The Aviator (Two-Disc Widescreen Edition) Review
Sometimes it seems that neither Scorsese nor DiCaprio can do wrong. When I first learned of their intentions towards this film, I anticipated an intricate character study with Scorsese's eye for detail. An old-Hollywood homage was expected, with tuxedos and gowns, cigarette holders and champagne glasses, all the glamour on which the industry was built. Maybe even a monocle or two. What I didn't expect for it to be a completely epic, entirely engrossing adventure into a reclusive billionaire, a troubled genius, a man who chased dreams into the clouds while embracing the individual capitalist opportunities available to all willing Americans.
After watching this film again recently, I was reminded why there is nearly no doubt that, in my opinion, Scorsese is the greatest American director of all time and DiCaprio is the best actor of his generation. Each of Scorsese's shots and directorial choices are perfect. Every movement, tic, and cough from DiCaprio is compelling. As ambitious as Hughes himself, the production design is fitting for such an incredible movie. At 3-hours, it could feel a bit long in tooth for some. For most, however, it simply rushes by without being rushed.
If broken down into vignettes, milestone moments of the film could have each hooked me into History channel biographies, if not full length films. The adventures in love, aviation, movie making, and Senate scandals are all the stuff of story books and legends. Howard Hughes lived enough in his early years that his later, more depressing years are just about ignored without being insensitive or incomplete. A brilliant choice of editing.
This dazzling biopic of Hughes' rise to fame and fortune pairs perfectly with Scorsese because he manages to do what most others think can't be done: He created a 3-hour epic that flies by...just like the Spruce Goose. Bravo to all involved.
Jason Elin
The Aviator (Two-Disc Widescreen Edition) Overview
An epic biopic depicting the early years of legendary director and aviator Howard Hughes' career, from the late 1920's to the mid-1940's.
DVD Features:
Audio Commentary: Commentary by Scorsese
Deleted Scenes:Deleted scene: Howard Tells Ava About His Car Accident
Documentaries:Modern Marvels: Howard Hughes-- a 45 minute Documentary By The History Channel
Documentary:2 Music Featurettes: Scoring The Aviator: The Work Of Howard Shore The Wainwright Family - Loudon, Rufus And Martha
Featurette:A Life Without Limits: The Making of The Aviator The Role Of Howard Hughes In Aviation History An evening with Leonardo DiCaprio and Alan Alda The Affliction of Howard Hughes: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder OCD Panel Discussion With Leonardo DiCaprio, Martin Scorsese, And Howard Hughes' Widow Terry Moore
Other:2 Behind-the-scenes featurettes: The Age Of Glamour: The Hair And Makeup Of The The Visual Effects Of The Aviator
Photo gallery
The Aviator (Two-Disc Widescreen Edition) Specifications
From Hollywood's legendary Cocoanut Grove to the pioneering conquest of the wild blue yonder, Martin Scorsese's The Aviator celebrates old-school filmmaking at its finest. We say "old school" only because Scorsese's love of golden-age Hollywood is evident in his approach to his subject--Howard Hughes in his prime (played by Leonardo DiCaprio in his)--and especially in his technical mastery of the medium reflecting his love for classical filmmaking of the studio era. Even when he's using state-of-the-art digital trickery for the film's exciting flight scenes (including one of the most spectacular crashes ever filmed), Scorsese's meticulous attention to art direction and costume design suggests an impassioned pursuit of craftsmanship from a bygone era; every frame seems to glow with gilded detail. And while DiCaprio bears little physical resemblance to Hughes during the film's 20-year span (late 1920s to late '40s), he efficiently captures the eccentric millionaire's golden-boy essence, and his tragic descent into obsessive-compulsive seclusion. Bolstered by Cate Blanchett's uncannily accurate portrayal of Katharine Hepburn as Hughes' most beloved lover, The Aviator is easily Scorsese's most accessible film, inviting mainstream popularity without compromising Scorsese's artistic reputation. As compelling crowd-pleasers go, it's a class act from start to finish. --Jeff Shannon
DVD Features
In his commentary track, director Martin Scorsese offers his own impressions of Howard Hughes and rattles off his memories of experiencing Hughes's films. He mentions how he made Cate Blanchett watch every Katharine Hepburn film from the '30s on the big screen, and observes that Kate Beckinsale had "a real sense of the stature of a Hollywood goddess." But in general he doesn't talk much about the craft of making the film. That area is covered better by editor Thelma Schoonmaker, who also appears on the commentary track, and producer Michael Mann makes a few appearances (all were recorded separately). The picture is brilliant, but the 5.1 sound is not as aggressive in the rear speakers and subwoofer as one might expect, other than some nice surround effects in the Hell's Angels flying sequence.
The second disc collects almost three hours of features. There's one unnecessary deleted scene, and an 11-minute making-of featurette that's basically the cast and director heaping praise on each other. More interesting are the short featurettes on visual effects (including the XF-11 scene, of course), production design, costumes, hair and makeup, and score, and Loudon Wainwright discusses his and his children's musical performances. Historical perspective is provided by spotlights on Hughes's role in aviation and his obsessive-compulsive disorder, and a 43-minute Hughes documentary from the History Channel (part of the Modern Marvels series, it focuses on his mechanical innovations and spends less than a minute on his movies). More unusual are DiCaprio and Scorsese's appearance on an OCD panel, and a half-hour interview segment DiCaprio did with Alan Alda. --David Horiuchi
The Personalities of The Aviator
Click the links to explore more movies by these stars.
 | Leonardo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes
"Sometimes I truly fear that I... am losing my mind. And if I did it... it would be like flying blind." |
 | Cate Blanchett as Katharine Hepburn
Howard Hughes: "You're the tallest woman I have ever met."
Katharine Hepburn: "And all sharp elbows and knees. Beware." |
|  | Kate Beckinsale as Ava Gardner
Howard Hughes: "Does that look clean to you?"
Ava Gardner: "Nothing's clean, Howard. But we do our best, right?" |
 | Gwen Stefani as Jean Harlow
Jean Harlow in Hell's Angels: "Would you be shocked if I put on something more comfortable?" |
 | Jude Law as Errol Flynn
Errol Flynn in Captain Blood: "Up the riggings, you monkeys! Break out those sails and watch them fill with the wind that's carrying us all to freedom!" |
 | Director Martin Scorsese
"You get a sense of Howard Hughes being Icarus with the wax wings. Those wings were great for a while, but he flies too close to the sun." --Martin Scorsese |
Other Movies by The Aviator's Oscar® Winners
Production Designer Dante Ferretti
Film Editor Thelma Schoonmaker
Costume Designer Sandy Powell
Cinematographer Robert Richardson
See all the Oscar® winners at Oscar Central
The Aviator at Amazon.com
The Aviator soundtrack | 
The Screenplay | 
Howard Hughes: The Real Aviator |
Howard Hughes movies | 
Great movies of the 1930s | 
The films of Martin Scorsese |
*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Nov 03, 2010 17:25:05
Chicago (Widescreen Edition) Review
WE RECEIVED THIS QUICKLY AND IT IS IN GOOD ORDER AS WE CAN SEE.GOOD PRICE
drama, ,musical theatre AT IT'S BEST!!!
Richard Gere, Renee Zellweger,Catherine Zeta-Jones,AND QUEEN LATIVA ARE AT THEIR BEST!!!QUALITY DANCE AND SINGING. THE BAND IS FABULOUS. I COULD LISTEN AND WATCH ALL NIGHT. WIDESCREED EDITION REALLY GIVES A MUCH BETTER VIEW OF THE WHOLE STAGE AND SOME OF THAT IS SPECTACULAR!!!! THIS IS AN UPBEAT VERSION OF THE MUSICALS OF THE 30'S AND 40'S GREAT COMEDY BUT NOT SLAPSTIC. WE HAVE WATCHED THIS SEVERAL TIMES AND STILL ENJOY IT!!!
Chicago (Widescreen Edition) Overview
Winner of six Academy Awards(R) (2003) including Best Picture, and starring Academy Award nominee (Best Actress, CHICAGO) and Golden Globe winner (Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy, CHICAGO) Renée Zellweger (BRIDGET JONES'S DIARY), Academy Award winner (Best Supporting Actress, CHICAGO) Catherine Zeta-Jones (TRAFFIC), Academy Award nominee (Best Supporting Actress, CHICAGO) Queen Latifah (BRINGING DOWN THE HOUSE), Golden Globe winner (Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy, CHICAGO) Richard Gere (UNFAITHFUL), and Academy Award nominee (Best Supporting Actor, CHICAGO) John C. Reilly (GANGS OF NEW YORK) -- CHICAGO is a dazzling spectacle cheered by audiences and critics alike! At a time when crimes of passion result in celebrity headlines, nightclub sensation Velma Kelly (Zeta-Jones) and spotlight-seeking Roxie Hart (Zellweger) both find themselves sharing space on Chicago's famed Murderess Row! They also share Billy Flynn (Gere), the town's slickest lawyer with a talent for turning notorious defendants into local legends. But in Chicago, there's only room for one legend! Also starring Lucy Liu (CHARLIE'S ANGELS).
Chicago (Widescreen Edition) Specifications
Bob Fosse's sexy cynicism still shines in
Chicago, a faithful movie adaptation of the choreographer-director's 1975 Broadway musical. Of course the story, all about merry murderesses and tabloid fame, is set in the Roaring '20s, but
Chicago reeks of '70s disenchantment--this isn't just Fosse's material, it's his attitude, too. That's probably why the movie's breathless observations on fleeting fame and fickle public taste already seem dated. However, Renée Zellweger and Catherine Zeta-Jones are beautifully matched as Jazz Age vixens, and Richard Gere gleefully sheds his customary cool to belt out a showstopper. (Yes, they all do their own singing and dancing.) Whatever qualms musical purists may have about director Rob Marshall's cut-cut-cut style, the film's sheer exuberance is intoxicating. Given the scarcity of big-screen musicals in the last 25 years, that's a cause for singing, dancing, cheering. And all that jazz.
--Robert Horton
*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Nov 01, 2010 11:06:05
A Beautiful Mind (Widescreen Awards Edition) Review
I thoroughly enjoyed 'A Beautiful Mind.' It's one of those very rare movies made for an audience of reasonably mature and intelligent adults as opposed to low IQ inner-city gangbangers with a mental age of around 14 who seem to be the target audience of most Hollywood fare today.
The plot is different and holds our interest to the end; the camera work is technical perfection with none of that faddish hand-held camera nonsense; the Princeton settings are gorgeous; and the actors are without exception excellent, with Russell Crowe giving a sensitive and totally convincing performance as the brilliant and afflicted mathematician, John Nash, a man suffering from schizophrenia.
But what exactly is schizophrenia? According to Wikipedia, it is "a mental disorder characterized by abnormalities in the perception or expression of reality. It most commonly manifests as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking with significant social or occupational dysfunction" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizophrenia).
This seems clear enough, since we have all been convinced of the reality of "mental" illness. But if we turn to Thomas Szasz Schizophrenia: The Sacred Symbol of Psychiatry we find a highly intelligent professional psychiatrist informing us that, not only is schizophrenia a myth, but that there is no such thing as "mental illness", the term "illness" being something that can legitimately be applied only to physical bodies and not to minds, mind being something of an entirely different order.
So what's going on here? In the movie, Nash is eventually able to come to terms with his schizophrenia by realizing that the figures he continues to hallucinate, and who seem to him to be flesh-and-blood realities every bit as real as the people around him, are wholly illusory and simply projections of his own mind.
If he had been born in Asia and had come in contact with the non-dual perspective he might have learned that the whole of reality is similarly a projection of mind and entirely illusory; that his mind is only doing what is natural to it in projecting a world made entirely of Consciousness; and that the only difference between him and others is that, by some quirk, his mind has added a few extra events (which only he is able to perceive) to the world he shares with all of us. He might then have gone on to realize that, by leading him to a truer understanding of mind, what seemed to him at first to be a curse was in fact a Grace.
These notions lead us into the field of Nonduality and anyone interested in pursuing them further could do no better than to read a book such as Leo Hartong's Awakening to the Dream. Of the vast literature on Nonduality, this is the simplest and clearest account I've ever found.
But to return to the movie, please don't miss it. At its best, the modern movie can and should be a work of art, and the movie 'A Beautiful Mind' certainly qualifies as that.
A Beautiful Mind (Widescreen Awards Edition) Overview
Winner of 4 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, A Beautiful Mind is directed by Academy Award winner Ron Howard and produced by long-time partner and collaborator, Academy Award winner Brian Grazer. A Beautiful Mind stars Russell Crowe in an astonishing performance as brilliant mathematician John Nash, on the brink of international acclaim when he becomes entangled in a mysterious conspiracy. Now only his devoted wife (Academy Award winner Jennifer Connelly) can help him in this powerful story of courage, passion and triumph.
A Beautiful Mind (Widescreen Awards Edition) Specifications
A Beautiful Mind manages to twist enough pathos out of John Nash's incredible life story to redeem an at-times goofy portrayal of schizophrenia. Russell Crowe tackles the role with characteristic fervor, playing the Nobel prize-winning mathematician from his days at Princeton, where he developed a groundbreaking economic theory, to his meteoric rise to the cover of
Forbes magazine and an MIT professorship, and on through to his eventual dismissal due to schizophrenic delusions. Of course, it is the delusions that fascinate director Ron Howard and, predictably, go astray. Nash's other world, populated as it is by a maniacal Department of Defense agent (Ed Harris), an imagined college roommate who seems straight out of
Dead Poets Society, and an orphaned girl, is so fluid and scriptlike as to make the viewer wonder if schizophrenia is really as slick as depicted. Crowe's physical intensity drags us along as he works admirably to carry the film on his considerable shoulders. No doubt the story of Nash's amazing will to recover his life without the aid of medication is a worthy one, his eventual triumph heartening. Unfortunately, Howard's flashy style is unable to convey much of it.
--Fionn Meade
*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Oct 11, 2010 14:40:05
Blue Crush (Widescreen Collector's Edition) Review
Released in 2002, "Blue Crush" tells the story of three young female surfers in Hawaii who support their lifestyle as maids at a high-class hotel. Anne Marie (kate Bosworth) has dreams of going professional, but she has to get over her past failures and her family's breakup to succeed. In the meantime a vacationing NFL quarterback (Matthew Davis) romances her and she has to determine if their relationship is real or just a fling (for him, that is). Michelle Rodriguez and Sanoe Lake co-star as Anne Marie's surfing friends.
As you can tell, "Blue Crush" is a 'sports film' in the manner of "Karate Kid" and a host of others. Although some of these movies go the comedy route -- e.g. "Cloud 9" and "Bad News Bears" -- "Crush" is a serious drama with fun flashes.
Filmed on the beaches/resorts of O`ahu, Hawaii, this is a beautiful and exhilarating film to watch, the perfect remedy if the weather in your area has been dreary of late.
There's no profanity, raunch or t&a exploitation but, to be expected, the film features good-looking women in swimwear throughout its 104-minute runtime (dudes too, if you're a woman). By "good-looking" I mean realistically so, not like "Baywatch" which normally featured masses of ultra-hot babes swarming the beaches.
For the first hour the film was pretty much what I expected it to be, nothing great but moderately entertaining for this type of flick, and then something happened at the the 58-minute mark that struck a chord with me. Anne Marie hits the waves with her friend (Rodriquez) to prepare for the Pipeline Masters event as we hear the song "Youth of the Nation" by P.O.D. This sequence touched me for some reason. The music & lyrics are emotionally potent and effectively set the tone for the remainder of the film.
"Youth of the Nation" exemplifies the zeitgeist of the new millennium just as "My Generation" perfectly represents the mid-60s and "Smells Like Teen Spirit" typifies the 90s (I was gonna say "and just as 'Muskrat Love' typifies the 70s" as a joke but decided not to -- LOL). Anyway, everyone's heard the song by now but if you're not sure go to youtube and listen to it with lyrics; it's an incredible piece, to say the least, and dig those heartrending lyrics! It's reality, my friend.
What affected me most with the story is the picture of the three maids, impoverished and disdained by the snobs but full of youthful zeal and hope. It strangely reminded me of something I experienced on my last trip to Southern California. I was leaving the last showing of a theater late at night and spied the janitorial crew coming in to clean with their mops & buckets. They were Mexicans, mostly young, and possibly illegal aliens. Everyone walked by them like they weren't there, like they were the scum of society or something. But I made a point to acknowledge them and smile. I don't feel I deserve a medal for this or anything; it's just that I made a decision long ago that, no matter how far I go in life, I'm not going to look down on or ignore those of lower stature. Why? I don't know, maybe because I'm scum.
Blue Crush (Widescreen Collector's Edition) Overview
WO YOUNG WOMEN WORK AS MAIDS IN A MAUI RESORT COMMUNITY.WITH OTHING ELSE TO DO WITH THEIR TIME, THE GIRLS DECIDE TO SURF. HEY BECOME VERY GOOD AND ENTER AN ALL-MALE CONTEST.
Blue Crush (Widescreen Collector's Edition) Specifications
Not to be confused with the 2002 feature film of the same title,
Blue Crush is billed as the original all-girl surfer's movie, and it's guaranteed to please devotees of the sport. It's a mixed blessing, however, because it assumes familiarity with the sport and its superstars, dispensing with any educational or historical detail that would appeal to neophytes. After all, how can this film be dedicated to Rell Sunn (the pioneer of female competitive surfing, who died in of breast cancer in 1998 at age 47) and fail to explore her illustrious career? This haphazard approach extends to profiles of the young women who regard Sunn as their hero; we learn little of their backgrounds and how they rose to prominence on the waves.
Blue Crush works best as a globetrotting, music-video tour of surfdom's prime locations (Samoa, Hawaii, the Gold Coast, South Africa) hosted by the sport's most prominent competitors, including several (Rochelle Ballard, Megan Abubo, Sanoe Lake, Keala Kennelly, Kate Skarratt) who appeared in Universal's popular feature. It's a lot of fun, especially if you "hang ten" on a regular basis.
--Jeff Shannon
*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Jul 16, 2010 04:01:06
an elite fashion magazine full of size-0, impossibly well-dressed plebes. This makes new second-assistant Andrea (Anne Hathaway), who's smart but an unacceptable size 6, stick out like a sore thumb. Streep has a ball sending her new slave on any whimsical errand, whether it's finding the seventh (unpublished) Harry Potter book or knowing what type she means when she wants "skirts." Though Andrea thumbs her nose at the shallow world of fashion (she's only doing the job to open doors to a position at The New Yorker someday), she finds herself dually disgusted yet seduced by the perks of the fast life. The film sends a basic message: Make work your priority, and you'll be rich and powerful... and lonely. Any other actress would have turned Miranda into a scenery-chewing Cruella, but Streep's underplayed, brilliant comic timing make her a fascinating, unapologetic character. Adding frills to the movie's fun are Stanley Tucci as Streep's second-in-command, Emily Blunt (My Summer of Love) as the overworked first assistant, Simon Baker as a sexy writer, and breathtaking couture designs any reader of Vogue would salivate over. -- Ellen A. Kim
