Warren Beatty’s show is a beautiful, one of a kind epic. Never mind that it is sharply critical of John Reed, an American who was buried in the Kremlin — Hollywood never approached the title subject directly: (whisper) Commies. Beatty’s production idiosyncrasies raised eyebrows but his picture is quite an achievement in filmic storytelling, cleverly accessing a political scene sixty years gone through testimony by notables that lived it. Beatty and Diane Keaton provide the romantic fireworks that make the film commercially viable, amid all the revolutionary fervor and political chaos.
Reds 40th Anniversary
Blu-ray + Digital
Paramount Home Video
1981 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 195 min. / 40th Anniversary Edition / Street Date November 30, 2021 / 17.99
Starring: Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton, Edward Herrmann, Jerzy Kosiński, Jack Nicholson, Paul Sorvino, Maureen Stapleton, M. Emmet Walsh, Ian Wolfe, George Plimpton, Dolph Sweet, Ramon Bieri, Gene Hackman, Gerald Hiken, William Daniels, Oleg Kerensky, Shane Rimmer, Jerry Hardin, Jack Kehoe,...
Reds 40th Anniversary
Blu-ray + Digital
Paramount Home Video
1981 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 195 min. / 40th Anniversary Edition / Street Date November 30, 2021 / 17.99
Starring: Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton, Edward Herrmann, Jerzy Kosiński, Jack Nicholson, Paul Sorvino, Maureen Stapleton, M. Emmet Walsh, Ian Wolfe, George Plimpton, Dolph Sweet, Ramon Bieri, Gene Hackman, Gerald Hiken, William Daniels, Oleg Kerensky, Shane Rimmer, Jerry Hardin, Jack Kehoe,...
- 12/11/2021
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Rebecca Clough Jan 20, 2017
As America gets its new President, we look at some excellent political drama films that may have slipped under your radar...
Political dramas can be entertaining, informative and even educational, opening up debates and offering new points of view. (When experiencing a year of tumultuous change like the one we’ve just had, they can also be a comforting reminder that, no matter what your situation, it could always be worse...) With the full whack of corruption, war, and conspiracy, here are 25 political dramas which deserve to be better known.
See related 25 underrated political thrillers 17 new TV shows to watch in 2017 Taboo episode 3 review The Girl On The Train review 25. The Marchers/La Marche (2013)
When teenager Mohamed (Tewfik Jallab) is shot by police, his friends want revenge, but he has a better idea: peaceful protest. Marching from Marseille to Paris, they band together with quite an assortment of characters along the way.
As America gets its new President, we look at some excellent political drama films that may have slipped under your radar...
Political dramas can be entertaining, informative and even educational, opening up debates and offering new points of view. (When experiencing a year of tumultuous change like the one we’ve just had, they can also be a comforting reminder that, no matter what your situation, it could always be worse...) With the full whack of corruption, war, and conspiracy, here are 25 political dramas which deserve to be better known.
See related 25 underrated political thrillers 17 new TV shows to watch in 2017 Taboo episode 3 review The Girl On The Train review 25. The Marchers/La Marche (2013)
When teenager Mohamed (Tewfik Jallab) is shot by police, his friends want revenge, but he has a better idea: peaceful protest. Marching from Marseille to Paris, they band together with quite an assortment of characters along the way.
- 12/22/2016
- Den of Geek
Silver Linings Playbook star Chris Tucker, once the world's highest paid actor, talks about what drew him to acting and why he's back after a five-year break
Chris Tucker is an actor who will for ever be associated with one, salient fact. Specifically: that he was, for a brief moment, the highest paid actor in the world. This was for Rush Hour 3, the third, but possibly not final instalment in the big-grossing action franchise of the 90s for which he was paid $25m (£15.75m). The film proved him to be, arguably, the greatest physical comedian of his generation and, inarguably, its best remunerated.
After watching his hyper-animated, bug-eyed, wisecracking, body-popping turns as Lapd Detective James Carter – foil to Jackie Chan's self-contained police inspector Lee – it is hard to believe this subdued, polite guy in black shirt and suit, speaking softly at a hotel suite conference table, is the same person.
Chris Tucker is an actor who will for ever be associated with one, salient fact. Specifically: that he was, for a brief moment, the highest paid actor in the world. This was for Rush Hour 3, the third, but possibly not final instalment in the big-grossing action franchise of the 90s for which he was paid $25m (£15.75m). The film proved him to be, arguably, the greatest physical comedian of his generation and, inarguably, its best remunerated.
After watching his hyper-animated, bug-eyed, wisecracking, body-popping turns as Lapd Detective James Carter – foil to Jackie Chan's self-contained police inspector Lee – it is hard to believe this subdued, polite guy in black shirt and suit, speaking softly at a hotel suite conference table, is the same person.
- 11/16/2012
- by Hermione Hoby
- The Guardian - Film News
The lives of war correspondents are ripe with both lulls and action, and they’ve been translated, both truthfully and stuffed full of fiction, onto film for decades.
Charlize Theron is in talks to co-produce a biopic of slain war reporter Marie Colvin, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The story is based on the Vanity Fair article “Marie Colvin’s Private War” optioned by producer Basil Iwanyk and Thunder Road’s Peter Lawson. Theron would not only be taking on the challenge of representing a real-life journalist in a believable yet cinematic way, but a female journalist, which brings added complexities.
Charlize Theron is in talks to co-produce a biopic of slain war reporter Marie Colvin, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The story is based on the Vanity Fair article “Marie Colvin’s Private War” optioned by producer Basil Iwanyk and Thunder Road’s Peter Lawson. Theron would not only be taking on the challenge of representing a real-life journalist in a believable yet cinematic way, but a female journalist, which brings added complexities.
- 9/1/2012
- by Solvej Schou
- EW - Inside Movies
It’s really hard to be genuinely surprised by a movie these days. With the almost absolute destruction of any barriers to information, thanks to the wide proliferation of internet access across the world, hyper-specialized news outlets catering to any and all fandoms and fetishes have sprouted like weeds in the unkempt yard of an anti-social Doomsday Prepper.
Are you into saltwater fly-fishing? Google it and see the myriad websites that pop up just bustling with tomes of information on the subject. Or perhaps you count yourself as a knot-tying hobbyist? Then be sure to check in at the Igkt (International Guild of Knot Tyers) website and sign up for a five-year membership for only 100 British Pounds. Or maybe you have an inexplicable fascination with the 1907 Jamestown Exposition? Then scour the internet and you can read articles on the subject until your eyes fall out.
The practical consequence of this...
Are you into saltwater fly-fishing? Google it and see the myriad websites that pop up just bustling with tomes of information on the subject. Or perhaps you count yourself as a knot-tying hobbyist? Then be sure to check in at the Igkt (International Guild of Knot Tyers) website and sign up for a five-year membership for only 100 British Pounds. Or maybe you have an inexplicable fascination with the 1907 Jamestown Exposition? Then scour the internet and you can read articles on the subject until your eyes fall out.
The practical consequence of this...
- 6/26/2012
- by Christopher Lominac
- AreYouScreening.com
Warren Beatty's portrait of an American journalist who witnessed the October revolution in Russia in 1917 is everything a historian could want in a movie
Director: Warren Beatty
Entertainment grade: A–
History grade: A–
John Reed was an American journalist who witnessed the October revolution in Russia in 1917.
Sex
Earnest leftie Jack Reed (Warren Beatty) meets earnest leftie Louise Bryant (Diane Keaton) in Portland, Oregon, late in 1915. He impresses her with his thoughts on the profit motive in the first world war, somewhat anticipating Lenin's Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism, written a few months later. This was exactly the way to an earnest leftie's heart in the 1910s, and if only Reed had said something more specific about dialectical materialism it would probably have been pants off straight away. As it is, that takes them until the second date. "I'd like to see you with your pants off, Mr Reed,...
Director: Warren Beatty
Entertainment grade: A–
History grade: A–
John Reed was an American journalist who witnessed the October revolution in Russia in 1917.
Sex
Earnest leftie Jack Reed (Warren Beatty) meets earnest leftie Louise Bryant (Diane Keaton) in Portland, Oregon, late in 1915. He impresses her with his thoughts on the profit motive in the first world war, somewhat anticipating Lenin's Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism, written a few months later. This was exactly the way to an earnest leftie's heart in the 1910s, and if only Reed had said something more specific about dialectical materialism it would probably have been pants off straight away. As it is, that takes them until the second date. "I'd like to see you with your pants off, Mr Reed,...
- 5/2/2012
- by Alex von Tunzelmann
- The Guardian - Film News
There can be little doubt that Jack Nicholson is one of the greatest movie stars in the history of the medium. He's had more Oscar nominations (twelve) and wins (three) than any other actor and has been an A-list star for over forty years now, remaining a legitimate box office draw in films like "Something's Gotta Give" and "The Departed" even in his seventh decade. He's worked with everyone from Antonioni to Scorsese, and given some of the most iconic screen performances ever, from "Easy Rider" to "The Shining."
Indeed, ask a cinephile for their favorite Nicholson performance, and the same few films are likely to come up: "Easy Rider," "Five Easy Pieces," "Carnal Knowledge," "The Last Detail," "Chinatown," "The Passenger" (an amazing, nearly back-to-back six-year-run), "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest," "The Shining." But this means that some of the actor's equally strong performances never quite made it into the canon,...
Indeed, ask a cinephile for their favorite Nicholson performance, and the same few films are likely to come up: "Easy Rider," "Five Easy Pieces," "Carnal Knowledge," "The Last Detail," "Chinatown," "The Passenger" (an amazing, nearly back-to-back six-year-run), "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest," "The Shining." But this means that some of the actor's equally strong performances never quite made it into the canon,...
- 4/23/2012
- by Oliver Lyttelton
- The Playlist
What's Jack Nicholson's secret? Maybe it's the eyebrows, hovering like ironic quotation marks over every line reading. Maybe it's the hooded eyes, which hold the threat of danger or the promise of joviality -- you're never sure which. Same with that sharklike grin. Or maybe it's the voice, which has evolved over the years from a thin sneer to a deep rumble, but is always precisely calibrated to provoke a reaction. Put them all together, and they say: "I am a man to be reckoned with. Ignore me at your peril." Nicholson, who turns 75 on April 22, is often criticized for relying on his bag of tricks, for just showing up and doing Jack Nicholson (though indeed, he often seems to have been hired precisely for that purpose). But he's also capable of burrowing deep into a character, finding his wounded heart, and revealing the ugly truth without fear or vanity.
- 4/21/2012
- by Gary Susman
- Moviefone
Diane Keaton's autobiography is an endearing ramble that reveals more about her close relationship with her mother than it does about her films
You would not expect a memoir by Diane Keaton to be a conventional "as told to" or ghosted showbusiness autobiography, and indeed she recognises her own eccentricity in a 1969 letter to her mother written after failing an audition for a Broadway comedy. "Too tall and too 'kooky' – a nice way of saying strange," she reports, using a newly fashionable term to describe the ditzy likes of Goldie Hawn, Liza Minnelli and herself. Her rambling, endearing book is not short of glamorous names, nor does it scorn ambition and fame. But she shares the stage with her family and most particularly with her mother, Dorothy Hall, as co-star. On the final page she calls the book "our memoir – your words with my words". In 1968 when she got...
You would not expect a memoir by Diane Keaton to be a conventional "as told to" or ghosted showbusiness autobiography, and indeed she recognises her own eccentricity in a 1969 letter to her mother written after failing an audition for a Broadway comedy. "Too tall and too 'kooky' – a nice way of saying strange," she reports, using a newly fashionable term to describe the ditzy likes of Goldie Hawn, Liza Minnelli and herself. Her rambling, endearing book is not short of glamorous names, nor does it scorn ambition and fame. But she shares the stage with her family and most particularly with her mother, Dorothy Hall, as co-star. On the final page she calls the book "our memoir – your words with my words". In 1968 when she got...
- 11/20/2011
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Over the past couple of months we've been holding "Best Character" polls for Oscar's Best Actress category history. We asked not who should win the Oscar but which characters own real estate in your memory. Previously you selected Miranda Priestley, Clarice Starling and other iconic bitches as your favorites from the Nineties and the Aughts.
But what of the 1980s? Here are the results. *asterisks indicate Oscar winning performances.
Three unarguably iconic characters: Sophie, Celie and Aurora
1981-1985
*Sophie Zawistowski (Meryl Streep) from Sophie's Choice Celie (Whoopi Goldberg) from The Color Purple *Aurora Greenway (Shirley Maclaine) from Terms of Endearment Karen Silkwood (Meryl Streep) from Silkwood Victoria Grant (Julie Andrews) from Victor/Victoria
Diane Keaton's wondrous performance in Reds (1981) has not been forgotten.Runners Up: To complete the top ten you'd need (in descending order) a third Streep with Karen Blixen from Out of Africa, Debra Winger's Emma Greenway from Terms.
But what of the 1980s? Here are the results. *asterisks indicate Oscar winning performances.
Three unarguably iconic characters: Sophie, Celie and Aurora
1981-1985
*Sophie Zawistowski (Meryl Streep) from Sophie's Choice Celie (Whoopi Goldberg) from The Color Purple *Aurora Greenway (Shirley Maclaine) from Terms of Endearment Karen Silkwood (Meryl Streep) from Silkwood Victoria Grant (Julie Andrews) from Victor/Victoria
Diane Keaton's wondrous performance in Reds (1981) has not been forgotten.Runners Up: To complete the top ten you'd need (in descending order) a third Streep with Karen Blixen from Out of Africa, Debra Winger's Emma Greenway from Terms.
- 8/1/2011
- by NATHANIEL R
- FilmExperience
By John H. Foote
Reds (1981) – Directed by Warren Beatty (****)
With the release of the new Peter Biskind book Star, a biography and study of actor-director-producer-writer Warren Beatty, I took a look at Reds (1981) the other night, his seminal study of John Reed and the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, as seen through the eyes of Reed who wrote the first great journalistic book Ten Days That Shook the World. That book, more than any other of its time, created the template for all future current event reportage books, with its urgent, passionate writing about a world changing before Reed’s very eyes.
Long a passion project of Beatty’s since visiting Russia in the sixties, he was never comfortable being a movie star, wanting instead to be taken seriously as an artist, producing the brilliant work Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and dabbling in direction for the first time with Heaven Can Wait (1978) a remake...
Reds (1981) – Directed by Warren Beatty (****)
With the release of the new Peter Biskind book Star, a biography and study of actor-director-producer-writer Warren Beatty, I took a look at Reds (1981) the other night, his seminal study of John Reed and the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, as seen through the eyes of Reed who wrote the first great journalistic book Ten Days That Shook the World. That book, more than any other of its time, created the template for all future current event reportage books, with its urgent, passionate writing about a world changing before Reed’s very eyes.
Long a passion project of Beatty’s since visiting Russia in the sixties, he was never comfortable being a movie star, wanting instead to be taken seriously as an artist, producing the brilliant work Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and dabbling in direction for the first time with Heaven Can Wait (1978) a remake...
- 4/16/2010
- by John H. Foote
- Hollywoodnews.com
Release date: Nov. 3 The business model for Warren Beatty's 1981 Reds was the success of "Dr. Zhivago" a decade and a half earlier, but where "Zhivago" had fictional star-crossed lovers to compact its depiction of the Russian Revolution and its aftermath, Beatty's mammoth 195-minute feature is about an all-too-real relationship becoming stressed out by the Soviet bureaucracy. Not exactly the same fireworks. Beatty's direction is rather like his acting, gradually entertaining despite all of the shuffling and mumbling he does (his direction also resorts to romantic comedy tricks that feel out of place with his general struggle for veracity).
The film, a biographical portrait of the Soviets' American chronicler, Jack Reed, and his life partner, Louise Bryant, which has at last been released by Paramount, as a two-platter 25th Anniversary Edition (retail $19.99), gains in tolerability from the DVD market, where watching long-form programming has become an accepted and malleable activity (you can take a pause whenever you wish -- or not).
Despite the star power that begins with Beatty and Diane Keaton as Reed and Bryant, and then extends to Jack Nicholson as Eugene O'Neill, Oscar-winner Maureen Stapleton as Emma Goldman and a number of other enjoyable embodiments, the film was essentially designed for the intellectual elite and not the masses. Perhaps that is the only way Reed's story could be told, but even the most-dedicated and informed viewers can begin to get antsy during the sequences, bereft of romance, where Beatty's character is attempting to secure credentials for his party or alter the platforms of various committees.
There is a great deal to admire in the movie, as it explores a history of ideas, and as it shares the ups and downs of the relationship between the two central characters, and many sequences are fully engaging, but it is a daunting entertainment, and its rewards are more informational than spectacle.
The program is split between the two platters with the break coming at the film's intermission point. The picture generally looks terrific. It is presented in letterboxed format only, with an aspect ratio of about 1.85:1 and an accommodation for enhanced 16:9 playback. In scattered moments the intensity of the color shifts slightly from frame to frame, but that is only detectible if your concentration wanders from the narrative.
The image is fresh and spotless, and fleshtones are accurate. There is a 5.1-channel Dolby Digital track, giving the musical score a nice depth, although the original monophonic track, which is also available, feels more artistically in keeping with the film's proletarian spirit. There is a French track in mono and optional English subtitles. The second platter also holds a 67-minute retrospective documentary, featuring interviews with most of the major contributors who are still alive, except for Keaton. There are some tantalizing unused clips of the documentary-style "witnesses" from the film, though it makes you wish that the DVD had included more.
The material with Beatty, reflecting upon his effort and what he was trying to accomplish, is substantial, and that makes the documentary worthwhile, even though it scoots around addressing the production delays and other problems. Co-star Edward Herrmann probably summarizes the film best when he explains, "Warren understands life in a very personal way. I have a feeling he thinks the intellectual side of life is a result of the organic, biological side of life, and that the huge, complex intellectual constructions that we have, these passionate debates about the dialectic of socialism, is mostly about who's the biggest guy on the block. Who's the one who's sexy? Who's the one who's got the juice? And that the intellectual arguments are more emotional than intellectuals like to think, and that's the way he approached it."
The complete database of Doug Pratt's DVD-video reviews is available at dvdlaser.com . A sample copy of the DVD-Laser Disc Newsletter can be obtained by calling (516) 594-9304.
The film, a biographical portrait of the Soviets' American chronicler, Jack Reed, and his life partner, Louise Bryant, which has at last been released by Paramount, as a two-platter 25th Anniversary Edition (retail $19.99), gains in tolerability from the DVD market, where watching long-form programming has become an accepted and malleable activity (you can take a pause whenever you wish -- or not).
Despite the star power that begins with Beatty and Diane Keaton as Reed and Bryant, and then extends to Jack Nicholson as Eugene O'Neill, Oscar-winner Maureen Stapleton as Emma Goldman and a number of other enjoyable embodiments, the film was essentially designed for the intellectual elite and not the masses. Perhaps that is the only way Reed's story could be told, but even the most-dedicated and informed viewers can begin to get antsy during the sequences, bereft of romance, where Beatty's character is attempting to secure credentials for his party or alter the platforms of various committees.
There is a great deal to admire in the movie, as it explores a history of ideas, and as it shares the ups and downs of the relationship between the two central characters, and many sequences are fully engaging, but it is a daunting entertainment, and its rewards are more informational than spectacle.
The program is split between the two platters with the break coming at the film's intermission point. The picture generally looks terrific. It is presented in letterboxed format only, with an aspect ratio of about 1.85:1 and an accommodation for enhanced 16:9 playback. In scattered moments the intensity of the color shifts slightly from frame to frame, but that is only detectible if your concentration wanders from the narrative.
The image is fresh and spotless, and fleshtones are accurate. There is a 5.1-channel Dolby Digital track, giving the musical score a nice depth, although the original monophonic track, which is also available, feels more artistically in keeping with the film's proletarian spirit. There is a French track in mono and optional English subtitles. The second platter also holds a 67-minute retrospective documentary, featuring interviews with most of the major contributors who are still alive, except for Keaton. There are some tantalizing unused clips of the documentary-style "witnesses" from the film, though it makes you wish that the DVD had included more.
The material with Beatty, reflecting upon his effort and what he was trying to accomplish, is substantial, and that makes the documentary worthwhile, even though it scoots around addressing the production delays and other problems. Co-star Edward Herrmann probably summarizes the film best when he explains, "Warren understands life in a very personal way. I have a feeling he thinks the intellectual side of life is a result of the organic, biological side of life, and that the huge, complex intellectual constructions that we have, these passionate debates about the dialectic of socialism, is mostly about who's the biggest guy on the block. Who's the one who's sexy? Who's the one who's got the juice? And that the intellectual arguments are more emotional than intellectuals like to think, and that's the way he approached it."
The complete database of Doug Pratt's DVD-video reviews is available at dvdlaser.com . A sample copy of the DVD-Laser Disc Newsletter can be obtained by calling (516) 594-9304.
- 11/3/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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