I recently went looking for “Dead Poet’s Society” on DVD – you know, because it’s a good movie – and found it bundled with “Good Morning Vietnam”. I like Robin Williams and all, but wasn’t sure about the double bill. For $4.99 I couldn’t pass it up. 2 movies for 5 dollars. Wow.
So I watched DPS first. The first thing that struck me is the ‘transfer’ was not the greatest. On a DVD you’d like to see a nice crisp picture. This looks like someone hit the record button on the DVD and the play button on a VCR. It was good enough, I guess. I can’t argue with the $5 price.
The movie deals with a new English teacher at a staunchtly-disciplined prep school in the late 50’s. He is teaching the young men to be independent thinkers when the establishment wants none of that. Conservatism be damned, this group of boys strikes out with as much gusto as they can muster and they dare to flaunt the rules – sometimes with great success and sometimes with fatal results.
I love the landscape paintbrush the director uses. If memory serves, this film was shot in Delaware, in the winter, so the snowfall was authentic. There is love, lust, drinking, partying, breaking the rules, music, life, sport and great humanity to be found in this film. There is also great humor.
One of my favorite scenes in this movie comes at the expense of an aerodynamic desk set that one of the young men receives from his parents – again. It’s not really a spoiler to tell you that the desk set is thrown off a bridge and is scattered.
In the end, Mr. Keating (played by Robin Williams) reaches these boys, really reaches them as they make their way in the world. If offered, see it. As I recall when I saw it in the theater they threw it in as a double feature with another movie but I can’t recall what that other movie was.
The other half of the set is “Good Morning Vietnam”, a true life story of Airman Adrian Cronauer during the Vietnam ‘conflict’. He is assigned to AFRS (Armed Forces Radio, Saigon) and shakes things up – to the dismay of the establishment. Huh, didn’t really see a tie between the two movies but, there you have it.
The one thought I DID have during this movie is: “I wonder if they’ll make as many movies of the Gulf War as they have made/will make of Vietnam”.
In this movie, Cronauer steps on one too many toes and gets in hot water. The troops love him but his direct superiors do not – and they make that abundantly clear.
For some reason I remember this movie being funnier when I had seen it before. Maybe I’m just in a different mood. It could have been because I had seen it before and knew what was coming. Not sure. Still a halfway decent movie to watch (for $5) when there is nothing on TV.
That’s the one bad thing about summer – terrible TV. I understand why the networks do it. The actors need a break as well as the writers and all the other TV production staff. Then there are the ‘summer series’… you know, those shows the networks didn’t feel confident enough about to put on the fall schedule. People are sitting on the beach drinking pina colada’s – they don’t care about TV right now.
I suppose it’s a good time to catch up on any episodes you missed during the regular season. The problem there is that with DVD sales of an entire season of shows, some people would rather wait on those and watch the episodes uninterrupted.
I actually watched this past season’s episodes of “Grey’s Anatomy” on line. Not just one or two of them – the entire season. I watch some other shows on Thursday night when it originally airs so that was easier for me. I used to TiVo the shows but they kept running 1 or 2 minutes long and would get cut off by the show I was taping after that came on a different channel. I really don’t like it when shows do that. Anyhow, problem solved by watching it online and the commercials are pretty easy to get around.
So I watched DPS first. The first thing that struck me is the ‘transfer’ was not the greatest. On a DVD you’d like to see a nice crisp picture. This looks like someone hit the record button on the DVD and the play button on a VCR. It was good enough, I guess. I can’t argue with the $5 price.
The movie deals with a new English teacher at a staunchtly-disciplined prep school in the late 50’s. He is teaching the young men to be independent thinkers when the establishment wants none of that. Conservatism be damned, this group of boys strikes out with as much gusto as they can muster and they dare to flaunt the rules – sometimes with great success and sometimes with fatal results.
I love the landscape paintbrush the director uses. If memory serves, this film was shot in Delaware, in the winter, so the snowfall was authentic. There is love, lust, drinking, partying, breaking the rules, music, life, sport and great humanity to be found in this film. There is also great humor.
One of my favorite scenes in this movie comes at the expense of an aerodynamic desk set that one of the young men receives from his parents – again. It’s not really a spoiler to tell you that the desk set is thrown off a bridge and is scattered.
In the end, Mr. Keating (played by Robin Williams) reaches these boys, really reaches them as they make their way in the world. If offered, see it. As I recall when I saw it in the theater they threw it in as a double feature with another movie but I can’t recall what that other movie was.
The other half of the set is “Good Morning Vietnam”, a true life story of Airman Adrian Cronauer during the Vietnam ‘conflict’. He is assigned to AFRS (Armed Forces Radio, Saigon) and shakes things up – to the dismay of the establishment. Huh, didn’t really see a tie between the two movies but, there you have it.
The one thought I DID have during this movie is: “I wonder if they’ll make as many movies of the Gulf War as they have made/will make of Vietnam”.
In this movie, Cronauer steps on one too many toes and gets in hot water. The troops love him but his direct superiors do not – and they make that abundantly clear.
For some reason I remember this movie being funnier when I had seen it before. Maybe I’m just in a different mood. It could have been because I had seen it before and knew what was coming. Not sure. Still a halfway decent movie to watch (for $5) when there is nothing on TV.
That’s the one bad thing about summer – terrible TV. I understand why the networks do it. The actors need a break as well as the writers and all the other TV production staff. Then there are the ‘summer series’… you know, those shows the networks didn’t feel confident enough about to put on the fall schedule. People are sitting on the beach drinking pina colada’s – they don’t care about TV right now.
I suppose it’s a good time to catch up on any episodes you missed during the regular season. The problem there is that with DVD sales of an entire season of shows, some people would rather wait on those and watch the episodes uninterrupted.
I actually watched this past season’s episodes of “Grey’s Anatomy” on line. Not just one or two of them – the entire season. I watch some other shows on Thursday night when it originally airs so that was easier for me. I used to TiVo the shows but they kept running 1 or 2 minutes long and would get cut off by the show I was taping after that came on a different channel. I really don’t like it when shows do that. Anyhow, problem solved by watching it online and the commercials are pretty easy to get around.
Oh, yea… so… uh, Robin Williams.
Double feature.
Watched it.
Already said that.
Anything else?
Nope.