Rumor Has It

Posted on December 20, 2005 at 3:42 pm

F+

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for mature thematic material, sexual content, crude humor and a drug reference.
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, characters get drunk
Violence/ Scariness:	Reference to sad death
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	2005
Date Released to DVD:	2006
Amazon.com ASIN:	B000EMGICS

In the savage satire The Player, actor/screenwriter Buck Henry makes a hilarious pitch for a sequel to The Graduate, something of a savage satire itself, though cloaked in the garb of a romantic fantasy of rebellion and authenticity. The thing about Henry’s pitch is that no one wants to see a squel to The Graduate; it is such a patently stupid idea that it is funny to see him try to pitch it.

I would love to see a movie of the pitch that got this sort-of-sequel made, one of the very worst ideas for a movie since they decided to try to make a horror movie about rabbits.

So, here’s the pitch — a young woman named Sarah (Jennifer Anniston) discovers on the eve of her sister’s wedding that the movie The Graduate was inspired by her own family. Before her parents got married, her mother briefly ran away with a young man in her class at school named Beau Burroughs (Kevin Costner) who had had an affair with her mother (Sarah’s grandmother, played with bite by Shirley Maclaine). Sarah decides that Beau must be her biological father, so she flies to San Francisco to meet him. When it turns out he was not her father, she becomes the third generation in her family to sleep with him. And when her fiance (Mark Ruffalo) finds out about this, he is not happy.

I want to take a shower just writing those words. I wanted to take two showers watching it on the screen.

In other words: Ew.

Ew. Ew. Ew.

There is actually something very twisted about all of this and perhaps John Waters could make it work, but Rob Reiner directs it as though it was a very traditional light romantic comedy, albeit one with overtones of incest and jokes about testicular injuries.

Plus, it has a lot of annoying logical inconsistencies. For example, Sarah, a journalist, instantly recognizes the very obscure name of the author of the book The Graduate (Charles Webb) but registers nothing about the name of one of the wealthiest dot.com entrepreneurs at the height of the boom era? The movie is also set in the 1990’s (to make the timing work with the publication of the book), but makes no use whatsoever of the era except to put in random details like big cell phones and television clips of President Clinton. A character has an anxiety attack on an airplane for no purpose other than to have her back home again and then, as soon as we no longer need her, she is somehow all better. No one behaves in a way that makes any sense, even within the genre of farce, which means no one is worth caring about. It’s a terrible shame to waste some of the most talented light-comedy performers in Hollywood on a script that is not just not funny, not just not engaging, but downright gross.

Parents should know that this is a movie that presents a man’s sexual encounters with three generations of women in the same family as material, including infidelity to a husband and two fiances as material for a light-hearted comedy. Characters use some strong language. They drink (including getting drunk) and there is a reference to drug use.

Families who see this movie should talk about why Sarah did not feel more connected to her father and sister and what Jeff saw in Sarah that made him want to be with her.

Families who enjoy this movie should watch The Graduate. They might also enjoy 40 Carats.

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Brokeback Mountain

Posted on December 15, 2005 at 3:54 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for sexuality, nudity, language and some violence.
Profanity:	Very strong and crude language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking and smoking, character drinks too much, marijuana, chewing tobacco
Violence/ Scariness:	Brief graphic violence, character killed
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	2005
Date Released to DVD:	2006
Amazon.com ASIN:	B00005JOFQ

Director Ang Lee is a master of repressed love whether between young Taiwanese men in The Wedding Banquet, Jane Austen’s class-conscious Brits in Sense & Sensibility, duty-bound warriors in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, or even monsters and scientists in The Hulk. Lee’s delicate touch and poetic cinematography take Annie Proulx’s 30-page story about cowboys who fall into a crevasse of tragic forbidden love, and expands it into a hauntingly bittersweet two-hour-plus visual feast of lingering melancholy and fragile snapshots of happiness against the lonely backdrop of despair.

As in the short story, the main character, Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger in a pitch perfect spot-on performance) scrounges up work one summer by herding sheep for a dismissive rancher (Randy Quaid) up at the spectacular vistas of Brokeback Mountain. He is sent out to this task with another poor cowboy, the aspiring rodeo competitor Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) whose easy companionship is a salve for orphaned Ennis’ isolation. When they unexpectedly become much more than friends, they build the foundations of a life-long love that will haunt and change them both forever.

The film lingers over that first summer in 1963 and their passionate reunion four years later, then it speeds by 20 years of their respective life signposts including marriages, children, divorce, jobs, in-laws, relationships; ordinary lives punctuated by their semi-annual weeklong “fishing” trips into the mountains.

Ennis is dragged down by duty as he attempts to make ends meet and to keep together the pretense of a marriage and then of a bachelorhood. In near total emotional isolation, he keeps a white-knuckled lock on his feelings, which bubble up in tenderness towards his daughters and threaten to erupt in violence against anyone else.

Jack, meanwhile, is the more needy heart, stumbling into a marriage to a cowboy princess with a wealthy father. It takes him from the adrenaline highs of rodeo-riding to the confining job of a combine salesman. It is he who cannot comprehend Ennis’ inability to see a world where they could be together. Where Ennis gives all he can, Jack wants so much more. The results tear them up inside and the bitterness ripples through both their lives to a final, moving conclusion.

While groundbreaking and beautiful, this movie falters a step when its slow and deliberate pace nevertheless fails to take the audience into an admittedly very private love beyond their time together on the mountain. Jack is a complicated character and, with the exception of the scene where he confronts his father-in-law, his character development later in the film seems uneven and his hold on Ennis less tenable, perhaps because Lee leaves so much to be said in the silences. We see him going to Mexico to cruise for sex, but we do not see him unguarded with his parents, Ennis or even with wife Lureen (Anne Hathaway) to give us the understanding that we get from Ennis’ scenes with his wife (Michelle Williams) and their daughters.

The depth of all the characters, it should be said, is one of the movie’s many strengths: there is not a person here who does not easily deserve his or her story to be told, especially Lureen (Anne Hathaway), Alma (Michelle Williams), Mrs. Twist (Roberta Maxwell) and Alma Junior (Kate Mara).

And another strength is the simplicity and strong symbolism of the way the story is told. Up on Brokeback Mountain, Jack and Ennis make the rules. At first they do what the rancher told them, camping out near the sheep in violation of the law. But then they understand that they may not own the place or the sheep, but they are in charge and can decide what is right for them — until they have to come down from the mountain and abide by the rules of society. The story-telling is so plain and straightforward that, like the characters’ feelings for one another, at first you do not realize how powerful it is. But by the conclusion, with its definitive, heart-wrenching portrayal of what will always be divided and what can never be, audiences will realize that the story has entered its souls.
This movie benefits from world-class talent as Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, Larry McMurtry, keeps the cowboy feel authentic while adapting the screenplay from fellow Pulitzer-winner Proulx’s short story, all under the direction of Oscar winner Lee. With fine performances by all and an Oscar-worthy scope, “Brokeback Mountain” is a solid addition to the canon of tragic loves and it is an immensely moving portrait of joy begetting sadness, pain and fleetingly a small and fragile ray of hope.

Parents should know that the movie deals with mature issues, including bigotry, homosexuality, and adultery. There is nudity, sex between committed couples, adultery, references to prostitution. Characters use frequent profanity, they drink and smoke, in one scene they use drugs. Characters drink to excess, they get violent, and they brawl. There is the frequent threat of brutality and a brief scene of a bloody murder. A character gives an explicit account of torture and murder. There are angry and violent fight scenes between couples.

Families who see this movie should talk about the hope and despair that follow in the wake of a life-changing encounter. When Ennis describes how this one relationship had made him who he was, how might he imagine that he would have been different if he had never gone up on to Brokeback Mountain? In the scene in the trailer with “Junior”, how is Ennis different and what might this foretell about his future? Why is the question Ennis asks her so important? Do you think Ennis and Jack’s story would change today versus when the story is taking place?

Visual cues in this movie are very important and families might talk about these subtle touches, such as the way Ennis’ life shrinks as seen by ever smaller interior spaces, about the smiles -few and far between–and who they are between, and about eye contact, which Ennis in his isolation uses sparingly and Jack in his recklessness uses often.

Families looking for more of Lee’s elegant storytelling and atmospheric beauty will enjoy his early Taiwanese movies, especially Eat Drink Man Woman and the aforementioned Wedding Banquet. For those looking for more big sky, cowboy stories, McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove is a splendid read and the miniseries is very well done.

A partial list of other films on the theme of socially unacceptable loves and the emotional wreckage that can ensue would include: the moving Boys Don’t Cry, the multi-tissue infidelity study Breaking the Waves, the lifelong affair of Same Time Next Year, or the inter-racial/homosexual loves in Far from Heaven. All of these movies have mature themes and are not for the very young or more sensitive viewers.

Thanks to guest critic AME.

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Drama Movies -- format Romance

King Kong

Posted on December 13, 2005 at 12:43 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for frightening adventure violence and some disturbing images.
Profanity:	Brief crude language and swearing
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Very intense and graphic violence, many characters injured or killed, reference to suicide
Diversity Issues:	Strong female and minority characters
Date Released to Theaters:	2005
Date Released to DVD:	2006
Amazon.com ASIN:	B001KZVQJI

This is not just one of the most thrilling action movies ever made – it is more like five or six of the most thrilling action movies ever made. It is not quite twice as long as the usual movie, but it is packed with enough edge-of-your-seat/did-I-just-see-that/goose-bumpy popcorn pleasure for a year’s worth of blockbusters.

We’ve got zombies. We’ve got stampeding dinosaurs. We’ve got very oooky bugs and creatures that look like alimentary canals with lots and lots of teeth. We have hubris, big time. We have tender love stories. We have a lovely damsel in distress — repeatedly — and heroic men who will risk their lives – repeatedly -– to save her.

And we have a really really really big gorilla. It takes almost an hour into the movie before we meet him, but he is worth waiting for.

Peter Jackson showed us with The Lord of the Rings that he knows how to make movies that give us the grandest special-effects-laden spectacle but never let us lose sight of the characters who make it more than pretty pictures. In this remake of the classic that first inspired him to become a director, Jackson has created a masterful mix of story and splendor and hold-your-breath adventure.

The film opens with shots of wild animals, and then realize they are in cages, in a New York zoo. And then we see people, in a sort of cage, too — the Depression has everyone feeling trapped.

Then we meet our characters and soon they are on their way to the uncharted Skull Island to make a movie. There they run into every possible kind of jungle peril, including a gigantic, dinosaur-bashing gorilla who captures — and then is captured by actress Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts). They bring him back to New York and put him on stage in a silly show with bright lights and loud noises and people in evening clothes laughing and applauding. And then he escapes.

Jackson’s staging of the big action scenes is sensational, especially a dinosaur stampede and what I can only describe as a massive and meticulously timed stunt involving a lot of vines. But what is even more impressive is his sensitivity in the small, tender moments, including a breathtakingly exquisite scene on an ice skating rink. Kong himself, a combination of computer effects and the gestures and movements of actor Andy Serkis (who also provided the same services for Golum in the “Lord of the Rings” movies) gives what can only be called a performance, and a beautifully calibrated and expressive one.

The script manages the trick of being true to the source without any ironic winks or post-modern spins but also without taking itself too seriously. A clever little shout-out to Fay Wray, star of the original, sets the tone.

And a great deal of credit has to go to the actors, who more than hold their own in front of all of the special effects. Jack Black (School of Rock) plays movie producer/director Carl Denham, something of a towering monster himself. While Kong appreciates beauty and demonstrates honor, even some humility, Denham cares only about his movie and will lie, cheat, steal, and sacrifice anyone around him to get the movie made. Naomi Watts is Ann Darrow, a hard-luck vaudevillian let down by everyone she ever trusted who wants to be an actress and accepts a part in Denham’s movie, to be filmed on location in a mysterious uncharted place called Skull Island.

Adrian Brody (The Pianist) is playwright/screenwriter Jack Driscoll, who involuntarily comes along for the ride when Denham insists that the boat take off before Driscoll can leave — and before the police can stop them.

This is an old-fashioned wow of a they-don’t-make-’em-like-that-anymore movie movie with thrills and heart and romance. And a very big gorilla. Who could ask for anything more?

Parents should know that this film has a great deal of very intense peril and violence, including guns and spears. There are zombie characters who are quite creepy and scary animals — both enormous and small, and grisly images. Many characters are injured or killed and there is a reference to suicide. Characters drink and there are some romantic kisses. Characters use some crude language and some swearing.

Families who see this movie should talk about the question one of the characters asks about Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Why do people “keep going down the river?”

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy the original and read this history of King Kong’s movies, but should skip the campy 1976 version starring Jessica Lange. The World of Kong is a guide to Skull Island produced by the people who designed this movie.

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Casanova

Posted on November 22, 2005 at 10:40 am

C+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for some sexual content
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Action peril and violence
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	2005
Date Released to DVD:	2006
Amazon.com ASIN:	B000EDWKXI

Mistake number one may be the title. There may be times in history when it is possible to have an appealing lead character whose primary interest in life is women, but this doesn’t seem to be it.

For centuries, people have been fascinated by Casanova, an 18th century adventurer who made and lost fortunes, escaped from prison, worked as a cleric and a spy, and whose legendary romances with hundreds of woman, as detailed in his autobiography, have made his name a label (both scornful and admiring) for generations of lotharios. His legend has inspired a number of films going back to a 1918 silent version, including portrayals by Donald Sutherland (in Il Casanova di Federico Fellini and by Richard Chamberlain in Casanova — and even impersonated by Bob Hope in Casanova’s Big Night).

In this film, Casanova’s womanizing is attributed to youthful high spirits and a supposedly endearing inability to turn down any woman who is enraptured by his charms — meaning any woman. Director Lasse Hallstrom recognizes that contemporary audiences will not have much patience with this, so he hedges his bets, making his Casanova (Heath Ledger) just a hopeless romantic ready to become completely faithful when he meets the right woman. Having abandoned the real-life Casanova’s most defining characteristic, Hallstrom and Ledger might have been better off creating a completely fictional character.

The fundamental disconnect in the personality of the movie’s hero runs straight into a collision with the movie’s tone. It tries to be a mildly post-modern version of a very traditional door-slamming farce, with a headache-inducing mish-mash of false identities and near-misses, all of which seem more of a distraction than an entertainment. Even the pleasures of on-location scenery in Venice are diminished by staging so artificial it might as well be a stage set.

Then there is mistake number two — an idea which must have seemed daring in a story conference — casting the ravishing Sienna Miller as Francesca Bruni, the spirited feminist heroine (so far, so good) but doing its best to make her look plain so we would appreciate how much Casanova loves her for her mind and spirit. Miller is still anything but ordinary, but for this kind of high-gloss romp, she there should have been no stinting on the glamour.

For the same reason, despite its subject matter, this might also have worked better as a PG-13. The sexual material in the film is not as explicit as many R-rated films, but given the choices of scenes, it is explicit enough to detract from the light-hearted and romantic tone the film is trying for.

There are moments, though, when it does achieve that light-hearted and romantic tone, and it rises like the hot-air balloon Casanova and Francesca take for a ride. Oliver Platt is sweetly silly as a clueless but open-hearted suitor, Jeremy Irons purples it up as a draconian Inquisitor, and Lena Olin contributes one of the movie’s most genuinely romantic moments as a woman who is surprised to find herself capable of being smitten. And it has swordfights and scenery and smooches. It isn’t a very good movie and it makes some fatally poor choices, but audiences in search of a cinematic bon bon may find its failures forgiveable.

Parents should know that this is the highly fictionalized story of one of the most notorious womanizers in history. While it is a light-hearted portrayal, the movie is about promescuity and what might in a less silly movie be called debauchery. The movie includes frequent sexual references and situations, some strong language, and drinking.

Families who see this movie should talk about why Casanova felt differently about Francesca than he did about the other women he had met.

Families who enjoy this movie will enjoy the Oscar-winning Tom Jones and Shakespeare in Love.

Rent

Posted on November 20, 2005 at 10:45 am

When thinking about a Tony- and Pulitzer-prize winning musical based on an opera, an almost-entirely-sung story about homeless artists, some of them drug addicts, some infected with the AIDS virus, the director of Mrs. Doubtfire is not the first thought that comes to mind, but he turns out to be a wise choice.

Director Chris Columbus is not known for being edgy. But he is known for respecting the material and the performers and for bringing solid, if uninspired, journeyman skills — like attention to detail — to productions designed around reliably marketable themes (romantic comedies, heartwarming family stories) and reliably marketable big Hollywood stars (Julia Roberts and Susan Sarandon in Stepmom, Robin Williams in Mrs. Doubtfire), and for taking on the first two Harry Potter movies and not messing them up. He is safe.

That may seem like an odd choice for “Rent,” not just a critically acclaimed Broadway musical, not just an all-but perpetually-playing theatrical production around the world, but a genuine cult, with Rent-heads camping out overnight to get the limited low-price tickets set aside for each performance, people who have been to see dozens of productions. But when you consider the challenges faced by those who wanted to adapt this phenomenon for film, the choice of Columbus makes sense — and so does the result.

Adapting any play for screen is always tricky. What works on stage does not necessarily work in a movie. Plays are more about the words. But movies, where so much is communicated with the slightest motion of an eyebrow, feel weighed down and stagey if they seem too talky. Furthermore, the play “Rent” is very much an artifact of its era. Do we try to update it a decade, adding cell phones, digital video cameras, and internet access? AIDS is neither the shock nor the death sentence it was in 1989. Do we keep it as a time capsule? Its inspiration, La Boheme, still works, even though not many people die of tuberculosis anymore.

But, and I know I am risking a flood of email here, “Rent” is also an artifact of another era, the subjective era of transition into adulthood. That made it a totem for young audiences. The underlying theme is a fantasy for 15-year olds, who think it is all so simple and romantic to build your life on the principle of “epater le bourgeois” (shock the middle class).

Its starkness has a lot of appeal to the us/them tendencies of adolescents. It suggests that the only legitmate and authentic option is to live in poverty in the name of artistic integrity. And there is even more appeal in the idea of leaving your family of origin to create one of your own with your friends, a happily multi-ethnic, pan-sexual alliance of ever-merry, ever-devoted, ever-honest comrades in arms who know that all that matters is “la vie boheme.”

They sing an anthem: “To loving tension, no pension/To more than one dimension/To starving for attention/Hating convention, hating pretension/Not to mention of course/Hating dear old mom and dad/To riding your bike/Midday past the three- piece suits/To fruits to no absolutes/To Absolut/to choice/To the Village Voice/To any passing fad/To being an us-for once-, instead of a them….”

What could be more heavenly? To live in a picturesque little artistic hovel with artists who understand that art and love and fun are all that matter. At its best, it taps into the 15-year-old longings we all keep inside.

The power of the music and the characters and the live performance somehow make the weakness of those themes work, especially in the context of the show’s mythic backstory. The man who wrote it, Jonathan Larson, who was waiting tables just months before the show opened, died suddenly just after the final rehearsal, never knowing that his first play would become a sensation. But how can you translate that to film without throwing it all out of balance?

Furthermore, the conventional wisdom in Hollywood, even after the success of Chicago is that the “traditional” musical is no longer possible, that any movie with songs has to have a “device” like the stagey artificiality of Moulin Rouge or the “it’s all in her mind” approach of Chicago. Is it possible in the 21st century for us to accept the idea of a bunch of squatters dancing and singing through subways, abandoned buildings, AIDS support groups, and elegant engagement parties?

Enter the safe Christopher Columbus who has just successfully shepherded another property with fanatically protective fans, the first two Harry Potter films. And he turns out to be just the right sensibility for this material.

How can it broaden its appeal from that specific moment? The music is strong and sustainable. The characters are vivid and (mostly) endearing. The first good decision Columbus made was to keep as much of the original Broadway cast as possible. Six of the original eight leads appear. Most Hollywood films have no rehearsal time and actors often meet each other just before the scene begins. These actors worked together over a long period of time, performing the show together over a very successful run. Their complete comfort with their characters and command of the material adds immeasurably to the depth and richness of the performances. And the fact that they are not played by over-familiar Teen People cover icon pop stars (reportedly, Justin Timberlake and Christina Aguilera were considered for parts in the movie) helps us to believe in the performers as unknowns living in poverty.

The story centers around roommates Roger (Adam Pascal), an AIDS-infected songwriter still mourning the death of his girlfriend, and Mark (Anthony Rapp), a documentary film-maker and refugee from the suburbs, still mourning the loss of his girlfriend — to her new girlfriend. His former girlfriend is Maureen (Irina Menzel), an outspoken performance artist, and her new love is Joanne (Tracie Thoms), a lawyer from a wealthy family.

Roger and Mark have a former roommate, Benny (Taye Diggs), now married to a wealthy girl. He is working for his father-in-law, planning a rennovation of the neighborhood. On Christmas Eve 1989 he offers his friends free rent if they will stop Maureen’s performance art protest of the development. A downstairs neighbor named Mimi (Rosario Dawson) comes up looking for a light for her candle. And another friend, Collins (Jessie L. Martin), a renegade professor, comes by with the flamboyant but sweet-natured cross-dresser Angel (Wilson Jermaine Heredia), who rescued him after a mugging and later brings him to an AIDS support group, and then becomes his lover.

We go through a year with these characters (or, as they put it, 525,600 minutes) as they struggle with issues of health, romance, money (always needing that “rent”), and art. Will Maureen and Joanne stay together? (A highlight of the movie is a sensational angry duet in the middle of an elegant engagement party given by Joanne’s parents.) Will Roger risk loving again? Will Mark go to work for a sleazy tabloid television show (the Faustian offer is made in a funny cameo by Sarah Silverman of Jesus is Magic). Will Collins give up New York for the stark beauty of Santa Fe?

Columbus wisely begins with the cast standing on a stage singing one of the show’s key songs, acknowledging the inherent artificiality, and then he just asks us to accept that we are entering a place in New York where people just break into song all the time, and we do.

The musical numbers are capably, if not especially imaginatively staged (with the exception of Angel’s introductory number, which has some distracting editing), and the structural pruning and smoothing Columbus and screenwriter Steve Chbosky have done is judicious and unobtrusive.

The show-stoppers deliver, especially “La Vie Boheme,” with the cast dancing on a restaurant tabletop. Pascal sometimes seems to have wandered in from a 1970’s dinner theater production of Jesus Christ Superstar and Tony winner Heredia gives us more of Angel’s sweetness than his sass, but Menzel and Martin are jump-off-the-screen superstars, fiery, gutsy, and touching. Dawson and Thoms, the two additions to the cast, are both magnificent, matching the old-timers every step of the way. As they play the two outsiders to the close-knit community, their energy works well to complement the members of the original cast who play Roger, Mark, and their friends, and by the end of the movie, we feel that we, too, are a part of this family, or wish we were.

Parents should know that this movie has very strong material for a PG-13, including gay, straight, and bi-sexual characters, many of whom have AIDS and are or have been drug addicts. Characters use strong language, drink, and abuse drugs. A character is mugged and injured. A dog is killed (off-camera) and there is a very sad death. Parents who have concern about the suitability of this film for teenagers should see it before deciding whether it is appropriate, and, if they do decide to permit middle or high schoolers to see it, they should be prepared to discuss it with them afterward.

Families who see this movie should talk about the moral choices faced by Mark, Benny, Collins, and Maureen, and how they decided what their priorities and options were. How did Angel see his choices differently, and why? They should read the lyrics of “La Vie Boheme” and see how many of the references they can identify. They should also read and talk about this essay by Dave Eggars about what it means (and does not mean) to “sell out.”

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy Chicago and Hair. They will also enjoy seeing a live or video production of the opera that inspired this musical, Puccini’s gorgeous La Boheme (just as in “Rent,” the ailing Mimi comes upstairs to get a light for her candle). The version by Baz Lurhmann, director of Moulin Rouge and Strictly Ballroom is very striking. Harvard Law Professor Joe Singer’s thoughtful comparison of the movie and stage versions of the show is very worthwhile and the DVD version has some fascinating (and heartbreaking) background footage.

Related Tags:

Drama Movies -- format Musical Romance