Amazon.com Essentials:
Jingoism, beefcake, military hardware, and a Giorgio Moroder
rock score reign supreme over taste and logic in this Tony Scott film
about a maverick trainee pilot (Tom Cruise) who can't follow the rules
at a Navy aviation training facility. The dogfight sequences between
American and Libyan jets at the end are absolutely mechanical, though
audiences loved it at the time. The love story between Cruise's
character and that of Kelly McGillis is like flipping through pages of
advertising in a glossy magazine. This designer action movie from 1986
would be all the more appalling were it not for the canny casting of
good actors in dumb parts. Standouts include Anthony Edwards--who
makes a nice impression as Cruise's average-Joe pal--and the
relatively unknown Meg Ryan in a small but memorable appearance. The
DVD release has optional full-screen and widescreen presentations,
optional French soundtrack, optional Spanish subtitles, and closed
captioning. --Tom Keogh
Amazon.com video review:
Jumping on to the end-of-the-century bandwagon a little early,
Paramount Pictures released 10 of their top films in one 10-pack, the
Millennium Collection, in 1998. All the films are presented in their
widescreen editions; one, Breakfast at
Tiffany's, is offered in this format for the first time. The
set includes 5 Best Picture Oscar winners and films that took home an
additional 33 Academy Awards. All the tapes are available to buy
individually. The pack, with a handsome mosaic of faces from the
movies, also features collector gift cards (a movie version of
baseball cards) and a commemorative booklet detailing the productions
of all 10 films. The collection is oddly weighted toward the last 25
years, offering only one film from the 1950s and one from the
1960s. Your taste in current cinema will define the value of the
set. Besides Tiffany's, one of Audrey Hepburn's finest films,
the collection contains: The Ten Commandments
with Charlton Heston, Grease with John
Travolta, Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now and
The Godfather,
the funny, whale-saving Star Trek IV--The Voyage
Home, Tom Cruise's hit Top Gun, the smash
hit Ghost with
Demi Moore, Mel Gibson's Celt fest Braveheart, and Forrest Gump with
Tom Hanks. --Doug Thomas
