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Wilde - Special Edition

Wilde - Special Edition

List Price: $29.95
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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A Fine Rendition of Wilde
Review: All in all a good movie about our favorite infamous playwright. Many reviewers complain about the fact that the movie was more obviously about his sexuality than his writing; the fact that the movie is such is not surprising, as movie made about a man writing would be horribly dull.
With that said, the movie is quite excellent. For fans of Oscar, it is a magnificent rendition. For fans of the individual actors, it will be a quite titillating ride; many appear in odd Victorian clothes, or, alternately, without them.
Everything is rendered beautifully, down to perfect details such as the redone London streets and the green carnations that Oscar spread the good word of.
However, the movie is not for those easily swayed by human intolerance or depression, as it is not what people call a "happy movie". The tale of Oscar Wilde is a sad one, and this tells it with fairly close accuracy.
Parental Advisory: Most definitely not for children under the age of fifteen or so. The movie contains prevalent smoking, drinking, and sex. Scenes are not horrendously graphic, but are sufficiently erotic to disturb or tittillate younger audiences.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A study of Wilde's love affair with Bosie
Review: I have read a few of these reviews that say "Where are the parts about his literature, about his rise to stardom, etc?"

This film isn't about that. To make a film covering all aspects of this man's life from childhood in Dublin to imprisonment and death, you'd be watching respectively at least a 10 hour film. This film is focused on the relationship between Wild and "Bosie" and it is done well. Very well.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: The genre that dare not speak its name.
Review: This is not a Wildean movie but a gay one.
Oscar Wilde, the great writer, you don't get to see; you merely glimpse him, here and there, getting standing ovations on opening nights or scribbling some paper on weekends. Oscar Wilde, the gay man that was, that you see more than you'd actually want to. For ...do I really need to witness what went on behind closed doors? Don't they think we can imagine the whole thing by ourselves? Why be so explicit?
My guess? To please a gay audience rather than the Wildean one.
That is not to say the film should hide Wilde's homosexuality in any way. That would be not only atrocious but utterly stupid since there's no plot without it. Yet, in showing it to such a full extent, the movie reeks a certain trace of sexploitation I personally found somewhat distasteful. I dunno; maybe it's just me.
Stephen Fry's Wilde is a remarkable portrait, no doubt about that, but me, I prefer Sir Robert Morley in the role. In that dated -prudish if you like- performance of his, you didn't see the man cavorting in bed with some male lover but the artist exercising his great wit, insight, aplomb and courage.
That's the Oscar Wilde most people are interested in, for homosexuality is a quite common preference while genius a truly rare gift.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: This movie is a ...explolit of a lost righteous Poet
Review: I'm sure the writters of this movie had good intentions of making money. I'm sure if Oscar Saw the movie himself or his Great Grand Children who live under different names now are anything but proud of such a dark portrait of someone more then just a Great Poet. Wasn't this guy in the Hairy Potter movie?
After seeing this movie you wouldn't want to be associated with Harry Potter at all. Bad Movie with Bad intent too perfectedly idealized to be true.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: WILDE OFF THE MARK
Review: I can resist anything but temptation!In this case my Sun newspaper like review title.I have read all the customer reviews below and all of Oscar Wilde's complete works.I have seen most of his plays ("The Importance of being Ernest (1895)" many times over) and seen many other portrayals of the great Irishman.Yes Fry does look uncannily like Wilde and as he stated,it was the role he was born to play.What a pity then he was let down by the producer/scriptwriters!How I agree with my esteemed colleagues below who bemoan the trap the producers have fallen into of plugging the homosexual thing (presumably to sensationlise the prurient aspects of his life to "put bums on seats" by the non cognoscenti) but not showing on screen Wilde's flowing bon mots/aphorisms/epigrams/literature and sparkling converstion etc.We all have our favourites.Whereas we were treated to Fry vocalising excerpts from his "The Gentle Giant" read to his children, I was left frustrated by the lack of interest shown by the producers in Wilde's literature.Where were the scenes set in his publishers office as they discuss his latest work?.Where were the sophisticated dinner party converstions with other intellectuals?Where were the scenes showing him develop from his youth in Dublin and at Trinity College univerity there to produce the character he became?.Little was made of the relationship with his mother although this film did show his love for his children.We had to endure an obsession with the "Bosie" a.k.a.Lord Alfred Douglas thing but this was only part of his life!His failed scandal law case brought against The Marquis of Queensbury (father of "Bosie") and subsequent incarcaration in Reading gaol,always hogs the attention of film producers for rather obvious reasons.But why no scenes of him thinking out his "De Profundis" while he composed it in his cell?
I know some people may think I am being unfashionable since homosexual matters had to be suggested in older versions rather than the modern "in yer face" style of modern adaptions.I had hoped for better.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Stephen Fry's commentary is very funny at times.
Review: This film is wonderful... yet very sad in a way. It's hard to believe that a man is thrown in prison, and his family destroyed (for years after), just because he loved in a different way.

I just wanted to say that the commentary alone is worth buying this DVD. The participants in the commentary make lot's of comments... and give lot's of interesting stories about Oscar Wilde. Stephen Fry has a wonderful sense of humour... ...

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: WILDLY WONDERFUL
Review: THIS FILM IS WONDERFUL! It is a beatiful thing, and I admire it emmensly! Need I say more? BRAVO, BRAVO, BRAVO!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Heart Behind the Wit
Review: Oscar Wilde's life was drama in the making, from his raucous and wonderful comedies, to his ridiculously unfair and dark imprisonment. Fortunately, Wilde captures the best and worst of it all, wonderful, in the movie "Wilde".

Much of the credit of this film must go to Stephen Fry's marvelous performance as Wilde himself. This was the role Fry was born to play. To portray a man seemingly larger than life can be a tricky role: it leads to overacting and an unbelievable quality as Wilde's best one liners roll off his tongue. But Fry captures his humility, making him human and believable. You think, as he recounts of his best lines, they are truly parts of the conversation and not merely injected to make people laugh.

Fry also keys into the heartbreak behind the man, in trying to deal with his wife Constance, in an equally amazing performance by Jennifer Ehle, and his true love, the disturbed, spoiled Bosie Douglas, in another amazing performace by Jude Law. Wilde's caught between two worlds he desparately wants to join, that of being a father and being with the man he loves. His trail only adds to the sadness, so when he falls into prison, you realize that perhaps, his time in incarceration started before the trial took place.

Wilde was a genuis, to be sure, and this film is our reminder that the man deserves the recognition in the US as he's earned in the rest of the world.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A wonderful film
Review: I liked this movie over all, but I felt it was still a little anit-Bosie. I dont think they went into enough detail to show the abusive family life Bosie had (mainly from his father, Lord Queensberry), and that his less this happy family life was a major reason of why he acted the way that he did. I really did love the way that they ended it. Though it was misleading from the facts, I was very happy they left it that way. I think they struggled to make it as factual as they could, while at the same time keeping it as entertaining as possible. The only thing I really didnt like about the movie was that, I thought, it was still showing Bosie in a negative light. I felt like they were still using Bosie as the scapegoat, when in fact, it was no more his fault then anyone else's. "I must say to myself that I ruined myself, and that nobody great or small can be ruined except by his own hand."-Oscar Wilde

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Deleted scenes, please!
Review: This Special Edition is pretty good value, but the audio commentary refers to a couple of deleted scenes that apparently had the crew applauding on set.... So why aren't they on this DVD?


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