List Price: $14.96 Our Price: $11.97YOU SAVE $2.99!
Buy it
DVD The World According to Garp
Aside from being a warmly enjoyable movie, and the best screen adaptation of any John Irving novel, The World According to Garp features several young actors who went on to be among the best in the business. Oscar nominee John Lithgow is the sweetest transsexual ex-pro football player you'd ever hope to meet; Oscar nominee Glenn Close is a sensible, utterly sexless nurse and mother; Amanda Plummer is a mute crime victim; Mary Beth Hurt is a schoolgirl turned wife and mother, the love of T.S. Garp's life and the personification of the idea of Home. And Robin Williams, in his first starring role, has never been better cast--in the role of a human being, that is. This most unusual life story--written by Steve Tesich (Breaking Away) and directed by George Roy Hill (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid)--perfectly captures the tragi-comic, absurdist/humanist worldview of Irving's novel. The opening credits, with a wide-eyed baby floating about the screen to the tune of the Beatles' "When I'm Sixty-Four," sums up the movie's scope and tone. After watching The World According to Garp, you may find yourself marveling anew at the world around you, a strange and wonderful place indeed. --Jim Emerson
So strange, so full of surprises, so illigically logical, it's an impossible movie to describe. Robin Williams is Garp, born out of wedlock and raised by his loving (but strange) mother (Glenn Close). The movie traces his (and his mother's) life: both become writers - his books are very highly acclaimed by critics but go unread; her one book becomes a feminist manifesto and is extremely popular. Garp marries, has kids, whom he loves dearly and dotes on. His wife has an affair with disastrous consequences; his mother is eventually assassinated. That's the skeleton description of what's actually a very full-bodied movie. It's an extremely ambitious and unique "story" film. Long at 136 minutes, it never lags in interest. Steven Tesihch wrote the screenplay; based very closely on John Irving's novel. An excellent movie, definitely worth a watch.
BREEZY "TERMS OF ENDEARMENT", BUT THEN IT GETS PREACHY
For all its lovely odysseys, The World According to Garp is an oddly unaffecting movie. Interesting, yes. Original, occasionally. Amusing, often. But despite the fact that it sets itself up as a tragicomic social satire walking several different ropes at the same time, not much of it really stays with you after it's over.
One minute we have a character gaping doe-eyed at his children, speaking lovingly about the joys of fatherhood, and the next minute he's taking an iron pipe to an electrician's truck because the electrician was driving too fast through the neighborhood. Which is all fine, thanks in no small measure to the convincing wigs of John Lithgow as a transvestite.
Holes begin to appear when all this reverie is broken with grave issues like a cultic feminist group, members of which cut off their tongues in protest for a young girl's rape. Deep. Our protagonist Garp wishes to lead a happy life of apathetic normalcy (not altogether different from what the audience wants, really) but his mother has other plans. When the film gets preachy, we have little choice but to squirm and play along.
To be fair, the film is a very decent rental ride though, sporting a fairly blithe tone, a sprawling scope to appeal to different pallettes, and some fabulous performances all round (you can see why Williams shot to fame shortly after this film), both on-screen as well as off-screen (in the form of the best Beatles number ever).
A recommendation somewhere between mildly pleasing and terrific.
Riyach
I saw this movie by mistake when I was ten years old. I did not truely understand it. My parents didnt care because it featured Robin Williams, you know Mork. They had no idea of all the sexual content, bewilderment followed and 15 years later were almost forgotten, until I read the book in college. I felt affected by this movie then and when I viewed it recenly, the same feelings were conjured up. I highly recommend this film, its tragic, funny and at times you will laugh at times that seem very very inappropriate. The characters are rich and off-wall.
Tony Richardson's adaptation of The Hotel New Hampshire proves that the unique qualities of John Irving's fiction are accessible in print and elusive on screen. (Not surprisingly, Irving's books were not truly successful as films until Irving himself adapted The Cider House Rules, although some viewers will prefer The World According to Garp.) Here, Richardson distills the essence of Irving but misses the author's dominant themes; the result is a film that follows Irving closely and understands its characters without ever giving them complete and coherent personalities. Without that essential ingredient, this film--about the exploits of a highly eccentric and dysfunctional family--grows thin and repetitious. We're left to enjoy the quirks of a fine ensemble cast, and... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Rob Lowe - Jodie Foster Director(s): Tony Richardson DVD Release Date: Released the 10 July 2001 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $9.94 Your Price: $9.94YOU SAVE $0!
Buy it
In adapting his own novel The Cider House Rules for the screen, John Irving sacrificed at least some of the depth and detail that made his humanitarian themes resonate, while the film--directed with Scandinavian sobriety by Lasse Hallström--is often vague about the complex issues (abortion, incest, responsibility) that lie at its core. Allowing for this ambiguity (which is arguably intentional), the film retains much of what made Irving's novel so admired, and like Hallström's earlier feature What's Eating Gilbert Grape?, it's blessed with a generous, forgiving spirit toward the mistakes, foibles, and desires of its many engaging characters.
Robin Williams stars as an English teacher who doesn't fit into the conservative prep school where he teaches, but whose charisma and love of poetry inspires several boys to revive a secret society with a bohemian bent. The script is well meaning but a little trite, though director Peter Weir (The Truman Show) adds layers of emotional depth in scenes of conflict between the kids and adults. (A subplot involving one father's terrible pressure on his son--played by Robert Sean Leonard--to drop his interest in theater reaches heartbreaking proportions.) Williams is given plenty of latitude to work in his brand of improvisational humor, though it is all well-woven into his character's style of instruction. --Tom KeoghMore Info about this DVD Actor(s): Robin Williams - Robert Sean Leonard - Ethan Hawke Director(s): Peter Weir DVD Release Date: Released the 10 November 1998 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $19.99 Your Price: $14.99YOU SAVE $5!
Buy it
Robin Williams in his fuzzy, sensitive mode with bittersweet touches plays a musician in a Russian circus who gets talked into defecting by a pal and does so (though the pal bails on him at the last minute)--in the middle of Bloomingdale's. A great concept, to be sure, but writer-director Paul Mazursky doesn't seem to know where to go from there. Williams winds up living in the same kind of poverty that he did in Russia, casting about for a way to make a living while both wallowing and drowning in the sudden tidal wave of freedom. Mazursky wants to make a point about how little we appreciate what we have, but he fails to entertain in the process--or at least to engage in a consistent way. --Marshall FineMore Info about this DVD Actor(s): Robin Williams - Maria Conchita Alonso Director(s): Paul Mazursky DVD Release Date: Released the 27 November 2001 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $9.95 Your Price: $9.95YOU SAVE $0!
Buy it
