 |
|
|
| A Beautiful Mind (Widescreen Awards Edition) |
 enlarge
|
List Price: $12.99
Buy New: $3.65
You Save: $9.34 (72%)
Buy New/Used/Collectible from $2.89
Avg. Customer Rating:  (based on 652 reviews)
Sales Rank: 2052
Category: DVD
Actors: Russell Crowe, Ed Harris, Paul Bettany, Patrick Blindauer, Vivien Cardone, Kent Cassella, Tanya Clarke, Jennifer Connelly, Jesse Doran, Adam Goldberg, Jason Gray-stanford, Judd Hirsch, Josh Lucas, Austin Pendleton, Christopher Plummer, Anthony Rapp, Jill M. Simon, Victor Steinbach, Thomas F. Walsh
Publisher: Universal Studios
Studio: Universal Studios
Brand: Universal Studios
Label: Universal Studios
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), French (Original Language), French (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled)
Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD
Running Time: 136 minutes
Number Of Items: 2
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
ISBN: 0783261438
UPC: 025192145025
EAN: 0025192145025
ASIN: B00005JKQZ
Theatrical Release Date: January 1, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
|
|
Similar Items:
| " |
Rain Man (Special Edition) |
| " |
Schindler's List (Widescreen Edition) |
| " |
American Beauty |
| " |
Forrest Gump |
| " |
Million Dollar Baby (Widescreen Edition) |
|
|
Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com essential video
A Beautiful Mind manages to twist enough pathos out of John Nash's incredible life story to redeem an at-times goofy portrayal of schizophrenia. Russell Crowe tackles the role with characteristic fervor, playing the Nobel prize-winning mathematician from his days at Princeton, where he developed a groundbreaking economic theory, to his meteoric rise to the cover of Forbes magazine and an MIT professorship, and on through to his eventual dismissal due to schizophrenic delusions. Of course, it is the delusions that fascinate director Ron Howard and, predictably, go astray. Nash's other world, populated as it is by a maniacal Department of Defense agent (Ed Harris), an imagined college roommate who seems straight out of Dead Poets Society, and an orphaned girl, is so fluid and scriptlike as to make the viewer wonder if schizophrenia is really as slick as depicted. Crowe's physical intensity drags us along as he works admirably to carry the film on his considerable shoulders. No doubt the story of Nash's amazing will to recover his life without the aid of medication is a worthy one, his eventual triumph heartening. Unfortunately, Howard's flashy style is unable to convey much of it. --Fionn Meade
|
|
Customer Reviews: Read 647 more reviews...
 Ron Howard has the Recipe July 10, 2006
Ron Howard has the recipe - he knows all the ingredients to put into the bowl to make a product which entertains, inspires, sells lots of tickets, and in this case cops the big awards. It is scary, really, how a craftsman like Howard can manipulate an interesting, but in many ways unattractive story and make it seem magnificent. The magnificence is entirely deserved, if you imagine the struggle that Nash went through, and this is the main point of the movie. However, its entirely desceptive, when you realize that no one cares much about a story involving unattractive, boring, sick people. So he casts visually stunning people in the leads, and voila!
You can always count on a Ron Howard movie to be high quality, and "Beautiful Mind does not disappoint." I attended Princeton, studied multi-variable calculus, and took a course in "game theory." Many aspects of the movie were realisic, but many weren't. Its interesting that Howard seems to anticipate and respect this, so he packed a second DVD with bonus material that includes lots of reality - from an interview with Nash, to details about how the screenplay was developed, etc.
The real hero of this movie is Alicia Nash. "Beautiful Mind" could have been called, "Beautiful Wife," because it is the spectacular loyalty of Mrs. Nash that was truly heroic. I can't imagine the character she must have possessed to stick by him all of those years. Once again (this is why I like Ron Howard), this point is not overlooked due to the marvelous ending (Ron; you should have done it with the audience disappearing!).
The breath-taking visual impact of Jennifer Connally, which on the surface could not have been more unrealistically cast, would appear to be entirely wrong for the part. But Connally's performance in the role as the movie played out, made it entirely appropriate when you imagine what Mrs. Nash must look like....from the INSIDE. What a woman.
***** Extra Stars July 1, 2006
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Right now this is my standard by which to measure great film, and this edition showcases it beautifully. There is no incidental material on these two disks- all the extras contribute to the experience of the movie. All aspects of the production, from the biography of the man on whom it is based to the process of developing the soundtrack receive deserved attention. There are actually 2 separate feature-length commentaries- one from the director and the other from the writer with very little redundacy. The viewer is left feeling that there is plenty more material out there.
This is a powerful film which speaks volumes on its own. The special features serve not to plunder the film, but rather suggest additionallevels on which the production can be appreciated. There are so many elements in this movie that the genius of the propmasters, special effects team, costume& makeup need to be examined individually to appreciate the incredible craftsmanship involved.
Touching and inspiring June 1, 2006
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
It's really great to get to see how the life has changed for this intelligent mathematics man throughout the movie. It was a really sad ending to me, I heard that in real life, his wife had chosen to leave him alone instead of what happened in the movie. That is even depressing for people who knew his personal story.
Russell Crowe, acts as John Nash, the main character for this film, who is a mathematical genius and Nobel Laureate. Russell Crowe did a great job, he can fully convey John Nash's innermost world, his soul and how his mental problems came out because of the pressure from his surroundings. It is really hard to express all these feelings and bring out the message of the life of John Nash. I really like watching Russell Crowe's film.
I am also happy with how the director had changed the ending different from the real story, with his wife staying with him and went with him to get the Nobel award. That change can make the audience feel better for him, and will honor him after watching this film. This film is very touching and inspiring, that we need to treasure the people surround us and we need to cherish everything we had.
 Reality would have been better than fiction May 21, 2006
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
This movie turned me off with its focus on Nash's schizophrenia rather than his monumental achievements. Three-fourths of the movie turns out to be Nash's delusion. I felt like a voyeur, entertained by someone else's pain. At the end, I wasn't even certain of exactly what it was that Nash had developed....just that he was a brilliant mathematician and severely ill. The barbaric "medical treatment" of the 1950s left me feeling sick.
A documentary would have been far more entertaining. Nash is a brilliant man despite, not because of, his illness, and I found this movie (especially since much of it is fictionalized) to be exploitive. Only two stars.
Excellent Hollywood-ized version of the man and his madness May 7, 2006
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
This resulted in four well-deserved Academy Awards in 2002: Best Picture for Brian Grazer and the people at Imagine Entertainment, Ron Howard for his direction, Jennifer Connelly for her supporting role, and Akive Goldsman for his script adapted from Sylvia Nasar's biography. It is a beautiful and touching movie, uplifting and full of a lot of things that Hollywood does very well.
Russell Crowe is believable as the arrogant yet vulnerable mathematician John Nash who fell into paranoid schizophrenia while an undergraduate at Princeton University. A philandering and selfish man who is paradoxically almost as lovable as Albert Einstein, Nash can also be humble and exhibit a wry, self-effacing sense of humor. To me he is a great hero, not because of his work in Game Theory for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics, but because he is one of the very few people ever to conquer, as it were, schizophrenia.
In the outstanding documentary from The American Experience PBS series, "A Brilliant Madness" (2002) Nash explains how he did it: he just stopped listening to the voices. The voices that the paranoid schizophrenic hears are inside his head and they are amazingly persuasive; the delusions are as compelling as monstrous personages come to life, vivid, demanding, in many ways more "real" than the reality we normally experience. So it really was heroic of John Nash to come to grips with his delusions and to mentally shove them aside. The vast majority of paranoid schizophrenics can never do that.
Yet the movie merely resembles his life and his singular experience. Goldsman's script and Howard's direction take the life of John Nash and distill the essence of his triumph while brushing aside many of the unpleasant and non-heroic details. I don't object to this because this movie is clearly aimed at the widest possible audience, and I appreciate the wisdom of that approach. But for those of you interested in a more comprehensive and objective picture of the man I can recommend both the documentary mentioned above and Nasar's biography. I especially found it valuable to view the one-hour documentary because to actually see the man and to hear him speak allowed me to better appreciate the fine performance by Russell Crowe.
I found Jennifer Connelly absolutely mesmerizing as Alicia (not to mention gorgeous). Ed Harris was a hardcore graphic nightmare as the unrelenting Parcher while Paul Bettany was intriguing and clever as Nash's nonexistent buddy. Howard's direction not only got excellent work from everybody, but he was able to bring the pathos and exhilaration of Nash's life to the audience in a very satisfying way emotionally. If you can watch this without shedding a tear or two you may want to check your synaptic connections. Incidentally the makeup work on Crowe and Connelly to allow us the illusion of the passing years was outstanding (and got an Oscar nomination).
The key to the movie and to Howard's vision is the way that the real world and the Nash's delusional world are meshed. It's clear he wanted to compel the audience to share the paranoid schizophrenic experience. While not a paranoid schizophrenic myself I have known people who are, and I have had similar, limited experiences myself under certain, shall we say, circumstances. The sheer terror that can sometimes be felt came through in the car chase scene (yes, Howard managed to get one in) while Nash's obsessive energy was revealed on the walls of the rooms that he had completely covered with pages from magazines that he had frantically searched looking for secret Soviet codes.
Some quibbles: while undergraduates loved beer then as they do now, they did not in 1946 go out for pizza, and if they had they would have called it "pizza pie." There were no pizza parlors and no pizza at the market. If you went to an Italian restaurant you had spaghetti or ravioli, and the pizza that was served was mostly bread with a thin topping of cheese and sauce, nothing like the great thin platters we have today.
New Zealander Russell Crowe's West Virginia accent faded in some scenes only to return strong in another. Incidentally he is not to be confused with Cameron Crowe, who wrote the script for Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) and directed such films as Jerry Maguire (1996) and Almost Famous (2000). Russell Crowe has starred in a number of excellent movies including Proof (1991), LA Confidential (1997), The Insider (1999), etc.
Also, no mention in the movie is made of Nash's homosexual experiences nor of his running away to Europe or his desire to renounce his US citizenship. I understand that Howard decided to leave out the homosexual angle because associating homosexuality with schizophrenia would open a can of worms that would detract from the theme of the movie. Also left out was Nash's other paternity with a woman he never married.
Nash is not a saint, but he is a hero, and this beautiful movie is a fine tribute to him and his accomplishments.
|
|
|
Copyright Runningonkarma.com 2006
|
|
|
