La Cage aux Folles (Criterion Collection)

One of the Funniest Movies EVER Released - SIX STARS!
American audiences tend to resist foreign films for some good reasons. Sure, its tough to keep up with subtitles at times, and yes, sometimes the translations are lacking the depth the filmaker intends to convey. But this is a film that can and should be enshrined in the Movie Hall of Fame as one of the funniest, most endearing films ever released. Audiences who are willing to put up with subtitles will quickly find themselves hysterical and at last, on DVD, "La Cage Aux Folles" deserves to find a new audience, a new generation that appreciates broad humor, with a few good lessons thrown in.

Americans are familiar with the story, since "La Cage" was turned into a successful Broadway show and then a huge money-making comedy "The Birdcage" featuring Nathan Lane and Robin Williams in the lead roles (not to mention a young Calista Flockhart of "Ally McBeal" fame and Dan Futterman who is brilliant in "Urbania.") But "The...

Great movie, Substandard Transfer
Since others have already expounded on the enduring comic nature of the movie itself, I'll restrict my comments to the DVD. I'd give the movie about 4 stars, but the DVD transfer I would award only 2.

Why? The film quality is not only substandard, but on occasion the frame jumps, as if somebody had bumped the telecine during the process. Additionally, the audio is VERY poor, not only varying in loudness, but at times the French audio track is not even synchronized with the lip movements on screen.

This would be worthy of a re-do by Criterion or other reputable production company...please?

LA CAGE is...TRES BIEN!
This review refers to "La Cage Aux Folles" DVD/MGM world Films..

If you will be viewing this film for the first time, and have already seen the more recent American version with Robin Williams and Nathan Lane("The Bird Cage"), you will find it very difficult not to compare this one to it. The Bird Cage was a wonderful and lavish production that paid homage to this original French Film, and did it quite well. I also consider that a 5 star film.

The stories although, BC has added some footage and a few more complications to the story, are just about identical. Young Laurent comes home to visit his father.Renato (Ugo Tognazzi)is the [...] owner of flamboyant cabaret, featuring some wonderful acts by drag queens. Laurent informs Dad, that he is getting married. Although very young, Renato is happy for his son. But wait..there's more; his fiancee's parents are ultra-conservative,more then that, her father's political career is based on high morals.Her parents are on...

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I Married a Witch (Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

At last! I Married a Witch gets the treatment it deserves.
I've been waiting for at least 10 years for this hilarious film to be released on dvd for region 1. I owned the vhs, and it was a film I'd watch with family and friends every Halloween season....until dvds replaced vhs tapes. It's been a long wait. At one point, I even purchased a bootleg with Korean subtitles that was too awful to enjoy. I'm thrilled that it's getting the Criterion treatment that it deserves.
Veronica Lake is stunning as a witch who puts a curse on the descendants of the judge who convicted her of witchcraft in Puritan New England. Cecil Kellaway is charming. Fredric March plays the descendants from the 17th century until the present day (1942), doomed to suffer miserable marriages. Great sets, great costumes, great hair, great story by the writer of Topper. Lake must have been quite a diva. She and Fredric March loathed one another. March said working with her was the worst experience of his life, and he worked with Miriam Hopkins! Joel McCrea turned it down...

A Bewitching Comedy With Sexy Witch Veronica Lake
It's rare nowadays when you can say that you have seen a totally delightful comedy in the cinemas. That rare marriage of charming scenerio, ideally cast players, and romantic setting seems to be sadly a thing of the past which is why I always find "I Married a Witch", such enjoyable viewing. Here we have two very famous performers in dramatic veteran Fredric March, and Film Noir siren Veronica Lake playing against their usual "type" and having a field day cutting loose with this romantic screwball tale that combines sexy humour with elements of the supernatural. Based on the unfinished novel by "Topper", author Thorne Smith, "I Married a Witch", gave us a whole new image of what witches were like minus the warts and crooked nose and in much the same vein as the later legendary series "Bewitched", showed us witches who were playful and extremely sexy. Veronica Lake had I feel her most appealing role here and proved herself adept at frothy comedy and capable of far more than just...

One of the greatest Hollywood comedies of the forties
I once did a list for a friend of the ten sexiest female characters in the movies. Veronica Lake's lovely witch ranked very high on that list. Although she starred in several other classic films from 1942 to 1946, this movie is easily my favorite. Much of her reputation today is based on her several appearances in film noir classics (THIS GUN FOR HIRE, THE GLASS KEY, and THE BLUE DAHLIA), but I actually preferred her in this film and to a lesser degree SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS.

The rest of the cast is just as delightful. Fredric March is everything you could ask a romantic lead who is descended from Puritans to be, and Cecil Kellaway and Robert Benchley take turns stealing scenes.

Of all the European directors forced by political turmoil in Germany and Italy to work in the US temporarily in the thirties and forties, Rene Clair probably had the most successful record. While his best work remains the extraordinary films he made in the early thirties working in France (SOUS LES...

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Autumn Sonata (Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

Dynamic, Memorable Film
Writer/director Ingmar Bergman examines the strained relationship between a mother and daughter in "Autumn Sonata," starring Ingrid Bergman and Liv Ullmann. Eva (Ullmann) has not seen her mother, Charlotte (Bergman) in seven years; a successful concert pianist, Charlotte has spent a good portion of her life on the road, but after losing her long-time companion, Leonardo, Eva invites her to come to the parsonage where she and her minister husband, Viktor (Halvar Bjork), live, for an extended visit. Charlotte accepts, but soon after her arrival, old wounds and feelings begin to surface, and the film becomes an intimate character study of the life-long dysfunctional relationship between Charlotte and Eva, during which director Bergman intricately examines the causes and effects of all that has passed between them during their lives. It's an in-depth look at the emotional damage human beings are capable of inflicting upon one another, and how fragile the line between love and hate...

Another Bergman classic
Beginning with The Seventh Seal, I have been enamored with the austere and intellectual world of Ingmar Bergman. His cinema is so literate and engaging, without being boring or preachy or devolving into baseless abstraction. Recently I was able to see his 1978 film, Autumn Sonata, with Liv Ullmann and Ingrid Bergman and was touched by its emotional power.

Starting with an introductory monologue by Viktor, the pastor of the area and husband of Eva, it sets the tone of the piece and explains Eva's feelings of lovelessness and distance. After hearing of the death of her mother's lover, Eva invites her mother Charlotte to visit, and after a seven-year hiatus, the old professional pianist acquiesces. Eva's feelings towards Charlotte are very complex and we seem them unfold throughout the film, the layers peeling away, eventually, on both sides.

Charlotte's arrival shows a sophisticated and worldly older woman who is demanding and easily overshadowing of her quiet...

Five stars to Criterion for transfer
I previously reviewed this film on a VHS format and now that I've seen the DVD, I have a greater appreciation for this Bergman masterpiece and the highest respect for Criterion for the finest treatment it gave this film. The colors are more enhanced and finally I got to watch it in its original Swedish language with English subtitles. There is also an audio-narrative that's very interesting. I hope Criterion will handle the releases of Bergman's other great works like "Cries and Whispers" & "A Passion of Anna". A DVD to own!

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