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| | Label: Divisa Red
Salesrank: 49784
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| Our Price: $26.95 |
| Used Price: $28.95 |
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MPAA Rating:
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Netherlands released, PAL/Region 2 DVD: it WILL NOT play on standard US DVD player. You need multi-region PAL/NTSC DVD player to view it in USA/Canada: LANGUAGES: English ( Dolby Digital 2.0 ), SPECIAL FEATURES: Interactive Menu, Scene Access, SYNOPSIS: Somewhere in the great wlsewhere there is a higher calling, a nobler ambition. Don Quixote is sure because he's read so in books about chivalry. But aged Quixote is not merely content to read. So he adorns himself in armor, takes up a makeshift lance and rides off to set the world right. Peter Yates directs from a script by John Mortimer and serves up a dreamy array of special effects both subtly and grandly scaled. Why would Quixote engage windmills in battle? Better yet, why not? To see the world through his eyes is to embrace life as the fullest adventure...
SCREENED/AWARDED AT: Emmy Awards,
Don Quixote Reviews:
Quirky Classic 
2009-11-27 - This is a visually sumptious film which treats its central characters with a gentle quirky humour that never completely destroys their dignity and humanity.It is an almost impossible task to reduce Cervantes classic novel to film, but I doubt if there will be a better attempt. The success is primarily due to the outstanding performances of John Lithgow as the Don and Bob Hoskins as Pancho Sanza and John Mortimer's script. Lithgow's Don has a dignified strength which balances his over active imagination while Hoskins tongue in cheek interpretation owes much to the human weaknesses that so many of us share.It took a little while for the film to gain pace but as compensation this adult production had an imaginative energy that brought to mind Shakespeare's Twelfth Night and a Midsummer Night's Dream-it was indeed a good "Knight's" entertainment!Not for the action film addict but willingly suspend your disbelief and connive with its reality as the Duke eventually did and you will certainly enjoy.
Don Quixote 
2009-11-18 - I am so glad to have a version of Don Quixote that my English 12 students might enjoy. Last year all I could find was the cartoon version.
A lot of heart but suffers from it's budget
2009-09-25 - A really elite cast with Bob Hoskins as Sancha Panza - can't get any better than that unless Akim Tamiroff is still around - a charismatic performance by Lithgow with other great actors in the supporting roles and a very good director (Peter Yates) attached to the project. BUT - the special effects are really cheap and hurt the project bad. I mean really bad. The attack on the windmills was great but as he ventures on a magical horse ride and visits magical kingdoms....yikes!!
That aside, it's funny and enjoyable and the enthusiasm of the cast really does come out. My biggest complaint story wise is the ending. I had just read the book and wanted to watch the film and was shocked at the alternations to the ending. I really wanted to feel for Don Quixote at the end but instead I felt the film tried to redeem a lot of the characters at the end when Cervantes was obviously trying very hard to emphasize the betrayal or deception of Quixote's closest friends which brings on the characters melancholy and of course his broken heart as this cruel modern world contains no place for chivalry and 'Knight-errantry'. I could only see the hand of the producer demanding the story be fit for a modern audience who wishes everyone to live happily ever after...
Average with inapropriate casting of Dulcinea 
2008-06-19 - The movie is reasonably made and it somewhat sticks to the original story. However, the casting of Vanessa Williams as Dulcinea is wrong. Dulcinea was a Spaniard from La Mancha in the city of El Toboso. 99.9% of Spaniards are white, mostly with dark hair but light to olive skin and fine facial features. Vanessa Williams is a mulata (a mix of white and african black). The Cervantes story originates in the 15th century (around the time of Christopher Columbus' Discovery). The mulatos did not come into being until the 17th century and much more in the 19th century and later. This was when the Black African slaves mixed with the European (French, British, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese) whites. Therefore, this is like picking Tom Hanks to play Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in his biographical movie.Anglos need to stop inproperly labeling "hispanics" and learn a little bit of history, anthropology and sociology.
The best Quijote production ever 
2008-05-01 - This film does an amazingly good job of balancing the humor (or should I write "humour"?) of the novel with the serious themes. The settings seem very authentic, and the English phrasing of the lines is impeccable. It takes a mature viewer to appreciate the film throughout, as just viewing it for entertainment value (instead of for reflection) will have you tiring of the theme at several spots. I think that if Cervantes were a film-maker, this is what he would have given us!
