Rating: 
Summary: Bridges of Madison County - A Middle Age Romance/Love story
Review: I resisted seeing this movie. I had a hard time seeing the success of "Bridges of Madison County", with Eastwood as a leading "romantic" man. After watching this film, also directed by Eastwood, I have changed my tune. I have concluded that Eastwood even with his tough guy image can pull off just about anything.Excelent film! Bridges of Madison County is a movie that is told almost entirely in flashback form. Through letters and jornals left by a mother, to her childern. Upon the mother's death. The Jornals tell of a brief romance between an Italian imagrant farm-wife, Francesca Johnson, and a photographer for a national magazine, Robert Kinkade. Played brilantly by Streep and Eastwood. Bridges of Madison County, is a middle age romance; love story. Set agninst backdrops in Iowa. A beautiful film.
Rating:
Summary: Superb
Review: Bar-non, the best romantic picture I can remember. I enjoyed the intensity, the drama, the coming together and yet, the separation and pain. Truly indicative of the consequences of the changes we make in life; the road not taken vs the one we are destined for. I watch this movie periodically, always with the same enthusiasm and excitement.
Rating: 
Summary: Boring tripe! No, that's an insult to tripe!
Review: I am in awe that so many can find this dreary, boring self indulgence so "beautiful" and "lovely"! I hate this garbage!
This has to be one of the most boring films I have ever seen. And please! Spare me Eastwood's method acting! Actualy, no, that's not true - Eastwood doesn't act - he's just Eastwood. Don't get me wrong now. Clint has his place in westerns and the odd cop shooting-say nothing-look mean Dirty Harry fuilm, but the Great Lover! N0 WAY!
Moreover, while you're all getting all gooey over the so called "love story", just remember that this is just a glorification of adultery! I am no prude, but come on! At least TRY to set an example in the movies you make!
Awful! In fact, I have never managed to endure it long enough to see it in full!
Rating:
Summary: a must for all romantics ( even if your not!)
Review: The book brought me to tears and I hoped that the film would do the same, and it did. It made me cry so much, no other fim has moved me so much, it is truly beautiful and romantic. Meryl streep and clint eastwood make you believe so much in that chance meeting and I don't honestly believe there is another fim like it, it is a masterpeice and I recomend it to anyone because I haven't met a person yet who hasn't cried while watchimg this film.
Rating:
Summary: Better than the book.
Review: . . . but perhaps I'm not qualified to make that statement, having been able to get through only about 15 pages of the thing. The godawful prose pretty much stopped me dead in my tracks. Thankfully, miraculously, Clint Eastwood -- of all people! -- turned this bit of Pop trash into a moving, haunting masterpiece for the cinema. It's about a National Geographic photographer with the rather ridiculous name of "Robert Kincaid" (Harlequin, anyone?) who commences an affair with a bored Italian housewife named Francesca (Meryl Streep) in the farmlands of Iowa. Francesca's husband and kids are off somewhere at a State Fair, leaving the profoundly mismatched lovers just 4 days to cram in a lifetime together. As I skimmed the novel by Robert James Waller (a pretty silly name in and of itself), I couldn't help notice that the Kincaid character, in particular, seemed to be a mouthpiece for the novelist's post-hippie maunderings about "freedom" and so forth . . . unchallenged maunderings, at that. What Eastwood does is strip the story of its didacticism and plays Kincaid's philosophy against the bittersweet love story. In the movie, Francesca and Robert are haunted by lives that they missed out on having -- each other's lives, in fact. In the book, Kincaid, at least, was not nearly so ironic and tragic, being smugly superior instead. Best of all, Eastwood essentially focused on the love story itself, which is something the novelist was too busy sermonizing to do. The director brings the deeper themes of the story, such as personal identity, disappointment, the muddled human heart itself, to the forefront -- all of which the author, though it was inherent in his story, failed to do. Clint Eastwood had an incredible run through the 1990's, culminating in this underrated masterpiece. Women will of course respond to the film; men will too, although they'll probably be too embarrassed to admit enjoying it. Perhaps a man and a woman should not see it together, however: it can be a movie, rather like *Fatal Attraction*, that can start a sour argument. Best to watch it alone, doubtless. [A final note: the DVD is AWFUL, another in a long line of Warner Bros. astounding DVD failures. The worst company out there for this stuff. Unbelievably, you have to change the language from French to English before you start the movie. There are uninteresting "production notes". And that's all. Thank god the thing was cheap -- but I'd still advise getting it cheaper; e.g., get the VHS version until some other company puts out a product worthy of the movie's stature.]
Rating: 
Summary: 'This kind of certainty comes but once in a lifetime'
Review: I won't go into details of the movie, many other reviews do this much more elegantly than I could but I will briefly describe the heart felt feelings I experienced during the film.
I saw the movie and felt that I wanted to be them, people actually feeling that one true love in their life, and as a man, I connected with what was said by Robert (Clint Eastwood)'This kind of certainty comes but once in a lifetime', if we are very lucky, this certain love will smile upon us once in our lives. For me I know it will never happen, like Francesca, I am married but I have not in my life, and probably never will experience the emotion of those four remarkable days in Madison county, I will only see it through the eyes and life long intense feelings of these incredible people in this movie. That is why this is such a special film for me, it may help some of us dream of a life more loved.
Rating:
Summary: Just so romantic!
Review: This movie was just so good! I loved Ms Streep's flow in her acting and Mr. Eastwood was able to keep right up with her. His performance was achingly real and very intimate. This is definately a romance, not a romantic comedy but a full-blown romance, with great actors. The love scenes just seem so honest and poignant. I usually do not feel as tuned in to key romantic scenes with older people, it is usually more with your Brad Pitt type or younger adults, but this movie wipes them all away. The scenes sizzle, and I mean sizzle! The ending is very intense and can bring up some strong emotion for those of us out there who are sensitive! The bridges are beautiful and have prompted many to visit them. I don't rate many movies a 5 star, so be prepared for a good film! Warning, some may not be so entranced with it because it is an intimate sensual experience as opposed to high action and suspense. Not to say either is better or worse. Lisa Nary
Rating:
Summary: The Bridges of Madison County
Review: This movie is a wonderful love story! Keep the tissue handy..
Rating:
Summary: Heartbreaking...but there is a lesson
Review: Meryl Streep is an actress who doesn't act, instead, she is when she acts, I believe. "Bridges of Madison County" is a story about a very "simple" woman, the perfect wife, with the perfect husband and the perfect children. It is about the perfect farm, the perfect home and the perfect dog in a perfect little town. Foremost, this movie is about the perfect wife who just live to please others. She was so passionate that only the wind touching her face had a profound meaning. But in the midst of thinking about others, she was unable to get in touch with who she really was. She was all a woman but her true self was buried under a spotless kitchen, delicious dishes, cleaned and ironed cloth and a smile. In one occasion, as the perfect husband and the perfect children went away, the most peculiar thing happened to her. In four days, a photographer who was passing by awoke the woman in her; the one she ignored. Once she wrote, "Every thing I knew to be true about myself up until then, was gone. I was acting like another woman yet I was more myself than ever before". But then again, the husband came back, and the man, who let her be who she was (and still it was ok), became only a spark and that spark lasted in her life until she died. This movie made me think that to some of us, it is easy to take the people we love for granted but it is much easier to loose oneself in any relationship, especially those lasting ones. If we truly love someone, I feel, we should be specially the ones who help them find and keep their true self.
Rating:
Summary: Great movie, but disappointing DVD
Review: Can you believe putting a great movie like this out in "Pan and Scan" So much of the original movie is lost it is a real shame.
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