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First Knight (Special Edition) Review

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(More customer reviews)I am 15 years old, and I just love this movie. "First Knight" ranks up on the list with the musical "Camelot" and Disney's "The Sword and the Stone" as a magnificent telling of the Camelot legend, and may in fact surpass these other two movies in excellance. Creative license was taken so that the "accurate" legend is not portrayed, but the charcters stay true to the story and the affect is nothing short of amazing. Lady Guinevere of Leonesse (sic?) is on her way to marry King Arthur of Camelot when she inadvertantly meets Lancelot, a very cocky mersonary whose arrogant ways hide a dark childhood. Although attempting to stay loyal to her King, Guinevere is twice saved by Lancelot (although she did a good deal of the work to escape herself) and finds herself falling in love with him. To complicate the problem, the evil Prince Malagant is determined to take over both Leonesse and Camelot. Tension builds to a stunning climax, a shocking ending, and a glorious conclusion. ----- This movie is filled with both heart-pounding action cues of suspense and heart-rending conversations of real people. Richard Gere portrays Lancelot beautifully, giving him a self-assured pride and arrogance that later reveal to be merely a cover-up to the pain he experienced as a child. Although I have heard complaints that Gere is too American for the part, he added a dimension to Lancelot's personality that few others could top. There is a chiling reason for his cockiness, and it makes him seem more human. Julia Ormond gives Guinevere beauty, but also independance. She is quite able to handle herself, and is one of the few "damsels-in-distress" that haven't gotten on my nerves by their helplessness. Because this Guinevere is anything but helpless! Guinevere is torn apart by her love for two men, and Ormond portrays it excellently, allowing you to see into Guinevere's soul and find the pain she is going through. Ben Cross as the terrible Malagant is perfect. He is wicked, cruel, selfish, and disgusting; the perfect villian! Not every actor/actress can play a villian so well. Great job! And what can I say about Sean Connery as King Arthur? This was the first movie I saw him in after I saw the film "DragonHeart", in which Connery played the voice of the dragon. Perfectly cast in that movie, perfectly cast in this, Connery gives King Arthur boundless dignity, wisdom, and heart, but he also gives him a human side; vulnerable and not always quite sure what to do next. This is probably the most realistic portrayal of Arthur, and you can't help but have your heart go out to him. ----- The music, the diolodge, and the wonderful acting make "First Knight" such a great movie. For anyone who loves the Arthurian Legend, or simply a story of regular people with lots of heart, see this movie. As the song goes, "It will not be forgot that once there was a spot for once brief, shining moment that was known as Camelot!"

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Together, Sean Connery, Richard Gere, Julia Ormond (Legends of the Fall, Sabrina) and Jerry Zucker,the director of Ghost, bring you a new vision of King Arthur's Camelot. A vision of breathtaking battles, of heart-pounding courage, of the undeniable love that brought an entire kingdom to its knees... and of the undying passion that made it live forever.

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Another Time, Another Place Review

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(More customer reviews)I first saw this film about 10 years ago on AMC when I was in college. I instantly fell in love with it. Sean Connery, Lana Turner, and Glynis Johns are all superb. The story takes place in England during the waning days of WWII. This is a story of two women in love with the same man (who, ironically, is deceased). You cannot help but have a connection with the characters as you sit through this film. "Another Time, Another Place" gives the viewer a great feel for the period as well. I have owned the VHS copy for years. I just wish Paramount would release this one on DVD. Great film.

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From Russia With Love (1964) Review

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(More customer reviews)From Russia With Love, the second James Bond film, is one of the best (in my view, second only to Goldfinger). Unlike the later films in the series, From Russia With Love is extremely faithful to the Ian Fleming novel with only slight variations on the story. In order to obtain a Russian decoding machine, 007 must travel to Istanbul, Turkey to aid a beautiful Russian defector ... even though he and the British Secret Service know it's probably a trap. But unbeknownst to Bond SPECTRE is playing the Russians and the British against each other. This is the most realistic of the Bond films with a story that could probably happen in the real world of espionage. The film does contain a gadget -- a trick briefcase (also in the Fleming novel) that contains throwing knives, ammunition, a folding sniper's rifle, 50 gold sovereigns and a tear gas cartridge that explodes when the case is opened improperly. The film, however, takes a very realistic approach to the story with none of the cartoon antics present in many of the later Bonds.
Terence Young, who also helmed Dr. No and Thunderball, does an outstanding job of directing. He makes wonderful use of the locations, especially in Istanbul. As with his other two Bond efforts, Young eschews a cartoon approach to the action in favor of a more brutal, realistic approach. And unlike many later Bond directors, Young concentrates on developing characters, making them real people with real emotions. The audience feels for the characters emotionally -- something unheard of with the cardboard cutout characters of the later films.
Peter Hunt's editing is a marvel. The action scenes are tightly edited and the film's pacing and continuity are flawless. In addition, the DVD documentary shows just how much Hunt helped shape the final project. He went beyond simply editing the film and actually helped shape and improve the story.
However, the best thing about the film is the casting. Young must have taken great care to properly cast From Russia With Love because every part matches their novel counterpart down to the last detail. Sean Connery, of course, is, and always will be, the best James Bond. Newcomer Daniela Bianchi is terrific as pseudo defector Tatiana Romanova. She is beautiful, sexy and appealing. It's too bad she didn't have more of a screen career. Lotte Lenya (Threepenny Opera), the famed German musical star, does a wonderful villainous turn as Rosa Klebb, former SMERSH agent who is now working for SPECTRE. Robert Shaw (A Man for all Seasons, Black Sunday, Jaws) is chilling as SPECTRE assassin Red Grant. And Pedro Armendariz, in the performance of his career, plays Ali Karim Bey, the head of Station T, Turkey. Aremedariz's performance is especially poignant because he was dying of cancer during the filming. He shot himself while in the hospital soon after he was through filming.
From Russia With Love is not only a good Bond film, but a good film alone, apart from the series. Along with Dr. No and Goldfinger, From Russia With Love represents a high point that the later films never quite matched.
The DVD transfer is spectacular, with terrific sound and picture quality. What makes the DVD special, however, are the special features which include three documentaries, trailers, TV and radio spots and cast & crew profiles. The main documentary is especially interesting as it details how the filmmakers drastically changed the story progression during the shoot. As with all of the Bond DVD's, MGM has done a superb job, giving the buyer much, much more than just the film to view.

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The Russia House (1990) Review

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(More customer reviews)Like the other movies originating from the unchallenged master of the intelligent spy thriller John LeCarre, this one is a really a sophisticated thriller exposing the hidden, complicated, and conflicted corners of an individual's human heart. "The Russia House" represented a formidable new challenge for LeCarre, so suddenly deprived of the spy-thriller heaven of the cold war he had built his career describing. But here he has mined fresh new tunnels of insight into the cunning, deceit, and betrayal that is the stuff of real-life espionage. At the same time, this movie also weaves a quite memorable love story in the spaces squeezed between the two sides.
Barley Blair (Sean Connery), the failing boozehound scion of a collapsing British publishing house with a love for everything Russian, happens by drunken though eloquent happenstance to inspire a famous Soviet scientist into attempting to sneak his manuscript detailing the real sorry state of Russian ICBM capabilities into the hands of the West in order to foster a recognition of the folly of the arms race and to end what he calls "the great lie". The scientist attempts to contact Blair, but through a series of mishaps rivaling the deeds of the keystone cops winds up landing the manuscript in the hands of the British Secret Service. So they soon want Barley to intercede with the Russian contact point (Michelle Pfeiffer) to find out who the author of the manuscript is and thus determine its authenticity. So Barley pursues the beautiful but conflicted contact, an idealistic angel of mercy who soon sparks Barley's love interest and paternal concern. The game is afoot.
The movie is gorgeously photographed on a number of locations throughout Russia, and the travelogue-like tour through Moscow, Saint Petersburg, and Minsk is spellbinding. Likewise, the acting is top notch, with Roy Scheider, James Fox, and a whole welter of distinguished British actors lending presence and gravity to this intelligent thriller. As is usual, the plot takes off slowly but builds to a mind-boggling series of intertwining activities one has to pay attention to understand. Before long we recognize the familiar murderous games set into motion with deadly earnest by the Brits, the Americans, and the Russians, none of whom give a rattler's damn about Barley, the contact, or the scientist.
This is a stunning, suspenseful, and somewhat rueful tale of what unfolds when we discover that there is a real possibility that the so-called Soviet ICBM threat is a sham, that the missiles cannot escape their silos, that their ability to achieve trajectory or destroy targets with any accuracy is vastly over-rated. And as one can expect from LeCarre's shadowy and complex geopolitical world of espionage and power, there are no simple answers or easy foregone conclusions. This is a wonderful movie, which in my opinion is quite under-rated. It has the ring of more real-life veracity and worldly wisdom than one can easily find on the non-fiction side of the movie theater aisle. Enjoy!

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A filmmaking tour de force and 'the year's most sophisticated, suspenseful and sexy entertainment(Cosmopolitan), The Russia House stars OscarÂ(r) winner* Sean Connery and OscarÂ(r) nominee** Michelle Pfeiffer as two people caught in a web of spies and politics, whose love could prove fatal to them both. When Katya (Pfeiffer), a beautiful Russian book editor, attempts to send British publisher Barley Blair (Connery) a manuscript written by a noted Soviet scientist, she unwittingly draws them both into a world of international espionage. The manuscript, which contains information that could alter the balance of world power, is intercepted by the West's spy-masters who then send Blair to Russia to gain more information on the mysterious document. But when Blair meets Katya, he finds himself torn between his mission and the woman whose passion for her countryand for Blairknows no bounds.

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First Knight (1995) Review

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Cuba (1979) Review

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(More customer reviews)*Cuba* may be the best movie you've never heard of. The setting is 1958, just before the final collapse of the Batista regime. Sean Connery stars as a British mercenary with the odd name of Dapes, whom Batista's colonels hope will help them to stamp out Fidel Castro's revolutionaries. However, Connery pretty much figures out -- almost as soon as he arrives -- that Batista's cause will be lost, and so his attempts to guide the incompetent military are rather half-hearted. He's much more interested in reviving a love affair with an old flame, Brooke Adams (surprisingly glamorous, but with an on-again, off-again accent). Problem is, she's married to the profligate son (Chris Sarandon) of one of Cuba's wealthiest industrialists . . . and it's a lifestyle that rather fits in with her imperial demeanor. (She runs the cigar factory and the rum distillery while her husband gets drunk and chases the skirts of the hired help.) The movie does not pretend to be a terribly accurate account of the Cuban Revolution. What director Richard Lester goes for instead are impressionistic sketches of the land, its people, and its culture. All the stereotypes are here, lovingly rendered: the fat, pompous jefes; the sultry women; the tacky gringo culture superimposed on the place for the visiting American businessmen (one of whom is the always-welcome Jack Weston, in a terrifically sleazy performance); the cigar factories; the prostitutes; the skinny kids playing street baseball; posters of politicos; languid bathers poolside; tropical drinks with the little umbrellas . . . get the idea? The movie succeeds spectacularly in delineating the death-throes of a way of life. Havana in particular seems deserted, denuded of people: even blonde American strippers can't find an audience. *Cuba* is a poignant, and at times funny, daguerreotype of a nation filled with ghosts, just on the cusp of revolution.

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Academy AwardÂ(r) winner* Sean Connery (Entrapment) and Brooke Adams (Gas Food Lodging) lead an all-star cast in this sweeping story of two old flames caught up in the chaos, fury and exhilaration of Cuba's revolution. Directed by Richard Lester (A Hard Day's Night) andwritten by Charles Wood (The Charge of the Light Brigade), Cuba is an exciting and "intelligent thriller" (Roger Ebert).Havana, Cuba. 1959. A tropical island paradise is on the brink of revolution. Robert Dapes (Connery), a cynical British mercenary, comes to the country at the request of one of Batista's most corrupt functionaries, General Bello (Martin Balsam). But once there, Dapes finds himself unable to ignore the brutality and depravity of the Batista regimeand unable to resist Alexandra Pulido (Adams), an old lover now married to a wealthy Cuban landowner. Surrounded by volatile guerilla fighters and the human vultures present at all coups, he must come to terms with his shifting views if he has any thought of getting out alive. *1987: Supporting Actor, The Untouchables

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A Bridge Too Far (1977) Review

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(More customer reviews)In a film of beautiful nuance, Richard Attenborough captures the horrors or war and the dignity of those who must endure, soldiers and civilians alike. The stellar cast of "A Bridge Too Far" (a veritable who's who of acting greats) sets this film apart. Sean Connery leaves behind the cool assuredness of Bond and faces futility with a mug of tea while Anthony Hopkins, a proper Englishman in Hell, surrenders with dignity, only reluctantly accepting chocolate from the enemy. James Caan is a particular standout. With true American grit, he bends all the rules and makes good on a pledge. The scale of the film could have wrought disasters on par with the campaign it portrays. Fortunately, the immensity of the Market-Garden campaign, which historically met its Waterloo at Arnhem, doesn't swallow up the stories of individual characters, of the Brit with umbrella for instance or the Dutch resisters who spy for the Allies.
Few World War II flicks showcase the absolute beauty of the European countryside. In "A Bridge Too Far," the landscape, made all the more picturesque in its contrast to the gore and destruction, is certainly an additional star and supports the wisdom of shooting this expensive epic in the Netherlands. The wide-angle approach, as well as the moving score, give balm to eyes and ears now accustomed to the tortorous naturalism of "Saving Private Ryan." Attenborough pulls back, thankfully. In its final scene, "A Bridge Too Far" achieves poignance without dialogue, without bluster, and without the common contrivance of summoning tears with half-baked, insipid bathos. Sir Lawrence Olivier and Liv Ullman stare straight ahead, the fresh graves of British paratroopers lining their path from an elegance destroyed, from an order and faith utterly shattered. The scene is perfection. And the film itself is close to it.

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An epic film that "re-creates in stunning detail one of the most disastrous battles of World War II" (The Hollywood Reporter), A Bridge Too Far is a spectacular war picture. Painstakingly recreated on actual battlefield locations and boasting a remarkable cast that includes Sean Connery, Anthony Hopkins, Sir Laurence Olivier and Robert Redford, A Bridge Too Far accurately recaptures the monumental scope, excitement and danger behind one of the biggest military gambles in history. In September 1944, flush with success after the Normandy Invasion, the Allies confidently launched Operation Market Garden, a wild scheme intended to put an early end to the fighting by invading Germany and smashing the Reich's war plants. But a combination of battlefield politics, faulty intelligence, bad luck and even worse weather led to disaster beyond the Allies' darkest fears.

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The Hunt for Red October (1990) Review

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(More customer reviews)This great movie was previously only available on DVD as a "bare-bones" edition -- a non-anamorphic presentation of the movie, with only a trailer and no real extras. But with this release, the film finally gets the Special Edition treatment!
The special features for this disc will reportedly include a new anamorphic transfer, both a Dolby Digital 5.1 sound track AND a DTS 5.1 sound track, an audio commentary by director John McTiernan, a "Beneath the Surface" featurette (new interviews with Alec Baldwin, James Earl Jones, screenwriter Larry Ferguson and producer Mace Neufeld) and the theatrical trailer. Not TONS in the way of extras, but certainly a lot more than what was on the previous edition.
And for you Tom Clancy fans, Paramount has also announced "The Jack Ryan Special Edition DVD Collection" for release on the same day this disc is released, May 6th. The box set will include the new Special Editions of "The Hunt for Red October", "Patriot Games", "Clear and Present Danger", and "The Sum Of All Fears"... each with new bonus material, new anamorphic transfers and both Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1 sound. (The movies will be available separately as well as in the 4-disc box set.)
As for my review of "Hunt For Red October":
Personally... and I'm sure that Harrison Ford fans will lambast me for this... I think that Alec Baldwin made the best Jack Ryan in the series. At least, he fit my own personalized vision of the character as I was reading the book better than Ford did. "The Hunt For Red October" is also far and away the best movie based on a Tom Clancy book and follows the SPIRIT of the book more closely than any of the others. Sure, they took some liberties with the details of the story, but they got the broad strokes absolutely dead-on correct. What movie based on a thick, highly technical, politically complex book could possibly match it exactly scene for scene???
One of the thrilling things for me when I watch this film is seeing INTELLIGENT characters actually THINKING their way through problems. There are political, personal and technical issues that many of the characters are forced to deal with, and it is a joy to watch -- for example -- Alec Baldwin's Jack Ryan using his MIND and not his fists to get into and out of situations. This movie is defenitely a thinking man's action film.
But that is not to say that this isn't an exciting movie with lots of plot twists, and some of the best submarine battles ever put into a movie. And to top all that off, you get Sean Connery AND the underrated Sam Neil as the "villains", and James Earl Jones in a superb supporting role. This is also directed by one of the best action-film directors working today, John "Die Hard" McTiernan (although I don't know WHAT he was thinking with the "Rollerball" remake). What more could you want in an action film?
SOME TRIVIA: Star Trek fans take note, that is Gates (Dr. Beverly Crusher) McFadden in a blink-and-you-miss-it cameo role as Jack Ryan's wife at the beginning of the movie. ... People in and around Portland, Oregon may be interested to know that the "Russian" submarine that breaches the water towards the end of the film is actually an American submarine called the USS Blueback which is retired and on permanent display for public tours at OMSI, the Portland science building.

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The Hunt for Red October (1990) Review

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Indiana Jones - The Complete Adventure Collection (Raiders of the Lost Ark/ Temple of Doom/ Last Crusade/ Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) Review

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(More customer reviews)Okay, I believe we all know who Indiana Jones, is, right? I grew up with Indy and my kids will be the same. This new box-set is the definitive Indy box-set. This set features the original classic trilogy plus the newest addition, "The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull". Just like the set that came out in May for the 4th movie, this set comes with the new special editions of the original 3 movies. The best part about this set is that the 4th movie is the 2-Disc special edition and not the lame 1-disc version. My only complaints with this set are 1) that the DVD cases are those really lame slim cases and not regular sized DVD cases and 2) the bonus disc from the original trilogy boxset is missing (although the special features makeup for that is most respects) and 3) while the cover is cool, the order of each movie cover is weird; you start from the top right and work your way around. All in all, this is the best Indy box-set out there and it's worth getting. Here's my ratings for each movie:
Raiders of the Lost Ark: 5/5
The Temple of Doom: 4/5
The Last Crusade: 5/5
The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: 3.5/5

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Item Name: Indiana Jones - The Complete Adventure Collection (Raiders of the Lost Ark/ Temple of Doom/ Last Crusade/ Kingdom of the Crystal Skull); Studio:Paramount

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