Biography Movie Reviews

Bob Hope is probably the best actor/comedian ever and a person of impeccable character!!This year he will be 100 years old.This A&E Biography is an excellent video.So Mr. Bob Hope may you live forever in our hearts,we all love you!!

Van Heflin is a gambler who returns to his hometown and gets tangled up with some childhood friends. He left town the night Martha killed her cold-hearted aunt, a murder that was successfully covered up. Now the grown-up Martha, played by Barbara Stanwyck, and especially her weak husband, played by Kirk Douglas, fear he might reveal what happened that night. Heflin gets involved with Lizabeth Scott, a convict, who fears his past relationship with Stanwyck will take Heflin from her. In this film noir, none of the characters is particularly likeable, each trying to protect themselves. There is some biting dialogue and effective use of music, although sometimes it becomes a little overpowering. Stanwyck is terrific as usual, really delivering in the latter scenes. Douglas is too strong of a presence to play the weak, manipulated husband, and would have been better off trading with Heflin. Scott has a strange screen presence, and although it fits the character somewhat, she never seems quite comfortable. But the characters are fascinating (typical for film noir) and the story is really interesting, despite the poor choice of a title. Since so much of this film centres on guilt and how difficult it can be to escape one's past, I think a better title for the film would have been The Guilt of Martha Ivers.

How else but the terrific Barbara Stanwyck could have performed this largely unsympathic role and still had us, the audience , rooting for her?
"Strange Love" is a great film which doesn't seem to be as well known as the great classic "Double Indemnity" but it deserves to be.
Barbara Stanwyck tends to be known for her tough lady characters but in reality alot of her best performances were in very sympathic and feminine roles like "Stella Dallas" and "My Reputation" She was a great actress who could easily play both comedy and drama. In this film she is a ruthless lady hiding a dark secret from her childhood involving murder and deception who believes that her evil past has come back to haunt her in the form of childhood cohort Van Heflin.
What develops in this story is a tense cat and mouse game with both parties waiting to see who will make the next move. Tense stuff indeed and the film is quite rivetting right up to the end.Judith Anderson has a brief but telling role in the first flash back section of the film and ends up a murder victim. She plays Barbara's aunt as a mean, vicious monster which I feel almost lends Barbaras later character a little sympathy. That is what is so unique about "The Strange Love of Martha Ivers" no character is really as they first seem , every character has other elements to their makeup not obvious at first. It really is intriguing. Lizabeth Scott also has an important role as the girl from the wrong sid eof the tracks just trying to go straight and make good. Hers is a great performance and her one scene with Stanwyck positively crackles.
The overraul look of the film is lavish with that certain noir quality. Barbara , although not acclaimed as a great beauty is here as always a very attractive woman even when playing a nasty character. As always she is dressed superbly by the great Edith Head. The collaboration of these two women on so many films over the years was definately one of the great partnerships of Hollywood's golden age.
Settle back and enjoy one of the great Stanwyck classics!

Call me an old romantic but there's something GREAT about B&W movies where megagorgeous girls say to ordinary guys things like "Go ahead and slap me; I had it coming!"

This DVD looks to be the same show that A&E aired as their biography of Bruce Lee (1 hour version). The quality of the transfer is good - both picture and sound - but not great.

Two things that annoyed me are:
1) Several motion clips and stills were used over and over, detracting from the generally good quality of the production and
2) The "extras" consist solely of several trailers for martial arts movies, some of which Bruce Lee had nothing to do with.

Still, for ten bucks, it's a good deal.

I think it was great!!!! I canÂ't say anything else about it...

This DVD is not worth a penny. Much like R U Ready, this DVD contains NO KORN. It is just interviews with Korn fans, like in line at concerts and stuff. It is completely worthless. I don't know about you, but I feel offended even seeing this horrible item for sale. It has nothing to do with Korn, it is just some pimpled, spiked hair guy, talking about how he loves Korn. When deep down, you know all these people have only been Korn fans since Freak On A Leash. It is an embarassing product that should not be viewed by anyone. It's not worth your time or money. But if you feel that you need another item that says KoRn on it, go right ahead. But all REAL Korn fans, stay away from this item.

I really liked this dvd, and especially its rich visual imagery that corresponds to the Korn's disturbed songs. I also found it very insightful, as in addition to the main story about the band there were plenty of interviews both from Korn and people who knew them or once worked with them. I particularly liked the interview with the guy who once worked with Jonathan in the coroner's office, telling what the job is exactly about and how Jonathan coped with it. This dvd is pretty different form others, as this time you REALLY have a chance to see the band's life behind the music.

At first I didn't realize that "unauthorized" meant that the director of the film did not have the legal right to play the music of the band or actually interview the band. I expected more than a narrated story of how the band met. I wanted footage of concerts and interviews. This is definitely not what I was looking for. I DO NOT RECOMMEND this video to anyone.

It has a lot of info on system of a down but it gets very boring because it doesn't even have system of a down in it and it is only a boring DVD with information and no system of a down music!!!

I really liked this DVD, it contains a lot of material about System, although admittedly no original music. But still it was good to hear the story about them with loads of info and also interviews with the bans members and their friends. And on top of that there's interactive bit with a photo gallery, discography, etc. Buy it if you're a real SOAD fan!

TOOLOGY is nothing more than a shameless attempt to capitalize on fan sentiment. The creator knew that TOOL fans would love to get their hands on footage of the band they love, and unfortunately so many bought into it, (I'm no exception to the case). The DVD is disgraceful, with ridiculous cut scenes in which the author tries (and fails) to imitate some of Adam Jones' artwork, a stupid voiceover done by some guy who sounds like he belongs at a Nascar event, and horrible boring music playing throughout. Save your money, and don't support self-interested, bland people.

All the flashing around from one scene to the next, horrible lighting, etc...where was the band? I'd rather plug myself into an electrical socket while standing next to a sprinkler than watch this video that gave me nothing but severe pain and visual disturbance. Retch!

but if you're stupid enough to buy these ridiculous "Unauthorized" DVD's, then you deserve the discomfort of having shelled out hard-earned cash for nothing but interviews with fans and other worthless clips of anything BUT the band.

How can a biography of N'Sync exist in the first place?? What great thing have they accomplished?? What musical contribution have they made so far??(not that they're going to) Biographys are supposed to be inspirational about peoples lives which were extraordinary. Your supposed to learn from it for God's sake!!

I don't know how the ones who made it has the courage to sell something as bad as this is. Don't waste your money, don't waste your time.

Buy the great concerts or video collections, or if you want something different but marvelous, buy The Reel Nsync, that dvd really rules!.

And if you still wanna buy it, don't worry, I'll give you mine...

This is the dumist video ever. They play the same thing over and over. They don't know nothing about them, they forget to mention that Joey is also in the group. It does'nt even have interviews with the guys. Please don't waste your money on this [production].

I'm in the Navy on nuclear submarines and I'd heard about a new STAIND DVD hitting the stores before my most recent deployment. Before I left I'd heard that the band wanted to add more content and make it a dual-DVD set which pushed the release date back to 1st Quarter 2002. I got back from my deployment and in my excitement, mistook the Stained: Tainted DVD as that product.
This DVD is a huge letdown in every way. No music from the band, shady combinations of home video quality and black & white photography, cheesy interviewers with Springfield DJs who's half-sister's, brother's, nephew's cousin used to deliver Chinese take-out to the band, etc.
My ONLY consolation for my fellow STAIND fans out there is the comfort of knowing that STAIND is soon to release THEIR official 2-disc DVD set very soon. Keep the faith.

That DVD is such a disgrace. It was so bad that it was insulting. It had no real material, they interviewed people who were unrelated to Staind, and pieces of information given in the video I later found to be incorrect. This was absolutely terrible. Please do not buy this. I lost ...money on this... and gained nothing from it what-so-ever.

I was totally looking forward to watching a wonderful and informative dvd... but this was quite the opposite. I absolutely love Staind, but this was just a sad attempt at making something related to them so people would buy it.. (or so it very much seems).

DO NOT purchase this if you are looking for information on the band. This was poorly made. It does not talk about the band much at all. This is more of a how to video for aspiring musicians using Staind as a referrence, and poorly at that. They spend time interviewing people, in which only two of them have ever met the band. They actually put a guy on there that tells about the first time he saw the band and it was on MTV, the video for "Outside", which most of you know was just this past spring. There is no music or performance footage of the band. The background music is terribly cheesy, and the whole thing is just a waste of hard earned money. Beware...