Category: Comedy - Drama - Feature Film-drama - Movie
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $19.99 Our Price: $14.99YOU SAVE $5!
Buy it
DVD Chocolat (Miramax Collector's Series)
With movies like Chocolat, it's always best to relax your intellectual faculties and absorb the abundant sensual pleasures, be it the heart-stopping smile of chocolatier Juliette Binoche as she greets a new customer, an intoxicating cup of spiced hot cocoa, or the soothing guitar of an Irish gypsy played by Johnny Depp. Adapted by Robert Nelson Jacobs from Joanne Harris's popular novel and lovingly directed by Lasse Hallström, the film covers familiar territory and deals in broad metaphors that even a child could comprehend, so it's no surprise that some critics panned it with killjoy fervor. Their objections miss the point. Familiarity can be comforting and so can easy metaphors when placed in a fable that's as warmly inviting as this one.
Driven by fate, Vianne (Binoche) drifts into a tranquil French village with her daughter Anouk (Victoire Thivisol, from Ponette) in the winter of 1959. Her newly opened chocolatier is a source of attraction and fear, since Vianne's ability to revive the villagers' passions threatens to disrupt their repressive traditions. The pious mayor (Alfred Molina) sees Vianne as the enemy, and his war against her peaks with the arrival of "river rats" led by Roux (Depp), whose attraction to Vianne is immediate and reciprocal. Splendid subplots involve a battered wife (Lena Olin), a village elder (Judi Dench), and her estranged daughter (Carrie-Anne Moss), and while the film's broader strokes may be regrettable (if not for Molina's rich performance, the mayor would be a caricature), its subtleties are often sublime. Chocolat reminds you of life's simple pleasures and invites you to enjoy them. --Jeff Shannon
Review(s): DVD Chocolat (Miramax Collector's Series)
Pretentious and dull
A huge budget film trying to look and feel like and indie... and failing miserably. Johnny is wooden, Juliette is awkward and the dialog is stilted.
And shame on this film for making a Protestant minister the story's ignorant villain. Protestants have been massacred, repressed and persecuted in France for centuries. Protestants account for less than 2% of the French population today. Villainizing the Huguenot church when this faith has already suffered so much prejudice in France is insensitive and irresponsible. Will the film's sequel feature an ignorant, villainous rabbi in 20th Century Germany? Nothing quite like kicking a people and their faith when they've already suffered from near-extinction...
One of My Favorite Films
Why is CHOCOLAT a favorite film? Please don't ask me why. I was really enamored by Johnny Depp, was studying French art and had a trip to France planned with my school at the time of this film's release. Juliette Binoche is really fantastic in this film. The film itself is so viewable and continues to be so on repeated viewings. I think the lure is how Juliette Binoche's character has such an effect of the townspeople bring out all their repressions. However, Binoche being just as human as the rest is affected by Depp's arrival. Without being deep, I just think this film tells us something about who we are and helps us explore our own ambitions and frailties. I really like this movie.
beautiful
Simply a beautiful movie. Those that have given this a bad review are sorely mistaken. It is a slow but touching story that keeps you entertained the whole way through.
I still watch my copy at least once a month. You will not be dissapointed with this purchase. Give as a gift!
Related DVD's Chocolat (Miramax Collector's Series)
You might not get a thrill from the sight of Faye Dunaway and Marlon Brando throwing popcorn into each other's mouths, but that didn't stop this movie from gaining a new lease on life thanks to cable television and home video. It's a quirky romantic comedy about a mental patient (Johnny Depp) who claims to be Don Juan, the world's greatest lover, and he gets quite a few women to believe it's true. Brando plays the psychiatrist who tries to analyze his patient's apparent delusion, and Dunaway plays Brando's wife, who wants to inject some Don Juan-ish romance into their marital routine. Walking a fine line between precious comedy, wistful drama, and delicate fantasy, the movie gets a big dose of charm from its esteemed cast, with Depp delivering dialogue that would have sounded ludicrous... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Marlon Brando - Johnny Depp Director(s): Jeremy Leven DVD Release Date: Released the 24 February 1998 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $9.97 Your Price: $9.97YOU SAVE $0!
Buy it
This is the movie that Leonardo DiCaprio received an Oscar nomination for, five years before Titanic. And, in fact, this is the movie that should have made him a star, he's so good in it. Based on the novel by Peter Hedges (who adapted his own book) and directed by Lasse Hallström (My Life as a Dog), this is the funny, moody tale of a young man named Gilbert Grape (Johnny Depp) who lives at home in a small town with his 500-pound Momma (beautifully played by nonpro Darlene Cates), his mentally retarded younger brother Arnie (DiCaprio, utterly convincing), and his sisters. Not a lot happens--Arnie keeps climbing a water tower and getting stuck; Gilbert is involved with a married woman (Mary Steenburgen), then meets a nice new girl in town who's closer to his age... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Johnny Depp - Leonardo DiCaprio Director(s): Lasse Hallström DVD Release Date: Released the 17 November 2001 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $9.99 Your Price: $9.99YOU SAVE $0!
Buy it
Expect to be very hungry (and perhaps amorous) after watching this contemporary classic in the small genre of food movies that includes Babette's Feast and Big Night. Director Alfonso Arau (A Walk in the Clouds), adapting a novel by his former wife, Laura Esquivel, tells the story of a young woman (Lumi Cavazos) who learns to suppress her passions under the eye of a stern mother, but channels them into her cooking. The result is a steady stream of cuisine so delicious as to be an almost erotic experience for those lucky enough to have a bite. The film's quotient of magic realism feels a little stock, but the story line is good and Arau's affinity for the sensuality of food (and of nature) is sublime. You might want to rush off to a good Mexican restaurant afterward,... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Alfonso Arau DVD Release Date: Released the 14 March 2000 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $9.99 Your Price: $9.99YOU SAVE $0!
Buy it
Perhaps the most charming movie of all time, Amélie is certainly one of the top 10. The title character (the bashful and impish Audrey Tautou) is a single waitress who decides to help other lonely people fix their lives. Her widowed father yearns to travel but won't, so to inspire the old man she sends his garden gnome on a tour of the world; with whispered gossip, she brings together two cranky regulars at her café; she reverses the doorknobs and reprograms the speed dial of a grocer who's mean to his assistant. Gradually she realizes her own life needs fixing, and a chance meeting leads to her most elaborate stratagem of all. This is a deeply wonderful movie, an illuminating mix of magic and pragmatism. Fans of the director's previous films (Delicatessen,... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Jean-Pierre Jeunet DVD Release Date: Released the 16 July 2002 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $19.99 Your Price: $14.99YOU SAVE $5!
Buy it
An oddball love story about a fey loner named Sam (Johnny Depp), who falls in love with the mentally unbalanced Joon (Mary Stuart Masterson), who lives in the care of her protective brother Benny (Aidan Quinn). This 1993 story is hard to swallow, with its message that love can conquer a brand of mental illness that manifests itself in pyromania: Joon has a bad habit of going a bit around the bend and setting fires, but Sam's tender care apparently has the cure for what ails her. Still, if you want proof that Depp has significant chops as a physical comedian, give this film a try: He does note-perfect renditions of slapstick routines made famous by Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. --Marshall FineMore Info about this DVD Director(s): Jeremiah S. Chechik DVD Release Date: Released the 09 January 2001 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $14.98 Your Price: $7.47YOU SAVE $7.51!
Buy it
