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Like Water for Chocolate

Like Water for Chocolate

List Price: $14.99
Your Price: $11.24
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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Beautiful, funny, and touching
Review: I enjoyed this movie greatly. There is something "about" foreign (i.e., non-USA) films that attracts me. I think it has to do with the fact that often they do not have the budget for special effects and therefore have to rely on things like plot, character development, talented actors, good dialogue, etc., if they want their movie to be good and get noticed. My opinion is that this movie has all of these: good acting, good dialogue, and a good plot.

I saw this movie years ago as part of the "International Film Festival" circuit, and it has remained one of my favorites ever since. I am a lover of Mexican food, but I have yet to taste any that was *this* good . . . (watch the movie and you'll know what I'm talking about.)

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Is she? or isn't she?
Review: At fisrt I thought the starring role was being played by Marsha Brady,but wait!This is an absolute must have in your collection.A Mexican Mommy Dearest with a twist.Buy two,you will wear this one out.Que Bueno..........................

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Best Cinematography from Mexico !!
Review: I first saw this film when I was in Berkeley. I fell in love with it. There are many reviewers here who have given summary of the story as well as the emotional timbre and the magical realism of the film.

Magical realism is not a stranger in the Latin American literature . Witness Colombia's Nobel Prize Winner in Literature, Gabriel Garcia Marquez in his One Hundred Years of Solitude as well as his other works.

The one interesting part of the film that no reviewers have touched so far is the American doctor in the film, Dr. Brown. In the original Spanish version, he speaks Spanish with a very American accent.Tita actually marries Dr. Brown. Dr. Brown understands her lovesick heart for her true love Pedro. Dr. Brown relents her to go back to Pedro (what an understanding guy !! This American doctor of all people!!). He does warn her, that she should do it slowly, because if she pours all her love at once, it is like all the matches are lit up all at once and that starts an uncontrolled fire. Of course, Tita, being deprived of Pedro's love for such a long time, wants all his love at once, like wanting to be flooded with love. And as Dr. Brown warned, fire did start and burns the house where they were at, and the lovers tragically die, together.

There was comment by several people that they don't see what is so great about this movie and why people get so emotional about it. I once saw the film Joy Luck Club with a guy, and he could not understand why people were crying. I realized that people are really different. Of course, when there is a sports game on, I don't understand why some people are so crazy and emotional about sports either....

In other words, this film really appeals to emotions based on love, fidelity, romance.... and some people may say it is a women's thing ... but romance is a two way street... you cannot have romance coming only from one side. Tita's love could not have been fulfilled unless Pedro was also seeking to fulfill this love for her. This love was mutual for both of them, just that circumstances and history and tradition hindered that love.

Yes, the original languages of the film is always superior to the dubbed version. I have not seen a dubbed version that is a good one. I have always found fault in translations anyways and that can be distracting...."Hey !! That is not what the original says !!"

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Romantick and funny
Review: this film is romantick and funny for yu to see. i think you like this film. it has some romance like in Mexico and has some funny times at the dinner table to. this film, i remember i laugh in Cinema to. this film deserve the four stars. you will see just watch this.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: great movie
Review: I loved this movie about food and two lovers separated by a cruel mother.

The book is just as good as the movie.Both talk about a a rich
family in turn of the century Mexico.The star is Tita,who is
forced from an early age to never marry and have children because of a family tradition. Instead she has to take of her mother,Mama Elena(read more about her!) and forsake her true love,Pedro.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: " A Crucifixion of Hearts"
Review: This excellent film deals with a moral hard case, two lovers separated by a fairly insane family tradition, the requirement that the youngest daughter remain unmarried to care till death for her selfish, immoral mother. With passion, elegance and wit, Alfonso Arau depicts the funny and tearful working out of this crucifiction of lovers' hearts. In leavening human pain with the exhilaration of magical realism, the director establishes himself as a leading participant in a new potentially golden age of Mexican cinema.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Apology for earlier comments/ The problem may be my computer
Review: I would like to apologize for a possible mistake in my earlier review. For some strange reason, if I open an internet connection while this DVD is playing, the skipping that I described disappears and the DVD plays normally. So I don't know if it's a problem with the DVD or something in my computer. If you buy this DVD and it skips, try opening an internet connection and keeping it open while the DVD is playing. The film itself is wonderful.

-Paul

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Horrible DVD Quality: Don't buy the DVD!
Review: The DVD skips at least 50 times during playback from the start of the movie to the end, deleting slices each time. This doesn't happen with any of the other DVDs in my collection. The disk must have been produced to inferior standards. Extremely frustrating to try and watch. The movie is great. The DVD is a [problem].

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: The only food this made me think of was CHEESE!!
Review: I can honestly write that this was one of the few movies in which I have to struggle to find something positive to write so here it goes - I might have enjoyed this movie more if I had watched it in Spanish because I thought that the translation was horrible.
I found the storyline a bore, the cinematagraphy horrible, and the characters pathetic. I even tried to watch the movie a second time in case I had missed something first time around. However, that made me even more disgusted with myself for having spent money on this film. I realize that I may very well be alone in my reaction to this movie, but nonetheless my disappointment compelled me to write this review.
If you are reading this and are considering this film, I would advise two alternatives: 1 - rent it if you must see it and 2 - skip this movie and watch Chocolat.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A passion for cooking and romance!!!
Review: This has to be one of my all time favorite foreign films. I loved the book and I think the movie is equally good. The story is set around a young woman named Tita, who according to an unfair family tradition, must care for her overbearing, demanding mother. Because of this, she is unable to marry the young man she has fallen in love with and transfers her passion into the meals she prepares(with very interesting results!). Based on the book by Laura Esquivel and directed by her husband at the time (Alfonso Arau, who also directed the Keanu Reeves movie, "A Walk in the Cloud") this film is a captivating fairy tale that is sure to entertain.


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