The Basketball Diaries (1995) Review

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(More customer reviews)Director Scott Kalvert creates a moving and realistic recount of the true story of Jim Carroll, played superbly by Leonardo DiCaprio, a New York City teen who at the height of his high school basketball career, falls victim to drugs and violence in the rough streets.
Look for the real-life Jim Carroll who makes a cameo appearance as a crack addict in the scene where young Jim sitting in a back alley listening to the addict preach about his "high" while boiling his fix.
Fine supporting performances by the entire cast and a musical score including original songs performed by Jim Carroll's band. Especially memorable is the acid-rock message song: "These Are All the People Who've Died" which is a tribute to Jim's fallen friends throughout his life.
The serious messages in this film SCREAM out at teens, but also are sombering to adults who realize the sometimes hopeless devastation that wracks a family during a drug crisis. Your heart breaks for Jim's mom and his mentor, an African American ex-druggie who cleaned up and wants nothing more than to help Jim out of his living hell before it consumes him.

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Oliver Stone Collection (1991) Review

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(More customer reviews)Clearly Oliver Stone is not your average film-maker. He is a man guided by passion, rebeliousness, and a burning sense of what is right and wrong. This 10-DVD set really strikes out and reveals the man for what he is, warts and all.
This set represents each of the films in the best condition available, which is both good and bad. The new Transfers of Nixon, Natural Born Killers and Heaven & Earth are stunning, and the extended cuts and bonus materials included with Doors, JFK, Nixon, and Any Given Sunday are more than any fan could possibly have asked for.
However there are flaws, fortunately most of them minor and probably exagerated by the contrast to what the set does actually achieve. Commentary tracks are lacking on Talk Radio and U-Turn, and not all the films are anamorphic widescreen. As noted those flaws are minor. A larger problem is Born of the Forth of July. While I wanted significantly more bonus material, something matching what is or will soon be available with the rest of the Viet Nam trilogy, the real problem is that the print is nearly unwatchable. In transfering this film they set the edge enhancement feature way too high. every scene is filled with images that have a white halo "Ringing" effect surounding the actors or the background. This is a side effect of a bad transfer and is present in many DVD's which have been "Cleaned" or "re-mastered" but I've never seen it this bad ever. It is so distracting here that one wonders if quality control ever checked this disc.
Given the attention to detail that went into several other of the Discs (See Heaven & Earth, Nixon, and Any Given Sunday) from the various studios involved, Universal really dropped the ball here. Director Stone, Ron Kovic, and this film all deserved substantially better than what Universal put in
But like I said, other than this glaring flaw the rest of the package is a real winner!!

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The 10 films included in this collection are (in chronological order) Wall Street, Talk Radio, Born on the Fourth of July, JFK, The Doors, Heaven & Earth, Natural Born Killers, Nixon, U Turn, and Any Given Sunday. Also included is Oliver Stone's America, a documentary about Stone's films and career, featuring clips, interviews, behind-the-scenes footage, and Stone's early student film Last Year in Vietnam.

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