Subject-Specific Schemes Movie Reviews

The best thing about this DVD is the photographs - the color is vivid and the images are stunningly beautiful. The use of light is truly unique. The way the images flow from one to the next is flawless. A sense of movement is created by the way the cinematographer pans images, starts close and zooms out to reveal the entire image. This creates a sense of involvement by the viewer...gives one the sense that one is a part of the photograph. I love this DVD - it has a calming and uplifting effect on me.

With a high stress job, and the single mother of a disabled child, I found this DVD to be extremely helpful at the end of the day. The feeling of soothing relaxation is phenomenal! And so much cheaper than a day at the spa! I was so into this DVD for myself, I failed to think about what it might do for my autistic 9 year old daughter. One evening, after getting into trouble at school for her hyperactive mischieviousness, she climbed on the couch with me and sat their quietly, totally engrossed in the images and music. I decided to try it every morning while getting ready for school and what a difference it made! This DVD could be used extensively for therapeutic purposes in special needs children, not to mention, the mothers of these childrend! I plan to give this DVD to many of my friends who also deal with the stress of special needs children.

I have used this DVD as background ambiance for a dinner party and it was well received by all of the guests. It also has been extremely helpful in winding down after a hectic day. I can choose any of the 13 chapters from the menu and just chill for 10 minutes. The stresses of the day just melt away after a few minutes of these stunning images and the wonderful music.

I knew of Thomas Eakins' significance as a American artist of the late 19th Century, but that was all I knew. This incredibly sharp and clear (in more ways than visually) documentary gave me a lesson on this bold artist's philosophy that opened my eyes. With the story being told by Blythe Danner in the background, one is drawn into the struggles of Eakins to reach above and beyond in his art.

Because this was done with High Definition TV equipment, it seems all that more detailed on a standard TV in VHS. This production exceeded my expectations of what today is mostly background with a few snippets of the artist's work. The pans and zooms of the work is just what is needed to elaborate the fine detail of Eakin's pieces.

There is a fine segment showing how Eakins put together one of his works with his use of photographs. This new technology is state of the art in his time and the documentary shows off Eakins' brilliance and grasp of Photography and its promise. I highly reccommend this program.

Out of all the Disney Treasures releases, this will probably be the most overlooked. Sure, it doesn't have Mickey Mouse or Goofy or those wonderful Silly Symphonies. Instead, we get prehaps the best look into one of the most important studios in cinema history at its peak. The set is not the most entertaining, but it's the one set that shows the brillance of the House of Mouse (and shows what once was and lost now at Disney)

Walt Disney Treasures Review 5: Behind the Scenes at Walt Disney Studios:Leonard Maltin has done it, again. He made in myopinion one of the most interesting. This may not be the greatest quality but it is perfect. Like all the other treasures, it opens with the Walt Disney Treasure Theater and intro with Leonard Maltin. When you get to the main menu, you should start at the "How Walt Disney Cartoons are Made." Here, you could choose to view it with a informational subtitle showing history about the short made in the 30s for Snow White. Leonard Maltin Introduces it as usual. After this, head over to the crown of the collection, the 1941 feature, "The Reluctant Dragon." Introduced by Leonard Maltin, this film was a compiltation of various cartoons including the one that gave the film its name. Slid in between it all was comedy footage of Robert Benchley taking a "Detour" of the studios. He looks for Walt and gets sidetracked as he visits the sound effects stage, a recording session with the voice of Donald Duck, visiting the Multiplane Camera, paint room, sees a storyboard for the short "Baby Weems, and sees the animator's desk of Ward Kimball and watches Goofy's "How to Ride a Horse." After this movie, take a peek at the the film, "A Trip Through Walt Disney Studios." This film was created for RKO to distribute Snow White. This was remade into "How Disney Cartoons are Made" and shown to the public. It is introduced by Leonard. Finally on disc one, take a look at a few bonus features. Go look at "Behind the Boards on Baby Weems" featurette, a "Leonard Maltin's Studio Tour" featurette, and a Reluctant Dragon Gallery. Disc 2 opens with an intro by Leonard. He then gets you prepared to watch the second half, the Behind the Scenes Disneyland Shows. The first one is the pioneering "The Story of the Animated Drawing." This show is in black and white and was the first of three shows Walt would make about animation. He talks about the history of animation with a remake of "Gertie the Dinosaur," a demo of "Koko the Clown," and early animation devices. It is introduced by Leonard. Second is "The Plausible Impossible." This show is in color and came after the show seen before. Walt talked about things that would be impossible in our world, but seem Plausible in animation. It is introduced by Leonard Maltin. Finally, the third show is "Tricks of Our Trade." This one is when Walt Disney shows tricks that he and his animators used to created special effects and easier ways to animate that other studios would never be able to do. It is introduced by Leonard Maltin. Final bonus features are, "Walt Disney Studios" gallery, a "Kem Weber Gallery," and "A Trip Through Walt Disney Studios" radio program. Considering all the things in the is limited edition set show's age, this is good quality. This is worthy of ten stars for content, and five for quality. Buy it before all 250,000 run out.

Also See:

Silly Symphonies
Mickey Mouse in Living Color
Disneyland USA
Davy Crockett
Mickey Mouse in Black and White
The Complete Goofy

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Walt Disney Treasures Review 5: Behind the Scenes at Walt Disney Studios:Leonard Maltin has done it, again. He made in myopinion one of the most interesting. This may not be the greatest quality but it is perfect. Like all the other treasures, it opens with the Walt Disney Treasure Theater and intro with Leonard Maltin. When you get to the main menu, you should start at the "How Walt Disney Cartoons are Made." Here, you could choose to view it with a informational subtitle showing history about the short made in the 30s for Snow White. Leonard Maltin Introduces it as usual. After this, head over to the crown of the collection, the 1941 feature, "The Reluctant Dragon." Introduced by Leonard Maltin, this film was a compiltation of various cartoons including the one that gave the film its name. Slid in between it all was comedy footage of Robert Benchley taking a "Detour" of the studios. He looks for Walt and gets sidetracked as he visits the sound effects stage, a recording session with the voice of Donald Duck, visiting the Multiplane Camera, paint room, sees a storyboard for the short "Baby Weems, and sees the animator's desk of Ward Kimball and watches Goofy's "How to Ride a Horse." After this movie, take a peek at the the film, "A Trip Through Walt Disney Studios." This film was created for RKO to distribute Snow White. This was remade into "How Disney Cartoons are Made" and shown to the public. It is introduced by Leonard. Finally on disc one, take a look at a few bonus features. Go look at "Behind the Boards on Baby Weems" featurette, a "Leonard Maltin's Studio Tour" featurette, and a Reluctant Dragon Gallery. Disc 2 opens with an intro by Leonard. He then gets you prepared to watch the second half, the Behind the Scenes Disneyland Shows. The first one is the pioneering "The Story of the Animated Drawing." This show is in black and white and was the first of three shows Walt would make about animation. He talks about the history of animation with a remake of "Gertie the Dinosaur," a demo of "Koko the Clown," and early animation devices. It is introduced by Leonard. Second is "The Plausible Impossible." This show is in color and came after the show seen before. Walt talked about things that would be impossible in our world, but seem Plausible in animation. It is introduced by Leonard Maltin. Finally, the third show is "Tricks of Our Trade." This one is when Walt Disney shows tricks that he and his animators used to created special effects and easier ways to animate that other studios would never be able to do. It is introduced by Leonard Maltin. Final bonus features are, "Walt Disney Studios" gallery, a "Kem Weber Gallery," and "A Trip Through Walt Disney Studios" radio program. Considering all the things in the is limited edition set show's age, this is good quality. This is worthy of ten stars for content, and five for quality. Buy it before all 250,000 run out.

Also See:

Silly Symphonies
Mickey Mouse in Living Color
Disneyland USA
Davy Crockett
Mickey Mouse in Black and White
The Complete Goofy

First, the sound on this DVD is pretty shabby. Surprising for "Dolby Digital" even if this is 2 channel... Glad to see someone else mentioned this. I am thinking Dream Theater needs to reissue this with full DD, 5.1 surround and do a little tweaking on the recording. Maybe even DTS?? Could we be so lucky? Should we fans start a letter-writing campaign?

Heck - if Zeppelin can do what they did with 30+ yr old VIDEO AND MUSIC, DT, with more recent footage recorded with current technology, should be able to surpass LZ's amazing feat of engineering prowess. All of this talk about DT's engineer and he puts out a DVD that sounds as weak as this?!

Anyway - back to the hidden feature. You can find & watch the casting call for the hypnotherapist by going to the color bars and let them run for 5-6 mins.. Fast forward & you'll see it.

Have fun!

Artofshredfl@aol.com

If you have not gotten this dvd yet and like Dream Theater, why havent you gotten it yet? This is a must for all Dream Theater fans, I mainly got into Dream Theater March 2002, I got this dvd in July 2002. Despite liking Dream Theater in between and buying most of their albums during that time, I never quite understood why they were praised so much, until I actually watched them in the dvd. Anyone can easily see how they deserve the praise, Petrucci, Myung, and Ruddess move their fingers insanely fast, and Portnoy is just totally great and entertaining on drums. This is the next best thing to going to their concerts, which i did finally go to summer 2003.

Since I will have the pleasure of seeing Dream Theater in concert this coming Thursday, July 10th (along with Queensryche and Fates Warning), I think it's about time I reviewed their marvelous DVD called METROPOLIS 2000: SCENES FROM NEW YORK. I've had this DVD since April of last year, but I never got a chance to give it a justifiable review. It seemed I was too speechless to do so. Not anymore. Since I'm hyped about this performance, I can finally speak my peace, if you will.

As you already guessed, this is the DVD counterpart for the live album LIVE SCENES FROM NEW YORK, which featured the entire full-length concert on three CDs. On the DVD however, it contains the band's final full performance of their classic concept album SCENES FROM A MEMORY from beginning to end. Although ironically, the sound quality of the CDs are superior to that of the DVD, nevertheless the picture quality is awesome and DT puts on a fiery, blistering performance that never lets up as soon as "Overture 1928" gets rolling.

Listening to this August 30, 2000 concert on CD is a great experience. Watching it is an entirely overwhelming experience altogether. Witnessing John Petrucci, Mike Portnoy, and Jordan Rudess go off on their instruments is jaw-dropping to watch. If you really didn't believe these guys could play like that, then you REALLY won't believe the stuff they do here. Lead singer James LaBrie is very strong vocally throughout, and John Myung, despite standing perfectly still the whole time, holds things together with his fast and fluid six-string bass.

To bring the SCENES story to life, the band uses actual movie footage (shot in Sweden) on the screens behind them as "reenactments" for the events described in the lyrics. I didn't mind the movie footage, but the psychedelic images that pop up here and there are pretty distracting. Sometimes they look cool (like during "The Dance of Eternity") and other times they frustrate (during "Fatal Tragedy"). At least they use them occasionally and they don't detract for the overall power of the concert. There's even a live narrator for "Regression" which was a neat touch.

There are a ton of great moments on here, but these have to be the best: the killer opening combo of "Overture 1928" and "Strange Deja Vu"; the band literally going nuts during the instrumental jam section of "Beyond This Life"; the dark, haunting rendition of "Home"; the breakneck performance of "Dance of Eternity"; and "The Spirit Carries On" which reaches an emotional, spiritual peak by bringing out Teresa Thompson and the full gospel choir to sing along with James.

The special features are also excellent. There's an insightful yet hilarious audio commentary with the entire band, discussing how the story, album, and music came into place; a short behind-the-scenes documentary; and bonus live footage from the concert's second set, comprised of the "Mind Beside Itself" trilogy, "Learning to Live," and the 23-minute juggernaut "A Change of Seasons."

This is a really great DVD. Dream Theater prove that they can pull off their complex, intricate music on stage and still know how to have fun. If the July 10th concert is anywhere near as good as this, I will be very impressed.

A departure from the complexity of Persona and The Passion of Anna, Bergman put together a highly accessible and clear portrait of the lives of a stereotypical "successful" suburban professional couple entering middle age and beyond.

Bergman is absolutely perfect in presenting the ebbs and flows of the relationship. The dialogue is amazing, and Ullman and Josephson couldn't have been better. Bibi Andersson's quasi-cameo sets the stage for the entire film, and the brutally acerbic dinner table scene is a classic of cinema.

A lot of people have been looking forward to the proposed sequel, but I'm not. Scenes from a Marriage couldn't have been better, and a sequel is likely to detract from one of Bergman's Top 3 movies in a long and illustrious career.

Ingmar Bergman to me is one of cinema's most powerful directors. And, "Scenes From A Marriage" is the most powerful, and haunting film I've ever seen about love and marriage.
There's just something about Bergman's vision as a director and the camera of Sven Nykvist that brings this film to life. Bergman just throws these characters right into our faces, and we are truly mesmerize by them and their actions.
For those who have never seen this film, it is basically just as it's title may suggest, a look into the life of one couple's marriage. Marianne (Liv Ullman) and Johan (Erland Josephson) are our couple in question. They have been married for a while now, and seem to have a good solid marriage. One wouldn't think anything was wrong, especially when compared to their friends like Katarina (Bibi Andersson) and Peter (Jan Malmsjo) a couple whom act like their about to kill each other at any given moment. The scene is involving them, is one of many sterling moments in this masterpiece.
If I were to go on and talk about more scenes in this film, I would clearly be ruining the entire experience for you. Just rent this movie or even better buy this movie and be prepared to see the power that cinema can convey.
"Scenes From A Marriage" is one of Bergman's best films. And, while yes, there is talk of a sequel, I can only hope, that it all remains a rumor. To make a sequel out of this masterpiece would surely be a mistake. Here's a film that is perfect as it is. Just leave it alone and don't add anything to it. Though, Bergman did make a sequel out of the Katarina and Peter characters and made "From the Life of the Marionettes", which does have it's powerful moments, but doesn't quite build up to what this film has become.
For those who have never seen a Bergman film, I'd suggest watching "Wild Strawberries" first, then "The Seventh Seal", "Cries & Whispers" and then build yourself up to this one.
Bottom-line: Truly one of Bergman's most powerful films. The single greatest film I've seen as of yet on the subject of marriage. This movie hits an intensity few have have ever achieved!

'Scenes from a marriage' may seem like a bit of a chore: three hours relentlessly focused on two people falling apart. And yet, it is one of Bergman's easiest films to watch, perhaps because it was made for TV, where there is rather more of a duty to hold a casual audience. There are no deep metaphysical questions in the film, no long abstract conversations, little narrative trickery, just the everyday problems of recognisable people, perhaps slightly more articulate than the rest of us.

Bergman gives us a host of conventional reasons for the marriage's failure, but he has never been very interested in the naturalistic causes of anything. In long, compelling takes, he gies us the process of marital drama; the experience, the taste, the gestures, irritations; the words expressed to fill up space, or words not thought through enough, yet taken as Holy Writ by the partner; the games, strategies, sarcasms, insults; the veneer of middle-class civility teetering on the brink of savage violence.

There is nothing as irreperable or final as a Hollywood film here, people feel one thing one minute, do another the next: they bear the scars but move on, there is no 'fixed' character. People used to Hollywood practices of closure or plot inevitability may find this disturbing.

The characters played by Erland Josephson and Liv Ullmann are rarely sympathetic, but they are more: difficult, sometimes devious, always vulnerable people forced to make hasty decisions that can change lives, or who bear the scars of routine for years before flaring out. In other words, real, true - infinitely more important.

Woody Allen and Bette Midler play an afluent married couple with teenage children. He is a lawyer, she a celebrated Psychiatrist with a bestselling book. The two stars cover about 80% of the picture either talking to each other, an unseen person the phone or themselves. They could not appear any more selfish, superficial than perceived here.

On their 16th wedding anniversary (with big plans for a celebration) both confess to the other their affairs. Halfway into the film, I wanted them to get a damn devorce and get it over with. These two quickly turn from annoying to totally unbearable. Only one thing would be worse than watching this nonsense: Being one of the two characters. Sad!

Allen and Middler are Superstars who need not waste their talents on such stupid material. Are they selling out, or why would they do this to their solid fan base? Please, don't offend my intelligence like this ever again!

Bette Midler and Woody Allen together would make one think of a movie that is very funny and pleasing. Instead here we get one that has more romance and drama than comedy as Bette and Woody play a couple who is celebrating their wedding annivesary as their children have both left for school. They also discover that they have been cheating on one another. The movie gets boring rather fast as Bette and Woody are the only ones we get to see as there are very few supporting characters. I would have expected better from these two.

I've never understood why this movie was so panned and disliked by moviegoers. I have to assume that most viewers just didn't have a great deal of sophistication. This movie does, however, and Midler is especially amazing. The dialogue just flows so naturally, and the couple's superficial life and marraige delves into its past to recall what brought them together and what keeps them together. Moving, funny and so well done.

Wagner on CD is mystifying. Wagner live and in person is usually longer than the human bladder can withstand. Wagner on video enables you to visualize the emotions and symbolism in Wagner's operas while giving you the freedom to fast forward or pause.

This particular video only covers the important scenes and leaves out some of the long and boring parts. Personally, I would prefer a complete opera on video where I can use my remote control to zip past the boring parts.

The performance here is not really first rate, while the soloists do a fine job, the orchestra and acoustics are not the best in the world.

Overall a good intro to Wagner, but not for dedicated Wagnerites.

Although the footage was very erotic in many places, several of the ladies were featured only as a series of still photos. In addition, the still sequences for each lady morphed from one photograph to another. That was kind of interesting at first, but then it just seemed overdone and weird. Penthouse has done much better, so unless you especially love one of the featured ladies (and you don't care whether she's moving or not), your money would be better spent elsewhere.