Shirley Valentine

Amazon.com

As movie midlife crises go, Shirley Valentine's is a doozy. A bored Northern England housewife, wondering what her life is about and how to navigate around her clueless husband, Shirley would be at her wits' end--except that she knows how to dream big. As played by the incomparable Pauline Collins (who created the role on Broadway, and won a Tony for it), Shirley embraces not only her own constricted life, but the dreams of the big, beautiful world beyond it.

Directed by Lewis Gilbert (Educating Rita), Shirley Valentine is an anthem to the freedom of the soul--with a generous dose of salt of the earth. As she assesses her life, Shirley's humor never fails her: "I think sex is like supermarkets, you know, overrated. Just a lot of pushing and shoving and you still come out with very little at the end." Yet Collins' Shirley gets as much out of defending her right to her dream (a sunny holiday in Greece) as she does realizing it, and that makes for much of the glow of the film. For while Shirley has a cinematic romance on her vacation (Tom Conti plays the dreamboat), the affair is more of a metaphor for what Shirley insists on having in her real daily life. Watch for Joanna Lumley in a delicious cameo, pre-Ab Fab. And embrace this Valentine, and share it with those you love, all year round. --A.T. Hurley

Stills from Shirley Valentine (click for larger image)

Product Description

In the role that won her Broadway's acclaimed Tony Award, Pauline Collins is the hilariously endearing Shirley Valentine, a wisecracking, completely unpredictable English housewife who proves it's never too late to recapture your dreams. Bored with her suburban life, Shirley takes a chance on adventure when a friend invites her on a vacation to Greece. Within no time she's back to her rebellious teenage roots, saying yes to a wild fling with a handsome rogue (Tom Conti) and the life she's always wanted.

Customer Reviews:

Inspiring and witty.......2007-09-14

Pauline Collins does a fantastic job of portraying this middle-aged, bored woman who finds a new life on a Greek island, away from the dreary and mundane existence of her home in England.
She becomes the person she had once been, but only after she leaves her present life behind. When she jumps into the ocean from the boat, it's the start of her transformation.
Sometimes I think I should do the same!

Absolutely wonderful movie.......2007-08-23

I saw this movie years ago and it is as wonderful as I remembered. It is not a "chick" movie. We all have regrets when we look at our lives in middle age. Shirley gets a chance to escape her boring life and reclaim her true fun-loving nature by living out one of her youthful dreams - a trip to Greece. Both Tom Conti and Pauline Collins are perfectly cast.

Shirley Valetine.......2007-08-23

Quite intertaining. Probably more of a 'Chick-Flik' then not, but I would still recommend it. Quite humorous.

Dean475

Reviewing Shirley.......2007-08-10

One of my all time favorites. From the opening song to the closing scene. If you're not inspired by this movie, you need to rewatch it.

Never a disappointment.......2007-08-07

Finally a DVD viewable in the USA. This movie is a favorite of mine, warm, funny, with heart. All positive comments about it are true. I don't have much to add, but it deserves the five-star rating, and more.

Average customer rating:

Simply hilarious
Fun movie to watch
Great Family Movie
Fantastic movie!
Doris Day, you still got it!!

With Six You Get Eggroll
Starring: Doris Day , Brian Keith , Pat Carroll , Barbara Hershey , and George Carlin
Director: Howard Morris
Manufacturer: Paramount
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ASIN: B0007TKHFW
Release Date: 2005-05-03

Amazon.com

After her long and wholesome run as America's Sweetheart, Doris Day quit movies with this well-scrubbed picture. With Six You Get Eggroll--oof, what a title--caught the wave of blended-family comedies, coming just after Yours, Mine and Ours and just before TV's The Brady Bunch. Doris has three sons, and new beau Brian Keith has an 18-year-old daughter (the still-baby-faced Barbara Hershey). It's family-friendly sitcom stuff, with both Day and Keith doing their comfortable, patented thing; when the two of them are onscreen together it's like watching a couple of old sweaters mate. This one is straight formula for fans only, although connoisseurs of camp will enjoy the whiff of Aquarius in the otherwise square proceedings (it was 1968, after all) when Doris goes to a nightclub where the Grass Roots are playing. There's also a hippie gang (featuring Jamie Farr and William Christopher, before M*A*S*H) with ponchos and love beads. The times they were a-changin', and kudos to Day for bowing out gracefully. --Robert Horton

Description

In WITH SIX YOU GET EGGROLL, Abby McClure, a widow with three sons, and Jake Iverson, a widower with a teen-age daughter, begin dating and eventually decide to get married. But they're not prepared for the hostile reactions from their children, who are not very excited about the new union between the two families.

Customer Reviews:

Simply hilarious.......2007-07-12

The team of Doris Day and Brian Keith is perfect in this film. It is a really funny movie. One that you can just put in and watch when you want to relax and have a good laugh.

Fun movie to watch.......2007-06-08

I grew up in the 60's and 70's and especially love to watch old movies and shows from back then. This movie is so fun to watch when you can't find anything on tv to watch in evenings! I especially dislike what's on tv now....reality shows. So the other night I enjoyed this movie all over again.

Great Family Movie.......2007-05-14

This is a great family movie. They don't make movies like this anymore. You can let your kids watch it without worrying about what might be in the movie that is inappropriate for children. This was one of my favorite movies to watch as a kid.

Fantastic movie!.......2007-05-13

This is simply a timeless classic - though many laughs with the hippie age of the late 60's and early 70's, a great movie with Doris Day, Brian Keith, Jackie Joseph, and other all-star talent. The frustrations of two widowers trying to blend a family, each with children of their own, is hilarious, as well as though-provoking. This is a great movie to have in your library to watch over and over again, as well as the book.

Doris Day, you still got it!!.......2007-04-11

What a delightful comedy!! For the time, it really told the story of blending families, and telling of realistic events that occur!!!
Loved the ending and how it came about, made me feel like my family wasn't the only one with these issues!! Highly recommend to all!!

Average customer rating:

Mono no aware
A great movie is a great movie.
The end of Noriko's spring...
Ozu's Late Spring
A zephyr's touch

Late Spring - Criterion Collection
Starring: Chishu Ryu , Setsuko Hara , Yumeji Tsukioka , Haruko Sugimura , and Hohi Aoki
Director: Yasujiro Ozu , and Wim Wenders
Manufacturer: Criterion
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ASIN: B000EOTWIS
Release Date: 2006-05-09

Amazon.com

A masterpiece of postwar Japanese cinema, Yasujiro Ozu's Late Spring serves as an elegant primer for many of the themes that would define Ozu's later career. As with other Ozu classics, this is a calm, meditative drama about the dynamics of family, in this case the inevitable separation of 56-year-old father and widower Shukichi (Chishu Ryu) and his adult daughter Noriko (Setsuko Hara), who is content to care for her father and remain unmarried, despite the urging of friends and relatives to find a suitable husband. There are some viable candidates, and several attempts at matchmaking, but the likeliest match is a man who's already engaged. Noriko simply wishes for things to remain as they are, but when she does eventually marry a handsome chemist who "looks like Gary Cooper," Ozu's drama remains intimately focused on the subtle emotions at play; there's not a scene or sequence that feels out of place, and Late Spring serves a secondary function as a light and lively portrait of post-war Japan, as hints of Western influence (like a Coca-Cola sign in one of the film's most memorable scenes) that signal Japan's transition toward a modern commercial economy. Most of all, however, Late Spring is a carefully observed and quietly heartbreaking story of a parent who yearns to set things right for his daughter who must balance her father's love with her own prospects for a fulfilling future. And while Ozu would go on to examine familial issues in later, equally noteworthy films, Late Spring represents a milestone that would ensure Ozu his rightful place among the greatest of all Japanese directors. --Jeff Shannon

On the DVDs
Criterion's release of Late Spring contains a few minor flaws in terms of image quality (such as occasional emulsion scratches), but viewers can rest assured that this DVD was mastered from the finest available materials, and the film looks very good considering the conditions of post-war Japan that were typically harsh on films of that period. The "windowbox" framing format accurately preserves the film's original 1.33:1 aspect ratio. There's a new and improved English subtitle translation, and the audio commentary by Richard Peña (an Ozu expert and program director of New York's Film Society of Lincoln Center) emphasizes the literary traditions that inform Ozu's films, in addition to the director's signature fixed-camera, low-angle style. Disc 2 includes Tokyo-ga, the 1985 feature by German director (and avid Ozu admirer) Wim Wenders. It's a tribute to Ozu's Japan, in which Wenders wanders the city searching for remnants of Tokyo as seen in Ozu's films, including interviews with Late Spring actor Chishu Ryu and Ozu's long-time cameraman Yuharu Atsuta. In keeping with Criterion tradition, a 21-page booklet is also included, containing informative essays by critic Michael Atkinson and renowned Japanese-film historian Donald Richie. --Jeff Shannon

Description

The first of a series of intimate family portraits that would cement Yasujiro Ozu's reputation as one of the most important directors in cinema history, Late Spring tells the story of a widowed father who feels compelled to marry off his only, beloved daughter. In the hands of two of the director's finest actors—Chishu Ryu and Setsuko Hara—this poignant tale of love and loss in postwar Japan remains as potent and meaningful today as ever.

Customer Reviews:

Mono no aware.......2007-08-26

The always-luminous Setsuko Hara shines even more brightly here with marvelous touches of humor, pathos, her trademark smile, and beautiful five-centimeter eyes. She's onscreen much more than in "Tokyo Story" and plays this Noriko with great depth of feeling.

Chishu Ryu is wonderful as the father and all of the supporting characters hit their marks at perfect pitch.

It's just a lovely, satisfying piece of filmmaking. There should be a shrine to Ozu in every movie-making city in the world.

A great movie is a great movie........2007-07-28

I don't understand why people assume that a movie that is routinely listed as one of the ten best movies ever made must be boring. Movies are a democratic art form- you have to assume that a good movie is actually, you know, GOOD. So listen up: this is a good movie. Ozu is interested in family, love, aging, and responsibility. Just like you. His actors are fabulous. The scenery is beautiful. You will remember this movie forever. So shut up about the subtitles.

The end of Noriko's spring..........2007-07-26

Late Spring, or Banshun is another of Japanese director Ozu Yasujiro's portraits and commentaries on Japanese social life. The widowed Professor Somiya lives in Kamakura with his daughter Noriko, who is 27. That is way past normal marrying age for Japanese women, and when his sister says something should be done about it, the wheels are set in motion for the destruction of Noriko's harmonious world. Looking after her father, seeing to the cleaning and cooking, is the happiest moment of her life. She enjoys herself in her free time, whether it's going to Tokyo or biking to the beach with Hattori, the dashing young assistant of her father. Marriage is the last thing on her mind, as she still values her independence, but feels that she alone knows her father's set ways and it's best if she stays with him.

Noriko's own observations of marriage include that of Professor Onodera, a colleague of her father's who has remarried. For some reason she thinks it's wrong and calls him indecent, which he laughs off. Like Onodera's daughter Misako, Noriko seems to think that "marriage is the life's graveyard." Her classmate Aya is divorced and working as a stenographer. Though disappointed with the experience, using a baseball metaphor, she optimistically thinks she will hit a home run next time.

However, Noriko's pushy aunt plans to get her niece married off as soon as possible, even cooking up a plan where her brother plans to marry a certain Ms. Miwa. With Ms. Miwa as woman of the house, Noriko won't be of any use. She even sets up an arranged marriage meeting or omiai, a match for Noriko. This upsets Noriko to no end, and even finds her friend Aya forcing her to get married. The way Noriko avoids the issue, whether changing the subject or getting upset is truly childlike. From a Westerner's point of view, one might sympathetically think, "Well, why not let her stay on and heck with tradition?" But with the Japanese, one must follow the custom and expectations according to their role, in "the order of human life in history." Omiai is much akin to the arranged marriages of the noble European families, who married for political alliances and not love, and there is the concept of marrying into a good family and a man in a great social standing, jobwise; in other words, it's more economic consideration.

Professor Somiya's gentle with his daughter, tender even. His talk of happiness in marriage is spoken from a Japanese cultural perspective, but it does give one pause. "Marriage may not mean happiness from the start. To expect such immediate happiness is a mistake. Happiness isn't something you wait around for. It's something you create yourself. Getting married isn't happiness. Happiness lies in the forging of a new life shared together. ... Happiness comes only through effort. Only then can you claim to be man and wife."

There's a thoughtful scene when Onodera and Somiya contemplate the Zen rock garden at a Kyoto temple. Somiya says on the pointlessness of having a daughter. "You raise them up and off they go. If they're unwed, you worry. Yet if they do marry, you feel let down." "But didn't we marry other men's daughters?" points out Onodera.

As in all of Ozu's post-war films, Late Spring features the regular cast of performers he used in Ohayou and Tokyo Monogatari, to name a few. At this point, Hara Setsuko-san is the most beautiful Japanese actress I've seen. With a class and elegance, I see her as Japan's Audrey Hepburn, full of expression in that dazzling smile, but equally expressive in that dark scowl of hers.

Note: when Professors Onodera and Somiya are discussing directions of Tokyo, the ocean, and the shrine relative to Kamakura, instead of the word shrine, the word "hachiman" is used, meaning the famed Hachimangu Shrine inbetween Kita-Kamakura and Kamakura stations.

Ryu Chishu plays a kindly role as Noriko's father. Other Ozu players that appear include Sugimura Haruko as Noriko's aunt and Miyake Kuniko as Ms. Miwa. In Ozu's Ohayou (Good Morning), Ryu and Miyake play husband and wife, and parents to the kids who demand a TV.

With Ohayou, I was taken by Ozu's commentary on Japanese society, but with Banshun, a classic I'd like to watch over and over, I realized that his films harken more to the heart of Japan than Kurosawa Akira.

Ozu's Late Spring.......2007-06-25

A lovingly crafted fable about family relations in mid-century Japan, "Late Spring" is a testament to Ozu's elegant visual style and tranquil humanism. Two of his favorite actors, Ryu and the resplendent Hara, have an especially beautiful rapport in this touching story of sacrifice, which hinges on Noriko's cheerful willingness to forego freedom, and Somiya's desire to see Noriko married, though he knows he'll lead a lonely life without her. With consummate skill, Ozu uses shots of parks, walkways, and gardens to illustrate his characters' emotional states. Poignant and languorously paced, this is a masterful study of father-daughter affection.

A zephyr's touch.......2007-06-23

LATE SPRING's story is like a wisp of a breeze. So subtle is it that it would be a shame to reveal too many details and possibly ruin your 'experience' of this. If you're the type who wants some, check out other reviews. I intend to reveal as little as possible.

After some 20 minutes of glimpses into the comfortable everyday lives of a widower and his 27-year-old daughter living near Tokyo, we are given the first indication of the possible threat to that idyllic life. It grows gradually, until it becomes an aching poignancy that carries to the end of the film.

There's no real outburst of emotion. Only a couple almost understated moments of honest expression amid tons of near-ritualistic Japanese etiquette, often with the people wearing broad masking smiles. (I'm part Japanese and it still seems somewhat alien to me.)

This is all filmed in director Ozu's exquisite style, still potent despite being in black and white. (I'm glad I first saw the Criterion DVD of FLOATING WEEDS by the same director because it had Roger Ebert's film commentary which taught me how to watch an Ozu film.)

As for DVD extras, I skipped thru most of Wim Wender's 90-minute tribute to Ozu, altho, near the end, it has a fascinating piece on Ozu's camera setups. In the commentary by Richard Peña, background information gives way to extensive interpretion the scenes (I prefer the other way around).

Sadly, this is film that could use some first class restoration work to eliminate the signs of decay. It certainly deserves it.

Average customer rating:

Good Israeli comedy
Much Better Than Expected
I could imagine that this has happen to A LOT of people.
A gem of Israeli cinema with universal emotional resonance
Zaza not good enough for Judith

Late Marriage
Starring: Lior Ashkenazi , Ronit Elkabetz , Moni Moshonov , Lili Koshashvili , and Aya Steinovitz
Director: Dover Koshashvili
Manufacturer: New Yorker Video
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ASIN: B00008H2NK
Release Date: 2003-02-18

Amazon.com

This remarkable Israeli movie starts as a sweet romantic comedy: unmarried at 31, Zaza is an embarrassment to his family. Though they parade him past young, attractive, and eligible girls, he resists them all--because Zaza already has a secret love affair with Judith, a divorcée. Zaza knows his parents would never accept Judith; but when his parents find out, the results are worse than either of them ever expected, leading to a harrowing and sad conclusion. Late Marriage has an amazing richness of character and honesty about their behavior. Every turn of the story is full of lively, unexpected details; there's not a predictable moment in the entire movie. The extensive sex scene between Zaza and Judith has an intimacy and dimension unseen in American movies. Quite simply, one of the best movies of 2001. --Bret Fetzer

Customer Reviews:

Good Israeli comedy.......2007-04-09

One might have thought that arranged marriages are a thing of the past among Israeli Jews. But according to this bittersweet comedy, the tradition is alive and well, at least among the conservative Georgian Jewish community in Israel the movie is set on (director Kashashivili belongs to that community). The protagonist of the movie is Zaza, an unmarried man in his early thirties and graduate student in philosophy (played by the fine actor Lior Ashkenazi, who starred as the brutal Mossad agent in another great Israeli movie, Walk on Water). His concerned family shows him young, attractive, and eligible girls, but he resists them all - since he already has a secret love affair with Judith, a sexually liberated mother and divorcée. Zaza knows his extended family would never accept Judith; but when they find out, the results are worse than you can imagine. Let just say, quoting one critic, that joining the Foreign Legion is probably preferable than living with such family. The ending is quite sad, but this is a remarkable film.

Much Better Than Expected.......2007-02-25

A real surprise of a film, very watchable and interesting. The lead actors are attractive and competent. Even the dog "Mouki" can steal a scene!

I could imagine that this has happen to A LOT of people........2006-11-01

I too have no idea as to why others would compare this film to "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" and "Monsoon Wedding." It doesn't even come close to this film. "Late Marriage" may appear as an ethnic comedy at first but the film gradually grows to a melancholic drama, focusing on the main problem of the new generation of Georgian individuals - the dualism between their traditions and between their desires to join the modern society. Zaza (Lior Ashkenzai), who reflects this problem well, is an educated PhD. and yet, he finds it hard to fulfill his desires to marry a girl which is not from his Georgian tribe, for he knows the complications to come, and knows that he will fail in coping with them.

This movie doesn't seem like it should be that fantastic, as the tradition-versus-modernity relationship topic is well-trodden in foreign films to say the least, but I absolutely couldn't take my eyes off of this story. Zaza's parents steals most of the scenes in this film, both comically and tragically as a couple unable to fully confront the re-opening of their own relationship scars caused by witnessing their son's own struggle. The little girl playing Madonna is an excellent actress playing a child caught in an adult vortex she can neither fully understand nor escape. Meanwhile Lior Askenazi fills out his role rather nicely as the entangled groom-to-be, whose only escape from his unsolvable dilemma is to sink as deeply as possible into his aloof, impulsive persona. You can also see that he refuse to give up his long-term passionate affair with Judith (Ronit Elkabetz). In the middle of this there is a long scene of graphic sexual involvement between them, giving the impression of really making love and being in love complete with multiple orgasms and concern about contraception.

Some viewers simply didn't identify with Zaza or found him too "simple" in this story. What could be more complex than someone who lets what he loves be taken away from him? He unlocks the door to his lover's building so that his parents can come up and destroy his relationship. This is all too real, all too human.

I find the ending ingenious. Instead of a normal, fantastic movie ending, we are hit with realism. Other than that it's an enjoyable film to watch.

A gem of Israeli cinema with universal emotional resonance.......2005-12-19

Lior Ashkenazi's understated performance as a detached bachelor caught up between his menacing parents, his rather naïve understanding of philosophy, his love for a beautiful divorcee ten years his senior, and his own destructive cowardice is perhaps one of the best performances to come out of Israeli cinema.

In fact, this film itself may be the best product of a still-maturing cinema that has produced far more disappointments than true gems. The acting is understated and solid - consider that the actors speaking in Georgian learned bits of the language just for the film. (There is a bit of irony in the fact that Lior Ashkenazi, a well-known Israeli actor whose last name refers to a Jew of Eastern European origin, plays a character born to Georgian parents.) The film is not "light viewing" in any sense of the word - it is a brooding, even depressing movie that at times seems too painful to watch, and the end of the movie is devastating in a way that no recent American film might dare to be.

The sex scene in the middle of the film, which is explicit without being pornographic, is at once a testimony to just how two-dimensional American sex scenes tend to be, and a reminder of how a talented director can bring the erotic to film without offence. It is a raw scene that is at once sensual and realistic, and while it might make for difficult viewing in the wrong company, it is a eminently successful portrayal of the intersection of emotion and erotica.

On the whole, "Late Marriage" is a well thought out and provocative look into the life of a man trapped more by his own emotional cowardice than his immigrant parents who will stop at nothing to stop his love affair with a "tainted" woman. It is indeed an Israeli film - both in its content and its character - but has greater, universal emotional resonance than critics who cast it as merely an example of the best that the Israeli film world has to offer.

Zaza not good enough for Judith.......2005-12-14

One aspect of this excellent movie that hasn't really been mentioned here is the fact that Zaza's mother and father did in fact indicate to each other that they would accept Judith if they had to, without carrying out their threats to cut off their son. Zaza may love Judith, but he turns out to be the weak, dependent boy his parents think him to be, and he won't make a stand for the woman he loves. For all their name-calling and superior attitude toward Judith, she turns out to be too good for Zaza and his family. The movie doesn't have a sad ending if you see it in terms of Zaza getting what he really deserved and was capable of handling, and Judith remaining free to find a stronger and better man. She dodged a bullet!

Average customer rating:

Remember last night again?
It depends on you
not great but kept me entertained
Excellent movie!!
Bizarre yet alluring...

Late Last Night
Starring: Emilio Estevez , Steven Weber , Bobby Edner , Kelly Rowan , and Leah Lail
Director: Steven Brill
Manufacturer: Lions Gate
ProductGroup: DVD
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ASIN: 6305717095
Release Date: 2000-02-22

Customer Reviews:

Remember last night again?.......2005-08-06

Steven Weber is one of my favorite funny man and if you ever seen him in Wings, you know his persona. He tries to cheer his buddy Dan (played by Emilio Estevez) up after his wife left him. They go into this night club and that is where the fun begins. He bring these two bar girls back to his room and they dance to the music by Blondie on top of the coffee table before falling off is very sexy and funny at the same time. All hell breaks loose after that and Dan tries to mend with his wife after a night of woo hooo fun.

Not a very good movie and probably shouldn't be watch if your have a break up either.

It depends on you.......2002-01-11

It depends on you; it depends on your experiences.

This movie might be good for you; you can find something very similar to you...

If you have ever been one of this guy, or if you have ever spent a night like this.

I like it very much.

not great but kept me entertained.......2001-04-20

I saw this movie when it premired on starz. That's right it's a starz original. It has it's bad parts (the cop) it's good parts (golf course and psycholigist) and slow parts but through it all it kept me entertained even though it was uneven. It is a pretty good plot that took some bad turns. Weber was funny though.

Excellent movie!!.......2000-08-05

Yet the beginning of this movie does seem to sort of remind you of Swingers, the movie turns itself around. It turns out to be a great movie in total. I do have to say that if you like this movie, then you will also like Swingers. This movie really deserved more credit.

Bizarre yet alluring..........2000-07-17

I didn't expect to watch the entire film - but I identified with the characters. It is very much a male-bonding sort of thing - but that's not always a bad thing. If you're a male in your late 20s or early-mid 30s, you'll find yourself enthralled with some of the decisions these guys make throughout the film.

The writing and acting is solid. It takes some peculiar twists and turns because it doesn't have a plot. Like the typical male-bonding film, LLL meanders through different parties, different friends, different drugs, all during the course of one evening. But you never know where it'll take you next. Those who live in LA will identify with the film even more than the average joe, since it goes in and out of locales we angelinos frequent day in/day out. Check it out - it's worth 90 minutes of your time, especially if you live in LA.

Average customer rating:

A Bittersweet Gem

Late Marriage (Original Hebrew Version with English subtitles)

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Binding: DVD

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Walk on Water

Lie With Me

Cold Showers

9 songs - Unrated Full Uncut Version

ASIN: B00023DA16

Product Description

Zaza is a 32-year old Israeli bachelor, handsome and intelligent, and his family wants to see him married. But tradition dictates that Zaza has to choose a young virgin. She must be beautiful and from a good family, preferably rich. Zaza's parents, Yasha and Lily drag Zaza to meet potential brides and their families. Zaza has no choice. He plays along with his family, advocates of the suffocating traditions of their Georgian Jewish heritage. But Zaza always manages to somehow get out of being engaged. What his parents don't know is that Zaza is already in love. Judith is sensuous, strong and intriguing. She's also a divorcée with a 6-year-old daughter. So Zaza has kept Judith a secret from his family. He will have to choose between respect of the strict confines of family and tradition, or the love of his life.

Customer Reviews:

A Bittersweet Gem.......2005-06-25

This story concerns a young man's struggles with his ultra-traditional family which has immigrated to Israel from Georgia. (That's the former soviet republic, NOT the U.S. state!)

A handsome intellectual, he is still unmarried at 31, which is a scandal for his conservative family. He cannot tell them that he is in love with a woman they would never approve of -- a divorced woman with a child -- so he lets his parents drag him around to meet prospective wives and their families. These scenes are painfully awkward and funny, almost seeming to be exaggerated to anyone who is not familiar with families like his.

His relationship with the woman he loves is depicted in startlingly explicit detail, by North American standards. I found it refreshing, when many Hollywood actors refuse to do nude scenes after they've "made it", to see Lior Ashkenazi, a major star in Israel, sharing himself so generously with his audience that, after all, pays his salary -- instead of merely with the current "Starlet of the Month", or in the usual serial matrimony.

You may not like the ending, but this isn't phoney-happy Hollywood. The version I have is in Georgian and Hebrew, but other versions exist that have been dubbed into English or French.

Average customer rating:

La Mujer De Mi Vida (Late Marriage)

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ASIN: B000I19AUM

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THIS RARE IMPORT IS IN FRENCH WITH SPANISH SUBTITLES. NO ENGLISH. IT IS REGIONS 1 & 4 AND WILL PLAY IN U.S., CANADA AND SOUTH AMERICA.

Average customer rating:

Queen of the Stardust Ballroom
Starring: Charles Durning , Florence Halop , Charlotte Rae , Maureen Stapleton , and Michael Strong
Director: Michael Brandon , and Sam O'Steen
Manufacturer: Vci Video
ProductGroup: DVD
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Drama | Kids & Family | Genres | DVD | Video

Product Description

An enchanting and heartwarming story about the rediscovery of love. When Bea Asher (Academy Award winner Maureen Stapleton) is suddenly widowed, her comfortable life is shattered and all that lies ahead of her is a future of lonely independence. But this all changes when she meets Charles Durning at the Stardust Ballroom where he teaches her not only how to dance... but how to love again.

DVD:

DVD

DVD