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Akira Kurosawa's Dreams

Akira Kurosawa's Dreams

List Price: $19.98
Your Price: $14.99
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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: 5 star movie, 1 star for the lack of DVD
Review:

This review crits the lack of a DVD version of this movie.

DVD and digital projectors blow away both TV and HDTV. After using a digital projector w/DVD player, and seeing super high-res picture on a 4x8' screen in my living room, there's no way I can go back to VHS and TV.

So where's the DVD for one of my favorite movies? They can transfer everything of Kurosawa's except this masterpiece? Let's get with the program.

-- JJ

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A dream come true
Review: This movie features some of the most beautiful images I have ever viewed, in a movie or otherwise. Kurasawa is a genius, not only as a storyteller but as an illustrator. The movie is like a book of your favorite short stories collected together for the first time, and you can't take your eyes from the screen. Elusive and emotional, this movie is a masterpiece in every aspect.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: One of the best films I've ever seen - An absolute must.
Review: Once you'll see it, you won't be able to stop yourself from seeing it at least three more times just to grasp the whole imense esense of the film. A breathtaking, beautifully directed film with views you won't have the opportunity to see anywhere else, involving the fear of the 20th century, harmony, the circle of life, and fantasy.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: GEEZ, This Movie....
Review: This Film is one of Mr. Kurosawas best. Yeah, I know i watched almost all his films and liked some, wouldn't see others, but this one is like watching moving art. The sequences are supposed dreams of the master himself,and are brought to beautiful life by those guys at Industrial Light & Magic. My favorite one has to be the "Peach Orchard" or the "Wedding of the Foxes" wich is also known as "Sunlight Through Rain". Personally I would never see this movie dubbed. Finally, this movie is very inspirational to anyone who is artistic and reasonably a conscious human being.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A great film more people should watch
Review: This film has in it some of the most beautiful cinematagrophy I have ever seen. If reviews where it is criticised as being slow or arrested worry you as to whether you should rent or buy it I would judge it like this: if the thought of walking through an art gallery and taking several minutes to sit or stand in front of some pictures to fully study and appreciate their beauty seems "slow" or "arrested" to you then you might not like it, if you can imagine yourself enjoying watching an expresionist/art noveau/surrealist set of pictures come to life on your tv screen then you might like it. I am dissapointed in those critics who can't imagine the medium of movies having value unless they are built around a fast paced linear plot line. These are the same people who probably think poetry is a bunch of rubbish and "Finnegan's Wake" is an unreadable waste of time. I hope and pray and fantasize that the studio that owns the rights to this movie will release it in greater numbers, drop the price, and (glory of all glorys) release it on dvd. It is one of the greatest movies of one of the greatest directors of all time and should be more accesible.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: There's a reason why it's called "Dreams" . . .
Review: . . . because this movie waltzes into your mind like the most vivid, profound, and meaningful dream.

Each story is like a new dream that you dive into subconsciously. And like all dreams, they're meant to teach you something.

This movie is beautiful in its awesome execution. It is a quiet but bold statement on the state of the world and human nature.

Simply gorgeous.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Reflect, reflect
Review: It's why I love film.

That is, the cinema is where I can go to touch my emotions, all kinds of emotions, sometimes finding those I never even knew I held undiscovered. 'Dreams' is that wonderful kind of film which allows me the freedom to drift from one feeling into another, in a way I'm not capable of in reality.

After a lifetime of mastering the art of visual storytelling, it is Kurasawa I'm forced -- not forced, for it's a pleasure, how about "immutably drawn?" -- to respect, to honor and to listen. It's difficult to explain this sensual piece with those I love, considering its limited availability, but I take some guilty pleasure in knowing its beauty and that it's shared with so few.

It is art.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The first kurosawa movie I saw, and still my favorite
Review: Probably the most continually awe-inspiring film I have ever seen. I first saw it in the theatres when I was a child, and every time I rewatch it I am amazed yet again. Do yourself a favor and try to find the laserdisc version of this movie (and a laserdisc player!), it will change your life. There are simply no other movies this could be compared too, or any other work of art for that matter. Even after all the other Kurosawa films I've enjoyed, this remains his masterpiece in every way.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: One of the greatest movies of my life
Review: I saw this movie when I was 12. It was on HBO, I think, and though some might think a 12-year old boy wouldn't be interested in watching a foreign film, I was entranced. Anything about Japan just seems to draw me, but anyway... at that age I was listening to the Three Tenors. I remember distinct parts to the movie... the peach orchard, the female spirit helping the near-dead mountaineers, the walk through Van Gogh's paintings, the bomb.... and the encounter afterwards between a human being and a man mutated by the radiation of the blast. A lot of this moved me, and it inspired me into writing one of my earliest poems which I used for an assignment in school. This is both a visually and spiritually compelling movie,....................

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Beautiful and faithful, also slow and not linear plot
Review: This movie is a transferral directly from the realm of dreams to the realm of screens. The challenges of how to faithfully render a dream world on film would seem to me to be quite hard to overcome, yet Kurosawa creates magic on the screen. The film can be slow as some dreams are less intriguing than others, however that only accentuated its veracity, as some dreams run away with you, and some dreams get stuck in a rut or a circle, and most dreams are frought more with anxiety than with plot.

Even the dreams I didn't enjoy so much seemed familiar to me as I was able throughout to see and hear the images and symbols and characters as if I were dreaming them up in my head and not just seeing them on a screen. The execution does not at all seem effortless, but nevertheless perfect and brilliant.

Dreams have a way of symbolizing something surreal within you. That is what this film invites you to do, delve into your own subconscious - to find the meaning of the dreams, to find a subconscious connection between yourself and Kurosawa, and with all of humanity. The cinematography is beautiful. The imagery is chilling. The music is perfectly selected to contribute to the film. The stylized movement enchantingly expert. If you enjoy movies such as Jacob's Ladder, Ran, or other movies that use film imagery as an art, if you have a tolerance or even enjoyment of symbolic material, you must watch this film.

Be forewarned, some of the scenes toward the end get a little preachy, which is a clumsy addition to an otherwise wonderful and magnificent film.

Now I will indulge and say The Peach Orchard was enchanting and delivering and The Tunnel was grippingly powerful.


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