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Epicurus.com - Cannery Row
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List Price: $19.98
Our Price: $44.99
Availability: N/A
Manufacturer: Mgm/Turner Movie Classics
Starring: Nick Nolte, Debra Winger, Audra Lindley, Frank McRae, M. Emmet Walsh
Directed By: David S. Ward
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9786301966467
Format: Color
ISBN: 6301966465
Label: Mgm/Turner Movie Classics
Manufacturer: Mgm/Turner Movie Classics
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Mgm/Turner Movie Classics
Release Date: 1993-03-03
Studio: Mgm/Turner Movie Classics
Theatrical Release Date: 1982-02-12
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Editorial Reviews:
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This 1982 effort at adapting John Steinbeck's Sweet Thursday and Cannery Row is barely watchable, salvaged only by the thoughtful performances of Nick Nolte as a marine biologist and Debra Winger as a drifter. David S. Ward (Down Periscope) made his directorial debut and thoroughly botched such essentials as pacing and verisimilitude. (The sets look as artificial as any of Francis Ford Coppolla's more egregious contrivances.) If you can stay with it, however, there are plenty of good acting moments to hang your hat on. --Tom Keogh
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Cannery Row "Frog Round-up Finesse"
Comment: This is a classic movie on its own merits. If you can sit through the "frog round-up" with a straight face there is something basic wrong with you. The "boys" are individualistic, delightful, and capricious. The chemistry between Nolte and Winger grows on you, and all this is beside the point of the storyline. In other words, don't read the books first, if you're dead set on reading, read them after you see the film.
Why isn't this available on DVD? It's a mystery to me and many others. You'll never get tired of seeing this one over and over. This movie is off the entertainment scale which doesn't happen often. You may even pick up some small details you missed the first few viewings.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Top 50 movies of all time: Cannery Row
Comment: This film contains several of the all time most memorable scenes in cinematic history. Why it has not made it to DVD, only the gods know. This is a superb film filled with humor, heart, and romantic chaos...a truly great, great film that will make you howl with laughter. Mac and the boys, Doc, The Bear Flag Restaurant, the Beer Milkshake, the Frog Round-up, the Seer, and on and on. ON DVD PLEASE!!!!!!
Customer Rating:
Summary: cannery row artistically
Comment: This film is one of my absolute favorites. The music and photography are superb. The rich characters are a compilation of the three Cannery Row books of Steinbeck, with a few adaptatations and changes for the sake of story. Therelationships are entertaining, and the humor is both poignant and belly laugh. A can't miss that has been overlooked, I feel, for too long. Nick Nolte and Debra Winger at their best.The real "Doc" can be researched at the Monterrey Aquarium, where some of his equipment is on display.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Excellent Movie Great Fun Couldn't Stop Laughing!
Comment: Edwin said: Tom Keogh's Editorial Review of this delightful movie does it a huge injustice, and if you take his word for it, does you one as well.
It is absolutely true! This movie is incredibly fun. Every segment in it offers a new set of surprises and character developments that entertain and delight the viewer. The frog hunt--totally classic. The narration? Just fantastic. If a typical Will Farrell movie makes you laugh like mad, you're probably going to miss out on the more intellectually beneficial elements of this movie. This movie is comedy for thinking persons.
This movie features brand-name stars with so much to offer:
M. Emmet Walsh is dead-on as the happy-go-lucky Mack, who plays a "leader" of the "boys" who are basically a set of misfits and unkepts who each bring laughs for their individual personality traits that are revealed as the movie plays. My favorite "Mack" scene is when he proudly offers "Doc" the present that all of the boys (and girls!) put-in together for the purchase of a new "microscope." I won't totally spoil it, but see the movie and you'll know exactly what I mean about comedy at its finest!
Frank McRae's character Hazel will have you bent over backwards, sides in stitches. You can't play that character at that level without being a top-notch and definitely under-appreciated talent. (Frank McRae, who is featured in many great comedies, was Lieutenant Dekker in the movie The Last Action Hero.)
Audra Lindley, who played the madam (Fauna) of a "house of ill-repute," was perfect! She is probably better known to many as Mrs. (Helen) Roper in the Three's Company sitcom. My favorite part is when she does a "reading" of the stars for Hazel (Frank McRae) that predicts that he will become the president of the USA. His misfortune is inevitable!
This is, in my sincerest opinion, Debra Winger's best role ever. She plays Suzy--a not too-excited by the occupation--prostitute employed by Fauna (Lindley), but becomes mutually-sweet on Nick Nolte's character, "Doc" in what amounts to a contest of one-ups-manship during a dance.
Nolte went on to play in the 48-Hours roles, but was absolutely excellent as Doc in this film. His entire acting career, his staple of emotions and his ability to portray them through his craft are finely reflected in this film.
This movie has all of it! (minus the explicit language/sex that seems to be a requirement for movies these days) It is a love story. It is a story about love of a community, a people and their characters and interactions. One of my favorite scenes is when the "girls" play a game of baseball against "the boys" and the "Seer" steps up to the plate. It is a revealing and telling moment for all of us watching. In that one moment, we are cascaded with a showering of bliss, envy, pain, suffering, remorse and even glee. These kinds of mixed-emotional moments are incredibly rare in film. This movie is probably the best of its genre to ever come out of studio mayham.
If you haven't seen this movie, you owe it to yourself to see it. This movie is definitely not your typical, studio-safe recipe film. You will love it, particularly if you think that Will Farrell's best movie was "Stranger Than Fiction."
Take Care.
Rob!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Cannery Row - A Great Place to Be!
Comment: Cannery Row is so underrated it's pathetic! The main reason for this - and the fact that it hasn't been released to DVD - are the lawsuits that flew when Raquel Welch was replaced by Debra Winger as Suzy. She just wasn't working-out in the part and MGM was locked-up in court for years tryiong to resolve this and even now, it's doubtful that this film will see a second-life on DVD. Not to slight Ms. Welch but it's hard to imagine anyone inhabiting the role of "Suzy" better than Debra Winger in 1982. She is completely believable in her part - as are the rest of the actors in this ensemble piece.
That's why you can't currently find it on DVD - but about the movie ....
The world David Ward creates is an insulated community in a crazy world. The citizens of Cannery Row aren't really losers or people who have given up on life - they've just got a different take on it. Sure, "Doc" is running from an accident that stalled his ballplaying career and you never really know the origins of others like Hazel, Mack and Eddie, but that's minor considering the simple beauty of the film. It's a leisurly "stroll" and John Huston's beautiful voiceover just adds to the mood. While it could be considered a "love story", there are too many other stories going on to limit it to that. Mack's scheme to get money by capturing frogs is a masterpiece of pacing! And Hazel's simple-minded view of life makes sense in their world. For me, some of the most touching scenes belonged to "The Seer", played to perfection by Sunshine Parker.
But again, this movie isn't necessarily meant to have a linear thread to a logical conclusion - it's a slice out of these people's eccentric lives and through the interweaving of stories - and again, Huston's beautiful narration - it makes Cannery Row a great place to spend some time. Try to watch it and NOT want to try a beer milk shake! Or adopt wearing a snap-brim Stetson a la "Doc".
It's a crime that this film has been tied-up in legalities for so long but I still hold out hope that one day it will be released - with commentary by Nolte, Ward, M. Emmett Walsh, and anyone else who would like to be involved - and then the world will once again move in greased grooves........
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