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List Price: $16.99 | | Label: Paramount
Salesrank: 15651
Released: October 6, 2009 |
| Our Price: $12.74 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Landmark movie in the film noir tradition, Roman Polanski's Chinatown stands as a true screen classic. Jack Nicholson is private eye Jake Gittes, living off the murky moral climate of sunbaked, pre-war Southern California. Hired by a beautiful socialite (Faye Dunaway) to investigate her husband's extra-marital affair, Gittes is swept into a maelstrom of double dealings and deadly deceits, uncovering a web of personal and political scandals that come crashing together for one, unforgettable night in...Chinatown. Co-starring film legend John Huston and featuring an Academy Award®-winning script by Robert Towne, Chinatown captures a lost era in a masterfully woven movie that remains a timeless gem.
Description of Chinatown:
Roman Polanski's brooding film noir exposes the darkest side of the land of sunshine, the Los Angeles of the 1930s, where power is the only currency--and the only real thing worth buying. Jack Nicholson is J.J. Gittes, a private eye in the Chandler mold, who during a routine straying-spouse investigation finds himself drawn deeper and deeper into a jigsaw puzzle of clues and corruption. The glamorous Evelyn Mulwray (a dazzling Faye Dunaway) and her titanic father, Noah Cross (John Huston), are at the black-hole center of this tale of treachery, incest, and political bribery. The crackling, hard-bitten script by Robert Towne won a well-deserved Oscar, and the muted color cinematography makes the goings-on seem both bleak and impossibly vibrant. Polanski himself has a brief, memorable cameo as the thug who tangles with Nicholson's nose. One of the greatest, most completely satisfying crime films of all time. --Anne Hurley
Chinatown Reviews:
Stylish Yet Disappointing 
2009-12-04 - Gittes (Jack Nicholson) is a private eye with a nose for trouble. Roman Polanski (current felon, but we won't go there) directed what many see as one of his masterpieces of cinema back in 1974. Jack definitely channels Bogart with some Raymond Chandler and some hard-boiled detective action.
The film does not lack from interest --- the mystery gets deeper and deeper and just when you think you have the story figured out, another twist. But how many times can I watch Gittes climb a chain link fence? And the cameo of Polanski as a thug made no sense at all to the story. Who was this gangster working for? What's the relationship with some of the men he tangles with? What's the relation between the farmers and Faye Dunaway's character?
Odd, insightful and looong. Rather than watch a neo-noir film, take in a Maltese Falcon or the Big Sleep! For what it does, Chinatown does succeed as a murder mystery in 1930s LA. But my heart belongs to Bogie.
Polanski films:
The Fearless Vampire Killers, or Pardon Me but Your Teeth Are in My Neck
Rosemary's Baby
Repulsion
chinatown great movie 
2009-11-07 - Melancholy movie plot; very worth watching; those who "love to hate" rich interfering daddies and politicians versus the good guys will enjoy. Get out the kleenex box for the ending!!
Great Jack Nicholson acting AGAIN
A classic -- a clearer storyline would have made it better
2009-10-19 - "Chinatown" is a classic detective flick in which Jack Nicholson flaunts his formidable acting talent. The storyline of this film is convoluted and murky, but the atmospherics and the acting are all first-rate. The early 20th Century California setting gives this film a wonderful ambiance that I have always found to be irresistible. No one should miss this one.
The story is basically about the corruption of money and politics involved in California water politics of the early 20th Century. Huge fortunes are at stake depending on where the limited water resources of Southern California are to be sent. Nicholson, a private detective, is inadvertently swept into this maelstrom, because the amounts of money involved are worth killing for.
This is an engrossing, if somewhat hard-to-follow detective flick that no movie aficionado should pass up. RJB.
Review for Amazon! why mix the reviews ????? 
2009-10-11 - hi see this 2009 edition for chinatown, I see the reviews and are reviews from other editions... so bad!!! I want see separate reviews for every product!!! please DONT MIX THE REVIEWS!!!!!!!!!!
Polanski's Film Noir Classic
2009-09-14 - Nicholson and Polanski were in rare form when they conspired to put out this film, which was successful both commercially and artistically. Looking at the film today on DVD, it still holds up as a timeless classic.
