Excellent movie...with problems
586979
A beautiful tale of a man finding redemtion in an unlikely plave....but the beauty of Zwicks battles and scenery are overshadowed by a typically hollywood liberla anit-American view. SOMEHOW in the background of Japan becoming a modern society, and ending centuries of Feudalism, the United States become the BAY GUY. Japanese serfs, striving for freedom, are not the Enemy. Samurai opressors are not the Enemy. 1 whiteman is the enemy. 1 American is the enemy. it's all summed up on the eve of the battle between the modern serf army and the traditional samurai army, when asamurai child ask's Tom Cruise "Will you fight the WHITE MEN"? Of course there is only ONE whiteman. And the whole army of dirty serfs struggling to breathe free is irrelevent. It's the white American's fault. Centuries of feudalist opression is summed up into "ONE WHITE MAN". 5 stars for battle scenes and general movie macgic. -1 for silly political ideology where it does not belong and is totally out of context.
1358591
The movie itself is excellent, and the way in which the DVD was made as for menu was fine, BUT, there appeared to be a problem with the manufacture of the DVD disc itself.
I purchased the movie and watched it, but right at the middle of the film (during the auction house scene) the DVD would become unreadable, with only bits of sound or a refreshed frame here and there.  The unreadable nature continued for all chapters to the end of the movie (thus, the second layer was unreadable, as the first played perfectly).  I returned the disc for replacement, and the second DVD had the exact same flaw at the exact same time.  Thus, a manufacturing defect.  Problem reproduced on 2 DVD players, and in a new computer as well.

Good movie, good menus, bad discs.
2929661
Having long, long wanting this movie.  It is indeed a very rare and exceptional movie.  A most unique and very hard to find item if your searching for it through conventional methods.  I am very thankfull I was able to find it here.

The movie itself is fine to watch and still one of the best Canadian made animated features of all time, to ever be produced and would be near impossible to repeat in my own opinion.

However that being said I do have much reservations about the condition of the movie itself.  Which has been poorly treated since it was found where ever it was.  A very large lacluster attempt at restoring the images to thier pristine originality is flawed.  Which was the biggest dissapointment for me in watching this.  Any attempts to restore some of the old picture remain sloppy at best.

While still a good flick to watch and a must have for collectors.  I feel this should have been much better treated and improved upon.  It is much, much overdue for a complete digital remake.  Improving on both the sound and picture quality and is also extremely overdue for a Blue-ray treatment to restore this wonderfull rarity to its original quality that makes it so worth its keeping down the long run.

Though I fear this will never come to be.  I do not fault those who found this movie and attempted thier effort to try and restore what they could but largly failed.  This movie remains the most ignored, unapreciated and left behind gem of Canadian animation.  That it will probably go on being ignored by those at Nelvana and this movie so in sore need of proper restoration.  Nelvana will do no such thing and leave it to the wayside of dust and decay.  While they idioticly consider a reboot.

Four out of five stars.  Still a good rare gem to own and watch but has suffered greatly and the greatest disapointment... the picture remains largly fuzzy remaining in dire need of proper restoration.

In summaration:  Purely a collect for collections sake.  Nothing more unfortunatly.
2591108
Monster's Ball is a riveting movie that takes you into a world many of us don't inhabit.  Great performances are the icing on the cake here as well.

I'm in complete disagreement with comments that remark the film shows 'a black woman is sexually servicing a white man' - it's obvious the comments were written by someone who hasn't seen the movie and is just aware of the contoversial scene. Halle Berry doesn't play a prosititute in the film and Thornton is not her john, there is no money exchanged and no 'servicing' going on here. In fact, if the reviewer had watched the entire movie they would have found it quite clear that, if anything, Thornton's character was 'servicing' Berry's character.  But when two lovers have sex, I've never found it common to describe either person has servicing the other.  In addition, describing a film as 'racist' when it clearly and intentionally portrays at least two characters as racists is just a poorly framed comment written by someone with a chip on their shoulder.  Berry did not get an Oscar for the sex scenes in the film, she won in spite of them.

Also the New Yorker's comments about "the plotting is sheer Hollywood in its schemes and coincidences" are misleading.  The most interesting stories in our lives are full of coincidences and surprises ("you won't believe what happened to me today... you wouldn't believe who I ran into today"), they are what make a story worth telling in many cases.
1557133
When I was younger, I really, REALLY loved this movie. It's beautiful, well acted, well choreographed, and...well, it's just well made. I love Jet Li, and I really dig movies like this...

But after watching it more recently...there's something that really bothers me with the political ideology this film puts forth. To understand it, better take a quick look at the film's plot. There's something subversive and troubling here.

SPOILERS AHEAD

Our hero, Jet Li, is an assassin. He has gained the king's favor for killing a few other dissenting assassins, but really it's all a ploy to get close to the king himself...who is very paranoid over being murdered...can't imagine why...

This king, which the film likes to portray as "honorable" and "wise", adopts the cunning military strategy of simply bombarding unguarded civilian towns and cities with a rain of arrows. Nobody is spared.

Our honorable king is a genocidal dick...but ultimately our hero respects him for trying to unify China. Ultimately, our favorite assassin abandons his plan, deciding that perhaps to attain peace, it's okay to simple shoot arrows into a town until you're sure everyone is dead. After being exposed, he's executed by a tearful king...who goes on to further conquest, butchering hundreds of thousands to unify China.

This film likes to celebrate pacifism, as is the case for one of the warriors who serves as a side character, but at the same time continues to celebrate complete and absolute annihilation of the innocent as long as it leads to peace.

Now...if this were a film about Adolf Hitler in the vain of one of his attempted assassinations, do you think the assassin would put his guns away because he feels what Hitler did is good? Is it okay if it ultimately unifies Europe under the Nazi banner?

What about more recently? Is it responsible to simple shell the crap out of a city with artillery and napalm until people stop whining because they're all dead? Do you think the US government was encouraging pacifism in Vietnam while they were dropping agent orange on people?

If you answered no, thank god. If you answered yes, well...I look forward to your future war crimes tribunal.
3965276
Firstly, what a great film - finally available on DVD. Well worth getting even though you should please note the following:

There appears to be an entire 'reel' that has undergone a problem with transfer towards the end - there appears to be 'rain' on film (indoor scenes, too) and there are about three places during the film where the colour flickers momentarily.

I mention this simply to assure people who buy it that the error will probably be noticeable but won't detract from the film. It appears to be a fault of the transfer and not of the DVD itself.
2940455
The movie does seem to have its flaws though, esp with the FBI missing every move, this was something that my Spouse thought was a flaw in the movie. Otherwise the movie is really good for its time.
3910931
Some excellent background provided in prior reviews, but I have several important points to add. Before beginning, let me say that this film should be required viewing and belongs on everyone's DVD shelf or playlist. That said, there are some serious script issues. Marlene explains to Laughton after Power's acquittal that she got the idea to appear as a witness for the prosecution AFTER visiting Laughton when he pointed out no jury would believe the testimony of a loving wife. But from the moment she enters his chambers, it is evident she has already chosen her strategy. A much more serious issue is her timing: Laughton rests his case for the defense and it is that evening she calls him offering new evidence. Many lawyers would not have leapt for the dangling fruit. And since even the Crown's most experienced prosecutor did not believe there was precedent for re-opening the case for the defense, it is surprising a German immigrant would feel her letters would be admitted. My other issue is the scheming character played by Power. He learns he is to inherit the 80,000 upon the woman's death, mulls it over for a week, and his great plan is: bonk her on the head and run home with no alibi. His protestations of his innocence made ME want to strangle him -- it gets REAL annoying. Finally, there's talk about her probable perjury trial. Perjury? She actually tells the truth on the stand. She doesn't know a Max; her husband was guilty; she wrote the letters. The only untruth she utters is that she doesn't love her husband. Oh well. All this aside, still a great film, and it is pure delight watching Laughton, who was gay, and his wife Elsa Lanchester, who plays his overbearing nurse. She is a pure joy to watch; every clap of her hands to punctuate her commands are perfect.
2752511
Another classic!  This movie is nearly perfect!  The plot, action, and cinematography are excellent.  The picture is extremely clear and the color is vivid.  But, I have only one problem with the dvd that might be an issue for some of you.  On this dvd, you can't remove the subtitles which of course is slightly different from the english dubbed dialogue.  (One example is the actors are saying Mongols while the subtitles read Tartars.)  If this doesn't bother you or if you can ignore the subtitles this dvd is for you.
893445
This was easily one of the top 5 movies of the year, however the DVD is not quite what I expected it to be.  To start off, the movie is just great, with stelar performances by Kate Hudson and  Frances McDormand, as well as newcomer Patrick Fugit.  From an audio perspective, the sound quality of the DVD is music to your ears.  I personally have a Dolby Digital 5.1 setup, and it is one of the best sounding DVD's in my collection.  The music of the film is also great, and very symbolistic of the early 70's rock era.  The disappointing part about this DVD is the special features, which were quite (for lack of a better term) bland.  **Bottom line: Great movie.  O.K. DVD. Wait for the special edition or buy now if you really liked the movie.**
4890637
It should be said, first and foremost, that this movie is brilliant. I really think, between this movie and "Batman Begins" that Chris Nolan has set a new standard for comic-book based movies. He's proven its possible to take them and make them accessible to people without being campy, to include real emotions, even drama, believable and entertaining action sequences, all in a story that is handled seriously. That said, all the performances in this movie are anywhere between great and brilliant, no complaints.

Now where this disc goes wrong is its rather intolerable switching between 16:9 and letterbox (2.4:1) format. The creators of the disc clearly wanted to showcase their occasional use of i-max film, but they must have neglected to realize that not all of us have a 100 foot wall onto which to project these pristine images. The result is that you get sequences where Batman jumps off a tower in Hong Kong in 16:9 (full screen for modern televisions) and the people wandering around in the building 2 seconds later are in letterbox, you see him flying around and crashing through the window in full screen, and then he rolls to a halt in letterbox. This is actually a simplified explanation of what actually happens, because there are actually 3 or 4 more switches back and forth in that one action sequence. Needless to say, it is quite distracting. Its completely bizarre that whey chose to do this, really. I'm sure they were thinking its a good idea, but everyone I've shown it to is not impressed.

Your options? You can live with this, because its not an option to change it. You can buy the DVD which isn't like this, though it is clearly not the same resolution. You can wait until Warner Bros releases another version, which may never happen. What is clear is for the moment you won't be enjoying this movie to the extent you should in HD at this point.
710769
This is a great film and the transfer is beautiful. The extras are slim however, and this classic deserved better treatment with regard to supplements.
  The commentary by Time and Life critic Richard Schickel is interesting for the factual information that it imparts about the production of the film. He does however, stray frequently into freudian excess whenever he attempts to convey his feelings about what he sees as the film's bisexual subtext, a subtext that I don't see or actually believe exists.
  Long story short: pick this one up for the transfer!
566209
Patton is one of the best biographical movies that has been around for some time and reviewed by more competent movie critics than I. The less than perfect rating is for the transmission quality. It was good for the first two hours or so when the movie suddenly froze and didn't restart. Waited five minutes or so then backtracked to see if that would help. It did but only in part; the picture came back but the sound didn't. Playing around with the progress indicator eventually got me to a point where I regained both sound and picture and from that point on everything went fine until the end of the movie.

I'm not qualified to say whether this problem was due to my ISP, Time-Warner, or to the server streaming the video. Your experience may be different. If you are a fan of our military history then this, the story of one of our greatest generals at the top of his career, will certainly will be worth your time. I'd highly recommend it.
2048331
When it comes to action scenes, cinematography, sound, music, special effects, choreography, this movie is top of the heap.  I would characterize the action sequences as nothing short of amazing.  However, the story fell a little flat, despite having some seriously good performances by some great actors.  There are just a little too many plot holes and nonsensical things in the story that prevent me from giving it higher marks. For instance, the entire Stock Market scene was just ridiculous.  (I'll leave spoilers out though.)
As far as the Blu-Ray is concerned, it's well worth the money.  Fantastic picture.
842174
We have loved the movie itself and are very happy with the seller, etc.  Our only problem is that the movie keeps stopping repeatedly at the beginning of the movie.  We watched it several times and the same thing happened every time.....we would buy from the seller again because we know they can't possible watch all their movies to make sure they work properly.  We were taking a chance to order a used movie....thanks you
4928894
I enjoyed this DVD but there were noticable major flaws that prevented the movie from being much more enjoyable.
The parts that were good... Rachel Roberts as Simone. She is absolutely gorgeous and from that standpoint helps make the concept that the public are going crazy over her somewhat believable. Some of the computer graphic effects were great, I especially liked one part when Pacino added a hint of Audrey Hepburn and Lauren Bacall to give just the right mannerism and voice to his virtual actress. The whole concept and plot of the movie, except for the details were mind provoking.
Some of the flaws... unbelievable and technically inaccurate elements that jarr you out of the fantasy and into a state of "yeah right". For example, this incredible virtual actress is delivered to Pacino in a hard drive which he loads onto his PC in the CD tray! Anybody with a PC would know this is not technically possible. Furthermore, the computing power to handle creating this virtual actress would require a whole bank of PCs or a supercomputer, yet he was able to run it off his regular desktop. Anyone with a little bit of technical knowhow will see that is artistic licence to the extreme, or more likely abysmal technical ignorance of the Director.
If technical inaccuracies don't bother you, then how about the fact that his daughter (and numerous others close to Taranski), don't question more strongly why they are never able to ever get to meet Simone.  Weak excuses are made, but you can't help but question if in real life people would really let things slide like that.
Taranski (Al Pacino) looks like an old tired, slightly crazed man throughlout the movie. His character doesn't seem to develop. You would expect him to undergo a transformation when his movie with Simone becomes a hit.  But that doesn't happen.
I think many of the flaws are because the movie was written, directed and produced by one person. I am guessing he probably never got the script critically reviewed and edited by a more objective team of qualified scriptwriters.
Look past the flaws in the details and you will find some scenes that are great.
3108049
This is a most excellent film, for any country, any genre. It is engaging and suspenseful from start to finish, clever and very satisfying. All the actors did a beautiful job, especially the incredibly convincing Vidya Balan in the title role. Can't wait to watch it again soon, now that I know all the secrets. Unfortunately THE VIEWING EXPERIENCE IS BADLY MARRED by producer Shemaroo's logo/watermark APPEARING IN LARGE CAPITAL LETTERS ON EVERY FRAME OF THE FILM. This is very distracting and inappropriate. It is exactly like your company purchasing a Van Gogh painting and then painting your company logo on the face of it to shamelessly advertise yourself at the expense of the work of art. This film (like Queen--same problem) is fine art and Shemaroo has spoiled it. I complained to them at customerservice@shemaroo.com and I urge you to do the same. Maybe if enough people complain they'll stop this inappropriate and unnecessary practice.