First Flight
Added 2/25/2010
This is a review of the DVD Elegy, although I also comment on the reviews. I've been reading Amazon reviews for about a dozen years now for all types of products and for any collection of reviews of a story told in any medium, I think the reviews of this product, the DVD Elegy, are the most interesting. Read them.
This Elegy DVD in sum, including the commentary, I rate at four stars.
Two stars for the director, a third star for the actors (Ben Kingsley, Dennis Hopper, Peter Sarsgaard, and Patricia Clarkson) and writers (Philip Roth's novella The Dying Animal, the third in a series about the fictional Professor David Kepesh, as adapted by screenwriter Nicholas Meyer), and the fourth star is for Nicholas Meyer's DVD commentary.
So, to clarify, this film, for most viewers, is two stars. Elegy is a thumbs down if you are looking for entertainment. However, if you are a viewer looking for a film giving you painful truth, then this movie is four stars -- it will give you painful truth. (Most people have enough painful truth in their own life and seek escape in film, not a mirror of life.)
For actors and writers interested in film study, this film is three stars leaning toward four. There is much here to learn from.
But, because of Nicholas Meyer's commentary, this DVD -- and this is a review of the DVD -- this is four stars, leaning toward five.
Meyer's commentary, if rated alone, is five stars. Bravo.
Nicholas Meyer is one of his era's most successful, and in my view least appreciated, writers and directors. He hit a home run his first time up at bat with his first novel, The Seven Percent Solution. He became a wonderful director and saved the Star Trek franchise. I recommend his memoir The View From the Bridge.
Philip Roth is another of his era's most successful writers. He also was successful with his first book, though he has had critical recognition (mostly praise) for fifty years.
I admit an inconsistency in providing a review, because, like most writers, I don't read reviews of my own work. I don't have a time machine and can't go back and change something even if I wish I could. As an author, reviews AFTER publication are not helpful because I've already had a tremendous amount of feedback. This is because before every commercial book is published, and before every commercial movie is broadcast or distributed, before any review by public or critic, the work already went through a MONUMENTAL vetting process and was approved by many proven, experienced people, more than most readers and viewers even suspect. The consensus of these experienced people was that the book should be published or movie should be shown just as it was.
In my view every movie and book is like the flight of a new airplane (and I worked in the aircraft industry for many years) and on that basis alone merits applause and recognition, at least as much as an aircraft's first flight.
Robert Beattie
New York Times bestselling author
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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"Old age is not for sissies."
Added 2/11/2010
62-year old professor David (Ben Kingsley) despairs the unfairness of growing old while still desiring carnal pleasures. He finds one of his students, a 24-year old beauty named Consuela (Penelope Cruz) to be especially alluring and breaks a rule to go out with her; they fall in love.
An elegy is a nostalgic or melancholy musical piece or poem lamenting death, and that sums up the theme of this movie. Based on a novel by Phillip Roth, it explores a man's many regrets, failings, and losses. The film starts out quite nicely with the couple's initial attraction, but the second half falls apart with a shallow story and boring dialogue delivered at a snail's pace. (It's at least half an hour too long.) The idea of an older man and younger woman being attracted to each other isn't noteworthy these days and there isn't a lot going on here.
Kingsley gives an excellent performance as the refined and horny professor and Cruz is very appealing as a strong, sensual young woman, but the script fails them. The director tried very hard to make this an intimate art house-type film with lingering close-ups, long silences, and moody music, but in the end there's nothing very engaging or touching about David and his problems.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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Don't grow old Grow up
Added 1/16/2010
Based on the book`The Dying Animal' by Philip Roth. Ben Kingsley is David Kepesh an aging professor who is free of any romantic and family connections. He is a college professor and is supposedly a cultural authority on what should be read and heard. He has had many relationships until Consuela, the daughter of Cuban immigrants stirs up his romantic interest. Patricia Clarkson is his part time lover and Dennis Hopper plays his confidante and friend. The film's main theme is about the decisions we make and confronting aging and death. Kingley's relationship with his son is mature and cold hearted at the same time. Penelope Cruz and Kingsley display some chemistry and emotion. The music is beautiful, and some of the pieces warrant a second hearing on CD. The scenes at the end are touching and brilliantly acted. However it failed to move me and so did the rest of the movie. I enjoyed the acting and would give it 3 stars. 1/15/10
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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a love story
Added 11/27/2009
An older successful man has a affair with his beautiful student.
Unlike his previous history this student is different
and he becomes attached.
The movie moves slowly and has some pretty explicit love scenes
and nudity.
Ben Kingsley's acting is very expressive,
but the theme of older men and younger women
is probably not one most young people would find very interesting.
The only redeeming feature is that the movie ends with
a good result.
1 out of 2 people found this helpful.
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Sterile and pointless
Added 11/6/2009
Ben Kingsley, as aging English Professor David Kepesh, acts his way somnabulantly through this unremarkable adaptation of Philip Roth's novella.
It's easy to detect when a movie is aimed deliberately at the "National Public Radio" crowd. Scenes in this movie repeatedly visit squash courts and an eatery advertising "Gelato and Pastries". Musical selections crop up with deadly predictability--most prominently, some selections from French composer Erik Satie. Okay, we get it, this character is an intellectual and he's well-versed in the schtick that comes with it, down to the raging self-doubts. If it sounds tiresome---yes, it definitely is.
It's up to Kingsley to carry the movie, and his performance is flat. There are so many shots of the back of his bald pate that maybe Patrick Stewart could have been used as a stand-in--or Donald Pleasance, were he still alive. Penelope Cruz seems miscast for the most part, though her character becomes more striking after she disappears for a while and returns with a short, Nastassia Kinski-esque hairdo.
But, the surest sign that this movie fails is the fact that the scenes intended to be the most poignant also are faintly ridiculous, as when Dennis Hopper's character dies, and when Cruz poses for a "pre-mastectomy portrait". I blame this on the director, who failed to elicit more than rote performances from a fine group of actors, and failed to enliven a predictable script.
3 out of 6 people found this helpful.
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First Flight
Added 2/25/2010
This is a review of the DVD Elegy, although I also comment on the reviews. I've been reading Amazon reviews for about a dozen years now for all types of products and for any collection of reviews of a story told in any medium, I think the reviews of this product, the DVD Elegy, are the most interesting. Read them.
This Elegy DVD in sum, including the commentary, I rate at four stars.
Two stars for the director, a third star for the actors (Ben Kingsley, Dennis Hopper, Peter Sarsgaard, and Patricia Clarkson) and writers (Philip Roth's novella The Dying Animal, the third in a series about the fictional Professor David Kepesh, as adapted by screenwriter Nicholas Meyer), and the fourth star is for Nicholas Meyer's DVD commentary.
So, to clarify, this film, for most viewers, is two stars. Elegy is a thumbs down if you are looking for entertainment. However, if you are a viewer looking for a film giving you painful truth, then this movie is four stars -- it will give you painful truth. (Most people have enough painful truth in their own life and seek escape in film, not a mirror of life.)
For actors and writers interested in film study, this film is three stars leaning toward four. There is much here to learn from.
But, because of Nicholas Meyer's commentary, this DVD -- and this is a review of the DVD -- this is four stars, leaning toward five.
Meyer's commentary, if rated alone, is five stars. Bravo.
Nicholas Meyer is one of his era's most successful, and in my view least appreciated, writers and directors. He hit a home run his first time up at bat with his first novel, The Seven Percent Solution. He became a wonderful director and saved the Star Trek franchise. I recommend his memoir The View From the Bridge.
Philip Roth is another of his era's most successful writers. He also was successful with his first book, though he has had critical recognition (mostly praise) for fifty years.
I admit an inconsistency in providing a review, because, like most writers, I don't read reviews of my own work. I don't have a time machine and can't go back and change something even if I wish I could. As an author, reviews AFTER publication are not helpful because I've already had a tremendous amount of feedback. This is because before every commercial book is published, and before every commercial movie is broadcast or distributed, before any review by public or critic, the work already went through a MONUMENTAL vetting process and was approved by many proven, experienced people, more than most readers and viewers even suspect. The consensus of these experienced people was that the book should be published or movie should be shown just as it was.
In my view every movie and book is like the flight of a new airplane (and I worked in the aircraft industry for many years) and on that basis alone merits applause and recognition, at least as much as an aircraft's first flight.
Robert Beattie
New York Times bestselling author
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
"Old age is not for sissies."
Added 2/11/2010
62-year old professor David (Ben Kingsley) despairs the unfairness of growing old while still desiring carnal pleasures. He finds one of his students, a 24-year old beauty named Consuela (Penelope Cruz) to be especially alluring and breaks a rule to go out with her; they fall in love.
An elegy is a nostalgic or melancholy musical piece or poem lamenting death, and that sums up the theme of this movie. Based on a novel by Phillip Roth, it explores a man's many regrets, failings, and losses. The film starts out quite nicely with the couple's initial attraction, but the second half falls apart with a shallow story and boring dialogue delivered at a snail's pace. (It's at least half an hour too long.) The idea of an older man and younger woman being attracted to each other isn't noteworthy these days and there isn't a lot going on here.
Kingsley gives an excellent performance as the refined and horny professor and Cruz is very appealing as a strong, sensual young woman, but the script fails them. The director tried very hard to make this an intimate art house-type film with lingering close-ups, long silences, and moody music, but in the end there's nothing very engaging or touching about David and his problems.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
Don't grow old Grow up
Added 1/16/2010
Based on the book`The Dying Animal' by Philip Roth. Ben Kingsley is David Kepesh an aging professor who is free of any romantic and family connections. He is a college professor and is supposedly a cultural authority on what should be read and heard. He has had many relationships until Consuela, the daughter of Cuban immigrants stirs up his romantic interest. Patricia Clarkson is his part time lover and Dennis Hopper plays his confidante and friend. The film's main theme is about the decisions we make and confronting aging and death. Kingley's relationship with his son is mature and cold hearted at the same time. Penelope Cruz and Kingsley display some chemistry and emotion. The music is beautiful, and some of the pieces warrant a second hearing on CD. The scenes at the end are touching and brilliantly acted. However it failed to move me and so did the rest of the movie. I enjoyed the acting and would give it 3 stars. 1/15/10
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
