The Notebook (New Line Platinum Series) From:Tim Ivey , Gena Rowlands , Starletta DuPois , James Garner , Anthony-Michael Q. Thomas , Warner Brothers , Nick Cassavetes , New Line Home Video ,
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See larger picture. | | Amazon Sales Rank:# 123 User Rating: Customer Reviews List Price:$19.98 Amazon.com's Price:$13.49 Prices subject to change. You Save:$6.49 (32.48%) Availability:Usually ships in 24 hours |
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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Binding: DVD
Brand: Warner Brothers
EAN: 0794043749728
Format: AC-3
Format: Closed-captioned
Format: Color
Format: Dolby
Format: DVD-Video
Format: Full Screen
Format: Subtitled
Format: Widescreen
Format: NTSC
Weight: 25 hundredths-pounds
Label: New Line Home Video
Audio Format: Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Manufacturer: New Line Home Video
Number Of Items: 1
Packaged Height: 60 hundredths-inches
Packaged Length: 750 hundredths-inches
Packaged Weight: 15 hundredths-pounds
Packaged Width: 550 hundredths-inches
Publisher: New Line Home Video
Region Code: 1
Release Date: 2005-02-08
Running Time: 124 minutes
Studio: New Line Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: 2004-06-25
Product Description:
Behind every great love is a great story. Two teenagers from opposite sides of the tracks fall in love during one summer together but are tragically forced apart. When they reunite 7 years later their passionate romance is rekindled forcing one of them to choose between true love and class order.Running Time: 124 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 794043749728
Customer Reviews:
 Sweet at best, Sappy-Dappy and Cliched at Worst, 2008-08-26
Seriously, I don't get the rave reviews for this movie. People I know are ranting about it as if actually came within a mile of such love classics as "Titanic", "Pearl Harbor", and "A Walk in the Clouds". Trust me, it doesn't; this film doesn't set a toe on the royal grounds of films like that. And what beats me is, why? This movie has an excellent story, is based on a breathtakingly moving book, and stuck almost entirely to the book; what went wrong??
Maybe it's the characterizations. Let's start with romantic hero (or maybe fanatic) Noah. The initial meeting between them, so gently lovely in the book, is nothing even close in the movie. Instead of a mutual attraction like the one in the book, we have heroine Ally on a date with someone else and Noah chasing her like some lovesick clown. She's not interested, he won't take no for an answer, and he follows her around the whole date, even hanging from a bar on the ferris wheel, dangling in front of her seat at one point! Is this supposed to be endearing? I found it annoyingly idiotic: this guy isn't a romantic, he's a clownish dope. Eventually, for reasons I can't remember, Ally agrees to a date and finds herself slowly drawn into him. It's beyond me why; his idea of quiet time is lying on a street beneath a traffic light, late at night when the street's deserted. When he does this in front of her, she slowly lies down and joins him on the pavement with a thoughtful look on her face, as though she actually finds what he's doing to be clever or interesting (or maybe I mistook that look on her face; she could have been wondering if he'd resist when she drove him to a mental home. I rather prefer that theory). When a car nearly hits them as they're lying in the street, they scream, jump up and run, and for some reason afterwards Ally decides he's fun enough for her to date again (I guess almost getting killed by a car does give one a thrill). Their relationship progresses ever deeper after that.
The good news: Noah's character stops being an idiot and becomes deeper, along with his love for Ally. The bad news? Once Noah gives up the title of date-hungry goofball, Ally's character picks it up. Ally, to my disappointment, becomes a needy chatterbox. In the first sex scene, they go into an abandoned house and begin making love on the floor. Once they're naked and halfway into the act, Ally wrenches her lips from his long enough to say, "Are we really doing it? Are we really having sex?" He grabs her lips again, but she pulls away and says, "No really, are we actually doing this?" Well honey, he's halfway into you and your clothes are lying over there; what do you think? For some reason, the girl doesn't shut up. She keeps yapping about what a big thing it is they're doing and the scene, for me, was totally ruined (judging from poor Noah's exasperated face, it was ruined for him too). Why the director felt the need to give Ally so much unnecessary dialogue at such an unnecessary time is beyond me. This isn't the only time there's a flood of unnecessary chatter, either: when they break up not long afterward, their painful argument ends with Noah hopping in his truck and preparing to speed off. Ally watches in quiet anger and the pathos of the scene is effective..until Ally runs up to the truck and starts yapping in the window "Are we really breaking up? No seriously, are we really doing this, Noah?" Naturally, he gives her a disgusted look and speeds off anyway. WHAT is with this scene? Silent anger one minute, the girl blathering like an idiot in his face the next? Are movies like this the reason people think women can't make up their minds?
The rest of the plot is completely contrived, from them getting back together and face-sucking like mad in a rainstorm, to the scene where they finally make love, with Ally yanking Noah's pants down and Noah carrying her up the stairs with his trousers down around his ankles. And the killer is, it SHOULD have been moving! What's missing? Credibility I guess, or real pathos. The single flawless scene in the movie consists of Ally sitting on Noah's porch in early morning, painting while wrapped in a blanket the night after their love-making. If every scene had been as gentle, as sincere and vulnerable as this, the movie would have soared. Instead, it just came off as a would-be model for a moving film. Don't let anyone fool you into thinking this is a classic on the same plains as a Shakespeare or a Titanic. It's a semi-effective chick flick, and that's it. If you want to know my views of the film's ending (which I don't wish to spoil here), please read the first comment in this review's comment section.
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