Reviews

This movie was a new western that appeared at our library. The title "The Gunfighter" is the same as a movie staring Gregory Peck. I picked up the movie thinking it was the Gregory Peck version.

I found the plot fascinating and the scenery very beautiful. It did not have many characters but it did not feel like a low budget movie. Upon reflection, the music was good too. There were a few homages to Sergio Leone's films and I even noticed his name in the credits.

The movie was good enough that I watched it a second time just to show it to a few new people.

Actually it only occurred to me after watching it that it might have been a low budget affair since the main actor was also the writer, director, producer and make-up artist.

The DVD turned out to be of extremely high quality. I watched it on a 58 inch TV and could not distinguish this from a Blu-ray.

I saw that this had won a couple of awards. It also stars Naomi Watts who is one of my favourite actresses.

The chemistry in the love stories just wasn't there. The story just seemed too contrived and far fetched. It was one of those movies that I just wanted to be over. Towards the end it did get a little more interesting but then had an unsatisfying ending.

Also Naomi is starting to show her age.

Were there any good points? The scenery was excellent and I did enjoy listening to all of those Aussie accents. It makes you appreciate that Australian actors have to put on American accents for most of their Hollywood films.

When I watch a DVD I really like to watch it from start to end without skipping anything.

With this presentation I felt like 1 hour was great, a half hour was ok, and another half hour was poor. I'm sure if I owned this DVD I'd always wish to skip by the poorer stuff.

I really liked Donny Osmond, Elaine Page, Michael Ball and the various "Cats" songs and the song by Boy Zone.

I was greatly irritated that they let Antonio Banderas sing the Phantom. He just does not have the voice for Phantom of the Opera. His Evita song was OK though.

There were also a couple of songs by people that I did not recognize that had very bad unmusical voices.

Sarah Brightman's voice is good but her facial expressions looked a bit odd.

DVD lovers will find the Dolby 5.1 track on the DVD sounds very flat. It feels more like Dolby 2.0 or even Dolby mono at times.

So overall I'd give it 7/10. Since the best parts can be found on Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and on Cats (both of which I own already) I don't feel compelled to buy this DVD. It is worth watching. However, I'd only recommend buying it if you don't have any of the other Andrew Lloyd Weber DVDs.

This was a fun movie to watch. It is about an American who falls for a Mexican girl. After they are married a lot of humorous situations arise due to their cultural differences. I am a Canadian married to a Portuguese lady so a number of these differences I have experienced first hand. For example, when you meet the "family" it is not just three or four people it is half the town. Also when you sit in the sun all day, some people tend to melt (I do) and others do not. In the movie, I also found her father's line "Presbyterian is not a religion" a nice summary of why the parents didn't think the marriage could work.

The movie has nice scenery of the grand canyon, the hoover dam, the desert and the great grandmother's Mexican "casa". The surround sound is very enjoyable. It includes a great many songs all of which blend in nicely with the movie. The Elvis songs near the end of the movie are quite touching.

Finally the two leads are sensational. Matthew Perry's body language is superb for the kind of light comedy role he plays. He also did the emotional stuff really well. Although not quite certain about his feelings, his heart pulled him head-first into marriage.

Salma is very cute and her tan does her wonders. She also is a good actress and adds a lot to the humor.

I've seen this movie six times in the last year. It is a nice relaxing watch.