| Any Given Sunday | | Cast : | Al Pacino, Dennis Quaid | | Director : | Oliver Stone | | Studio : | Warner Studios | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Dolby, Widescreen | | Released Date : | December 22, 1999 | | DVD Released Date : | September 14, 2004 | | Language : | French (Subtitled), English (Dubbed), English (Subtitled), English (Original Language) | | Audience Rating : | R (Restricted) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | May 15, 2005 | | Summary | The creativity against the discipline? | Content
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Once more Apollo and Dionysus face one each other. Apollo is the supreme master of the rules, the establishment, a fervent follower of the pre established codes. Dionysus is an outlaw, he simply fights for its aim and no matter how he will follow his instincts.
Apollo means the experience the hidden wisdom beyond the scares and wrinkles. Dionysus is the youth who in its own rapture thinks to itself it is eternal, it is the innocence captivated by its goals, no reflection just action. The heroes are essentially sculpted by Dionysian. And that explains his presence in the Earth is so brief. They don't know the fear and his life is just a play. The prudence doesn't exist in his particular dictionary and even in his thinking. Think in Siegfried ` s the hero per excellence in Wagner's Ring.
The real confrontation is exhibited out of the battle field when the Sharks ` team has lost four games in a row, and Cap, one of the artifice player is seriously wounded in the Third game.
"In this game you have got to be about some more than win", says Tony D' Amato to the raising young promise of the Sharks, Beahme. And the insights about this hard sport are treated with that vertiginous rhythm so typical of Stone. The medical ethic is carved in relief between a brief but intense dialogue between Mathew Modine and James Woods.
The film is a real punch who goes far beyond the simple entertainment for teenagers, surpassing the anecdote to become in a real cult movie of recent times.
The mesmerizing performance of Jammie Fox proved his recent Award was not a mere product of the coincidence. Dennis Quaid is perfect as Cap and Cameron Diaz is simply arresting as the one sight heiress and widow of this team, legacy of her father.
May be there awesome scenes that can wound your susceptibility, but this is one the fundamental characteristics of the artistic personality of Oliver Stone.
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| Rating | | | Date | May 01, 2005 | | Summary | Must Have for any football fan | Content
| This movie is raw and loud and dirty - true football. I love how they show how fleeting success and fame can be. Al Pacino at his gritty best. You really feel like you're at the stadium. |
| Rating | | | Date | April 13, 2005 | | Summary | Long closing credits and Cameron Diaz did this movie in | Content
| I actually thought this was one of the best movies ever but Cameron Diaz's screen presence and the long closing credits provoked me to sell my copy of this movie. But everything else was good. You have great performances by Al Pacino, Jamie Foxx, Dennis Quaid, James Woods, LL Cool J, Bill Bellamy, Jim Brown, and Lawrence Taylor. The music was great and the football sequences were tight. Willie (Jamie Foxx) beating Dallas as time expired was the best part in the movie. I would have not cast Cameron Diaz in this movie and I'd not show all those sequences in the closing credits. Other than that, it's a great movie to rent and watch on a Friday or Saturday night! |
| Rating | | | Date | February 13, 2005 | | Summary | Any movie that's about football can't be all bad | Content
| Are you suffering from the annual bout of post-Super Bowl depression (PSBD)? Is this Sunday, the first since the end of the NFL season, leaving you feeling lost, already looking ahead to September so you can resume watching a collection of pumped-up, tattoed freaks of nature perform astounding feats of physical prowess? Are you terrified at the thought of having to spend Sundays reading, going outside, or spending quality time with loved ones? Well, if you are, you could do a lot worse than to postpone the onset of PSBD by reclining in your favorite easy chair and watching Any Given Sunday.
Any Given Sunday has a lot to recommend it. It's got a sweet Hollywood budget, a cast loaded to the brim with talent (and no sign of Keanu Reeves, thankfully; I'm still having nightmares from the time I watched the Replacements), and the direction of the one and only Oliver Stone. In following the turbulent last quarter of a season in the life of the (fictional) Miami Sharks of the (fictional) AFFA, the movie combines an operatic scope with an almost fanatical attention to detail and loads of heavy philosophy for a film whose best moments (whether on the field or not) are as hard-hitting as anything you'll see in a real game. Sure, the movie trots out an endless series of hackneyed plot devices and stock characters, but Stone manages to breathe life into all of them.
A no-holds-barred if sensationalistic examination of professional football both on and off the field, Any Given Sunday is both believable and completely ridiculous at the same time, a monument to excess that is in itself wildly excessive. It starts punishing your senses right away, with two quarterbacks suffering catastrophic injuries and a third throwing up before taking his first snap, and it doesn't relax much from there on out, either in its torrid pace or in its commitment to full sensory assault. Indeed, this may be the fastest two-and-a-half-hour movie ever made. Like an all-out blitz up the middle, it comes at you relentlessly, and also like an all-out blitz, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. At times it seems as though Stone just tried to take the themes and conflicts that made Platoon such an artistic triumph and graft them onto a football movie. The movie goes for an outsized, epic feel at almost all times, with varying degrees of success.
At turns frenetic and painfully slow, Stone's camerawork makes for perhaps the best cinematic representation yet of the intensity and ferocity of pro football, and the movie's grasp of the game's strategical minutiae is a sign of a director who's done his homework. Regrettably, Stone's emphasis on brutal hits and flashy shots also takes something away from the inherent sophistication of the pro game, making it look like little more than the product of excessive testosterone levels. Of course, what happens on the field is only part of the story, as Stone makes sure to present the viewer with look at all the sordid goings-on that occur behind the scenes. It's here that the movie really throws everything but the kitchen sink at you, politely ensuring that boredom doesn't set in between game scenes. You've got fights; rampant substance abuse; players fornicating left and right; a mammoth SUV getting sawed in half; scads of gratuitous nudity; guys playing when they shouldn't even be trying to walk and chew gum and the same time; and lots of hot women acting extremely catty. And that's just a short list.
Alright, I've somehow managed to fill up four paragraphs with this review, so it's time to cut things off here. At any rate, while certainly not without its flaws, Any Given Sunday is one immensely enjoyable movie, especially for the football nut. So check it out if you haven't already. |
| Rating | | | Date | February 09, 2005 | | Summary | Just a good movie | Content
| I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. Well put together, the acting excellent and convincing. Al Pacino, Jamie Foxx, Cameron Diaz all very good and fitting in their roles, I didn't foster a big attachment to Dennis Quaid's character, but he was still good. The speach Al Pacino makes in the locker room "inch by inch" was very moving and adds tremendous feeling that the characters individually are all feeling at that time. I recommend this movie. If you liked "The Replacements" (One of my favorite movies), you'll just love this movie, although it does foster a different feel, and perspective. |
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