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Any Given Sunday (Special Edition Director's Cut) - Oliver Stone Collection

Any Given Sunday (Special Edition Director's Cut) - Oliver Stone Collection

List Price: $14.97
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: A good movie, yes. A good football movie?
Review: Not really. By way of comparison, North Dallas Forty, was better. I did like it more than some of my football fan friends. Why? Al Pacino. He's doing his same old Shtick. But I like it. Jeff Reynolds is correct. It is worth a rental

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: This Video Rocks!
Review: this video is mad cool there,son! Yo, it was phat,and all of that, kid! I was like yo, s**t is flava!.wow, what was that? I guess i drank too much coffee today with my 3 donuts! I;m just a fat white guy!Anyway, I thought that this movie was very good. While the only sport I play is Whopper Olympics, I admired the energy and intensity of these athletes, and cameron diaz's long legs oooh... Anyhow, this is a good video to kill time with, and i highly reccomend it! its reeally good. Oliver' still my boy!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Pretty good
Review: Although I am not a big fan of team sports, I basically enjoyed this film despite its flaws. The film was marred by the quirky/jerky camera technique and it was a little too long--157 minutes. Cameron Diaz turns in a good performance as the team owner and I like Pacino as an actor pretty much no matter what he does on screen. But the thing I noticed most about the movie while I was watching it was the sound track with all the clattering, thudding, and crashing noises the players made as they ran into each other during the plays, which is basically what football players do best, so at least Stone got that part right.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Never Dull, Great Cast
Review: You could say Oliver Stone over-directed this hyper movie but you can't say it's boring. At over 2 1/2 hours it never slows down, and there's a really good cast including Pacino, Cameron Diaz, Jamie Foxx, Ann-Margaret, and James Woods. You won't learn anything new about behind the scenes of pro football, but it's worth a rental.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Misdirected, pointless, disconnected, unbelievable
Review: The eye thing was one of the dumbest things I've even seen in any movie trying to take itself seriously.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Any Given Sunday is hypocritical showing Stone's conformity
Review: Oliver Stone's movies usually tackle issues that main stream society tends to ignore. From anti-war to anti-government to anti-media, he exposes the overlooked consequences of what makes us 'proud to be an American.' In this movie, however, he seems to have lost something. 'Any Given Sunday' begins to reveal the violence and life threatening effects football can have on its players, but a Hollywood ending defeats any point. Dennis Quaid plays an aging QB, whose body has been through so much his body can hardly function properly. He doubts his ability to still perform, but thanks to his wife, who is more concerned with her own prestige than her husband's heath, he gives it one more go. Is it worth risking your health and wellbeing after you've already accomplished so much? But the really terrible part takes place between the coach, the team doctor, and an injured player. After the coach fires the doc for not telling an injured player he's unfit to play, he tells the player, with a straight face, he can still play. The coach has everything to gain (money, victory, prestige...) and only to lose a player's health. Kind of sick how they think. It's too bad the player doesn't get paralyzed. At least then it would show that there are limitations that not even money can patch up. Look at Muhammad Ali, one of the revolutionary thinkers of the 20th century whose full potential as a leader was cut short, or any retired pro-football player over 60- if you can find any seeing as that exceeds their life expectancy. I was very disappointed the only director who could deal with the realistic issues didn't. It's still an entertaining movie that I recommend, but it could have been historic.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Should Have Rented ANY OTHER MOVIE
Review: "Any Given Sunday" is a rare study in just how inept a film can be. For those who truly haven't seen a lousy film lately, this is a must rent. It takes the oft-scorned, "No Editor Necessary" approach that so many films these days succumb to. We get everything with this film. Every incoherant plot twist, every useless sub-plot, every poorly acted scene, every badly cut exchange between two actors talking to different cameras, every badly written dramatic exchange...it's all there. Indeed it is good that Oliver Stone in his graciousness allowed us to see that this is indeed one of the worst films of all time and there was nothing left on the editing room floor to redeem it.

Punctuating the oppressive boredom in two places, is, to no surprise, Al Pacino, who first pins Fox's ears back in a wonderful scene where he lectures about what it in fact means to be a quarterback. The movie's best scene, (I'll admit, my hair stood up on the back of my neck) is Pacino's pep talk right before they take the field in the last game. The words and tone that Pacino uses are wonderful, though wasted in this sea of in your face filmmaking.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Extraordinary Film
Review: First off, I want to let you know that I love football and movies, but am not an expert on either subject, just to let you know what kind of person this review is coming from.

Yes, the movie is 157 minutes long, but let me tell you, it's never boring. I disagree with many here in that I liked that visuals and film style that Oliver Stone used. I loved the little things he puts in a scene, especially the final play: when Beamen is looking into the endzone and you see lightning and an old player diving into the endzone, things like that. Of course, the performances are incredible, and it's a huge cast. Look for special cameos from NFL players and coaches, and of course Charlton Heston as the Commissioner.

I also like how the film starts out with a game, getting you into the action quickly. And then of course there's the length of the games. It's not just a two minute highlight, well except for the Monsoon Bowl. The first game last 20 minutes and the last is somewhere between 30 and 40. The pregame and halftime speeches are well written too.

In all, it has your basic, not too groundbreaking script, but a great cast, great visuals and sound, and exciting football sequences (the best I've ever seen). I recommend this one!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Entertaining film with good acting.
Review: Oliver Stone(Platoon, Natural Born Killers) directed this almost great football film. He gives a lot of powerful moments to the game, which is excellent, exciting and sometimes funny. The film is helped by Strong Performances by Al Pacino, Cameron Diaz, Dennis Quaid and Jamie Foxx(In a change of pace role for him). The movie is a bit long to watch but at the last half hour, here comes the real fireworks of the picture. Personality, i don`t really care for sports in real life but in some way. Director Stone(who`s is a big football fan) makes the football scenes really exciting more than Sam Raimi`s For the love of game(which is baseball film).

DVD is great on the picture quality(In the anamorphic Widescreen 2.35:1 format) but Superb on the Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround adds up a lot of base for the film. If you like the movie. Buy it, there`s not any great sports not there but Any Given Sunday will be one of them soon in the near future. Grade:B+. Super 35.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Oliver Stone tries out for NFL Films.
Review: I am a passing football viewer (go Jets!) and I was interested in this movie, not because of the football, not because of Al Pacino, Cameron Diaz or Oliver Stone, because I love NFL films. They makes some of the best recordings and could give all other sports filmworks a run for their money. They take the gridiron and change it into the stuff of legends. When I saw my first NFL tape, I didn't know Football could be so dramatic.

The movie is based on several characters of the fake Miami Sharks. The first is the aging coach, who is losing control of his team to an owner who thinks she knows more about the game than the old grizzled 30 year veteran. The coach is a worn out Al Pacino, who shines in the role of Tony D'Amato. Al would make a great coach, because all he does is give grandiose speeches in his movies and yell real loud. The owner is Cameron Diaz, who took over the team when her father died. She has real veins of steel in this movie and goes toe to toe with Pacino and gives as well as she gets. Their relationship is very stormy and a delight to watch them both.

Another story is about Willie Beaman (Jamie Foxx). He is the the (Kurt) Warneresque third string QB given a chance to shine when the aging star Cap Rooney is injured. He is so nervous that he pukes on the fifty yard line (Right on the Team Logo!), but he begins to shine and nearly wins his first game for them. He is humble and awestruck in the early stages of the movie, but once his career gets going, he becomes this arrogant jerk who suddenly begins to think he's god gift to football. His arrogance nearly upends the team, as he disregards plays the coach tell him to run, he disses their star player Julian Washington (LL Cool J) and ...... of the Defensive Captain Luther Lavoy (A mean Lawrence Taylor). Jamie Foxx's performance steals this movie away from all the other high profile actors. He has this intensity that I never saw on his stupid Jamie Foxx show and he has the tools to become a great actor. Just look at his fire at a dinner meeting he has with Pacino.

Cap Rooney is a sub-story and his is about the aging superstar (read: Dan Marino). He is still good, but age is getting to him and he becomes paranoid about slipping into oblivion when Beaman is discovered. The relationship with Beaman is all politically driven and the pressures on Rooney are intense (especially from his wife, played with icyness by Lauren Holly).

The final sub-story is with Lawrence Taylor, Cap Rooney and the two doctors Dr. Mandrake (James Woods) and Allie Powers (Matthew Modine). Stone takes a stab at the back-end politics of Football, how the owners and doctors really only see these people as pieces of meat money-makers. One chilling scene is between Diaz and Woods, where she applies the non too subtle pressure to play Lavoy for the final, even if it will cost him his life. Mandrake, apart of the system and paid handsomely for it, is more than happy to oblige.

The story also takes other issues such as racism in the Football league, owners plotting to get new stadiums, the immoralities of being a ball player, people giving up everything (including family) for the game as well as players playing for performance bonuses, rather than for the team.

The DVD has excellent picture and the sound is fantastic. The mixture of hip-hop and Metallica really intensifies the adrenaline in the picture. The extras are pretty slim though, with only a trailer, video by LL Cool J (......) and the making.

While the performances all stand out (including non-actor Lawrence Taylor), the directing is mixed. There are some excellent scenes and the hit on Beaman in the rain (where his helmet goes flying) had some slow motion scenes, the ones involving the shaky cam (for realistic effect) were annoying, even nauseating to watch. Stone is an advocate for quick cuts, but at times it's so fast that all I get is a headache. If only we could get that director who did all those NFL films, then I would have given this movie a much higher rating....Rating: B-


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