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The Birds

The Birds

List Price: $19.98
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: An Very Entertaining Film.
Review: This film has Superb Special Effects by Albert Whitlock(EarthQuake, John Carpenter`s The Thing)

One of the best films from Hitchcock, especially this film is very entertaining.

Good Performances by Tippi Hedren(Marine), Rod Talyor(The Time Machine), Jessica Tandy(Driving Miss Daisy), Veronica Cartwright(Alien) and Suzanne Pleshette(The Geisha Boy). Grade:A+.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: No Audio Commentary?
Review: What? No audio commentary on the new "The Birds" DVD? It looks like it has a lot to offer but I am amazed that there is no Tippi Hedren or Suzanne Pleshette or anyone else associated with this movie not asked to do this. What a shame! The movie has so many fascinating elements and it would have been very interesting to hear these people comment throughout the movie. What was Universal thinking?

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Excellent Hitchcock Thriller
Review: This was the second Alfred Hitchcock movie I ever saw and I loved it. The Birds is a great movie. Tippi Hedren is beautiful as the heroine of the movie Melanie Daniels, and Jessica Tandy is great in this movie as well. I didn't really think this movie was scary though, but the special effects were impressive for that time period. One thing I didn't like though is that it had no music in the whole movie. But still I liked The Birds. It's a great movie and I would recommened it!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: What a shame!
Review: I have only seen this in VHS format, but am anxiously awaiting the DVD in a few weeks! However, I am not here to review the movie, I am here to say, that it is so dissapointing to see that the audio is not going to be 5.1 but instead lackluster 2.0 mono. What are ppl thinking? The Birds is perfect for 5.1. With the bird attacks, it would sound as if the viewer was being attacked as well, with birds coming from all sides. As usual, an awesome capability not living up to its full potential. Yet the "Wizard of Oz" is in 5.1? Makes no sense, very frustrating!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Birds : when normality reverse to terror
Review: The Birds is one of the best Alfred Hitchcock's movies. When it was released, a lot of people did not understand the purpose and the meaning of the movie. When you see the movie at the first degree, you can think: oh yeah this is another horror movie made for the sixties that can not challenge with today horror movies, the special effects are very weak compared with special effects of Jurassic park. But this is a wrong approach of this masterpiece. Alfred Hitchcock did not intend only to frightened people, for him this was also a story of the fight between humanity and normality. I mean when the Birds decide to attack people, there is no explanation, it occurs in a little town with ordinary people, suddenly these people with their little world are engulfed in terror. When the woman in the restaurant asks Melanie "why are they doing this?» she can not answer because she does not know herself. This is the secret key of the movie: normality can be easily reversed by an inexplicable incident. This movie is very important in cinema history, it influenced a lot of directors include George Romero and Steven Spielberg. In the Night of the living dead, the plot is similar: a group of people is suddenly engulfed in another level of reality. At the beginning they can not understand the supernatural situation, but soon they are forced to face this reality if they want to survive. You have to watch this movie with your imagination, this is a true fantastic movie because there is no explanation of the attitude of the birds, these ordinary birds become the element rooting the horror in everyday. Some idiots people are obsessed by special effects, they think that special effects are enough for the success of a movie. But, do you really think that Jurassic Park could be remembered in the future as a good movie ? There is neither acting nor plot in that demonstration of numeric special effects. If you want to see dinosaurs, you could watch the extraordinary TV documentary on the life of dinosaurs made by the BBC and others European channels like France 3, the special effects were by far superior of those of Jurassic park. So what is left to a movie like Jurassic park? Nothing! If you want a pop music, a lot of gore, blood, idiots characters, and to be frightened like when you go to Disneyland, you can watch I still know what you did last summer, today standard for horror (horrible ?) movies for teenagers who want gratuitous violence and unrealistic blood and physical injuries. For people who think that special effects are bad in that movie : you can read the interview of Richard Edlund in Cahiers du Cinéma, juin 1982, where the supervisor of Empire strike back special effects told us that he was very impressed by the ambition and the complexity of special effects of the Birds. People who think that these marvellous special effects are bad are people who don't know anything in history of special effects or who try to show that they know something, these people should return to school for the definition of special effects. He also told us that making some special effects of Star Wars was even easier than those of the Birds because they do not have to animate flying birds. For myself I prefer think that my opinion about these fantastic special effects is the same opinion of a master of special effects.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Whenever I'm Near A Lot Of Birds ...
Review: Although I don't think that The Birds is Alfred Hitchcock's greatest film, it is probably my favourite of his movies. I've seen the trailer for the film, and it's very humourous, and obviously Hitchcock wanted to have a lot of fun with his audience. The trailer suggests that the birds attack as a response to all that man has done to them over the years. It's an interesting idea, especially since the reason for the attacks is omitted in the film, which is one of the things that I like about it. I like the way the film looks at the reaction of people to bizarre events, especially as some of the townspeople connect the arrival of the birds with the arrival of Tippi Hedren as though she somehow brought this on them. I didn't even notice that there wasn't a musical soundtrack the first time I saw the film, because the sounds of the birds attacking amidst the silence is really effective. The performers are good, especially Suzanne Pleshette, and although I don't think Tippi Hedren was the greatest actress to appear before a camera, I think she's better than most people give her credit for, especially considering that the actors are secondary to all that is happening in the film. She looks great, and projects a certain detached coolness, which is appropriate for the character. The special effects are good (condsidering the time), and the tension slowly builds with each attack. I particularly like the scene where Tippi Hedren waits outside the schoolhouse, and the birds slowly gather behind her without her knowledge. For me, this is a fun movie to watch, well made and very effective for its purpose. I've seen a lot of other suspense and horror films and they generally don't stay with me. But I have to admit that there have been a few times when I have gone by a large group of birds perched somewhere, and I've flashbacked to this movie and walked a little faster!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: I LOVE THE BIRDS!
Review: I have to give The Birds two thumbs WAY WAY up. I didnt think I'd like the movie at first, but as I started watching, I became more interested and the suspense kept my going thoughout the entire movie. I recommend that you watch The Birds. If you are into Drama and Suspense, you absolutely NEED to see this movie!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: TWO KINDS OF SCARY
Review: There are two types of scary. One type is mostly what you see today, gross blood and gore, with a crazy guy with a fishhook digging it in to good looking teens. The other kind is what Hichcock did best, the more phycological scary. It makes you think, becuase you are never sure exactly what is going on. Ignore the fake looking blood. The movie was designed to make you think and it does.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: BODEGA BAY
Review: I recently viewed this movie for about the third time, and I was amazed at just how great some of the special effects were considering it was filmed in 1963. Suzanne Pleshette as Annie and Ethel Griffies as the wise old hag near the end give the best performances. Jessica Tandy was a usually terrific performer, but some of her scenes here are simply laughable and the cool Tippi acts like a Dresden doll. The film is an original to be sure & certainly has redeeming qualities in the special effects department; I just think the lead performances are just a tad wooden.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: 4 stars, but only if seen in theatre
Review: The first couple of times I saw this, it was on TV, and I didn't like it much - and I'm a diehard Hitchcockian. I thought it had a thin, slow story that felt sort of abitrary, like it was just an excuse to have some people get together to get pecked by birds. And Tippi Hedren ain't no Grace Kelly, as much as Hitch tried to make her one.

Last year I finally saw it in a real theatre. Now, it isn't news that movies aren't the same on the tube, but... well, shoot. Hitchcock's use of sound and sense of space is destroyed on your 12-inch or 20-inch or 32-inch or whatever. In theatre, those horrible electronic bird-cries become overwhelming, an assault. And in one of the scenes where the characters are trapped in the house surrounded by shrieking birds, looking up at the ceiling, I involuntarily looked up toward the auditorium ceiling myself. The "space" of the movie felt like it extended off the screen and I experienced it like I was in the house with them.

With these sequences working so well, everything else just seems to fall into place, and the movie comes off as a model of economically sustained suspense that operates on the principle of keeping your monster offscreen most of the time.

Unless you've got a large-screen TV with a good stereo and/or surround-sound hookup, I would almost say this isn't worth bothering with on home video, especially if it's pan & scan (like this tape) instead of widescreen.


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