Amazon.com Essentials:
Mel Gibson's Oscar-winning 1995 Braveheart is an
impassioned epic about William Wallace, the 13th-century Scottish
leader of a popular revolt against England's tyrannical Edward I
(Patrick McGoohan). Gibson cannily plays Wallace as a man trying to
stay out of history's way until events force his hand, an attribute
that instantly resonates with several of the actor's best-known roles,
especially Mad
Max. The subsequent camaraderie and courage Wallace shares in
the field with fellow warriors is pure enough and inspiring enough to
bring envy to a viewer, and even as things go wrong for Wallace in the
second half, the film does not easily cave in to a somber tone. One of
the most impressive elements is the originality with which Gibson
films battle scenes, featuring hundreds of extras wielding medieval
weapons. After Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky,
Orson Welles's Chimes
at Midnight, and even Kenneth Branagh's Henry V, you might
think there is little new that could be done in creating scenes of
ancient combat; yet Gibson does it. --Tom Keogh
Amazon.com Essentials:
A stupendous historical saga, Braveheart won five
Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director for star Mel
Gibson. He plays William Wallace, a 13th-century Scottish commoner who
unites the various clans against a cruel English King, Edward the
Longshanks (Patrick McGoohan). The scenes of hand-to-hand combat are
brutally violent, but they never glorify the bloodshed. There is such
enormous scope to this story that it works on a smaller, more personal
scale as well, essaying love and loss, patriotism and
passion. Extremely moving, it reveals Gibson as a multitalented
performer and remarkable director with an eye for detail and an
understanding of human emotion. (His first directorial effort was
1993's Man Without a
Face.) The film is nearly three hours long and includes
several plot tangents, yet is never dull. This movie resonates long
after you have seen it, both for its visual beauty and for its
powerful story. --Rochelle O'Gorman
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
