is spread over two discs and, there is no polite way to say it, the interruption is obtrusive. The break happens right in the middle of a crucial scene. Interruption aside, the DVD is marred by considerable film grain and a bit of digital grit that make most of the images digitally harsh instead of creamy smooth. Many scenes offer remarkable clarity and depth while others, mostly night time or dark scenes suffer from a loss of fine detail that disappears into a haze of undistinguished muddy blacks, browns and blues. Edge enhancement, pixelization, shimmering and aliasing are present throughout the transfer, sometimes distractingly so. The audio is remixed 5.1 and is strident and lacking in tonal bass.

Extras: Pretty much a retrospective and audio commentaries. Some toss away stuff. That's it, that's all!

BOTTOM LINE: For its sheer mastery in the art of cinema story telling, I recommend "Once Upon A Time In America". The transfer leaves something to be desired but hey, it's nice to have this American classic back in the spotlight and, finally, in its full running time.

Read Best Reviews of Once Upon a Time in America (2011) Here

Now, I am by no means a Sergio Leone fan, but he deserved the Oscar for Direction for this film. I firmly believe that this film stands up there with "The Godfather, Part II", "Casablanca", and "Citizen Kane" as one of the greatest films ever released (maybe the best). Sergio Leone's violent, visual, masterpiece of turn of the century Jewish boys from New York growing into a life of crime has a different effect on all those who have viewed it in its various forms. I, personally have never seen the shortened version so I can not comment on it. There isn't anything in this film that isn't worth the four hour running time. Brilliant, poetic visuals, great photography and fantastic performances across the board.

Leone touches on issues of violence (the scenes are gory and sometimes explicit), sexual depravity (its no coincidence that all sexual encounters are in unconventional places and only in Noodles' rape of Deborah does he exhibit any kind of emotion toward any of his partners, gently caressing and kissing her as he violates her in a pathetic attempt to show his love), and simply growing old (brought about by the reminisces of Noodles' childhood with a beautiful good 'ol days type feeling despite the criminal nature of his childhood) and leaves us clamoring for more after the four hours are through.

Robert DeNiro is fantastic as always as Noodles. But it is James Woods, in my opinion that steals the show as Max. William Forsythe, Treat Williams, Danny Aiello, Burt Young, Joe Pesci, Jennifer Connely and Tuesday Weld add to this film just as actors of their quality are expected to. Their performances, as well as the two leads at the very least deserved, but didn't recieve any, Academy Award nominations. (In fact, the Oscars were the only ceremony to snub this film). Ennio Morricone's score was as beautiful and evocative as one would expect from the master of the Italian score.

Worth seeing. Sit back, take the phone off the hook and prepare for a cinematic experience.

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Once again Sergio Leone proves that he is the master of the classically "American" genre film, this time training his exquisite eye from the Western to the gangster film...gangster EPIC, actually.

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This movie takes place via disjointed flashbacks over a period of fifty years, focusing on the life (and death) of crime as experienced by four childhood friends, specifically David "Noodles" Aaronson, portrayed in maturity by Robert DeNiro in another typically inspired performance.

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The movie in its American release nearly 20 years ago was absolutely butchered by the US-based distributor, with over an hour of footage removed from the feature in order to make it more managable for US audiences. The result was that the personality of the movie was essentially siphoned off and the film was savaged by film critics nationwide. When the movie was released for cable a year or so later, a fair bit of the footage was restored (and in fact another edit presented the film exclusively in chronological order from Noodles' youth to old age).

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This restored version does include as much as the film's original footage as can be accounted for (to our knowledge), and the effect is somewhat more enlightening than the cable edit I first saw (and legitimately loved) almost two decades prior. The violence edited back into the movie makes it more difficult for the viewer to find sympathy/empathy with any of the characters (which may have been a stretch to begin with)...but while the extra features are a wonderful addition to the DVD (James Woods' admission on the Leone bio piece that to this day he is asked what exactly happened in "his" last scene...and to this day he's uncertain himself...is worth the price of purchase alone. And Richard Schickel's film-length commentary track is also a joy to watch/listen to.

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But Warner Brothers REALLY dropped the ball by deciding to split the film into two equal lengths for the purpose of placing it on 2 discs; particularly when considering that in fact Leone did make provision for an intermission within 2:45 of the film's original running time. The most obvious issue is that yes, a rather crucial scene was unceremoniously interrupted as Disc One ends and resumed at the beginning of Disc Two. Arguments will be made that this was necessary to include the full-length commentary track for both discs, but even "Pulp Fiction" with a complete running time of over two-and-a-half hours was able to complete the presentation with commentary track on the same disc; you have to believe Warner Borthers could at least have done a better job with Leone's final masterpiece. As it is, the perfect realization of the film that was by all admissions nearest and dearest to the Italian film maestro's heart still eludes him, even in this digital age. Had he lived to see it, he could not have been pleased with this treatment. Nor was I. A terrific film, beautifully and lovingly shot as always, speaking to the emotions of the viewer in a way that so many American directors simply can't pull off...but once again the editors have failed the artist. I own it, and will view it regularly out of respect to its brilliance as a film, but someone should have been sacked over this DVD presentation.

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Down by Law (The Criterion Collection) (1986)

This "Down By Law" DVD is a perfect example of why I love the Criterion Collection's catalog. First off, the film looks and sounds fantastic. If you are familiar with this film, you are aware of Lurie's incredible soundtrack. The DVD does not disappoint. Visually, it is stunning. If this DVD package only delivered these elements, I would be happy. But, this DVD is filled to the gills with extras. Not only are there extras, but a double disk of extras! Remember, this is "Down By Law", not LOTR, Star Wars I, etc. This is a borderline cult/ art house film with a small, but strong fan base. Never, never, never would another company pour as much love and energy for the DVD of a film of this type. Take for example "Stranger than Paradise:" no face lift and no extras. "Down By Law" DVD notables: the entire Cannes press conference, Lurie interview for French TV in 1986 plus his 2002 commentary on his interview, extensive audio tracks of Jim Jarmusch discussing the film and answering fans QA (sent from the Criterion web site Was Tom Waits really drunk? What does 'Down By Law' mean?), Robby Muller interview, Tom Waits video directed by Jarmusch with commentary, etc. etc, etc.

If you are a fan, there is no reason to miss this one. If you are curious about Jim Jarmusch as a director, this is the DVD to start on. A flawless package.

I can't say enough good things about the "Down By Law" Criterion DVD! The high-definition digital film transfer is wonderful and it really shows off Robby Muller's breathtaking b/w camera work. The DVD has 2 discs and the packaging is well done. The first disc contains the film itself and the second disc is packed full of goodies such as the insightful "Thoughts & Reflections" from director Jim Jarmusch, a "2002 Video Interview" with director of photography Robby Muller, "1986 Cannes Film Festival Press Conference" with Jarmusch and cast members John Lurie, Roberto Benigni & Nicoletta Braschi that is fun to watch, a great "1986 Interview" with John Lurie + his hilarious commentary on the interview, a bunch of film "Outtakes" which feature some great never before seen bits (especially with Lurie!) a terrific Tom Waits music video for "It's All Right With Me" also directed by Jarmusch and 3 wonderful recorded phone conversations from 2002 that Jarmusch had with Waits, Benigni and Lurie about making "Down By Law", etc.

The extras on the DVD give an intimate view of this very personal film and are amazing to watch and listen to. It's so complete that I can't imagine what else could be added to the Criterion release to make it more perfect. Many years from now when Jarmusch and the cast have left this sad and beautiful world, this gem will no doubt be a priceless look at one of the best American films ever made by one of America's best directors. Fantastic! One of the best films Criterion has released.

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I haven't seen all of Jarmusch's films, but I've seen plenty (Ghost Dog, Mystery Train, Stranger than Paradise, Dead Man) to know this is probably gonna go down as my favorite of them all. Jarmusch and photographer Mueller do a brilliant job setting everything up. Its style is as classic and effective as the film noirs of the 1950s, including the seedy characters, the dialogue, and the moody jazz courtesy of John Lurie, one of the film's stars. Story wise, we're dealing with two lowlifes, a pimp and a recently fired DJ, who don't know each other, who are each set up and sent to prison for crimes they didn't commit. They are thrown in a cell together, and eventually an Italian who accidentally killed a man after cheating at a game of cards (hit him with an 8-ball--CLASSIC!) and find a way to escape. John Lurie is the pimp, Tom Waits is the DJ, and Robert Benigni makes his American film debut as Bob, the Italian. (Ironically, he is the kindest, funniest, most jovial of the trio, yet he is the only one who actually is guilty of the crime he's in for).

I've read the other reviews, and I'm dissapointed in why some people don't like the film. First off, I believe that Criterion has once again given us a top of the line DVD transfer. The extras are great for folks that are into the "hows" and "whys" of a film, as I am, and the transfer itself is clear and beautiful to watch.

The acting may not be the best (Lurie was adequite), the dialogue and storyline are right out of the 50s, and help the mood of the entire thing. The characters are introduced perfectly so that we don't really need to know why they're being set-up. Our imagination can do the walking for us there. We know they're both kind of shady guys, and there are any number of reasons why someone would wanna see them put away, or use them so that someone else doesn't get caught.

And as far as the reviewer wondering why we don't see the dogs, only hear them; don't see the escape, only the afterwards; and don't see the prison, only their cell, the answer is simple: its an indie film made before indie's were all the rage. Jarmusch could only afford so much, and I find that he did an incredible job giving us all the necessary information without having to show us everything that was going on. The only thing I might raise an eyebrow to is Bob and Nicoletta (Benigni's real life wife) falling in love in under an hour or two. But hey, sometimes, if its worth it, you gotta suspend reality. The chemistry between the two characters is enough for me to believe they're in love, so who am I to argue!

All in all, this is one of my favorite movies to watch. Criterion did a great job with this DVD, and at the very least, its a fun flick in the noir tradition, with a bit of a smart-ass underworld, beatnick edge to it.

...but that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

Read Best Reviews of Down by Law (The Criterion Collection) (1986) Here

This unique and original film is a personal masterpiece, a real sleeper. I'd recommed it to anyone interested in non-formula American cinema in general, and fans of the macabre. It ranks up there with some of the better black and white movies of recent times, in the mold of Woody Allen's "Manhattan".

What made this film great for me, was that the director masterly chose to leave out extraneous footage and instead keep our focus on character development much the way Jean Luc Goddard does. Indeed Goddard's stamp is felt everywhere in this picture, which is why I liked it so much. This is America's answer to neorealism and done very well. The fact that we don't really see exactly how the main characters escape from prison, nor do we see how Zack rescues Bob from his fear of swimming add (rather than detract from) the plot, and give us more time with the personal nature of the characters, their "everyday chit-chat", etc, is what gives this film its charm. I won't give away the ending, but even that is told in an unorthodox manner, which is a breath of fresh air from formula Holywood films.

The acting is surprisingly naturalistic and believable, and Tom Waits gives an especially brilliant performance here. Roberto Bernini is hilarious as the sort of comic sidekick to the two streetwise contenders of the trio this is a truly original chemistry of character mixes, and the film could have taken the more traditional path of "straight-guy/goofy-guy" as in Laurel & Hardy or Abbot & Costello, but instead wisely opts to break new ground by having two "straight" characters that battle it out for leadership.

The "We All Scream for Ice Cream" segment is one of the funniest bits I've seen in a film in years and should be one of those rare legendary film icons by this point.

The DVD transfer is wonderful a crisp, clean print that looks great onscreen. Criterion have done yet another great job here.

This is a gem of a movie and I highly recommed it!

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Zack (Tom Waits) has just been fired from his job as a DJ and he is thrown out by his girlfriend. Jack (John Lurie) is offered another prostitute under his wings as a pimp by a competitor who wants to make amends. The circumstances lead to both men being framed and they end up sharing a cell in prison. Both men are bitter over their situation and they can hardly stand each others company. One day the peculiar Roberto (Roberto Benigni) is put in the same cell with Jack and Zack. This is the beginning of a new friendship between the three men where Roberto is the glue that holds the friendship together. Down by Law is an intelligent and cynical film that is presented in an anxious societal situation, which provides amusement for the audience.

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Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn Vol. 4 (2010)

An absolutely wonderful blu ray and if you are worried about purchasing from any of the other sellers don't be. I purchased it from the Japan shop or whatever and it got here 4 days later (California to Wisconsin) I'm satisfied

I was satisfied completely. The unicorn series has had a profound impact on me as an anime enthusiast. The quality of picture and storyline make it an exciting journey to take part in on bluray. The order came in a timely manner and that means alot since I'm deployed overseas. Greatbuy!

Buy Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn Vol. 4 (2010) Now

well, I have purchased every volume on blu-ray-this one from bandai-ent just before they closed permanently...on my birthday! what a gift! hopefully we will get to see the end of gundam uc at least on bd. anyhow, this episode shows what the conflict on earth is like, it shows many different angles of the struggle along with some character history. the battles are awesome but the gundam aspect of this episode is lacking, it's more about everyone else. which is great but in the end we watch gundam for gundam. it also introduces new characters with almost no history and wipes them out before you get to know them-but it's still a great episode and well worth the money.

Read Best Reviews of Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn Vol. 4 (2010) Here

Gran Torino (+ BD-Live) (2008)

Throughout his illustrious acting career, Clint Eastwood has delivered a series of iconic characters, such as The Man with no name, Dirty Harry, Josie Wales, and Will Munny in Unforgiven.

Throughout his illustrious directing career he has delivered outstanding movies such as Unforgiven, Mystic River, and Million Dollar Baby, for which he has won five Academy Awards, for best Picture, Best Director, and including the Irving Thalberg Life Achievement Award.

The actors who have worked with him have been blessed with Oscar: Gene Hackman for Unforgiven, Tim Robbins and Sean Penn for Mystic River, Morgan Freeman and Hilary Swank for Million Dollar Baby.

In Gran Torino he both directs and acts, and delivers an acting performance that will be remembered long after the final credits roll, in its unique way, as memorable as any other character he has created.

Gran Torino is the second best movie I have seen this year. Not just for the acting, not just for the directing, but for the storytelling, and the emotional journey on which it takes you, the laughter, the feeling of being gripped, and its more surprising moments.

In the opening scenes, we have the exposition of the character. We get to know Walt Kowalski, by how people act around him, and his seemingly hateful attitude towards people. More is conveyed through a scowl, and a snarl than with words. When the mischievous grandchildren go through his stuff in the basement, we see the Silver Star he won in Korea. There are three other important symbols in the movie, the lighter, the gun, and the car.

We see a hero with a warrior past, a patriot who fought for a cause greater than himself. Clearly, his bigotry stems from those experiences.

He's not just mean, he's 'get of my lawn' mean. He's Dirty Harry 'Go ahead punk, make my day!,' mean.

His dead wife's priest bugs him to hear his confession, at her request. The priest in a way is his wife's conscience.

When he snarls down the barrel of his rifle, at the neighborhood punk: 'I could blow your head off, and sleep like a baby,' you get the sense that he means it.

So, with all that happens, we see the change in his decision making, from someone reluctant to be involved in his neighbor's affairs, and a story can turn on something as random as looking at an empty beer cooler.

For all his faults, Walt has mature masculine character. Even though he is a difficult father, he has taught his children character. So, when he sees the boy next door lacks character, and a strong male role model, he takes him under his wing, and teaches him how to be a man.

The scenes where the boy practises Walt's high octane ball busting banter, are the funniest in the movie. Through knowing Walt, he makes decisions he never would have made by himself. In so doing, Walt finds meaning and purpose, and a chance for redemption, and the boy becomes a man.

The Academy's actor awards tend to go to actors in two types of role:

1.PsychopathNo Country for Old Men, The Usual Suspects, There Will Be Blood, Training Day, Silence of the Lambs.

2.Mentally Disabled, Social or Physical Handicap, overcomes great adversity or discriminationShine, As Good as It Gets, A Beautiful Mind, Ray, Scent of a Woman, Capote, Philadelphia, The Pianist, A Beautiful Life.

Every rule has an exception. Russell Crowe in Gladiator played a character with thematic similarities to Walt.

For a 78 year old man to direct and be lead actor in a movie of this caliber is an achievement worthy at the very least of being nominated for the highest award for Acting, Directing or both.

I hope you find this review helpful.

People react strongly to "Gran Torino," either embracing its depiction of a flawed but heroic racist old coot, or deriding the movie simply because its apparent political incorrectness makes them nervous. But even if the Academy does not bestow one award on what is probably Clint Eastwood's last movie as an actor, remember this: "Gran Torino" is a more intelligent film on the state of race relations today than "Crash" (a multiple Oscar winner) ever pretended to be.

The story is about Walt Kowalski, a grizzled Korean War vet and widower who spends his time drinking, smoking, and polishing his 1972 Ford Gran Torino, a vintage example of Detroit muscle. Because he installed the car's steering column himself, the car represents not only a classically American fixation on the automobile, but also a blue-collar, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps work ethic, one that Eastwood himself would no doubt agree with. (If for some reason you don't believe me, read his "What I've Learned" interview in the latest issue of Esquire.)

Kowalski mentors an aimless Hmong teenager named Thao, who is being pressured to join his cousin's gang. This is where the "Karate Kid" comparison comes in, which is inaccurate, partly because the characters of "Gran Torino" exhibit considerably greater depth. The boy who plays Thao (and in fact all of the Hmong characters) is not a professional actor, so although his portrayal is sometimes rather wooden, there really isn't any substitute for authenticity. Eastwood came of age in an era when Hollywood produced war movies using, say, a Chinese actor to portray a Japanese soldier. It's clear from the casting of "Gran Torino" (and "Letters from Iwo Jima," for that matter) that Eastwood prefers to do things his own way.

Kowalski makes fun of Thao (calling him "Toad"), but also teaches the boy how to earn an honest living. In the process, he becomes closer to Thao's family than he is to any of his own kin, who have degenerated into a distant, crass, materialistic clan of their own, far removed from the values Kowalski attempted to pass on.

The steady stream of racist epithets in "Gran Torino" will cause some people to laugh uncomfortably, others to laugh with delight, and still another group to glare at those who are laughing. Ultimately, however, this unsettling portrayal of one man's deep prejudices evolves into a different story altogether. It is not possible to show the audience a path away from a racist mentality without showing honestly where that mentality came from--a feat which "Crash," in spite of its heavy-handed moralizing, never came close to pulling off.

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Can Clint Eastwood go wrong? After striking gold a few months ago with the brilliant "Changeling," he releases "Gran Torino," another one of the year's best films. What a masterful storyteller Eastwood is, so focused on creating that perfect balance between story and character. He doesn't disappoint with "Gran Torino," a nearly flawless film that gives us characters we believe in and a story so compelling that it's virtually impossible to not be absorbed by it. What we have here is a cross-generational, cross-cultural story about people who can learn so much from each other despite being different. It's about regret, sadness, redemption, and growth, which isn't to say that it's conventional or archetypal; Eastwood plays a contemporary version of a Wise Old Man, someone who draws on life experience to teach an undeveloped youth. What's unique is that, regardless of what life has taught him, this Wise Old Man still has a lot to learn.

He has a name, of course: retired Ford factory worker Walt Kowalski. As a veteran of the Korean War, Kowalski has seen and done a lot of things he wishes he hadn't. He's bitter, antisocial, and politically incorrect. After his wife's funeral, we discover that he doesn't get along too well with his sons, specifically Mitch (Brian Haley) and his wife, Karen (Geraldine Hughes), who seem to believe that his age automatically makes him codependent and eligible for a spot in a retirement home. His grandchildren don't appreciate him one bit; the granddaughter only wants his stuff, hand-me-downs to take with her to school. They don't make things easy for him, but then again, he doesn't make things easy for them, either. It's a vicious cycle of resentment and miscommunication.

As this is being established, we're introduced to a teenage boy named Thao (Bee Vang), who lives next door to Kowalski with his large Hmong family. He's the black sheep of his deeply traditional family, always doing chores that the women are supposed to do. Having no direction in life, he's pressured by his cousin, nicknamed Spider (Doua Moua), to join his neighborhood gang. As an act of initiation, Thao must sneak into Kowalski's garage and steal his most prized possession: A 1972 Gran Torino. The attempt backfires. Some time later, Spider arrives with his posse and tries to abduct Thao. The resulting scuffle is broken up when Kowalski points his shotgun at the gang members and demand they get off his lawn.

Within no time at all, Kowalski's front steps are covered with tokens of appreciation from Thao's family, none of which go appreciated. But then Kowalski gets to know Thao's sister, Sue (Ahney Her), a remarkably independent young woman. Quick-witted and outgoing, she takes Kowalski's racial slurs in stride, believing that a good man lies behind the disgruntled façade. As he spends more time with Sue and her family, he begins to realize that he has more in common with them that with his own family, which, in all likelihood, scares him more than it brings him comfort.

When Thao formally apologizes for trying to steal Kowalski's Gran Torino, Kowalski puts him to work doing various chores, like repainting a house and fixing gutters. Hardly a scene goes by when he isn't verbally berating Thao, although it's obvious from the start that he's doing it to toughen him up, to make him believe that his life has a purpose and that he should actively be trying to find it. Part of this involves getting Thao to talk like a man. There's a priceless scene in which Kowalski brings Thao to a barber, who has been sharing insults with Kowalski for a number of years. Afterwards, Kowalski arranges for Thao to work at a construction site; the boss, as it turns out, is the perfect man for Thao to test his new vocabulary on. What Kowalski doesn't realize is that he's learning just as much from Thao, especially in matters of caring for other people. Eventually, Kowalski comes to the conclusion that Thao and his family will never be at peace so long as Spider and his gang are around.

The film's most fascinating character is Father Janovich (Christopher Carley), a twenty-seven year old priest who promised Kowalski's wife that he'd look after him upon her death and get him to confess. Initially, Kowalski wants nothing to do with Janovich, who gives sermons on matters of life and death yet has no real idea what it means to face your own mortality. Kowalski knows--he served his country in Korea. "What do you know about life?" Janovich calmly asks. "Well," says Kowalski, "I survived the war. I got married and had a family." There's absolutely no joy in his voice when he says this. Gradually, he begins to appreciate Janovich; he many not have all the answers, but at least he's willing to listen.

The brilliance of this movie comes not from the development of the characters, but from the way the characters interact with one another. Virtually no one is on friendly terms at the start, but by the end, there's an understated feeling that respect has been earned on all sides. Kowalski refers to Thao as his friend only once, and while it was nice to actually hear it, it still didn't come as a surprise given everything that had been leading to that moment. At a certain point, you just knew how Kowalski felt. "Gran Torino" is such a wonderful film, so carefully structured, so perfectly cast, so rewarding for the audience. To make just one great film in a year is the mark of real talent. But to make two great films in the same year, now that's the work of genius.

Read Best Reviews of Gran Torino (+ BD-Live) (2008) Here

Some have criticized "Gran Torino" as being too simple, cliched and hurt by the performances of the film's first-time actors.

But this is one of those rare movies that's bigger than the sum of its parts. In recent years, I have yet to see a film that managed to get both men and women to cry. And that it would provoke such strong emotions is not evident until the last act.

It may seem simple and cliched on the surface, and while I knew that Clint Eastwood's character Walt would eventually warm up to his Hmong neighbors, I didn't expect that the movie would also have me, a guy who doesn't cry at movies, wiping my eyes. And not just once, but the three other times I saw the film at the theater. And I heard other people crying at every viewing.

Each time I viewed it, it was just as powerful, if not more.

Walt is an old, bitter racist, who just about hates everyone, including the young pastor who visits him regularly at the request of Walt's late wife, and his own children and their families.

On paper, the story seems simple, but its power is hard to deny. It's part drama, part comedy, part tale of one man's racist surface, but as the credits roll, you realize that the power of the movie, the emotional buttons it pushes, make this a movie that rises above the acting, above its direction, above its script, to make something deeper and emotionally touching than most would have expected.

There are subtle touches and small scenes that any other director would not have folded into the film. And they do go by like a breeze for the most part. They'll have you laughing, smiling or shaking your head.

And it's good that Eastwood's character does not make a complete (and unrealistic) 360 degree turn, as you see in most American movies.

And given what Eastwood has delivered in most of his movies, most notably as Dirty Harry and his various Westerns, you expect a big showdown to come, and that showdown does come, but not with the ending you expect.

Eastwood has made powerful movies before, but this one really seemed to touch the core of many people, across many age groups, and racial/ethnic designations.

On a side note, Eastwood has also done what so many Hollywood studios and filmmakers choose not to do, which is portray Asian-Americans as regular, everyday people, living in America. That's no small feat, as most Hollywood studios go out of their way to not cast Asian-Americans and not show the lives of Asian-Americans. They rather change the race of the characters, even when they're basing a movie on a real-life story about Asian-American people, or offer easy, ignorant stereotypes.

Eastwood only deserves credit, because it's something that should have been done decades ago.

And while this movie may not get much kudos from the snobby critics in the big film world, it has a emotional pull that even some recent Eastwood movies don't have.

It may not have won any big awards, but it's a movie I plan on watching for years to come.

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With 175 reviews to read you probably won't get around to reading mine. But Gran Torino may just be Clint Eastwood's finest acting, and it certainly one of the best films he's directed. It's both iconic building on Dirty Harry and Unforgiven and subtle. As an actor friend of mine once said back in the late 1970's about Clint: "He's got one look. But boy, is it a good look."

Gran Torino is the embodiment of that statement. When Clint levels his rifle at the scum, and says he could blow their heads off, go in, and sleep like a baby, he's probably the only man on earth you'd believe saying something like that. His eyes, his carriage, his intensity.

Underneath that patented Dirty Harry glare is a performance of such subtlety, minute inflections, and being it's virtuoso. He's like a worn out pair of jeans, a well-oiled and used baseball mitt. Clint Eastwood uses his entire body of work as a back drop to this performance, and builds on it to take us along for the ride.

I'm not going to share the plot as others have so far. It's a film about values and tradition. About accountability. Doing the right thing up to and including making sure his old dog is taken care of. What's masterful about the film is that he takes what could have been a caricature in the hands of another actor and director and makes it believable.

Much has been made of his racist language. At first it's jarring. It's so all encompasing and over the top in the beginning of the film you can't help but concentrate on it. But he takes it from Archie Bunker territory with character development and plot arc to the point where you no longer actually hear the stupid words. You are too focused on the man's character and who he really is. A real racist would never have entered his neighbor's home, and certainly wouldn't have eaten their food. The reviewer who said he's racist because he doesn't know any other way to be is spot-on.

The Hmong cast is outstanding. I especially loved the interaction between Walt and Grandma two peas in a pod. Bee Vang as Tow was solid as the boy who becomes a man. Ahney Her as Sue is the driver of the changes in Walt. If she couldn't hold her own with Clint the film wouldn't have worked. She does, and in the bargain, Gran Torino is a very satisfying, impressive film.

Like Gran Torinos, and Clint Eastwood, they don't make 'em like this anymore.

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Django Unchained (Two-Disc Combo Pack: Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy + UltraViolet) (2011)

I really liked Django Unchained, or as I like to call it: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence right through the eyeball and then the bullet continued through about 7 other torsos, shot out from a guy's belly button bringing a plume of intestines with it, ricocheted off someone's jugular vein, then snapped the cord holding up a chandelier causing said chandelier to plummet like a lead balloon, crushing the skulls of various evil varmints and polecats and then plunging into an occupied outhouse where the dynamite was also stored, causing the outhouse to explode in a crimson rain of blood, guts and offal.

But I guess all that wouldn't fit on the poster.

Django has everything you'd want in a movie, action, humor, suspense, drama, and even some romance, all washed down with gallons of blood. Did I mention some beautiful western vistas? it's got those too. And there are plenty of refernces to some of the geat westerns of the past, some of them only visual so pay attention. There is the trade mark Tarantino dialogue as well.

I'm sure other reviewers will talk about racial-political implications and social commentary and such. I'm not that smart. I just thought this was a fast paced and satisfying film for movie fans from beginning to end. Leonardo Di Caprio makes for a great villain, keeping himself just this side of over-the-top. Jamie Fox played Django as quiet waters that ran deep but Christopher Walz steals the show, although Samuel L. Jackson almost beat him to it.

Yes it's violent and bloody, and yes, the "n" word is used liberally throughout the movie, but it's a Tarantino film taking place in pre-Civil War South for pete's sake. What would you expect?

All three leading actors were amazing. Fox & Waltz were insanely good. Beautifly shot and a compelling story that I was never quite sure how all would be resolved (other than knowing a bunch a folks were gonna die).

In honor of Roger Ebert, I give it two thumbs up. R.I.P. Mr. Ebert.

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As an avid fan of Quentin Tarantino, there's a level of quality that I expect from each film that he makes. I expect to connect with his characters, but not necessarily like any of them. I expect to see a film that satisfies the film geek in me. More than anything, I expect to see a film that entertains throughout the prerequisite bloated running time.

"Django Unchained" is nearly three hours long. But it never feels that long, it entertains and surprises every step along the way. When I first checked my watch, we were already two hours into the film. All of Tarantino's films are usually about this long. Tarantino has been having fun with fictionalizing historical periods lately. This started with 2009's "Inglourious Basterds", which was easily one of the best films of that year. My eighty-something year old grandmother, who lived through the time that the film depicted World War II said that if events actually happened as they did in that film, that we would be living in a better world today. I think that's a pretty high compliment, especially since my grandmother is not Tarantino's target audience. He was able to design a great story not an idealistic view of that time period, but still a pretty fascinating one.

"Django" is about slavery...a taboo subject in any film, a strangely popular one, recently, as the same time period is explored in "Lincoln". It's about Django (Jamie Foxx), a slave who is bought and then freed by Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz, one-upping himself from the fantastic performance he gave in "Basterds"), a dentist turned bounty hunter. White supremacist slave owner Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio) bought and enslaved his wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), and Django and Schultz are out to correct the grave injustice done to both of them, and this doesn't mean just capturing and killing Candie, but many others who are responsible for the trauma experienced by Broomhilda.

Christoph Waltz has got to be one of the finest living actors in Hollywood. He's incredibly charismatic, but he cares about his character, first and foremost. As the prime antagonist in "Basterds", he was positively horrifying. In this film, he's the hero, but at the same time, he's anything but that. He brings humor and depth to a character that wouldn't have worked this well otherwise. Jamie Foxx does a good job as well, but I don't necessarily see him winning anything this Oscar season.

I'm half-tempted to call "Django" Quentin Tarantino's superhero movie. Django is by no means that, he's an oppressed figure with no real "super powers", however he's a kick-ass guy who the audience roots for from the very beginning. He even has his own theme song! We don't know how he appears to be more literate than other slaves, and he is somehow always able to outsmart those around him.

"Django" shows Tarantino having slightly more respect for genre than he ever has. It's a western revenge epic, first and foremost. It's also kind of a comedy, with some of the most clever dialogue I've heard in a film in 2012. It's also a romance, displaying the forbidden love between Django and his wife. But it's first and foremost a western, and Tarantino sticks to that.

This film isn't perfect, however. One thing I expect from Tarantino is well-developed strong female characters. We don't have that in "Django". I was hoping that Kerry Washington, who is also badass protagonist Olivia Pope in ABC's "Scandal", would be smart and strong-willed enough to get herself out of the problems which are out of her hands. I was hoping for Tarantino to give her some snappy dialogue, to show that her character is, like Django, superior to all of the other slaves around her. She isn't. She just kind of stands there and whimpers. She's helpless, and I wasn't expecting that from Tarantino, who has written some of the best female protagonists in film.

Other than this, "Django Unchained" is a masterful film. It takes alot for a nearly three hour long film to be engaging the entire way through, and it is. It's wickedly funny, and at the same time, extremely dramatic. With its graphic violence and filthy mouth, it isn't for the faint of heart. All of the actors here, especially DiCaprio, seem to be having tons of fun here, and it shows. Tarantino loves to fictionalize history, and if such films are as good as "Django Unchained", I think he should keep doing it. It's a vision of history that only Tarantino can bring us.

Grade: A-

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I went into this movie with no expectations. I love a good western style film and Django delivered. There was cheesy 60s/70s music, and violence galore, gun slinging, trash talking, crooked sheriffs, nasty slavers, the works. The overuse of the "N" word was shocking to some, but in that time period it was common, so the usage is historically correct. Tarantino didn't skimp on the violence from the original. In fact, in true 'Kill Bill' style, the blood bath flows like wine at a dinner party. The characters and actors are superb. Sam Jackson is amazing, and Leonardo is a convincing slaver. If you are squeamish and don't want to see a glimpse of how life really was for slaves back then, then don't watch. Though I suggest that anyone who still thinks there are still slave like conditions this day in America should suffer through it.

It is refreshing to see that part of history depicted raw and realistic, untainted with political correctness.

This is how we learn.

While still in theaters, it is available in DVD and Blue Ray at Amazon. Django Unchained [Blu-ray] The minute it is available for download to my Kindle Fire I will add it to my collection.

This remake from the 60s is gritty and violent. 4 stars and recommended. MR

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Django Unchained started out great and ended up okay, but somewhere in the middle, it fell a little too in love with itself and the pacing slowed to a crawl. Django is freed and then starts to work with a German bounty hunter, who is a wonderful character. When they go to Candie Land, a plantation where Django's wife is being kept, that's where the movie just fell apart for me. Leo DiCaprio is Candie, and he turns in a good performance, but there's a lot of repetitive dialogue and plodding revelations. Django allows a slave to be torn apart by dogs, which made him an unsympathetic character, whereas before that moment, he was pretty cool. Yes, there's a lot of blood lots of juicy gun fights. Some of it is way over the top, but that's what you expect out of a Tarantino film, so I have no objection to that. The movie is very long and would have been much better about half an hour shorter, but if felt as if Tarantino lost his way and was trying hard to insert tension in the middle, and for me, it just didn't work.

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Shaun of the Dead (2004)

It is a very hard line to cross in today's cinema to make a film that part comedy and horror film. Normally, when this happens we end up with something like the Chucky series. It began serious, but after seeing the new preview, I know they have given up serious horror and invaded into the world of campy horror. I was afraid at first that this film was going to go into that direction, but then I remembered ... this film wasn't made in America, it was made in Britain where the humor is actually intellectually funny. As I was sitting and enjoying this film from beginning to end, I couldn't help but wonder why America has not been able to master this style of film yet. Why is our comedies still heavily based in the sex humor or bathroom jokes? While there were some in this film, I felt the majority of the humor was logic and intelligence based. "If you listen to the words, you will laugh at the jokes" style of comedy instead of waiting to see who will fall over what first.

With its firm grasp on the comedy aspect, Shaun of the Dead delivers an exceptional grade for its creativity. It takes a lot of brain work to be able to think of a story about zombies where our main characters are oblivious to the fact that anything horrible is happening in the world until the second act. That was actually some of my favorite parts of this film. I was there, sitting in the theater, knowing that it was a zombie film (still, can I call it that?), and nearly missing the entire zombie clues going on in the background. My eyes were focused directly on our star and scene-stealer duo, Shaun and Ed. One of my favorite scenes of this film is when Shaun is going to work after the dead have risen and goes through the motions as if nothing strange is happening while there is chaos and destruction all around. How many of us have gone to work and not even noticed anything-different happening in our daily routine. Sometimes we get so caught up in the motion that we miss any different actions. I couldn't stop laughing.

What also made this film work on every level was the cast. Director Edgar Wright has done a fantastic job of placing the right actors with the right characters. They were each believable in their own part, and I loved every scene with Bill Nighy. He was perfectly cased and you could just tell that he loved being in this film. That is another great aspect of this film. It was a fun film and you could tell that the cast was having fun with their roles and were comfortable in their environment. So many times we watch these style of films and we see miscasting and uncontrolled actors doing anything to ensure that they stay at the top of people's minds. This wasn't happening in this film. I wasn't familiar with many of the actors, so I couldn't play favorites. All I could do was sit back and enjoy everyone and everything.

I would like to end with the comment that this is still a zombie film. It is a love story surrounding a zombie film where the director has chosen to emphasize the love story instead of blowing everything up. I know that sounds strange, but you will get used to it American viewers. I mention that it is still a zombie film because I do not want people going thinking that this is a spoof. While it does pay homage to several of the classic horror films, this film stands on its own two feet. It had blood, it has violence, and it has those infamous scenes of people's heads being blown apart. That is why we see zombie films.

Overall, if you love zombie films and you are a fan of The Office or any Hugh Grant film, than Shaun of the Dead will appeal to you. I don't remember the last time I witnessed such a creative film.

Grade: ***** out of *****

For some horror fans, satirizing the zombie genre (and let's face it, zombie films are practically a genre unto themselves) could seem like sacrilege. With the serious films that have come before 28 Days Later, Dawn of the Dead, and, of course, Night of the Living Dead SHAUN OF THE DEAD leads us down a path few have dared tread (Evil Dead fans should check out this film to see how a REAL spoof is pulled off). Leave it to the British to give us some gritty dialogue and bloody comedy all rolled into one. I, for one, say "thank you."

So what's this film all about ...

Shaun (Simon Pegg) leads a dull and mundane lifestyle; he works at an electronics store as a salesman, lives with a flatulently impaired and obese roommate named Ed (Nick Frost) and a second roommate, Pete (Peter Serafinowicz), who can't stand Ed. Shaun also has a girlfriend, Liz (Kate Ashfield), who is suffering with him over his complete lack of motivation to accomplish anything in his life. And she's right. Shaun doesn't seem to notice the zombie-esque lifestyle he leads, the terrible routine of drinking at `The Winchester' pub (named after the rifle that gleams over the bar), the protecting of Ed's horrific behavior (ripping farts and calling women the "C" word while never maintaining a job of any kind), and, of course, his forgetfulness that she, Liz, is actually a part of his life. So naturally she calls off their relationship, causing Shaun and Ed to go on a drinking spree and video game holiday. And when they awaken from the alcoholic stupor, some things have changed. Only Shaun and Ed don't notice right away. They're so used to life being slow, boring, and ...er ...well, shuffling, that they don't take notice of the cars burning on the street, blood on the grocery store floor, or the vacant gaze of their neighbors. This is where the comedy really starts to take wing for the film.

When a "true" zombie wanders into their backyard, Shaun and Ed just think she's drunk. But they quickly discover that this ...thing ...can't be killed. And she is soon joined by another, much larger zombie. Shaun and Ed have entered the apocalypse. But what do you use to defend yourself in a country (let's remember, we're in England here) where guns are not readily available? Initially, they throw everything they can find at these shuffling monstrosities, but nothing seems to work (even Shaun's old record collection, which is hilariously pulled off as they try to decide which records to throw at the undead and which to save: "Stone Roses?" "No!" "Second Coming?" "I liked it." "Dire Straits?" "Chuck it."). Shaun finally picks up a cricket paddle and uses it to bash in the brains of the undead, thus ending their life-after-life existence.

A race to save everyone that Shaun loves soon ensues, and this includes his roommates, Ed and Pete, his girlfriend, Liz, and his mom and stepdad. But where to hide out until this has "blown over". Ah! Of course! The Winchester pub!

What follows is truly hysterical. Shaun must deal with the fact that Pete, his other roommate, has been bitten by a zombie. He also soon discovers that his stepfather (who he never really cared for anyway) was bitten, too. "All right, dude! We can drive his Jaguar!" Ed exclaims happily.

Once all of Shaun's loved one's have been gathered together, they have to make their way to the pub; but first they have to pass through a shuffling maze of zombies. They do this through some wonderful trial and error (from bashing in the head of every zombie in sight with the cricket paddle, to shuffling and moaning like zombies to fake them out. I mean, they're zombies for cryin' out loud! They ain't that smart.). Is the pub the place to go? Can Shaun, who's life has been pretty much meaningless up to this point, actually give meaning to it by saving all those whom he cares for?

The thing that helps this film stand out above other spoofs is that it doesn't dismiss the zombie-genre, but instead respects it and utilizes it to great comedic advantage. It's not slapstick, nor bathroom humor (although there is a touch of this thanks to Ed's bowels), but a set of coarse narratives and script that pulls the viewer into these characters lives and forces us to live with them. Most of us have seen, or have family members who are, in some way, these stereotypical losers. You can't help but cheer them on and hope that they survive their own failings. And that's where SHAUN OF THE DEAD gives you the emotional umpf! that you need to enjoy the movie. You care about them and laugh at their ridiculous inadequacies, both at the same time.

This is truly a great film. A+ ...especially for creativity.

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Hearing that "Shaun of the Dead" is the most popular British zombie comedy of all time does give one pause, simply because you have to stop for a second and wonder as to whether you have simply missed other British zombie comedies or if you maybe took "28 Day Later" way too seriously. The thing is that when you hear "British zombie comedy" you are thinking "Monty Python's Flying Circus" or "Benny Hill" or "Black Adder" or "Asbolutely Fabulous" or "Coupling." You are not thinking something that is as restrained as what Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright have put together (the pair co-wrote the film, Pegg stars as Shaun and Wright directs), which is probably the biggest surprise of all.

"Shaun of the Dead" is only four star funny, so we are not even close to "Airplane!" territory, which is still the funniest film of all time (measured in number of laughs generated) but there is another dimension to the film beyond the humor. The tagline tries to tells us that this movie is: "A romantic comedy. With zombies." The really funny thing is that, underneath it all, it really is a romantic comedy. You know: boy meets girl, girl dumps boy, zombies try to kill boy and girl and mom and flat mates, boy tries to rescue girl and mom and flat mates, so on and so forth.

Actually the movie that that came to mind the most, despite the references to the great zombie movies of the past ("We're coming to get you, Barbara!"), was "Young Frankenstein," specifically in terms of the scenes that are played totally straight. There are scenes when Shaun deals with his girl, Liz (Kate Ashfield), his mom, Barbara (Penelope Wilton), and his best bud, Ed (Nick Frost) that are done like they were in a romantic comedy, and not an Adam Sandler "Water Boy" type romantic comedy, but an Adam Sandler "50 First Dates" type romantic comedy. Stripped of the zombies this is a rather pedestrian romantic comedy, but what makes it inspired lunacy is that it IS being done in the middle of a zombie movie.

There are two prime moments that reflect this rather amazing tightrope walking act. One is when Shaun almost breaks and notes that there may be a limit as to how many people he loves that he can shoot in one day. The other is when we have one of those "goodbye" scenes usually found in war movies; it is not just the silliness of the particular bit of business returning from the start of the movie, but that it is brought back at that particular moment, and that both actors honestly treat it as the most serious thing in the world. Tragedy is hard, but comedy is harder, and then there is treating tragedy as comedy in the middle of a zombie movie. Watching this movie is like watching somebody take a stupid shot in a basketball game and you start saying, "No, no, no, no, no..." until the ball rips through the nets and then you smile and say "Great shot!"

The other great bit of fun is how "Shaun of the Dead" plays with the genre movies. The opening of the film throws every cliché moment of being suddenly surprised by zombies in the history of the cinema at Shaun, only to have everything be normal. So you know they will take a totally different tack when it comes to Shaun realizing he has missed the dawn of the dead. The bit you have seen in the preview about arguing over which LPs to use as weapons to fight the living dead is cute, but the comic masterpiece in this film is Shaun channel surfing. Every single channel is talking about what is happening, but Shaun is clicking so rapidly that he misses getting a complete picture. Note: always listen to what is on the telly in the background: that is where the best "28 Days Later" joke in the film comes (All of the talking heads are actually British television news talking heads, so translate that into Brokaw, Jennings, and Rather doing the same thing for an American movie; see the "TV BITS" in the DVD extras).

The more you know about zombie movies the more you will enjoy "Shaun of the Dead," because you will be able to pick up on all the specific references. But then I have never seen "Spaced," so all of the homages to that British situation comedy involving Pegg, Frost and Wright are lost on me and I am doing okay at the moment. Either way, I think the humor of the film is accessible to even zombie movie neophytes, although the only way you might be able to talk them into seeing this one is to tell them their other choice is "Dawn of the Dead" (I do not have to tell anyone that is a rather obvious double bill).

Of the DVD extras the extended bits and outtakes in "MISSING BITS" are okay, but by favorite are the trio of "Plot Holes," where we get some insights into what we did not see in the movie from three of the principle characters. These are presented in comic book form as opposed to having actual footage, but that simply adds to their charm. There are better bits in "RAW MEAT," the highlight of which is the "pitch" by Pegg and Wright to sell the studio their movie idea. I already talked about the "TV BITS," and no one will be surprised that I the Zombie Trivia available via the ZOMB-O-METER. Overall, the DVD extras are well above average but not knock down dead, get up as a reanimated corpse and try to eat human flesh great.

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The zombie genre has been done to (ahem) death by now. Sam Raimi proved that it could be a successful vehicle for launching more expensive films with Evil Dead. Since then, there's been an endless array of less engaging imitators, often confusing gore with content.

Zombie movies can be summed up in exactly the same way. The difference is in the inflection. Don't believe me? Let me demonstrate...

ZOMBIE TROPE #1: "Zombie movies are about SHAMBLING dead people." These zombie movies laugh at the absolute absurdity of the walking dead. I mean, they're dead and they stumble around like DRUNK people for crying out loud! How can you take anything serious that moans like an overly hormonal teenager on prom night, lolls its head to the side like a Valley girl, and can't even walk in a straight line? Zombies definitely have a lot of humor potential, as established in Evil Dead II. The shamble is one of the primary reasons that modern zombie movies have made their zombies move quickly-it's hard to take slow moving zombies seriously.

ZOMBIE TROPE #2: "Zombie movies are about shambling DEAD people." These zombie movies concentrate on the horrors of what it means to have corpses trying to eat you. It is visceral and disgusting. There is gore (dead bodies are gross) and decay. These zombies are rotting and, thanks to the magic of special effects, really do look like exhumed corpses. This is just about every zombie movie that takes itself seriously without devolving into camp.

ZOMBIE TROPE #3: "Zombie movies are about shambling dead PEOPLE." These zombie movies aren't about the zombies. They're about how people react to the fact that people they knew who were dead are walking around trying to eat other people. The presence of zombies causes people to freak out. Some folks are barely over their mourning when their spouses and children rise up to attack them. It's enough to make a person snap. It's also George Romero's specialty, a topic he has extensively covered in the Living Dead series.

Recent zombie movies have been combinations of these three attributes, but rarely in equal balance. Shaun of the Dead? It's all three.

Shaun (Simon Pegg) is the hero of the title, a fellow who has long since exited the swinging college years and entered into the stale, zombie-like grind of a working man. He is a man out of time, frozen in his own routines. He still lives with his two flatmates, Ed (Nick Frost), the fat, funny one and Pete (Peter Serafinowicz), the smart, successful one. Shaun is trapped, unable to go back to the good old days of no responsibility and unwilling to go forward with his relationship to his blonde girlfriend Liz (Kate Ashfield).

Meanwhile, ambulances start popping up in the background, carting away twitching body bags.

The outcome of their situation is an inevitability that we've all witnessed before: Liz has had enough. She doesn't want to keep going to the same old pub every night: the Winchester, named after the rifle on the wall. She hates Shaun's best friend Ed, who is an offensive boor. And Shaun hates Liz's good friends Dianne (Lucy Davis) and David (Dylan Moran). As it turns out, David used to date Liz and just tolerates Dianne so he can be near her.

Meanwhile, paramilitary vehicles drive by and newscasters report troubling news about some sort of plague.

And oh yeah, Shaun loves his mum (Nicola Cunningham) and hates his step-dad, Philip (Bill Nighy), a perpetually frowning robot of a man whose face has been untouched by any other expression.

When Liz finally gets sick of Shaun, his world falls apart. He goes on a drunken binge with Ed, blasting music, playing video games, and shutting out the world around him. In essence, Shaun's life has finally gone out of joint and he desperately regresses to deal with it. Unfortunately for Shaun (and everyone else in that part of England), the world has also literally fallen apart.

A large part of the humor is how Shaun and his compatriots deal with the undead. It takes a very long time for him to even notice; after all, who would really notice slow moving people? The director, Edgar Wright, gleefully makes this point at every turn. At first, the zombies are just the homeless, who everybody ignores and expects to act strangely. Then, it's people in menial jobs that have a glazed look as they go about their drudgery. It's not until a zombie actually shows up on their doorstep that anybody gets concerned. Even then, they figure the zombie is just really, really drunk.

Once Shaun and Ed come to grips with the situation, they devise a plan. Their plans are highly unrealistic, but mostly involve beating on zombies with clubs (remember, no guns in England), rescuing girlfriends and mums, and holing up in the Winchester, "cause it's the safest place." That's right, the one place Liz doesn't want to be with the people she really doesn't want to be with.

Shaun of the Dead embraces all the zombie tropes, and then rips their guts out. Sure, the movie seems to say, it's easy to get around slow moving zombies. But eventually they catch up with you. Sure, smashing a zombie's head in sounds easy...until it's a family member. Sure, shooting a zombie with a rifle should give you the upper hand...unless you've never actually shot a gun before.

In the mean time, Shaun deals with his issues with his step-dad, introduces his girlfriend to his mom, meets an ex-girlfriend (who seems to be far more capable than Liz), finally gets tired of drug-dealing Ed's antics, and slowly realizes just how fragile his humdrum life is. It seems to encapsulate his mom, Liz, and Ed at first, but Shaun discovers that his circle of family and friends extends to more people than he thought.

This movie is deadly earnest about everything, including its humor. It has traumatizing gore, hysterical in-jokes, and weep-worthy moments of true drama. All of it is pulled off with incredible aplomb by the cast, who have to do everything from beat on zombies to act like zombies (no, really) to finally going utterly ballistic like real human beings.

Shaun of the Dead is the culmination of dozens of zombie movies that have gone before it. It succeeds because it focuses on the people, gives shambling corpses the respect they deserve (which is to say, very little and a lot, depending on the scene), and dramatizes the horror of dead people coming back to a tortured semi-existence.

No self-respecting horror fan should miss this movie.

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I've heard a lot of mixed reaction to this movie, though the buzz is primarily positive -touting the flick's exceptional funny, its glorious messy, and its marvelous silly.

Maybe I'm just a big fat dork who spent too much time in graduate school, but I seemed to plug into this movie on a somewhat different plane of appreciation. For thing one, I didn't think it was terribly funny. It had its moments, but I wouldn't go so far as to call it a "comedy." And for a second thing, I found it genuinely suspenseful -which is not something you often hear shouted from the applause bandwagon. More often than not I hear that it's "a laugh riot in the tradition of Scary Movie." This comparison has been waved around several times in print and online, and it seems wildly off-base to me, if not downright insulting.

The Scary Movie franchise, while being fun for what it is, is not supposed to mean anything. It's simple parody, produced for masses which are only marginally discriminatory in their entertainment requirements. SOTD has entirely too much going on inside to be relegated to mere imitation status.

George Romero and his apologists have long insisted that the original Dawn of the Dead (and its zombies-in-the-mall theme) was a satire on the mindless consumerism and the tedium of modern life. This is the critical equivalent of putting an evening gown on a pig, but whatever. The very same theme was tackled much more effectively without zombies in American Beauty, and much better with zombies in Shaun of the Dead -a film which actually manages to make a clever statement on the subject.

Much of the perceived hilarity in this film occurs at the beginning and the end, wherein the satire is more light-hearted (if unsubtle). The great conceit of the first thirty-five minutes is that the zombies are encroaching upon Shaun's day-to-day reality bubble ... but he doesn't notice, and at first, neither does anyone else. The drooling, coughing, slowly lumbering undead gradually replace the drooling, coughing, slowly lumbering pulse-bearing characters who have periodic walk-on roles in Shaun's life. But no red flags are raised.

Shaun is neither bothered by the change nor molested by the zombies themselves, who (one is led to suspect) view him as one of their own. He wanders through his daily routine as if he's wearing blinders; he's worn a rut between his home and his place of employment, and this rut is so deep that it serves as a psychological buffer. Shaun is furthermore isolated from the impending threat by his post-getting-dumped state of sorrow, which prevents him from paying closer attention to his surroundings.

But eventually, the carnage cannot escape the notice of even the hopelessly self-involved Shaun and his filthy-yet-lovable best friend Ed. Action must be taken. His parental units must be rescued. Liz, despite her fresh status of ex-girlfriend, must be saved. Shaun and Ed have, at their collective disposal: one zombiefied roommate's vehicle, a cricket bat, and a plan to seek shelter at a pub called the Winchester.

Quoth the Blues Brothers: "Hit it."

At any rate, although the movie ends on an "up" note (more or less) and there were giggles to be had, I found the bulk of the film to be calculated and oppressive -a deftly executed surgical extraction of a man from his suffocating safety zone, and a grim (yet oddly uplifting) morality fable about appreciating what you have without unthinking presumption. All in all, I thought this was a damn fine film and I really enjoyed it. It made me laugh, it made me think, and it made me cringe.

Or maybe that's just the meds talking.

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