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DVD
Publisher: Acorn Media
Alan Poul
Format: Box set, Closed-captioned, Collector's Edition, Color, DVD, NTSC
Actors: Olympia Dukakis, Donald Moffat, Chloe Webb, Laura Linney, Marcus D'Amico
A funky apartment house in the freewheeling san francisco of the 1970s provides the backdrop for a story about a colorful cast of characters in search of love. Studio: Acorn Media Release Date: 02/25/2003 Starring: Olympia Dukakis Laura Linney Run time: 300 minutes
"The City" in question is San Francisco, and the tales are novelist Armistead Maupin's, his romantic, affectionate, and spirited homage to the glory days of his hometown. Maupin's idea of SF's glory days isn't the drug-filled Summer of Love (1967), but rather the drug-filled lust-in of the late '70s. Replacing acid with coke and ludes, psychedelia for disco, this six-hour miniseries (which caused controversy for its open drug use, nudity, and direct depiction of homosexuality upon its initial airing on PBS) follows the romantic struggles and identity crises of a colorful cast of characters. The action--as addictive as the drugs the characters ingest--is seen mostly from the innocent point of view of Mary Ann, the city's newest culture-shocked resident--so its presentation is rather decadent and hedonistic. Because the story originally ran as a daily serial in the San Francisco Chronicle before being compiled into a novel, its serialized structure suffers from typical soap-opera mawkishness and the need to shock with ridiculous revelations. Thankfully, this degeneration mostly occurs during the final two hours, allowing you to just enjoy the personalities and hilarious and often-touching interactions of the richly drawn characters before they're manipulated by plot devices. The performances are all outstanding, especially Chloe Webb's spacey ex-hippie Mona, Marcus D'Amico's romantically doomed Michael, and Olympia Dukakis's Anna Madrigal, the enigmatic mother hen/landlady of many of the film's central characters. --Dave McCoy
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| An Invitation From Mr. Maupin to Enter His Magical World. |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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Mr. Maupin's "World" is magic. The characters populating his real-life/fantasy world are both convincing and unbelivable at the same time. I think I am very fortunate that I had never read Mr. Maupin's column, nor viewed an uncut version of the film. I say that I'm lucky because it seems that many of my fellow "reviewers" are so hooked on the editing/dubbing of the Author's original dialogue, that they have missed out on the Magic, set in and around 28 Barbary Lane.
Whenever I want a quick dose of "Never, Never Land," I skip over Peter Pan and go directly to Mr. Maupin's World. "I have a place where dreams are born and time is never planned. It's not on any chart. You must find it in your heart... Never, Never Land" (or is that "Tales of the City")?
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| I did not find this to be edited or overdubbed. |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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I recently purchased this boxed set from Turner Classic Movies' online store, and I have found no over-dubbing of the profanity or editing of any sort. Perhaps another edition of this was issued at a later date than the ones other reviewers were complaining about? I'm very pleased with it, and I can at last discard the blurry old VHS tape I recorded off of PBS during the original broadcasts. I would NOT recommend buying any of these very over-priced DVDs via Amazon however. I got mine from TCM for about $64 after tax & shipping. TCM's site does not indicate any shortage of supply, but if you seriously want this for your collection it probably wouldn't do to wait too long, since it apparently has been discontinued by the manufacturer.
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| Sweet sweet story of good and bad |
| Customer Rating: 4 out of 5 |
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It is a sweet easy-to-watch story of San Francisco of the seventieth of the time of the Creedence Clearwater Revival - Revisited, Live & Rare [Import] and sexual revolution in this Sin City.
Probably, at the time it attracted more controversy than "Queer as Folk - The Complete Series" more recently.
A bit too sweet for pricing good and evil by a classic style.
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| Why? |
| Customer Rating: 1 out of 5 |
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Why is this so much cheaper elsewhere.
Will not buy a censored edition, which is what this is
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| Tales of the City |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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Charming, fanciful movie but not for everyone. Adult theme but I believe situations were handled skillfully. Makes you wish there really was a place like this in San Francisco!
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