Two Acting Heavyweights Salvage Sentimental Sub Biopic
922955
George Tillman Jr's blatantly syrupy and corny cinematic voyage into the tumultuous naval career of America's first African-American Master Diver Carl Brashear (Cuba Gooding Jr.) is an excessively blunt and fairly obvious attempt to felicitate massive emotions from the audience through another predictable man against the world formula. Essentially a rehash of any underdog coming-of-age sports movie (Rocky, Karate Kid, Rudy,) Men of Honor takes a typically idealistic but class challenged character and puts him through the paces of trying to prove himself in his own mind and, in spite of his ethnicity and personal background, validate his cause upon the hearts of others.  As the audience follows Brashear on his predestined path, we meet a typically callous and hard-hitting commanding officer Master Chief Billy Sunday played marvelously by the always-authoritative Robert De Niro. Sunday is another stock De Niro character that is hot-tempered, violently impulsive, alcoholic, loud-mouthed, aggressively defiant against authority, and haunted by his human frailties on a daily basis. Through this unlikely union between these drastically varied men, Brashear eventually finds the will, determination, and persistence to succeed in the military amidst the initial resistance and eventual encouragement of Master Chief Sunday.
Including an all-star supporting cast comprising Hal Holbrook (Mr. Pappy), Carlize Theron (Gwen Sunday), Powers Boothe (Captain Pullman), and Michael Rapaport (Snowhill), Men of Honor supplies the acting muscle necessary particularly in the leads to upgrade what could have been a gooey dramatic hokum into a sound military period piece that still slightly disappoints, by supplying more  sentimentality than film needs, in remaining entirely real throughout.
When this well-acted tale reaches DVD, I hope it contains a George Tillman Jr. commentary track, theatrical trailers, making-of documentaries, and much much more. If you're a fan of De Niro or of military period pieces than definitely by all means check it out.
1299434
Kristin Scott Thomas is best known for her Oscar-nominated performance in "The English Patient," but a considerable number of her films are made in Frence, so it comes as no surprise that she is Csar-nominated in 2009 for her superb acting as Juliette in "I've Loved You So Long" ("Il y a longtemps que je t'aime"). In this stirring French drama she plays a woman who has just been released after serving fifteen years in prison.

In the opening scene we meet Juliette, sitting alone in the airport caf, nervously waiting for somebody. There appears her younger sister Lea (Elsa Zylberstein), who hasn't seen her more than fifteen years. The film follows the emotional process of Juliette and people surrounding her, including Lea's husband Luc (Serge Hazanavicius), who does not necessarily welcome her stay, quite Michel (Laurent Grvill), who is attracted to Juliette, and Capitaine Faur, always speaking of his dream of traveling down the Orinoco River.

Though its subject matter is serious, "I've Loved You So Long" is not a depressing film. The film is slow-paced and requires patience, but acting is unanimously great. Sometimes "I've Loved You So Long" feels like a stage production, with "acts" and "scenes," but this does not mean the film is wordy or stagey.

First-time feature director Philippe Claudel, formerly known as novelist, often makes much use of the actors' physical expressions. In fact Juliette and Lea really emote. It is emotional torrent unleashed, though I am more impressed with their quieter moments. Another notable point is that the film doesn't explain much about what is going on now, or what really happened fifteen years ago. The storyline, which by itself is pretty simple, is a little melodramatic, but the film is not burdened with long expository dialogues.

"I've Loved You So Long" may not your cup of tea. Some viewers would find its understated and slow narrative intriguing while others may think differently. Whatever your reaction may be, you will be fascinated with the strong performance of Kristin Scott Thomas.
4721744
This is a much-talked about Australian film, but the storyline is rather confronting.  It details the relationship between two dysfunctional people, whose main interest in life is sex and drugs for the woman, played superbly by Sacha Horler, and the shiftless man upon, out of work and unmotivated, on whom she focuses her attention.
The two main actors are very convincing in their roles, and there is a small part played by the ever-convincing Marta Dusseldorp.  Not an uplifting experience, but worth watching because it received great acclaim at the time it was released.
3099044
Requiem For A Heaveyweight, the feature-length movie was released in 1962. It was initially written for television three years earlier by none other than Rod Serling. It aired on Playhouse 90 in the Fall of 1960. That production starred Keenyn Wynn in the role of Mesch, the desperate and mercinary fight manager. His dad, legendary comic, Ed Wynn played Armie, Mountain Rivera's sympathetic handler. Jack Palance was cast in the lead role of the over-the-hill pugilist, Mountain Rivera. It was shot live and played to a national auidence, a daring event for actors in the primitive new media.

The casting of the movie release is considerablly more inspired. Jackie Gleason stars as Mesch, a man desperatly attempting to stay one step ahead of the bookies and willing to sell the soul of his washed-up fighter to save his own skin. Mickey Rooney turns in an oscar worthy supporting role as Armie, Mountain's handler, confidant and "brother's keeper". And in the lead role we have one of Hollywood's finest dramatic actors, the inimitable, Anthony Quinn. Julie Harris plays a supporting role, as the Social Worker trying to save Mountain from becomming the side show attraction, Mesch has in store for him.

Requiem is a fascinating look at the seemley underbelly of the world of prize fighting. Like the Bogart movie "The Harder They Fall" Requiem loosely resembles the story of former Heavey Weight Champion, Primo Carnarra. Canarra, a giant of a man from Italy who faced a seires of bum-of-the-month has-beens to climb to the heavey weight crown. Many of these bouts were perported to be fixed. Carnara it was said had a glass jaw. Fighters then were viewed largely as commodities, expendable and easily replaced. Both movies speak directly to the heart of the grim reality of the "sweet science", during one of boxing's darkest periods. The film still packs an enormous punch, (pardon the pun) and holds up remarkably well over the years. See it for the great story-telling by Serling, the brilliant acting by Gleason, Quinn, Rooney and Julie Harris. And finally catch it for the marvelous cameo by a very young and irrasable Cascius Clay.
100335
it was ok, just a "past the time" movie. Love the two actors though
1367376
A nice moving, touching movie with some folks that are certainly now larger than life than they were when they filmed this.
3361896
Really enjoyable movie. Two of my favorite actors.
4350409
Good acting and a 'somewhat aurhenic' preseentation of these years in both of their lives... Overall a good film to watch,
4008406
I bought this dvd because I really like the two main protagonists. I have admired Woody Allen since 'Annie Hall' and 'Manhattan' and loved 'Lost in Translation' and 'Girl with a Pearl Earring', but I came away from this with mixed feelings. Scarlett showed in 'Lost In Translation' what a fine actress she is, but I feel that most of the rles she has been given since have been pretty undemanding, perhaps concentrating on her physical attributes more than her acting skills. Although the camera absolutely adores her in 'Scoop', I thought her acting was also pretty good and it was not her performance which diappointed me, but that of Woody Allen, who abandons his usual laconic, self-deprecating persona in favour of some almost slapstick schtick. As he wrote the script as well, there is no excuse, hence the reason for the title of the review.

Having said all that, I still enjoyed the film. Hugh Jackman was his usual square-jawed, handsome leading man  and the plot was not bad, although a little contrived.

My advice to the reader - a film worth seeing, but don't expect too much.
1404501
As Craig and Irene, Cromwell and Bujold deliver a pair of superb performances. James Cromwell and Genevive Bujold are outstanding in this tender, affecting, insightful drama about the bonds and sacrifices of marriage. The film stars James Cromwell as Craig Morrison, a farmer in rural St. Martins, New Brunswick who battles a government bureaucrat for the right to build a new house for his ailing wife Irene when their existing home no longer suits her health needs. After years of stability, the lives of octogenarian couple, Craig and Irene Morrison, are slowly beginning to change. Because of changing times and regulations, they are no longer able to make a living from their small coastal New Brunswick farm. Irene has begun to show signs of early dementia.  To accommodate the declining health of his wife Irene, Craig intends to build a more suitable, small one story house on the property in which he and Irene can live, and his want for what he sees as a comfortable and safe life with Irene in their final years. Based on a true story, this is a must see film about dedication and commitment to the bonds and sacrifices of marriage, and to each other, at any age.

As Craig and Irene, Cromwell and Bujold deliver a pair of superb performances.
4797346
John M. Stahl (1886-1950), Azerbaijan-born but Hollywood's seminal melodrama director in the sound era, made (besides the major weepies successfully remade by Ross Hunter) at Universal the neglected ONLY YESTERDAY and WHEN TOMORROW COMES, then matriculated to Fox for his operatic masterpiece LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN and then this similarly neglected addendum WALLS OF JERICHO, his final large-scale melodrama. It's just four minutes shorter than the Technicolor masterpiece, filmed in subdued monochrome by Arthur C. Miller, and a rather scathing (pre-Douglas Sirk) look at smalltown virtues and vices in our complacent Midwest, 1910-12.

Cornel Wilde repeats from LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN, as does Anne Baxter from Stahl's EVE OF ST. MARK, and they carry the film as collegial barristers. The castlist widens with Kirk Douglas and really fine character turns by Ann Dvorak as Wilde's dipso spouse and Linda Darnell radiantly on form as "Algeria Wedge," Jericho's social arbiter, style maven--and vengeful woman scorned. Stahl knowingly juggles the usual smalltown tropes: gossip, illegitimacy, backstreet affairs, attempted rape, alcoholism, political cronyism, and this typical hamlet tributary to metropolitan Kansas City is intriguingly poised between urban and rural, Roosevelt and Taft eras, pastoral vs. upwardly suburban career opportunists. Jericho has its cowboy past, the saddlery still marketing handtooled chaps, boots and spurs, but the citizenry are fully modernized with telephones, player pianos and runabout motorcars. Darnell emblematically and overbearingly flaunts her big-city hats, a chic sheath skirt and her topflight pianola, and Baxter even more daringly challenges Jericho's professional norms as a fully skirted yet fully liberated lady barrister bucking the entrenched townie establishment. (Today she'd fight to restore and preserve the saddlery, and Darnell's pianola too.)

Wilde and Baxter monopolize their extended screentime, to the neglect of the more interesting Dvorak and Darnell characters, so too the diverse townsfolk Marjorie Rambeau, Henry Hull, Patricia Morison and Ann Doran. Still this is a deeper smalltown melodrama than Sam Wood's KINGS ROW, Baxter and Wilde have a tracking-shot walkabout (and canoodling scenes) that pay homage to Welles' Baxter in MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS, and the insularity and steamy gossip of smalltown Kansas was elaborated just seven years later in Josh Logan's popular PICNIC. Stahl's vision--as compared with melodramatists influenced by or copying his style--is purer, more objective: these characters are (period costumes, pianolas and motorcars notwithstanding) what they are, and this great director intelligently trusts his mature audience to suspend any blanket abominations of this Jericho smart set, letting us delegate final judgments to heaven. As in LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN, Stahl's courtroom scenes are intensely dramatic and perfectly blocked (hostile witness Darnell exits in a huffy snit, staring down barrister Baxter), and it's worth noting that the film, despite the source novel's title, portrays a conspicuously unchurched community.
3510427
This is almost strictly a two-person movie with Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn dominating the story and screen time. It's a likable classic film because of those two famous actors, a nice romance, good adventure and even some comedy thrown in to the mix.

 I'm shocked a well-known film with these actors still isn't available on DVD in Region 1, as of 2009.  That's just ridiculous. Hopefully, they'll produce a sharp Blu-Ray disc of this film.

The two actors squabble in the beginning but I like the fact that the film didn't go on too long in that regard as they did in many old-time battle-of-the-sexes movies. The story also a little unusual in that neither lead actor is in his/her prime, meaning it's almost a middle-age romance story.

Once they become enamored with each other, the movie mainly goes into the trials the two have in piloting this boat, "The African Queen" down river with the goal of reaching a German ship and blowing it up. Yes, it's a World War II movie, of sorts.

To be honest, the film does slow down a bit in the beginning of Bogie and Hepburn's romance but the last 30 minutes finish strong with one obstacle after another hitting the pair of adventurers, and it's interesting to watch.
2618244
J.B. Priestly was the initial attraction. Had that been all it would have been enough, but Jessie Matthews and John Gielgud make the film more than literary. They make it life. .
The DVD is  adequate for a film produced in  1933. Remade in  1956 but to less sensual effect and musicalized by Johnny Mercer and Andre Previn the 1970's, this is the version to get.
4437866
Two outstanding performances by aging stars reveal the plight of retired folks (like myself) put out to pasture based on their age by a society that overlooks their abilities and wishes in its haste to make room for the next generation. Two unlikely friends form an alliance and attempt a comeback. Shirley MacLaine is great in a supporting role.
539310
Two of my favorite actors.  How can it be bad.
4436202
not a fan of those actors, but they did an amazing job portraying those characters.  the brilliant part was the script though.  decent directing, but the script was emotional and intellectual.  an intricate movie.
392992
Audrey Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart and William Holden perform wonderfully in this drama about two people on opposite sides of the proverbial tracks falling in love. The cast does a great job distinguishing their characters. One can tell Harrison Ford studied Bogart's portrayal for his role in the remake (he wasn't able to pull it off). Definitely worth the investment!