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List Price: $28.99 | | Label: Warner
Salesrank: 21014
Released: January 27, 2009 |
| Our Price: $14.99 |
| Used Price: $11.30 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: Blu-ray |
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Editorial Review:
Life is a contact sport and football is life when three-time academy award-winning filmmaker Oliver Stone and a dynamic acting ensemble explore the fortunes of the Miami Sharks in Any Given Sunday. At the 50-year line of this gridiron cosmos is Al Pacino as Tony D'Amato, the embattled Sharks coach facing a full-on blitz of team strife plus a new, marketing-savvy sharks owner (Cameron Diaz) who's sure Tony is way too old school. An injured quarterback (Dennis Quaid), a flashy, bull-headed backup QB (Jamie Foxx), a slithery team doctor (James Woods) and a running back with an incentive-laden contract (LL Cool J) also provide some of the stories that zigzag like diagrams in a playbook. and throughout, there's the awesome spectacle of motion, sound and action orchestrated by Stone.
Description of Any Given Sunday (Director's Cut) [Blu-ray]:
Any Given Sunday, Oliver Stone's salute-cum-exposé of pro football, belabors some pretty obvious points for nigh onto three hours; but between the frenetic editing, the pounding rap-music beats, and several flashy performances, it's certainly never dull. Al Pacino, coach of the fictional Miami Sharks (the NFL declined involvement in this production), struggles with the most time-honored of sports movie dilemmas: what to do with the old friend who's past his prime and the young hotshot who could save the franchise but first has to learn what being a team player is all about. Comedian Jamie Foxx does a marvelous dramatic turn as the rookie quarterback whose ego and talent are equally impressive, while Pacino seems more at ease in Oliver Stone Land than any actor since regular James Woods (on hand as well as a sleazy team doctor). Prowling the sidelines, shouting spittle-flecked orders, seizing up in almost physical pain when a play goes the wrong way, Pacino is as unashamedly--and entertainingly--hyperbolic as Stone's whirling montages of boiling storm clouds, bloodthirsty fans, and players smashed into the mud. (Once again football, perhaps the most sophisticated of team sports, is viewed cinematically as a bunch of guys hitting each other in slow motion.) Unfortunately, all the self-conscious mythologizing and pumped-up macho posturing that Stone can muster doesn't conceal a clichéd, slapped-together script, whose few good ideas (mostly about race in America) jostle about with several hoary, terrible ones--including a too-literal analogy of football players as modern gladiators. (To drive the point home, Stone includes Charlton Heston--the aging Ben-Hur--in one of many star-powered cameos.) All in all, Any Given Sunday is never dull, but never very enjoyable, either. --Bruce Reid
Any Given Sunday (Director's Cut) [Blu-ray] Reviews:
Great Movie 
2009-10-15 - Not "just about Football" This movie ROCKS!! It is always moving, giving you insight to the game of Football and of Life. Great acting: Al Pacino delivers a wonderful performance and all the actors play their parts excellent. Watch this movie you will not be disappointed. I do not even like Football, but this movie was great.
GREAT PRIMER FOR NFL SEASON
2009-09-23 - It was great to revisit this classic--hadn't seen it since it was in the theaters almost ten years ago. Stone does a masterful job of rendering caricatures to realistic, if some times slightly cliched, characters. Blu-Ray makes the fooball scenes almost as good as the Dallas mega screen [especially on my 120" projection screen] and anyone following today's NFL scene is reminded that the more it changes the more it stays the same--just more so. Testosterone-soaked, often maudlin,full of intrigue and action--who can resist!
Stone Tackles The Ugly World of Football 
2009-07-27 - Like the players in American football, Oliver Stone's had his ups and downs. Any Given Sunday is actually one of the director's most accessible works and resonates more with Stone's earlier and mid period work like Wall Street than it does with his work on US presidents. Any Give Sunday works because it's coherent, not left field like the Doors, or rambling like the stylish but disjointed Alexander.
As with most of his best tales, Any Given Sunday presents a battlefield of morality. Every single person in the film - the Coach, the Quarterback, the Hotshot Team owner, etc have to decide what it is they have to do to survive, but also to honour their own integrity. With a star cast that's easy on the eye - Diaz, Quaid, Foxx, and Pacino returning to form, Any Given Sunday may have received mixed reviews but that's because Stone refuses to make a film that's easily classifiable (it's not your typical American football movie nor a serious drama). Nonetheless, for Stone fans, this is undeniably enjoyable and engaging stuff.
good purchase - entertaining flik
2009-06-01 - Good entertaining flick - good performances from Pacino and Jamie Foxx, good soundtrack as well.
Movie Purchase
2009-05-24 - Excellent - the movie arrived earlier than described. i will def buy from seller again
