2 comments about Christmas With the Beverly Hillbillies.

1. YOU WILL NOT BE HAPPY WITH THIS PURCHASE! DO NOT BUY THIS! LET ME BE THE LAST SUCKER! YOUR MOVE!



2. Also contains a Thanksgiving episode, but it is as advertised: a christmas episode from the tv show. I was disappointed that the opening theme song & music were not from the original show. Guess they didnt want to pay the royality fees to use the original music, oh well.

No comments about Star Trek the Next Generation Collectors Edition: Captain's Holiday & Tin Man.

1 comments about Christmas: The Classic Television Collection.

1. The best thing about this DVD set is the packaging. It is very attractive. It is also misleading. Echo Bridge Entertainment is just a repackaging of Platinum Disc Corporation (PDC) product. The problem with PDC is that this company inserts the company name and logo onto the bottom right hand corner of the screen periodically throughout the program. I have never been able to overlook any program that does this to deter pirating. It takes away from the nostalgic feel of watching a vintage television program or movie. Vintage Entertainment practices this as well, so I have resisited buying any more product from them. If this sort of thing does not really bother you, then you may very well enjoy the diverse programming on this set of DVDs. It includes Burns and Allen, A Date With the Angels, Dragnet, Four Star Playhouse, Annie Oakley and The Racket Squad, among others. Each program is separated by the PDC intro as well, so you are constantly being reminded of what company has released this. Otherwise, it would be a nice collection of early holiday programming.

5 comments about New Orleans (1947).

1. I bought this DVD blindly just because I'm such a fan of Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday and of New Orleans in general. The plot (what there is of it) is clichŽd and uninteresting, but the music is fantastic, and I ended up playing the musical pieces over and over. The entire movie is filmed on a Hollywood soundstage; if you're looking for shots of old New Orleans, look elsewhere.



2. I have always found jazz performances much more captivating live rather than recorded, and although I can't travel back in time and see Louis Armstrong play during his prime, this video is the next best thing.

   The makers of New Orleans did not waste the talents of the musicians, and a good chunk of the movie is concert footage of many of the giants from the golden age of Jazz including Kid Ory, Woody Herman and Billie Holiday doing old standards such as Basin Street Blues and Do You Know What it Means to Miss New Orleans.

   These performances truly convey the joy that enrapt the musicians as they played, and Armstrong in particular, is irresistably charming and funny as usual and appears for much of the film.

   Unfortunately, Holiday is possibly the most wooden actress I have ever seen, but since for most of her comparatively short screen time is spent singing, it isn't a problem.

   I strongly recommended this one to all fans of early jazz.




3. The film itself it trite and inconsequential. Buy this for the music alone. It's a delight to see Louis Armstrong in such a casual environment, with so many jazz legends, not to mention one of Billie Holiday's rare movie appearances. This DVD is honestly a treasure.



4. I am so very glad I bought it, as a person who loves great music and provocative movies, with love as a theme, in all vernaculars (except hip-hop), and a jazz enthusiast at heart it's a love story dotted with great musical contributions from the authentic jazz greats, Louie Armstrong and Billie Holiday to name a few.



5. 
   The movie showcased the ascent of New Orleans ragtime music versus the uptown music. Miralee Smith (Dorothy Patrick) was the young opera singer who, together with her conductor, was attracted to ragtime music, against the wish of her mother and many. Mrs. Smith, to keep her daughter away from ragtime music and its staunch supporter, Mr. Duquesne (Arturo de Cordova), made sure New Orleans had no place for either of them. And in Chicago Mr. Duquesne popularized the music as jazz.
   
   The real draw, of course, lies in the jazz music as epitomized by Louis Armstrong and his Band, Woody Herman and his Orchestra, and the beautiful voice of Billie Holiday, plus the professional musicians playing the cornet, trombone, clarinet, double bass ... . Billie Holiday exuberates a cool confidence with her unique rich voice and her swaying along the melody. Her rendition of Ms New Orleans was impressive, but the most outstanding moment was when she sang fairwell to Storyville and later joined by the chorus of the black folks who were forced to leave New Orleans. Not to mention the solo played by Louis Armstrong and Woody Herman.

5 comments about Walk the Line.

1. Unbelievable performance by Joaquin so give the award to Reese right?! She was good but what about the Phoenix! HELLO! Its a movie you can watch again and again.



2. LOVE ROCKABILLY. LOVE JOHNNY CASH. THIS MOVIE WAS SO GOOD.I LAUGHTED CRIED AND ROCKED OUT. GOTTA HAVE IT TYPE OF MOVIE.



3. Joaquin Phoenix probably would have won the Oscar for his portrayal of Johnny Cash in "Walk the Line" if only Jamie Foxx hadn't won the prize a year earlier for playing Ray Charles. The Oscars didn't want to look like the Grammys, so they gave the golden guy to Philip Seymour Hoffman for a less complex performance as Truman Capote.
   
   Phoenix is better, though (and does his own singing), and director James Mangold, in a commentary, praises the actor unabashedly. One of the most memorable scenes has Cash watching from the wings as Elvis Presley (played by Tyler Hilton) wows a crowd of screaming teenagers. Without uttering a single word, Phoenix conveys a range of emotions. At first, he's admiring. Then he appears momentarily jealous of qualities Elvis has that are lacking in his own performance. Finally, he shakes off any feelings of envy he may have and is once more admiring, much too impressed with his colleague to let petty feelings intrude.
   
   Biopics tend to follow a too predictable path, an unavoidable template when dealing with the kind of lives considered worthy of cinematic treatment. There's the early life and its troubles often depicted as providing the impetus for the subject's later success. There's the scene in which the hero discovers his talent or calling and struggles to effectively develop or present it to whomever (in this case, Sun Records' producer Sam Phillips) holds the power to bring it to the world. Then you've got the predictable rise and, sometimes, the fall. "Walk the Line" doesn't stray from the formula yet makes the cliches of the genre seem fresh because they allow Johnny Cash to appear not merely as a legend, an almost Mount Rushmore figure in popular music, but as a man full of doubts about his talent and his soul, and Phoenix captures him superbly.
   
   Cash never really had a downfall comparable to Elvis Presley's, but he struggled with addiction, only overcoming his demons through the love of June Carter. He had career setbacks, but the film ends before Cash was dumped from the Columbia label and also stops short of detailing his eventual return to glory through the series of brooding recordings he made for producer Rick Rubin's American Recordings. It's a fine, superbly realized film, a testament to both the legend of its subject, and to the talents of its stars.
   
   Brian W. Fairbanks



4. Here we have the rather luscious and dangerous Joaquin Phoenix channeling Johnny Cash in WALK THE LINE. At the literal heart of the movie is Cash's longstanding and long-unrequited love for June Carter (the ever ebullient Reese Witherspoon finally being allowed to put her Nashville accent to good use) and the trials and travails he must suffer before finally settling down with the love of his life. From the foot-stomping power of the very first scene, music is the thread that binds these two restless hearts and what makes the movie even more remarkable is that Phoenix and Witherspoon did all of their own singing!
   
   (Originally published on the website of author Teresa Medeiros at www.teresamedeiros.com)



5. Being A Johnny Cash fan, I loved this movie...
   Joaquin Phoenix really resembles "The Man In Black"
   
   Reese Witherspoom resembles June Carter
   the only question that I have is :Couldn't they( the people at
   the movie studio ) have taught them how to sing?
   
   I'm tired of movies in which the stars only lip synch to the sound track( Sweet Dreams is the best example of this fraudulant practice)
   Since ,this is a biopic ,I'd Expect Joaquin Pheonix to at least to play the guitar,instead of faking it!!

No comments about Lesley Garrett: Live at Christmas.

No comments about The Dragon The Dragon: A Stroll in Beijing.

No comments about Perry Como's Christmas Classics.

No comments about Carlsbad Caverns National Park & Guadalupe Mountains National Park.

No comments about Mezzogiorno Sicily: Living with Etna.