Black Christmas

I had never heard of this movie before seeing Bravo's "100 Scariest Movie Moments." Olvia Hussey - who stars as Jess - told a story about meeting Steve Martin and him telling her that Black Christmas was his favorite film and he saw it 27 times. After seeing a few highlights, I was very curious to see it. It's been at the top of my Netflix queue for about 4 months. This is a true cult classic, and for good reason. This preceded most of the slasher films, and is one of the great ones, because it's terribly scary without being bloody.

It's a classic slasher setup. A bunch of girls are staying at their sorority house over Christmas and a maniac gets into the house and kills them one by one. And in true horror movie fashion, the first death is the most memorable. The first girl to be killed - in a shocking departure from horror cliches - is the virtuous virgin. There's also an element of the "obscene phone call" setup which would later be used to great effect in When a Stranger Calls.

This is a really great scary movie. Perhaps something that greatly adds to its creepiness is the fact that you never see the killer. You never know who it is, or why he's killing people, and he's never caught. That's extremely unsettling and disturbing, and I think it makes it more successful.

This movie is being remade with Michelle Trachtenberg. I'm not sure why. Remakes, as a rule, are inferior, and horror remakes are more so. They should really just re-release the original. The tag line is so right - "If this movie doesn't make your skin crawl ... it's on too tight!" *shudders* Quite.

A Clockwork Orange

The first shot of this film always scares the bejoodles out of me. There's something so bone-chilling about that expression on Malcolm McDowell's face - head down, looking up. I've seen this flick a couple of times - once on the big screen in London when it was re-released there in 2000. Despite not being a horror movie, it's one of the scariest movies I've ever seen. I can't even hear the song "Singin' In the Rain" (unless I'm watching the movie of the same name, of course) without seeing Alex and his "droogs" terrorizing that man and his wife. I think the real achievement in the performance is that, even though Alex is so incredibly nasty, you end up feeling sorry for him.

If you're not familiar with this one, you should be it's set in Britain some time in the future. Alex is part of a group of young men who spend their evenings beating and raping anyone who crosses their path. Alex tries to assert his authority, but the other gang members beat him up and leave him for dead. He ends up going to prison and volunteers to be part of a behavioral experiment that will get him an early release. The experiement is little more than torture, and when he is released into society again he is virtually helpless. One of Stanley Kubrick's finest films, IMO - a highly stylized movie of ideas (scary, disturbing ideas, but ideas). Never has a guy drinking a glass of milk been creepier.

Joyeux Noël

I wish this had been out where I could see it closer to Christmas, but it's powerful nonetheless. I'd heard the story about the cease fire between the German, English (actually Scottish, according to the film), and French troops on Christmas 1914, during World War I. The film elaborates quite a bit on the story, but it makes for a good movie. What struck me the most about this movie is how up close and personal war used to be. Perhaps that is what made the cease fire possible in the first place.

The portrait of the night itself is incredibly poignant, as one would expect it to be. The songs, the mass, soldiers sharing wine and pictures of their wives and children. But even more poignant is the aftermath. The soldiers are accused of treason. The priest who performed what he called "the most important mass of my life" was sent home, criticized by the bishop who proceeds to tell the troops the men they shared drinks and exchanged addresses with were not children of God. Upon first hearing this story, I wondered how it ultimately ended. The film suggests that the men were forever changed and had not the heart to continue fighting these men that they now knew as human beings with common goals and struggles. But the war, of course, would not be stopped.

There's not much actual "war" in this war movie, but it's only fitting, since it is about a moment of peace. It's an amazing story, even if much of the film version is likely fabricated. And perhaps best of all is the wonderful music, particularly the "Fraternizers' Hymn." Truly wonderful.

Crash vs. Brokeback

Never can I remember the words "Oscar upset" being more accurate than they were at the end of last night's Oscars, and I think some things need to be said about it.

First of all, I loved all five of the Best Picture nominees. I thought this was one of the strongest years in quite a while. I would have loved to have seen at least four of the five nominees take the "top" prize (Capote was the weakest, in my opinion, and that's saying a lot for the other four, because Capote was awesome). Brokeback clearly had all the momentum going in last night, but I knew Crash would be the dark horse.

There are a lot of things that go into whether a movie wins Best Picture or not, and many of them have nothing to do with the quality of the film. There are a lot of political machinations, campaigns, and what not, and if your movie peaks at the wrong time, it could mean people voting for something else.

I detest ranking art against art, but personally, if I had been given an opportunity to vote for the Oscars, I would have gone with Munich for Best Picture. I think it was the strongest "total package" of the five. Well written, well acted, beautifully shot, and very timely. But that's just me, and I knew that it was probably the least likely to take home anything, because it was so under-advertised. However, when it came to the two frontrunners, I felt there was a strong possibility for Brokeback NOT to win. In fact, if I had only had those two movies to choose from, I would have picked Crash over Brokeback myself (though it would have been a difficult choice).

For one thing, I think "Brokeback-mania" reached its saturation point too early and people were sick of it. "Brokeback" as a word is now a part of the cultural lexicon. You couldn't go anywhere without hearing a gay cowboy joke. In some ways, it kind of played itself out. Also, as great as I thought it was, it just didn't seem that revolutionary to me.

Crash was a different kind of underdog. It came out early in the year, and it's very rare for the Academy to remember anything that came out before Thanksgiving. It was a very divisive movie - there were people who really loved it and people who thought it was the cinematic antichrist. I think a few things put it ahead of Brokeback (though, I'd bet money that the race was quite close, if we could see the vote percentages).

1) It was an L.A. picture. Most Academy members are Angelinos, so this picture was bound to resonate with them.

2) It had a huge cast, many of them well-respected actors. Naturally, everyone in it who got to vote would vote for it. And - as a friend of mine pointed out - by voting for Crash, Academy members no doubt felt that they were rewarding as many of "their" people as possible.

3) As an "issues" movie, it was both more pointed and more universal. Preconception is perhaps the most basic problem we face as human beings. Brokeback dealt with this on a small level with homosexuality (i.e., the image of gay men was very non-stereotypical), but it was by no means the focus. This movie shook people and forced many of them to look at their own preconceptions of people. Even the casting of the movie was clearly designed to achieve this.

I'm not saying there aren't some homophobes in the Academy who thought the world wasn't ready for a Best Picture that put homosexuality front and center. But I seriously doubt they're numerous enough to have affected the vote that much. I find accusations that the Academy is somehow sending a message to the gay community - and even more incredibly, that they are condoning and perpetuating homophobia - by not rewarding Brokeback with Best Picture to be utterly ridiculous. And I'm saying this both to the people who are gloating that this is supposedly the case and the people who are angered by it. It's just. Not. True. Would anybody be saying the Academy was perpetuating racism if Crash had not won? Is Kanye West going to go on television and say that the Academy doesn't care about Jewish people because Munich didn't win?

NO!

It just means that there was another movie that people - people who make movies for a living, by the way - thought was better.

[Oscars] The Academy's Position on Groundbreaking Films

With all five of this year's Best Picture nominees being "issues" films and the fairly well-established frontrunner (Brokeback Mountain) being touted as "groundbreaking cinema," I found this article in USA Today to be particularly interesting.

I've heard several people say "Oh, I hope Brokeback doesn't win." There seems to be an implicit assumption that if it does win, it will simply be because of the issue - a mere gesture on behalf of the Academy at legitimizing the homosexual lifestyle. There's a Greek word for that attitude ... horses**t. The reason Brokeback is getting so much attention from these award shows is not because it's a "token gay movie," but because it's an amazing film that tackles a delicate subject in a wholly new way. Just like Good Night, and Good Luck is being recognized for taking issues that are very sensitive - and which usually cause people's characters and patriotism to be called into question - and looks at them through the filter of a similar event in the past. Just like Crash takes one of the oldest problems in human relations and gives us a rich tapestry of character interactions in which most of us can see something of ourselves. Much like Munich takes an extremely volatile and timely topic and handles it in a sensitive and yet brutally honest way. And like Capote deals with the ethics of writing and shows both sides of the story honestly and movingly.

These are well-made movies that make you think and help you to see things in a different way. That's what great films do, in my opinion. And it's nothing new for the Academy to reward films that handle modern issues well and try to change people's perceptions. Looking at the article linked above, I find it amusing to wonder what audiences of the time thought of those films (and others that broke new ground and were rewarded by Oscar) when they were released. Not to mention what people must have thought about the stand the Academy seemed to be making by honoring them...

The Lost Weekend - a thoroughly adult drama about a problem that had not been seriously dealt with in film. Alcoholism.

Carmen Jones - Dorothy Dandridge's nod preceded Poitier's for The Defiant Ones by four years.

Baby Doll - Kazan tells a story about a lascivious man and his child-bride. The film was condemned from pulpits and the Catholic Legion of Decency called for a nationwide boycott. It got four Oscar nominations.

Tom Jones - Made almost as big a scandal as Fielding's novel, with cries of "Won't someone think of the children?????" Yet it still was named Best Picture of 1963.

Dr. Strangelove - It's a classic now, but can you imagine if such a movie were released today? A movie that makes fun of the president and the military and nuclear war that wasn't even that big a hit in theaters? Probably would still have gotten the recognition from Oscar. :P

Network - A frighteningly prescient look at the creeping cancer of showmanship in the news. Part of this story involved the development of a show centered on a real terrorist group - The Mao Tse-Tung Hour.

The Silence of the Lambs - Very controversial at the time, for several reasons, not the least of which was its depiction of the sexually ambiguous Buffalo Bill.

The Crying Game - Boy howdy, do I remember the stir this caused, both when it was released and when Oscar recognized so extravagantly.

I always crack up when people talk about the Academy as though it were a committee of six people, sitting in a room somewhere and deciding who gets an award. There are over 6000 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences - actors, directors, producers, writers, technicians - and all of these people are eligible to vote on the awards. I just don't see how a win for a controversial movie is some kind of statement, other than that the film impressed a lot of people who know a lot about movies.

Also, it's not like the Oscars are some kind of Nobel prize. As much as I love them, they are essentially self-congratulatory nonsense, meaning little in the grand scheme of things, except to people who are intensely passionate about movies. So really ... who cares if the "gay cowboy movie" wins? According to Hollywood's grapevine, virtually no one has seen it (or any of the other nominees) anyway.

Although, I have to say that I'm quite sad that so few people seem to have seen any of the nominated films and that there is a staggeringly low interest in what happens Sunday night. 2005 was a great year for films, and each of the Best Picture nominees is worth a look, no matter what side of their issues you're on.

Mrs. Henderson Presents

Basic premise: Mrs. Henderson (Judi Dench) has recently been widowed. She and her friend discuss what she's going to do now, and the friend points out that now that she's unmarried she can get away with buying things. While driving around town one day, Laura Henderson finds the perfect thing to buy - the Windmill Theatre.

She knows nothing about show business, so she hires Vivian Van Damm (Bob Hoskins) - who is called "V.D." by his secretary and "Damm Van" by Laura - to run it for her. The theatre is a hit and soon revitalizes the entire neighborhood, but a lot more theatres pop up around town and the Windmill starts to lose money.

So Laura suggests that they have shows that feature nude girls. She must get approval for this, of course, from the Lord Chamberlain. He agrees, as long as the girls don't move at all. A bit of a snag, but workable. The search for the girls is a fairly interesting little plot, and soon enough they find five or six girls willing to disrobe onstage. The shows begin, and are naturally a huge success.

Like many of the movies I find myself falling in love with, this one is not what it seems at first. The first half of it is quintissential naughty British comedy. Judi Dench saying the "p" word is absolutely hysterical. But it's easy to forget that during all this World War 2 is going on. The film reminds you about halfway in, and from there on out it's quite a different story.

Laura's decision to start a nude review is not a whim. There is a very specific reason behind it, and while it may seem obscene, her motives are quite sweet and even admirable. And that's what gives the movie its juice, what makes you leave the theatre thinking about it. I really, really enjoyed this movie and it got me thinking about the use of nudity and sexuality in entertainment. But that's for another post. ;)

Match Point - Luck, Infidelity, and Dostoevsky

This is not your father's Woody Allen flick. The main reason for this is that it's not particularly funny. It is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a comedy. It's far more Crimes and Misdemeanors than Annie Hall, and it's actually even less funny than the former. But it's easy to forget how well Allen can do drama. And this is just about the best thing he's ever done, as far as I'm concerned.

Allow me to preface this by saying that I have found a new reason to love Woody Allen. Allen is clearly a fan of one of my two favorite novels, Crime and Punishment. At one point in the film, I was about to scream with glee at the sheer tonnage of homage. *feels weird talking about glee and Dostoevsky at the same time*

This movie is not what it appears to be in the advertisements, and it's one of those movies where the more you watch it, the more it surprises you. It starts slow, and seems more like a travelogue for London than a story. Then it becomes a fairly standard romance plot about two people drawn to each other but kept apart by their respective relationships. Then it turns into an infidelity plot. But in the third act it turns into something else altogether.

Jonathan Rhys Meyers (mmmm...) plays Chris, a former tennis pro who takes a job teaching. He soon befriends one of his puplis, Tom, and is invited to meet Tom's family for an evening at the opera. Chris spends more and more time with Tom's family and eventually becomes involved with his sister Chloe. And of course things get complicated when he meets Tom's lovely fiancee Nola. When Chris and Nola meet, you can see why they might be good together, were they not involved with other people. It's not just lust, though that's a major part of it. They have similar backgrounds and seem to understand each other. But they have one fundamental difference, and that is what takes their characters in different directions for the rest of the movie.

There are several different themes in the movie, but the one it's most interested in conveying is the concept of luck. The fairly well-known quote that it's "better to be lucky than good" opens the film, and that idea permeates much of the story. It's a lot like Crimes and Misdemeanors in that while money affects the destinies, the risings and fallings of the characters in C&D, luck determines the destinies of all of Match Point's characters. The ones that have it, rise; the ones that don't, fall.

There's an element of "be careful what you wish for" in the film as well. Chris goes to a lot of trouble to get what he wants, and when he gets it, whether it's a cushy, well-paying job or the affections of Nola, it's never what he thought it would be.

And then there's the Dostoevskian third act. Just ... wow. Can't say too much about it without spoiling it. Perhaps I've already said too much. :)

Did I mention that this is set in London? Another thing that makes it a different Woody Allen movie. And he shoots it with the same kind of love that he shoots Manhattan. The same amount of busy, the same kind of quirks, the same kind of urban beauty.

Match Point is definitely among the greatest films of 2005. It goes in directions you don't expect it to, and has lots of juicy characters with lots of flaws and neuroses. So ... maybe it's not that unusual for a Woody Allen movie after all.

Hostel

I have an interesting relationship with horror movies. When I was a kid, I couldn't see that many, because a)our family didn't have a lot of money to go see any movies, and b)my dad was a preacher (and a decided un-fan of scary movies), so I was very rarely exposed to them. I'm kind of a wuss about them, even now. But I can't help being fascinated by them, and trying them out to see how far I can go and how much I can take.

So it was with equal parts excitement and terror that I stepped into a darkened theater to see Eli Roth's Hostel. I'd heard all kinds of things about it. Guys on Ain't It Cool News were calling it "the scariest film in a decade." There were the William Castle-esque marketing gimmicks where paramedics had supposedly been called in because audience members were vomiting, going into cardiac arrest, or otherwise freaking out. And I'd had one of my favorite Christmas carols ruined by the latest TV ads. I had been pumped up about seeing this movie for months, but on the morning I had intended to see it, I started to get cold feet.

I'm not sure how much of the plot to give away. On the one hand, most of you are probably not likely to see this film unless under extreme duress. On the other, the movie does have quite a sucker punch that I was bummed had been ruined for me (and it was ruined in one of the first trailers).

Paxton and Josh are American college students who are backpacking through Europe. They meet up with their Icelandic friend Oli in Paris and the three of them go looking for adventure. They go to Amsterdam, but get bored with it pretty quickly, as it's "tourist"-y and there are too many Americans. They meet Alex, who tells them of a small town in Slovakia where there are lots of sex-starved girls and, because of the war, no men.

So the three horny college guys hop a train for Slovakia, and on the way they meet a strange guy who, because he's in a horror movie, is bound to reappear later. The guys arrive in this picture-perfect Eastern European village and check into the recommended hostel, which looks way too nice to be a hostel. They're bummed to learn that they will have roommates, but when these roommates turn out to be hot European chicks, it's all good.

All goes well for the next few hours. The guys head down to the spa, where they sit and talk to several beautiful undressed girls. They drink and dance at a disco and go back to their room to ... well, you can guess the rest. The next morning they wake up and discover that Oli never made it back to the room. They go to the front desk and find that he has checked out. They get a text message saying that he's gone home, with a picture he's apparently taken of himself via cell phone. We zoom in on Oli's face in the photo and transition to where he really is. The camera then pulls back to reveal Oli's severed head, sitting on a table, and his cell phone in the hand of a stranger. Welcome to hell.

What follows is a nightmare of trying to figure out what exactly is going on and trying to get out of a situation that's completely beyond the characters' comprehension. There are several scenes of brutal torture, most notably the "eye-gasm", but the real horror comes from the film's twist. If you've seen The Game or The Wicker Man, you can probably guess what this is without much difficulty. But it doesn't make it any less powerful, I don't think.

I've read lots of complaints about the film. Some people think it's over the top, but I disagree. I don't think it's as bloody as Re-Animator, for example. As much gore as there is, Roth still leaves a lot to your imagination. I've read one review that thinks the movie is homophobic, to which I say "Whaaaat?" There are those who think it's xenophobic - a stereotypical "stranger in a strange land" fable where all foreigners are evil. And there have been several complaints that the horror just isn't real enough, because you have the safety of thinking "Well, I'd never do what these characters did to get themselves into that situation, so it could never actually happen to me." There are two problems with this, though. First is that there are characters who end up being tortured who - as far as we know - did not come to the hostel for the same reasons our heroes, which raises the question "why are they being 'punished'?" Second, I think it's just as scary to think that this kind of thing could be happening right under your nose, even if it doesn't happen to you personally.

Like all films by and for film geeks, there are lots of influences from other great horror directors and films in Hostel. In style, it's very much like Italian horror from greats like Lucio Fulci (Zombie) and Dario Argento (Suspiria & Demons) - full-on gore and lots of nudity. In tone, it takes a lot from Takashi Miike (Audition), who incidentally has a short cameo in the film. It's definitely not for those who get literally and physically ill at the sight of blood. But if you think you can stand it, it's worth checking out.

Brokeback Mountain

Brokeback Mountain will likely turn out to be the movie to beat when the Oscars roll around in March. A lot of people who wouldn't be caught dead in a screening of this movie might think this is pandering, simply because of the controversial subject matter. But I sat in one of only two theaters showing Brokeback Mountain in the capital city of my "red state" home, and both theaters were packed to the gills on a weekday afternoon. If this movie goes home with any Oscars, it will most certainly have earned them.

This is not a gay cowboy movie. I don't even think the protagonists are necessarily "gay" at all. This is a tragic love story in the tradition of Casablanca, Romeo and Juliet, and The English Patient. Two people love each other deeply, and for whatever reason cannot be together. There's nothing special or controversial about Ennis and Jack's love story except that the reason they can't be together just happens to be that they're both men. It's surprisingly tender, beautiful and almost unbearably sad.

You probably know the basic story by now so I won't rehash. The pace of the movie is very deliberate - we get to know the characters before romance even enters the picture. You might find yourself thinking "Wait, wasn't there supposed to be a love scene in here somewhere?" It's definitely there, but you don't see it until the movie has earned the right to show it to you. By the time Ennis and Jack have their first awkward encounter, you care immensely about them and the love scene carries a lot of weight and emotion.

I'm wondering if there's a genre or time period that Ang Lee can't do. He seems to always get at the heart of whatever place or time he's showing us (Hulk notwithstanding). I suppose it didn't hurt this time around to have Larry McMurtry as one of the writers and executive producers. I think one of Lee's gifts is surrounding himself with people who know what they're doing. This obviously extends to the cast, and everyone in this movie is remarkable. But none more so than Heath Ledger.

I've never been a big fan of Heath Ledger. To me he was always just a pretty boy (and not even that pretty) with attitude. But his work in Brokeback Mountain is absolutely fantastic. Ennis is the heart of the movie and that heart breaks a little more every time you see him on the screen. Ennis is uneducated and grew up in a rather indifferent family environment. He's dirt poor and lives his whole life just a step or two behind desperation. It's a hard life, but he's accepted it. You can see how much he loves Jack, but he also knows the facts. He can't make a life with Jack because that kind of thing is just not tolerated in the world he lives in. It hurts, but that's the way it is. "If you can't fix it, you've gotta stand it," he tells Jack. And Ennis spends the entire movie standing it.

One of the big accomplishments of his performance - as well as the other actors' work - is that he and Gyllenhaal have to age twenty years over the course of the story. There's only so much hair and makeup can do if your actors don't have the talent to bring that off. But it really works in this movie, and you totally buy it. And I love watching Anne Hathaway age into the 1980s, feathered hair and all. :)

There are some pretty standard "tragic love story" plot developments, so they won't come as much of a surprise. The emotion of the end, though, is what really sells it as a love story. Particularly the "shirt" scene. There's a bit of this scene in the trailer (where Heath Ledger holds a shirt on a hanger and ... caresses it, for lack of a better word), but put into context it just blew me away. And I was already on my way home from the theater before I realized that it was two shirts - Jack's and Ennis's. Kind of a symbolic wedding, if you will, in Jack's closet (no pun intended). Wonderfully profound and moving.

I think part of the film's power is that people will take away different things from it, depending on what they bring to it. This is a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful movie. Great love story, great western, great all-around film.

The Producers

The Short Version:
If you like Mel Brooks' movies, you'll like this movie. Probably love it. I personally loved it (most of the time). It's a lot of fun, and is very humorous and entertaining. If Brooks is not your cup of tea, you probably won't like it.

The Longer Version:



The Good

* The classic Mel Brooks humor - the stuff that just makes you say "That is so RONG!" Bloom and his security blanket. Bialystock playing "The Virginal Milk Maid and the Well-Hung Stable Boy" with an 80-year-old woman. The pigeon named Adolf that does the Nazi salute.

* Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick - They know these parts backwards and inside out, and it still looks as if they love to play them. They have a great chemistry, and play off each other flawlessly.

* Will Ferrell - HILARIOUS (as always). The strange thing is that he doesn't seem like he's doing "another wacky Will Ferrell character." And that's a good thing.

* Uma Thurman - Wonderful. She's not really well known for comedy, but she does the screwball sex goddess role remarkably well.

* Jon Lovitz - Let me preface this by saying that I normally *hate* this guy. But he was gold in this movie. Only in a couple of scenes, but he steals the spotlight in both. And he delivers possibly the funniest line in the film ("I can smell the stench of self-esteem.")

* "I Wanna Be a Producer", "Along Came Bialy", "When You Got It, Flaunt It", "That Face", and "Keep It Gay" - great, great musical numbers.

* The entire Springtime For Hitler sequence - very well done and hysterically funny. "Heil Myself" ... *dies*

* I sort of enjoyed how the movie played like an old-school movie musical. They don't all have to have a clever cinematic hook like Chicago. Hitchcock once said (in answer to a question about Dial M For Murder) that when you're doing a film of a hit play, you shouldn't try to open it up and make it too cinematic, because all you're really adding to it is cars arriving at places, people getting out, and other similar trivialities. I think the same philosophy applies to this movie.

The Bad

* Opening number - Painfully bad, cardboard stiff, and it set the tone for the movie being little more than a filmed stage play. There's nothing really wrong with simply filming a stage play, but you should give the sets and numbers a little more depth. The opening number literally looks like all of the actors are merely on a stage, in front of a painted backdrop, singing the song. Awful.

* "Betrayed" - Gah. Also painfully bad. It's supposed to be a clever little recap of the movie up to that point, but it doesn't really work. Would probably have been better if Lane were actually directing this to another character instead of playing to the camera.

The Meh

* The movie is very funny, but I can't help wondering if the idea is a little dated. I suspect that the original film with Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder was much more daring when it premiered in 1968. And making light of a sensitive subject (especially the Nazis) is not that original anymore. Since the original film came out, the world has seen "Hogan's Heroes", the Soup Nazi, and Eric Cartman dressed as Hitler for Halloween. The original gag has lost some of its punch.

* I said above that there's nothing really wrong with filming a stage play pretty much as-is. But if you do it, there should at least be a small attempt to camoflauge the fact that you're doing it. Susan Stroman, being a choreographer and having no directorial experience except for TV broadcasts of stage plays, doesn't seem to be able to do this. She is an amazing choreographer, to be sure, and I think she would have worked well as a co-director - in the way that Jerome Robbins was co-director of West Side Story. But there really needs to be someone in charge who knows how to make a movie look like a movie.

So, lots to like, and only a couple of truly weak spots. This one probably plays better on the big screen than it will on DVD, since it sort of gives you the experience of seeing the show on stage.