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| 1. The Milagro Beanfield War Director: Robert Redford | |
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Amazon.com Reviews (29)
A small farmer makes the mistake of using water that isn't his to use in order to cultivate a parched and unproductive beanfield. Sonia Braga (STREETS OF LAREDO) stars as a mechanic in the farmer's New Mexico pueblo who supports the farmer and joins the "war" against the real estate developer who cares about nothing but himself and his profits. Ultimately the townspeople and the developers square off. You'll love the "hombre angel" that keeps popping up. Enchantingly written THE MILAGRO BEANFIELD WAR is a wonderful film. Frankly, I'm surprised that it doesn't have a stronger following. A great cast includes Ruben Blades as the sheriff and Christopher Walken as a corrupt state police officer. It's high time for this one to be released on DVD. THE HORSEMAN
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| 2. The Horse Whisperer Director: Robert Redford | |
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Amazon.com Reviews (167)
When the movie came out, I went to the theatre to watch it...excited about seeing it all come to life before me. I know better than this b/c rarely are movies as good as the books, but still I hoped for the best. It was beautiful. I'll give it that...but it was slow. I felt every mile of the drive from NY to Montana. Besides being bored through most of the movie, I got more & more angry as I realized just how little respect was paid to the book with the screenplay. The characters weren't the ones that I had fallen in love with...or in the same respect hated. They were just kinda emotionless, middle of the road representations of the characters that Nicholas Evans created. Then...somewhere along the line, I'm guessing the screenplay writer decided that the book that they had bought the rights to wasn't good enough so they took the liberty to omit the last 4th of the book & reinvent their own Hollywoodized ending. As a reader and a Nicholas Evans fan, I couldn't help but feel that they butchered his work. BUT, if you like long, slow, movies and have never read & don't intend to read the book...go right ahead and see this movie. You just might like it. Scarlett Johanssen is good and the scenery is beautiful.
Cinematography is breathtaking :) Thumbs Up!! ... Read more | |
| 3. The Legend of Bagger Vance Director: Robert Redford | |
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Reviews (113)
"The Legend of Bagger Vance" is a worthwhile view provided the viewer satisfies a number of conditions first. First, viewers who are looking for an artistic masterpiece will find is a sickeningly sweet picture without angst or pretense aside from that which Will Smith delivers his lines; these seem to come straight out of the self-help books written by people like Deepak Chopra. Matt Damon plays a World War I veteran smitten with enough angst to drink himself into a stupor yet not quite enough to seek the greater redemption through literary or means enough to help anyone other than himself. There is no angst or mental torpor; this isn't that kind of movie. So what is it? This is a feel-good movie-- not quite a golfer's 'Field of Dreams' but darned close. She builds a golf course, the all-time greats come, and in the end, the world is saved and we reach the truly great end-of-history (not Hegel's or Fukyama's)-- life happily ever after. The music, clothes, and actors in this movie are what one would expect out of a work without hint of depravity or true tragedy. When the protagonist's father is out of work, it is not because he suffered but instead because he was good; even the 'bad' guys really come off good. It's as heartwarming as anything outside of Disney, and all over the world, golfers shall be drooling over the shots of the course....
The movie is set in the Savannah Georgia of the Great Depression. Rannulph Junuh, played by Matt Damon, is a war veteran and former champion golfer who has lost his authentic swing. However, he has been asked to play in an exhibition match against the two greatest golfers of his day: Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen. His Caddy is Bagger Vance, played by Will Smith. Bagger is an angel, but is a character in the mold of the Raven or Coyote trickster of Indian Legends. He is the guide who shows Junuh the way to slay his inner demons. This movie is wonderful film and will be a delightful addition to any collection. Rating 4 1/2 Stars.
What adds to the movie is a tremendous soundtrack. The music has a way of touching the soul and leaving a mark. It is difficult to put into words what draws me to this movie. The acting, scenery, music all combine to give the viewer a wonderful feast not soon forgotten!
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| 4. Ordinary People Director: Robert Redford | |
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Amazon.com essential video Reviews (102)
Donald Sutherland and Mary Tyler Moore(Calvin and Beth Jerrad) play the lead roles as the supporting father and the selfish non-loving mother. Their marriage is on the verge of divorce due to Beth's lack of support of their living son Conrad, played by Timothy Hutton. Conrad faces guilt after losing his brother, Buck, in a boating accident a year ago. His psychologist forces him to confront every life aspect. Every actor portrays their character delightfully, forcing every drop of emotion to the audience, even those with limited screentime. Timothy Hutton deserved his Oscar win for Best Supporting Actor. Mary Tyler Moore and Judd Hirsch deserved their Oscar nominations for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor. Why wasn't Donald Sutherland nominated for his best role of his career? Who knows. Those looking for a serious drama should watch "Ordinary People". One may have to think about the events after the first watch. Those who've watched it twenty times still discover new interesting details.
What most impressed me, however, was that it addresses a vital process -- the psychology of dysfunctional families & of getting counseling through recovery from trauma -- Judd Hirsch intensely plays the psychiatrist. Almost everyone, in the books I review, could do with a dose of counseling, although it is the rare author who takes this process seriously or considers it worth writing about, & I know from personal experience: counseling does heal, if you use it with that intention. A Rebeccasreads First Rate Recommendation, certainly a movie which will get you talking afterwards.
Robert Redford's directorial debut is a wonderful adaptation of Judith Guest's novel about a suburban Chicago family in crisis. Redford's direction elicits breakout performances from Tim Hutton, Judd Hirsch, Mary Tyler Moore, and Donald Sutherland. This drama unfolds in the aftermafth of Conrad Jarrett's (Hutton) attemmpted suicide. The movie chronicles how the entire Jarrett family deal (or don't deal) with the tragic death of Conrad's brother Buck in a boating accident. The film evenly deals with such difficult family trauma's but does so in a way that at once realistic and hopeful. ... Read more | |
| 5. A River Runs Through It Director: Robert Redford | |
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Amazon.com Reviews (66)
His only direct presence is the narration he does at various times during this movie. It also does not take a great deal of imagination to see in the actor Brad Pitt, of 11 years ago, a man that bears a remarkable resemblance to Redford himself. This story of the zeal with which aficionados dedicate themselves to the art of fly fishing is a beautiful film to watch. Redford puts Montana on the screen in such a way as to make virtually anyone desirous of having a home amongst the mountains. The story is much more than a feast for the eyes as the story of a minister's two sons, who are strictly raised, ultimately have such divergent lives, both in type and length. This is not a very happy story, although it has moments of pure joy that balance tragedy as well as tragedy can hope to be balanced. One of the best examples is when Brad Pitt as Paul does battle with a prize catch in one of their favorite rivers. To say he almost fights the fish in its world as opposed to his own is not much of a stretch, and it is wonderfully filmed. Robert Redford has made his place amongst the legends of the film industry, and he has done this by not only appearing in front of the camera, but behind it as well.
Set in early 20th century rural Montana, this is the coming-of-age story of the author and his brother Paul, sons of a Scottish Presbyterian minister who raised them with both love and sternness and instilled in them, more than anything else, an understanding for the divine beauty of their land, symbolized by and culminating in a fly fisherman's skill in casting his rod, and his ability to become one with the river in which he fishes. For, in Norman Maclean's words, in their family "there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing;" and growing up, the brothers came to believe quite naturally that Jesus's disciples themselves must have been fly fishermen, too; and that consequently every good fly fisherman is closer to the divine than any other human. But while they were united by their love for their native land and its rivers and fish, the brothers couldn't have been any more different on a personal level. And thus, this is also a story of brotherly (and parental) love and loss, of the inability to communicate, and of dreams and aspirations nurtured and fatally disappointed. While disciplined, sensible Norman (Craig Sheffer) left Montana for a six-year college education at Dartmouth and ultimately - after having temporarily returned home and taken a bride - to assume a teaching position at the University of Chicago, rebellious Paul (Brad Pitt in a truly career-defining role) knew that he would never leave his home state and "the fish he had not yet caught;" and opted for a journalist's life instead. But ultimately he wasn't able to fight the demons that possessed him; and his parents and brother had to stand by and helplessly watch him embark on a path of self-destruction, reduced to comments on symbolic matters like Paul's decision to change the spelling of their last name by capitalizing the "L" ("Now everybody will think we are Lowland Scots," scorned their father), where to open topicalize their concerns would have destroyed the careful equilibrium of mutual respect, love, hope, caution and guardedness characterizing their relationship. And so, only after Paul's death could his father tell a hesitant Norman that he knew more about his brother than the fact that Paul had been a fine fisherman: "He was beautiful" - and mourn in a sermon, even later, that all too frequently, when looking at a loved one in need, "either we don't know what part of ourselves to give or, more often than not, the part we have to give is not wanted. And so it is those we live with and should know who elude us. But we can still love them. We can love completely, without complete understanding." Craig Sheffer and Brad Pitt are perfectly cast as the earnest, reasonable Norman and his maverick brother Paul, who relies on his innate toughness in his fateful attempt to take life to its limits and still beat the devil, but who also turns the casting of a fishing line into an art form that makes a rainbow rise from the water, and who with his greatest-ever catch stands before his father and brother "suspended above the earth, free from all its laws, like a work of art." Moreover, this movie reunited Robert Redford with Tom Skerritt, with whom he had first shared the screen in the 1962 Korean war drama "War Hunt" (both actors' big-screen debut), and who gives a finely-tuned, sensitive performance as the Reverend Maclean. Notable are also the appearances of Brenda Blethyn as Mrs. Maclean and Emily Lloyd as Norman's bride-to-be Jessie. But the movie's true star is Montana itself, particularly its rivers and streams; every frame of Philippe Rousselot's Academy Award-winning cinematography and every sweep of the camera over Montana's magnificent landscape, and along the silver bands of its rivers with their gurgling cataracts and waves curling softly against their banks, powerful testimony to Robert Redford's genuine love and respect for the West and for nature in general; the causes closest to his heart and matched in importance only by his efforts to promote a movie scene outside of Hollywood. And Redford himself assumes the (uncredited) role of the narrator, thus bringing to the screen Norman Maclean's lyrical language and uniting words and pictures in an audiovisual sonnet, subtly accentuated by Mark Isham's gentle score. Both movie and novella end with the lines that have given the story its title: "[I]n the half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul; and memories, and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River, and a four-count rhythm, and the hope that a fish will rise. Eventually, all things merge into one; and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs" - those of Norman Maclean's now-lost loved ones; those he "loved and did not understand in [his] youth." As we have had to learn, it is not only human life that is terminal; even nature itself (including, incidentally, the Macleans' beloved Big Blackfoot River) is not immune to destruction by human carelessness. This movie is a powerful plea to all of us not to wait until it has become too late.
This movie will produce feelings that will linger with you long after the ending credits !
This movie portrays that notion, just fine.
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| 6. A River Runs Through It Director: Robert Redford | |
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Beautiful cinematography is the real star of this adaptaion of Norman MacLean's novel. Another bullseye by Redford as a director; his direction gives the movie a poetic feeling from the very beginning. Unforgettable. ... Read more | |
| 7. Quiz Show Director: Robert Redford | |
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Amazon.com Reviews (45)
There are many, many reasons this movie succeeds so marvelously, but I would like to focus on three. First, this movie benefits from an exceedingly fine cast. Not merely the leads, but many of the lesser roles are filled with extremely good actors and actresses. While Ralph Fiennes, John Tuturro, and Rob Morrow all shine in the leads, lesser parts are filled with people like David Paymer, Hank Azaria, Mira Sorvino, and Martin Scorsese. I was especially impressed by the always superb but underutilized Paul Scofield (who won the Oscar portraying Thomas More in A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS). He seems the very embodiment of the man of reason, erudition, and courtesy portraying Mark van Doren, and his pain upon learning his beloved son has lost his teaching position at Columbia is one of the great poignant moments in the film. Look very carefully at the scene where several attractive coeds interrupt Ralph Fiennes and Rob Morrow and you will spot Calista Flockhart (a.k.a. Ally McBeal). A second reason this film succeeds so well is its tremendous period feel. The movie looks and feels like the late 1950s at every second. QUIZ SHOW does a great job of [pulling] you in and giving you an almost tangible sense of time and place. Finally, the movie is easily one of the most accurate historical films I have ever seen, although drama is never sacrificed for the mere sake of being accurate. If one has done any reading about the scandals or perhaps if one remembers the events, the film constantly impresses with the amount of accurate detail it contains. Too often when watching a movie dealing with historical events, one can become irritated of the events are inaccurately portrayed. For instance, although LAWRENCE OF ARABIA is a truly great movie, Peter O'Toole was nearly a foot taller than the real T. E. Lawrence, which is a huge problem, since Lawrence's self-consciousness about his short stature was a major factor in his self-image. There are no such moments such as this in QUIZ SHOW. But if you watch, or rewatch, this film, please note those references to Arkadelphia! My undergraduate hometown!
Well aware of the contests' new, uniquely thrilling live entertainment, studio executives and sponsors quickly capitalized on their appeal, eager to maximize the resulting profits. To that end, however, the shows' outcome couldn't be left to chance: Then as now, viewers were looking for the "right" kind of hero to identify with; so ultimately it was unthinkable to let someone like Herbert Stempel (John Turturro) - not only an annoying nerd with thick glasses and bad teeth but worse, an annoying *Jewish* nerd with thick glasses and bad teeth - win the famous "Twenty-One" for more than a couple of weeks. A more suitable replacement was found in Columbia University lecturer Charles Van Doren (Ralph Fiennes), descendant of one of New England's foremost intellectual families and, in the words of the show's co-producer Albert Freedman (Hank Azaria), soon the TV nation's new "great white hope." A brilliant intellectual who nevertheless felt eternally inferior to his Pulitzer Prize-winning father, poet Mark Van Doren (Paul Scofield), his mother (Elizabeth Wilson), likewise a distinguished author, and his uncle, Pulitzer Prize winner Carl Van Doren, Charles ultimately agreed to sell his integrity for a high flight to fame and fortune on borrowed wings, and thus succumbed to the one force driving a quiz show's appeal more than anything else: money, and astronomically large sums thereof. Based on former Congressional investigator and Kennedy speechwriter Richard Goodwin's "Remembering America: A Voice From the Sixties" and scripted by Paul Attanasio, Robert Redford's 1994 film brilliantly traces the "Twenty-One" scandal - the biggest of several scandals involving rigged quiz shows - from the moment Stempel was told to take a humiliating dive and pass the helm to Van Doren (Goodwin also co-produced). The movie's tone is set from the opening scene, which focuses on neither of the contestants but Goodwin himself (Rob Morrow), newly arrived in Washington with a first-in-his-class Harvard Law School degree in his pockets, and admiring the latest thing in automobile technology in a Chrysler showroom ("Used to be the man drives the car, now the car drives the man," he eventually comments, wowed by the dealer's sales talk). Turning on the radio, they catch an announcer's remark on the Sputnik launch: "All is not well with America" (but "America doesn't own the [Chrysler] 300," the dealer responds). Then Goodwin changes the station and the film's opening credits begin to roll, significantly over Bobby Darin's "Mack the Knife" from Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's "Threepenny Opera:" Although originally conceived as a "Moritat," a darkly cynical ballad, Darin's swinging, upbeat 1959 version, a No. 1 hit for all of 22 weeks (1 1/2 times as long as Van Doren reigned on "Twenty-One") musically pulls every last tooth out of the song's sharp-edged lyrics; just as television's goody-two-shoes pseudo-reality and America's newfound prosperity seemed to obliterate the era's grimmer sociopolitical truths. "Quiz Show" has been described, in turns, as a political thriller, a morality play, a parable on the loss of innocence and a fact-based drama; and it is all that, and more. It obviously has to be seen in context with "All the President's Men," Redford's 1976 film costarring Dustin Hoffman and Jason Robards, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning Woodward-Bernstein account on Watergate. Just as America lost its political innocence there, it had already lost its innocence vis-a-vis showbiz in the quiz show scandals. But this is also a fascinating exploration of the scandal's underlying psychology; of that mix of insecurity, greed, ambition, hero-worship, prejudice and self-deception which made the manipulation possible in the first place and allowed it to go undetected for so long. Of the movie's tremendous cast, John Turturro, Ralph Fiennes and Paul Scofield particularly give standout performances as the nerdy, deeply humiliated Herb Stempel, the dazzling Ivy Leaguer Charles Van Doren and his intellectually brilliant, unwaveringly supportive and profoundly moral father Mark, who can snap out a Shakespeare quote appropriate to any situation at the drop of a hat. Rob Morrow's Dick Goodwin, the Jewish kid from Brookline who made it to Harvard and D.C. but is still occasionally up against prejudice, is not far behind (although I confess I sometimes find his accent a tad unconvincingly thick; more so than Fiennes's and Scofield's more refined New England versions). Not to be overlooked are also their female costars - besides Elizabeth Wilson, Mira Sorvino and Johann Carlo as Goodwin's and Stempel's wives - and of course the gang responsible for the goings-on at "Twenty-One:" David Paymer as slick producer Dan Enright, Hank Azaria as his sidekick, Christopher McDonald as host Jack Barry, Allan Rich as NBC boss Robert Kintner and Martin Scorsese in a rare and deadpan appearance as an actor as corporate sponsor Geritol's chairman Martin Rittenhome. (Besides, watch for Barry Levinson as "Today Show" host Dave Garroway and Calista Flockhart and Ethan Hawke [uncredited] as star-struck students). When first setting out to investigate "Twenty-One," Goodwin aimed no lower than putting television itself on trial. But while the Congressional hearings did cause the downfall of the show and its greatest champion, Enright and Barry soon returned to television, and none of the others responsible for the manipulations suffered any consequences at all. Quiz shows are more popular than ever. "Give the public what they want ... It's entertainment. We're not exactly hardened criminals here. We're in showbusiness," was Al Freedman's cynical conclusion. And the movie's last words are again those of Berthold Brecht, but this time in Lyle Lovett's much darker version of the Moritat: "Mackie, how much did you charge ...?" "Millionaire," anyone?
However, Robert Redford's film is not really about the massive changes in the business of television that resulted from the quiz show scandals. The final word in this film is given to Dan Enright (David Paymer), the producer of "Twenty-One," who insists that because the show was entertainment and everybody made money, there was nothing wrong with giving contestants the answers and rigging the game. The point of this film is the human wreckage left behind by the scandal in terms of the two "Twenty-One" contestants at the center of the storm. Herbie Stempel (John Turturro) and Charles Van Doren (Ralph Fiennes) are polar opposites in terms of looks and religion but what they have in common is a vast knowledge of what can be called facts or trivia depending on your point of view. As Van Doren's father observes, if you are going to ask a question worth $64,000 it should be about the meaning of life. Stempel is the reigning champion on "Twenty-One," but the show's sponsor (Martin Scorsese) has grown tired of Stempel's looks and grating personality. So the producers order him to take a dive and in a calculated move that backfires on them insist that Stempel blow an easy question on what film won the Oscar for best picture in 1955. Enright thinks that for 70 grand Stempel can be humiliated, but the producer grossly underestimates the importance of a reputation for being a smart guy has to someone like Stempel. The producers also think they have the perfect replacement for Stempel in Van Doren, the son of a famous American intellectual family. They offer to feed him the answers to ensure victory, but when Van Doren refuses they go ahead and find a slightly different way of producing the same results. Van Doren blinks, but takes the money, and sales for Geritol go up fifty percent. Between these two is Dick Goodwin (Rob Morrow), a young lawyer who works for the Senate committee with oversight responsibilities on television. Goodwin is Jewish like Stempel but also Ivy League like Van Doren, and while he is pursuing the truth regarding how "Twenty-One" is run he is also attracted to the life lived by Van Doren, who exchanges Shakespeare quotations with his poet father Mark (Paul Schofield) over a family lunch. The great irony of the script by Paul Attanasion, based on Goodwin's book "Remembering America: A Voice from the Sixties," is that Stempel wants to get "Twenty-One" and Goodwin wants to get television, and while neither wants to do it with Van Doren, that becomes unavoidable. Not that any of these three men comes close to getting what they want out of this experience. It is impossible not to consider "Quiz Show" to be a morality play, but as such it is a rather disheartening one since nobody gets what they deserve at the end of this one. But Redford sees the quiz show scandals as being a point in American history that ended a period of innocence. After this point Americans could not longer believe what they saw on television as being the truth and Redford, who did star in "All the President's Men," sees it as the first in a series of violations of the public trust that extend through Vietnam, Watergate and beyond. But the performances by Turturro and Finnes are so compelling that they keep this film grounded on the personal level, so that the larger social issues are lost in the personal wreckage of Stempel and Van Doren's lives. Enright claims that nobody lost with these quiz shows, but that is obviously not the case. My only complaint about this film is that it really does not do a good job of capturing the excitement of such shows. Stempel and Van Doren played each other four times before Van Doren became the new champion. Van Doren also played Vivienne Nearing three times to a tie before losing (and had beaten her husband Victor earlier that year). I do not think we get a sense of the drama or the addictive nature of the game. Fortunately, it was only a few years after this film that game shows made it back to prime time with "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" With that show we could really appreciate what it was like for the country to be riveted by a game show. Ironically, "Twenty-One" was brought back, but it did not catch on.
Paul Attansio adapted the screenplay from the book written by Richard N. Goodwin who was the government investigator at the time. In the film this role is played by Rob Morrow who is determined to uncover the deception. All the other actors are excellent too - most notably John Turturro who is cast as a Jewish man from Queens who is allowed to win for seven weeks before being replaced by Charles Van Doran, a professor at Columbia who came from a long line of scholars. Paul Scofield also shines in the role of Van Doran's father, who stands by his son even though the family is disgraced by the publicity.
It's not just the quiz show phenomenon that comes alive in this film. It is the nature of the times as well as the anti-Semitic undercurrent and cultural conflict that was endemic. Usually, when I see a film about the fifties, it looks like someone's imagination of what those times were like. But this film was different. I really felt I was right back there, many years before computers or even color television, sitting wide-eyed in front of that black and white set and admiring the contestants for being so smart. Times have changed. Now, we know we're being manipulated. And there is no outrage.
I was unprepared to love this film so much. There is tension throughout and consistently wonderful acting. The dialog was authentic and the actors all played their roles with subtlety. They became the characters in the film and I wound up caring about all of them. "Quiz Show" is a simply wonderful film and I give it one of my highest recommendations. Don't miss it. ... Read more | |
| 8. The Horse Whisperer (Widescreen Edition) Director: Robert Redford | |
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Reviews (167)
When the movie came out, I went to the theatre to watch it...excited about seeing it all come to life before me. I know better than this b/c rarely are movies as good as the books, but still I hoped for the best. It was beautiful. I'll give it that...but it was slow. I felt every mile of the drive from NY to Montana. Besides being bored through most of the movie, I got more & more angry as I realized just how little respect was paid to the book with the screenplay. The characters weren't the ones that I had fallen in love with...or in the same respect hated. They were just kinda emotionless, middle of the road representations of the characters that Nicholas Evans created. Then...somewhere along the line, I'm guessing the screenplay writer decided that the book that they had bought the rights to wasn't good enough so they took the liberty to omit the last 4th of the book & reinvent their own Hollywoodized ending. As a reader and a Nicholas Evans fan, I couldn't help but feel that they butchered his work. BUT, if you like long, slow, movies and have never read & don't intend to read the book...go right ahead and see this movie. You just might like it. Scarlett Johanssen is good and the scenery is beautiful.
Cinematography is breathtaking :) Thumbs Up!! ... Read more | |
| 9. The Legend of Bagger Vance Director: Robert Redford | |
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Reviews (113)
"The Legend of Bagger Vance" is a worthwhile view provided the viewer satisfies a number of conditions first. First, viewers who are looking for an artistic masterpiece will find is a sickeningly sweet picture without angst or pretense aside from that which Will Smith delivers his lines; these seem to come straight out of the self-help books written by people like Deepak Chopra. Matt Damon plays a World War I veteran smitten with enough angst to drink himself into a stupor yet not quite enough to seek the greater redemption through literary or means enough to help anyone other than himself. There is no angst or mental torpor; this isn't that kind of movie. So what is it? This is a feel-good movie-- not quite a golfer's 'Field of Dreams' but darned close. She builds a golf course, the all-time greats come, and in the end, the world is saved and we reach the truly great end-of-history (not Hegel's or Fukyama's)-- life happily ever after. The music, clothes, and actors in this movie are what one would expect out of a work without hint of depravity or true tragedy. When the protagonist's father is out of work, it is not because he suffered but instead because he was good; even the 'bad' guys really come off good. It's as heartwarming as anything outside of Disney, and all over the world, golfers shall be drooling over the shots of the course....
The movie is set in the Savannah Georgia of the Great Depression. Rannulph Junuh, played by Matt Damon, is a war veteran and former champion golfer who has lost his authentic swing. However, he has been asked to play in an exhibition match against the two greatest golfers of his day: Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen. His Caddy is Bagger Vance, played by Will Smith. Bagger is an angel, but is a character in the mold of the Raven or Coyote trickster of Indian Legends. He is the guide who shows Junuh the way to slay his inner demons. This movie is wonderful film and will be a delightful addition to any collection. Rating 4 1/2 Stars.
What adds to the movie is a tremendous soundtrack. The music has a way of touching the soul and leaving a mark. It is difficult to put into words what draws me to this movie. The acting, scenery, music all combine to give the viewer a wonderful feast not soon forgotten!
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| 10. The Legend of Bagger Vance Director: Robert Redford | |
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Amazon.com Set in Savannah, Georgia, during the early '30s, the story charts the redemption of disillusioned World War I veteran and former golf champion Rannulph Junuh (Matt Damon), who emerges from self-imposed obscurity in an exhibition match against legendary golfers Bobby Jones (Joel Gretsch) and Walter Hagen (Bruce McGill). Having earlier abandoned the socialite (Charlize Theron) who has organized the tournament to promote her late father's spectacular golf resort, Junuh now depends on the support of a young fan (perfectly cast newcomer J. Michael Moncrief) and the mysterious Bagger Vance (Will Smith), a smiling Jiminy Cricket who serves as Junuh's caddy, golf guru, and Socratic angel of mercy. As Junuh regains the "authentic swing" he feared was lost forever, Redford guides his splendid cast through a spiritual journey that is specific to the discipline of golf and yet potently universal. As always, Redford also conveys his respect for nature and the rhythms of life as well as a sweet nostalgia for simpler times and purer values. With the casting of Jack Lemmon as the film's present-day narrator and elderly version of Moncrief's character, The Legend of Bagger Vance gains even greater dignity and, indeed, the glowing aura of legend. --Jeff Shannon Reviews (113)
"The Legend of Bagger Vance" is a worthwhile view provided the viewer satisfies a number of conditions first. First, viewers who are looking for an artistic masterpiece will find is a sickeningly sweet picture without angst or pretense aside from that which Will Smith delivers his lines; these seem to come straight out of the self-help books written by people like Deepak Chopra. Matt Damon plays a World War I veteran smitten with enough angst to drink himself into a stupor yet not quite enough to seek the greater redemption through literary or means enough to help anyone other than himself. There is no angst or mental torpor; this isn't that kind of movie. So what is it? This is a feel-good movie-- not quite a golfer's 'Field of Dreams' but darned close. She builds a golf course, the all-time greats come, and in the end, the world is saved and we reach the truly great end-of-history (not Hegel's or Fukyama's)-- life happily ever after. The music, clothes, and actors in this movie are what one would expect out of a work without hint of depravity or true tragedy. When the protagonist's father is out of work, it is not because he suffered but instead because he was good; even the 'bad' guys really come off good. It's as heartwarming as anything outside of Disney, and all over the world, golfers shall be drooling over the shots of the course....
The movie is set in the Savannah Georgia of the Great Depression. Rannulph Junuh, played by Matt Damon, is a war veteran and former champion golfer who has lost his authentic swing. However, he has been asked to play in an exhibition match against the two greatest golfers of his day: Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen. His Caddy is Bagger Vance, played by Will Smith. Bagger is an angel, but is a character in the mold of the Raven or Coyote trickster of Indian Legends. He is the guide who shows Junuh the way to slay his inner demons. This movie is wonderful film and will be a delightful addition to any collection. Rating 4 1/2 Stars.
What adds to the movie is a tremendous soundtrack. The music has a way of touching the soul and leaving a mark. It is difficult to put into words what draws me to this movie. The acting, scenery, music all combine to give the viewer a wonderful feast not soon forgotten!
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| 11. Milagro Beanfield War Director: Robert Redford | |
 | list price: $89.98
(price subject to change: see help) Asin: 6303103766 Catlog: Video Sales Rank: 76739 Average Customer Review:
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Reviews (29)
A small farmer makes the mistake of using water that isn't his to use in order to cultivate a parched and unproductive beanfield. Sonia Braga (STREETS OF LAREDO) stars as a mechanic in the farmer's New Mexico pueblo who supports the farmer and joins the "war" against the real estate developer who cares about nothing but himself and his profits. Ultimately the townspeople and the developers square off. You'll love the "hombre angel" that keeps popping up. Enchantingly written THE MILAGRO BEANFIELD WAR is a wonderful film. Frankly, I'm surprised that it doesn't have a stronger following. A great cast includes Ruben Blades as the sheriff and Christopher Walken as a corrupt state police officer. It's high time for this one to be released on DVD. THE HORSEMAN
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| 12. River Runs Through It Director: Robert Redford | |
 | list price: $14.95
(price subject to change: see help) Asin: B000006AX3 Catlog: Video Sales Rank: 104597 Average Customer Review:
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Reviews (66)
His only direct presence is the narration he does at various times during this movie. It also does not take a great deal of imagination to see in the actor Brad Pitt, of 11 years ago, a man that bears a remarkable resemblance to Redford himself. This story of the zeal with which aficionados dedicate themselves to the art of fly fishing is a beautiful film to watch. Redford puts Montana on the screen in such a way as to make virtually anyone desirous of having a home amongst the mountains. The story is much more than a feast for the eyes as the story of a minister's two sons, who are strictly raised, ultimately have such divergent lives, both in type and length. This is not a very happy story, although it has moments of pure joy that balance tragedy as well as tragedy can hope to be balanced. One of the best examples is when Brad Pitt as Paul does battle with a prize catch in one of their favorite rivers. To say he almost fights the fish in its world as opposed to his own is not much of a stretch, and it is wonderfully filmed. Robert Redford has made his place amongst the legends of the film industry, and he has done this by not only appearing in front of the camera, but behind it as well.
Set in early 20th century rural Montana, this is the coming-of-age story of the author and his brother Paul, sons of a Scottish Presbyterian minister who raised them with both love and sternness and instilled in them, more than anything else, an understanding for the divine beauty of their land, symbolized by and culminating in a fly fisherman's skill in casting his rod, and his ability to become one with the river in which he fishes. For, in Norman Maclean's words, in their family "there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing;" and growing up, the brothers came to believe quite naturally that Jesus's disciples themselves must have been fly fishermen, too; and that consequently every good fly fisherman is closer to the divine than any other human. But while they were united by their love for their native land and its rivers and fish, the brothers couldn't have been any more different on a personal level. And thus, this is also a story of brotherly (and parental) love and loss, of the inability to communicate, and of dreams and aspirations nurtured and fatally disappointed. While disciplined, sensible Norman (Craig Sheffer) left Montana for a six-year college education at Dartmouth and ultimately - after having temporarily returned home and taken a bride - to assume a teaching position at the University of Chicago, rebellious Paul (Brad Pitt in a truly career-defining role) knew that he would never leave his home state and "the fish he had not yet caught;" and opted for a journalist's life instead. But ultimately he wasn't able to fight the demons that possessed him; and his parents and brother had to stand by and helplessly watch him embark on a path of self-destruction, reduced to comments on symbolic matters like Paul's decision to change the spelling of their last name by capitalizing the "L" ("Now everybody will think we are Lowland Scots," scorned their father), where to open topicalize their concerns would have destroyed the careful equilibrium of mutual respect, love, hope, caution and guardedness characterizing their relationship. And so, only after Paul's death could his father tell a hesitant Norman that he knew more about his brother than the fact that Paul had been a fine fisherman: "He was beautiful" - and mourn in a sermon, even later, that all too frequently, when looking at a loved one in need, "either we don't know what part of ourselves to give or, more often than not, the part we have to give is not wanted. And so it is those we live with and should know who elude us. But we can still love them. We can love completely, without complete understanding." Craig Sheffer and Brad Pitt are perfectly cast as the earnest, reasonable Norman and his maverick brother Paul, who relies on his innate toughness in his fateful attempt to take life to its limits and still beat the devil, but who also turns the casting of a fishing line into an art form that makes a rainbow rise from the water, and who with his greatest-ever catch stands before his father and brother "suspended above the earth, free from all its laws, like a work of art." Moreover, this movie reunited Robert Redford with Tom Skerritt, with whom he had first shared the screen in the 1962 Korean war drama "War Hunt" (both actors' big-screen debut), and who gives a finely-tuned, sensitive performance as the Reverend Maclean. Notable are also the appearances of Brenda Blethyn as Mrs. Maclean and Emily Lloyd as Norman's bride-to-be Jessie. But the movie's true star is Montana itself, particularly its rivers and streams; every frame of Philippe Rousselot's Academy Award-winning cinematography and every sweep of the camera over Montana's magnificent landscape, and along the silver bands of its rivers with their gurgling cataracts and waves curling softly against their banks, powerful testimony to Robert Redford's genuine love and respect for the West and for nature in general; the causes closest to his heart and matched in importance only by his efforts to promote a movie scene outside of Hollywood. And Redford himself assumes the (uncredited) role of the narrator, thus bringing to the screen Norman Maclean's lyrical language and uniting words and pictures in an audiovisual sonnet, subtly accentuated by Mark Isham's gentle score. Both movie and novella end with the lines that have given the story its title: "[I]n the half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul; and memories, and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River, and a four-count rhythm, and the hope that a fish will rise. Eventually, all things merge into one; and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs" - those of Norman Maclean's now-lost loved ones; those he "loved and did not understand in [his] youth." As we have had to learn, it is not only human life that is terminal; even nature itself (including, incidentally, the Macleans' beloved Big Blackfoot River) is not immune to destruction by human carelessness. This movie is a powerful plea to all of us not to wait until it has become too late.
This movie will produce feelings that will linger with you long after the ending credits !
This movie portrays that notion, just fine.
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UNHERALDED BUT WELL WORTH A WATCH
Read the book....