Movie Theaters In Pittsburgh

5/31/2012

Christabel (1989) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)While the edits in this DVD version of a 1989 miniseries aired on Masterpiece Theater in the US aren't blatant, to anyone familiar with the original version, they are striking by their absence. And the material that has been cut makes the plot much richer without detracting from the suspense of the plot.
The story hews closely to the biography of Christabel Bielenberg ( available as When I Was a German, 1934-1945: An Englishwoman in Nazi Germany or The Past is Myself, with a followup volume, The Road Ahead), an Englishwoman who marries a German lawyer and makes her home in Berlin in the early years of the Nazi regime. Her husband and their circle of friends deplore the Nazis (anti-Hitler conspirator Adam von Trott, later executed, is one of their circle) and the plot revolves around Christabel's growing recognition that it isn't possible to just live one's private life -- or leave -- when confronted with the kind of evil that the Nazis represent.
Even this edited version presents a kind of viewpoint that is rarely seen of 'ordinary' educated Germans facing the conundrum of how to react to evil and forces us to question how we would have fared in a similar situation. As Protestant pastor Martin Niemoller famously wrote, when the Nazis took away the communists, social democrats, trade unionists and Jews, people didn't speak up because they didn't fall into those categories. "Then," Niemoller wrote, "when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out." This film looks at a group of people who did speak out.
Dennis Potter's imaginative touches (such as the scene where Christabel imagines, in a nightmare, parachutists invading her home and bayoneting her elderly father) make this a rewarding movie to watch, while the recurring echoes of the song to which Christabel listens dressing for her wedding in the opening scenes recurs throughout, sometimes offering an odd or jarring commentary on the scene.
All in all, this is an excellent film of a little-known story. But it deserves to be seen in full, so for anyone who hasn't yet discarded their VHS player, I'd urge you to get the complete version.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Christabel (1989)

Click here for more information about Christabel (1989)

Waiting for Godot Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)"Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it's awful!". That phrase, said by one of the main characters of "Waiting for Godot", somehow sums up the whole plot of this short tragicomedy in two acts. Strange??. You can bet on that!!!. So much that a well-known Irish critic said of it "nothing happens, twice".
The play starts with two men, Vladimir and Estragon, sitting on a lonely road. They are both waiting for Godot. They don't know why they are waiting for him, but they think that his arrival will change things for the better. The problem is that he doesn't come, although a kid does so and says Godot will eventually arrive. Pozzo and his servant Lucky, two other characters that pass by while our protagonists are waiting for Godot, add another bizarre touch to an already surreal story, in which nothing seems to happen and discussions between the characters don't make much sense.
However, maybe that is exactly the point that Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) wanted to make. He was one of the most accomplished exponents of the "Theatre of the Absurd", that wanted to highlight the lack of purpose and meaning in an universe without God. Does Godot, the person that Vladimir and Estragon endlessly wait, symbolize God?. According to an irascible Beckett, when hard-pressed to answer that question, "If I knew who Godot was, I would have said so in the play." So, we don't know. The result is a highly unusual play that poses many questions, but doesn't answer them.
Ripe with symbolism, "Waiting for Godot" is a play more or less open to different interpretations. Why more or less open?. Well, because in order to have an interpretation of your own, you have to finish the play, and that is something that not all readers can do. "Waiting for Godot" is neither too long nor too difficult, but it shows a lack of action and purpose in the characters that is likely to annoy many before they reach the final pages, leading them to abandon the book in a hurry. That is specially true if the reader is a student who thinks he is being barbarously tortured by a hateful teacher who told him to write a paper on "Waiting for Godot" :)
My advice, for what it is worth, is that you should persist in reading it. If it puts you to sleep, try reading it aloud with some friends, and discuss with them the implications of what happens with the characters. This play might not be thoroughly engaging, but it changed theatre and the possibilities opened before it forever. In a way, it provoked a blood-less revolution, and because of that it deserves at least a bit of our attention.
Belen Alcat

Click Here to see more reviews about: Waiting for Godot

Click here for more information about Waiting for Godot

Faerie Tale Theatre - Princess and the Pea (1984) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)THE PRINCESS AND THE PEA is one of the all-time great FAERIE TALE THEATRE episodes. Featuring a talented cast and brilliant costumes and sets, it's totally adorable.
Prince Richard (Tom Conti) leads a boring and eventless life under the thumb of his controlling mother Queen Veronica (Beatrice Straight). Until, one stormy night, in whirls the vivacious Princess Alecia (Liza Minnelli). But is she really a princess? Queen Veronica is skeptical, so employs a method to test her royalty: she places a tiny pea under 20 mattresses and quilts. If Alecia can feel the pea it will prove beyond any doubt her royal blood.
Will Alecia pass the test? And if she does, will she choose to marry Richard? You'll find out in THE PRINCESS AND THE PEA. Co-starring Jane Alden and Nancy Allen.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Faerie Tale Theatre - Princess and the Pea (1984)

Get 11% OFF

Click here for more information about Faerie Tale Theatre - Princess and the Pea (1984)

5/30/2012

Faerie Tale Theatre - Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp (1982) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)ALADDIN AND HIS WONDERFUL LAMP is one of the most enjoyable of episodes from the fabulous FAERIE TALE THEATRE series. Robert Carradine, Valerie Bertinelli, James Earl Jones and Leonard Nimoy lead the strong cast.
Aladdin is played by the appealing Robert Carradine, who offers a fine performance as the resourceful young hero who is thrown into a world of wonder, danger and romance after discovering a lamp which contains a Genie (James Earl Jones) who will grant his every wish. Unfortunately, a scheming magician (Leonard Nimoy) also knows about the magical lamp and will stop at nothing to get it...
Valerie Bertinelli is luminous as the beautiful Princess Sabrina who steals Aladdin's heart. She was nominated for several awards for her performance here. James Earl Jones is an amazing Genie; big and boistrous and very funny!
Directed by Tim Burton, ALADDIN comes to life with sparkling sets and vivid costumes. One of the best. Co-starring Rae Allen as Aladdin's mother and Ray Sharkey as the Grand Vizier.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Faerie Tale Theatre - Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp (1982)

Get 67% OFF

Click here for more information about Faerie Tale Theatre - Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp (1982)

Girls Town (1959) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Was this bad-girls-in-reform-school flick made in an attempt to cash in on the Academy Award-winning "Boys' Town" or did the studio just happen to have a few dozen nun's habits in their wardrobe department? Tubby, dewlapped crooner Mel Torme frames busty bottle-blonde bombshell bad-girl Silver Morgan (Mamie Van Doren, the poor man's Jane Mansfield) for the over-a-cliff murder of her attempted rapist in this manipulative, cloying 1959 teen-sploitation flick. The cops don't have a thing on Silver but the dead punk's dad commands the usual White Male Reality political pull, sending her to a convent-slash-reform-school "Girls' Town" chock-full-o' tough-as-nails nuns, teen gangs played by 35-year old actors, an "Ave Maria"-singing Paul Anka, a no-hands drag race ending in the usual expected laughably "tragic" result, the Platters, badly-choreographed catfights consistently broken up by beefy security nuns, way too much embarrassingly fake teen slang, and Charlie Chaplin, Jr. (?) Watch out for Silver's creepy reform-school pal Seraphina, a spooky obsessive fan stalking a vaguely stupefied young Paul Anka; look carefully in the drive-in scene to spot the reflections of the director and camera crew in the windows of the cars. "The Sound of Music" this ain't. If you're like me, you saw this given the "Mystery Science Theater 3000" treatment, and were all the better for it...it's even funnier that way, and at least *intentionally* funny.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Girls Town (1959)

Click here for more information about Girls Town (1959)

Sybil Danning's Adventure Theatre: Seven (1979) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)B-movie veteran William Smith ("Invasion of the Bee Girls", "Grave of the Vampire") stars in this fast moving adventure as the leader of a small team of specialists assigned to break up a notorious Hawaiian crime syndicate.Amazonian action star Sybil Danning introduces the movie.Also starring Barbara Leigh, Art Metrano, Martin Kove, Susan Kiger, Guich Koock, and Richard Le Pore.Directed by Andy Sidaris ("Stacey!", "Malibu Express"). Great movie, must see advanture.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Sybil Danning's Adventure Theatre: Seven (1979)

Click here for more information about Sybil Danning's Adventure Theatre: Seven (1979)

5/29/2012

Broken Glass: Masterpiece Theatre (1996) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)This Mobil Masterpiece Theater production of an adapatation of Arthur Miller's play is a gripping look at both the dilemma of being Jewish in pre-war America, as well as a fascinating look at how fear can, literally, cripple a life.
The story revolves around a married Jewish couple, the Gellburgs, in Brooklyn in 1938. Mrs. Gellburg suddenly finds herself unable to move her legs, and becomes the patient of Dr. Hyman, played powerfully by Mandy Patinkin. Mr. Gellburg, in a way, also becomes the patient of Dr. Hyman as Mrs. Gellburg's diagnosis is revealed to be hysterical paralysis -- i.e., it's all in her head.
What Dr. Hyman is left to uncover about the Gellburgs, including both the extremely personal -- their marriage and their identity as Jews -- and the extremely impersonal -- the beginning of the torture and slaughter of Jews in Germany -- teaches great lessons about the choices we make in our lives; when to give in, when to stand up and say, "Enough." Fear can be either a force for change, or an excuse to avoid the inevitable pains of life.
I highly recommend this serious and thought-provoking drama; it provides much food for thought for people of any age or situation.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Broken Glass: Masterpiece Theatre (1996)

Click here for more information about Broken Glass: Masterpiece Theatre (1996)