 Controversial Classics, Vol. 2 - The Power of Media (All the President's Men / Network / Dog Day Afternoon) (Two-Disc Special Edition) dvd movie. |
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Controversial Classics, Vol. 2 - The Power of Media (All the President's Men / Network / Dog Day Afternoon) (Two-Disc Special Edition)
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Features
• Box set
• Closed-captioned
• Color
• DVD-Video
• Special Edition
• Widescreen
• NTSC
In Theaters : 21 September, 1975
DVD Release : 28 February, 2006 |
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Controversial Classics, Vol. 2 - The Power of Media (All the President's Men / Network / Dog Day Afternoon) (Two-Disc Special Edition) Customer Reviews
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♥♥♥♥♥
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The summit for movies for serious adults
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CONTROVERSIAL CLASSICS VOLUME 2: THE POWER OF MEDIA is one of the crown jewel disk boxed sets in my private DVD library. It includes three incendiary masterpieces from the golden age of the 1970's: DOG DAY AFTERNOON (1975), NETWORK (1976), and ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN (also 1976). All three were Oscar contenders for Best Picture, and all three were winners for Screenplay.
DOG DAY AFTERNOON, directed by Sidney Lumet from a script by Frank Pierson, is so far-fetched that it has to be true. On a hot summer afternoon in 1972 Brooklyn, a nobody named Sonny Wortzik (Oscar nominee Al Pacino) robs a bank to pay for his male lover's (Oscar nominee Chris Sarandon) sex change operation. What should have taken ten minutes ends up becoming an eight hour media event, complete with pizza delivery to the hostages. Lumet took over an entire block in Brooklyn, had the hostages in effect play themselves with improvised dialogue, and worked like an Army commander with a thousand or so extras and stunning second-unit helicopters. The movie has incredible vitality and conviction from Lumet, powerhouse editing by Dede Allen (another Oscar nominee), and another of the great Pacino performances. Bonuses include a vintage featurette on Lumet, brand-new audio commentary by Lumet, and a four-part 30th anniversary featurette. Plus a brand-new remastered print of a great film.
If you thought DOG DAY was looney tunes, get a load at Paddy Chayefsky's audacious Oscar-winning Original Screenplay for another great Sidney Lumet triumph: NETWORK (1976). It is a satire on network television, but so outlandish that virtually everything (except the ending-thank God) has taken place. An unbalanced man (Oscar winner Peter Finch) becomes a media folk hero with super ratings. Oscar winner Faye Dunawaty lives only for ratings-and even discusses them in bed with producer William Holden (at his very best and and an Oscar nominee). Beatrice Straight is electrifying as Holden's wife in one Oscar-winning scene. ("I'm your wife, damn it! And if you can't work up a winter passion for me, the least I ask is respect and allegiance...Are you in love with her? Then say it. SAY IT!") Then the question arises over what to do with Finch's Howard Beale character ("I'm as mad as hell and not going to take it anymore!") when his ratings seriously fail. NETWORK is a brilliant satire that is almost reality thirty years later. And the direction, writing, and performances are all flawless. Bonuses here are huge: PRIVATE SCREENINGS: SIDNEY LUMET (2005) from Turner Classic Movies with Robert Osborne, a vintage Paddy Chayefsky interview from "The Dinah Shore Show", a new 90 minute 30th anniversary filmmaking documentary, and a brand-new Lumet audio commentary. Figure on three nights for this baby.
Best of the lot is producer-director Alan Pakula's ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN (also 1976), with an Oscar-winning screenplay by William Goldman. Both of them together make the saga of Watergate, the fall of President Richard Nixon, both understandable and gripping. Our heroes are WASHINGTON POST reporters Bob Woodward (Robert Redford) and Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman). A huge and wonderful supporting cast includes Oscar-winner Jason Robards as editor Ben Bradlee, Oscar nominee Jane Alexander as The Bookkeeper with some secrets, and Hal Holbrook as the enigmatic Deep Throat who is only glimpsed in shadowy night parking garages. Realism and actual locales help this one a lot. Bonuses on this masterpiece, that should have won Picture and Direction Oscars, include audio commentary by co-producer Robert Redford, a new filmmaking documentary, a documentary on who Deep Throat really was now that we know, a documentary on how Woodward and Bernstein cracked the case, a vintage filmmaking documentary, a vintage chat with Robards on DINAH!, and a gallery of theatrical trailers for other movies in this vein from the late Alan J. Pakula.
CONTROVERSIAL CLASSICS VOLUME 2: THE POWER OF MEDIA will keep you out of trouble for as long as nine nights (!), three per movie if you watch all the bonuses, so only rent it this one boxed set the week you order from Netflicks. It sells on Amazon.com for about $55. It is a sobering lament for an era when movies could be brilliantly written dramas about the media for intellectual adults. DOG DAY AFTERNOON, NETWORK, and ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN are masterpieces in a stupendous boxed set that I cannot recommend highly enough if you have a huge block of time for them. Consider buying them and spending two weeks doing all of the extras and the lenngthy movies leisurely.
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