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DVD The Spitfire Grill
This well-acted drama won the Audience award at the 1996 Sundance Film Festival, causing a festival ruckus when several distributors entered a bidding war in response to the movie's positive buzz. When the movie was finally released, audience and critical response provided a sudden reality check: the movie's good to a point, but hardly worth the fuss it received at Sundance. Packing a miniseries' worth of melodrama into 117 minutes, the story centers on a young woman named Percy (Alison Elliott) who served prison time for manslaughter and arrives in a small town in Maine with hopes of beginning a new life. She works as a waitress in the Spitfire Grill, owned by Hannah (Ellen Burstyn), whose gruff exterior conceals a kind heart and precious little tolerance for the grill's regular customers, who cast their suspicions on Percy's mysterious past. The plot unfolds when Hannah holds a $100-per-entry essay contest to find a new owner for the grill. There's ample mystery surrounding the collected money, a local hermit who's really Hannah's shell-shocked Vietnam veteran son, and circumstances that lead the locals to adopt a lynch-mob mentality at Percy's expense. By the time Percy is nearly drowning in a raging river, The Spitfire Grill has taken its melodrama a few steps 'round the bend. Fine acting is the movie's saving grace, however, and newcomer Alison Elliott anchors The Spitfire Grill with a subtle, emotionally involving performance. Thanks to Elliott and Burstyn, you don't have to feel too guilty if you find yourself reaching for a Kleenex as the closing credits roll. --Jeff Shannon
GOOD-HEARTED STORY WITH UNNECESSARY, TRAGIC ENDING
This is a good, top-shelf, Hallmark-style story about a small town in Maine named Gilead that has to overcome its suspicions about an ex-con named Percy (played wonderfully by Alison Elliott) as she tries to make a new life there. Working at the Spitfire Grill, she impacts the lives of its owner - crusty but soft-hearted Hannah (also played wonderfully by Ellen Burstyn) - fellow waitress Shelby (Marcia Gay Harden), boyfriend Joe (Kieran Mulroney) and the mysterious and elusive woodsman Johnny B. (John M. Jackson). Not to be touched by Percy's honesty and helpful nature is hard-hearted Nahum (Will Patton), Shelby's husband, who only believes the worst about Percy, and who's meddling eventually sets in motion a chain of events that leads to the film's tragic conclusion.
But it doesn't have to be that way. There is absolutely no dramatic purpose behind the ending of this movie. Writer-director Lee David Zlotoff could have accomplished everything he wanted (the redemption of Nahum, the revelation of Johnny B., the coming together of the town), plus given the audience what it wanted (the eventual happiness of Percy). But he chose not to, and instead, gave us a contrived, melodramatic, purposeless ending that, frankly, left me empty. Even the appearance at the end of a new owner for the Spitfire Grill that was a lot like Percy didn't take the place of what we really wanted: Percy owning the Grill, happily married to either Joe or Johnny B.
Now, I'm not saying that writers and directors should always give us what we want; but, based on everything that happens up to the climax, that's the only thing that makes any sense. This is a good-hearted film, with a haunting score by James Horner; but don't expect to be satisfied with the ending.
Waitsel Smith
A good movie.
This movie has a atmosphere.
I can't describe it well ,it's warm ,cold and mysterious.
Percy's past is the dark side of this story.
It has built up walls around her.
It's not her who built the wall.It's people in that town.
This movie has a lot of story in it.
The story of Percy ,that of Hannah and Shelby... and all those enhance this movie's quality.
Life is what you make of it.
Sometimes ,it's filled with mistakes and flaws but you have to live with it.
This movie told me a lot.
A Heartbreaking Look at Pain
This very touching and rewarding film was brought to prominence thanks in large part to Robert Redford's Sundance Film Festival. It is a slow and gentle film which is true to life and makes us actually feel its pain. Often described as a small film, it is rather a very large film about the small things in life. The small town of Gilead, Maine is the setting for this tender drama you will never forget once you have seen it.
Alison Elliot gives a quiet yet unforgettable performance as Percy Talbot, a young girl fresh from prison and trying to start her life over. One of the most touching moments in the film comes shortly after Percy reveals the reason she had been incarcerated, with the words: "I thought maybe, in some place small...." It is quiet and heartbreaking, like the entire film.
The day to day life of a small town and its people is perfectly captured as Percy comes to work for Hannah (Ellen Burstyn) at The Spitfire Grill. Hannah is a woman who knows about pain and gives Percy a chance. Marcia Gay Harden gives a fine performance as a shy and sweet soul who befriends Percy. Her husband uses her for a doorstop and hates Percy for being her friend and encouraging her to be herself. It is a hatred which will bring about tragedy.
Many lives are touched in this small town by Percy, who has seemingly found her home at The Spitfire Grill in Gilead, Maine. Percy slowly becomes part of Hannah's life as she leaves food out back of the Grill at Hannah's request that is mysteriously gone the next morning. But there is always an underlying sadness to Percy's past which prevents any kind of permanence. Her deep sadness extends to a young man who wants a life that Percy can not give.
This film reminds us in a sad and deeply moving way that life does not always give us the chance to start over. But there is also redemption and the message that what we do in our lives does affect others and can even change the way they think.
Alison Elliot is magnificent here, giving a Kevin Spacey like performance of so much going on just beneath the surface. A beautiful score from James Horner a year before Titanic matches perfectly the quiet beauty of the story. The supporting cast is equally good in this wonderful and moving film you will remember for a long, long time.....
Kathy Bates stars as an unhappy wife trying to get her husband's attention in this amusing and moving 1991 screen adaptation of Fannie Flagg's novel Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe. After befriending a lonely old woman (Jessica Tandy), Bates hears the story of a lifelong friendship between two other women (Mary Stuary Masterson and Mary-Louise Parker, seen in flashback) who once ran a cafe in town against many personal odds. The tale inspires Bates to take further command over her life, and there director Jon Avnet (Up Close and Personal), in his first feature, has fun with the film. Bates develops a real attitude toward her thickheaded spouse at home and some uppity girls in a parking lot, but dignity is generally the key to Avnet's approach with the story's... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Jon Avnet DVD Release Date: Released the 15 December 1998 Usually ships in 1 to 2 weeks
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Based on the bestseller by Whitney Otto, this film seemed to miss all the poetry and the ephemeral charms of the wispy novel by trying to make a concrete movie out of it. Directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse (who made a similar hash out of A Thousand Acres), the film centers on Winona Ryder, who is debating her impending marriage and decides to make up her mind while spending the summer with her grandmother (Ellen Burstyn). This leads to a variety of encounters with Grandma and her sewing circle (which includes Anne Bancroft, Kate Nelligan, and Maya Angelou, among others), who reminisce about men, love, and marriage. It's put together piecemeal, like a quilt, but the parts add up to a fragmented, unsatisfying whole, despite some solid acting. --Marshall FineMore Info about this DVD Actor(s): Winona Ryder - Anne Bancroft - Ellen Burstyn Director(s): Jocelyn Moorhouse DVD Release Date: Released the 23 February 1999 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Some movies can only be described as delicious. In Babette's Feast, a woman flees the French civil war and lands in a small seacoast village in Denmark, where she comes to work for two spinsters, devout daughters of a puritan minister. After many years, Babette unexpectedly wins a lottery, and decides to create a real French dinner--which leads the sisters to fear for their souls. Joining them for the meal will be a Danish general who, as a young soldier, courted one of the sisters, but she turned him away because of her religion. The village elders all resolve not to enjoy the meal, but can their moral fiber resist the sensual pleasure of Babette's cooking? Babette's Feast deservedly won the 1987 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. This lovely movie is... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Gabriel Axel DVD Release Date: Released the 23 January 2001 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Winner of the Academy Award for best picture of 1989, this gracefully moving drama, adapted from the hit play by Alfred Uhry, chronicles the 25- year friendship between a stubborn, aging Southern widow (Jessica Tandy) and her loyal chauffeur (Morgan Freeman). At first, the self-sufficient Miss Daisy is reluctant to accept the services of a chauffeur, but Hoke is quiet, wise, and tolerant, and as the years pass the unlikely friends develop a deep mutual respect and admiration. Tandy deservedly won the Oscar for her sassy and sensitive performance, and Freeman earned an Oscar nomination for bringing quiet depth and integrity to his memorable role. Ironically, director Bruce Beresford (Tender Mercies) was not nominated, but the film won Oscars for makeup and for Uhry's screenplay, in... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Bruce Beresford DVD Release Date: Released the 04 February 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Sometimes everything comes together in a movie and it becomes something so much greater than the sum of its parts that it can only be described as a miracle. That's the case with Tender Mercies, a quietly luminous character piece about an alcoholic, washed-up country singer named Mac Sledge (Robert Duvall in an Oscar-winning performance) who hits bottom in a motel room one night and then slowly finds his way back into the land of the living with the help of the widow (Tess Harper) and her young son. It's a low-key, contemplative film that feels like a rural American family comedy in the vein of the great Japanese director, Yasujiro Ozu. Tender Mercies was directed by Australian Bruce Beresford (Driving Miss Daisy, Breaker Morant), written by Horton Foote (To... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Robert Duvall - Tess Harper Director(s): Bruce Beresford DVD Release Date: Released the 16 April 2002 Usually ships in 24 hours
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