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#McLeod’s Daughters: The Original Movie# Best Cheap Discount Sales Reviews
McLeod’s Daughters is WONDERFUL — BUT please note that this movie is included in the box set of Season One of McLeod’s Daughters. If you by Season One, you get this movie on the last DVD of the set.
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MCLEOD’S DAUGHTERS: THE ORIGINAL MOVIE
Horrible! Buy the tv series- it’s SO much better! – Jacquie Jackman – Australia
Do not sully your impression of the remarkable series by watching this awful version. Go buy series 1-4 of McLeod’s Daughters and experience what quality television was before reality shows came along and ruined everything.
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*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Oct 13, 2010 22:32:05
Tags: #Good# Best Cheap Discount Sales Reviews
A new movement for change, promising a life richer in education, physical prowess, diminished crime, and increased wealth is like a magnet, and the promises that National Socialist Republic created in all forms of the media in the 1930s were probably heady enough that the post World War I Germans could turn a blind eye to the vacuous reality of a rising maniac’s promises. GOOD is a film that suggests how the good common people responded to the rise of the Third Reich – the Nazi party with its loathsome guardianship in the Gestapo. It suggests how personal needs could cloud the mind to see only the benefits of a new order that would eventually destroy millions of people and attempt to transform the world in a new social order. And it is painful to watch the disease progress into every aspect of life in Germany.
John Halder (Viggo Mortensen) is a professor of literature and a writer of novels: his latest novel is a fictional story about a man who, out of love for his suffering wife, assists her dying. This novel catches the eye of Hitler and the Reichminister Bouhler (Mark Strong) who encourages Halder to draft a paper describing how euthanasia is a good and righteous act – a paper that will eventually ‘justify’ the massacre of Jews and other ‘undesirables’. Halder’s life is in such upheaval (his mother (Gemma Jones) is dying of tuberculosis while living with Halder and his piano obsessed wife Helen (Anastasia Hille) whom he divorces, Halder finds happiness only with a student Anne (Jodie Whittaker) who is fascinated with the Nazi party, and Halder’s only close friend is psychiatrist Maurice Israel Glückstein (Jason Issacs) who is Jewish and loathes the Nazi party. Because of Halder’s needs in life and also because of the glory he feels being praised for his novel, he agrees to be an ‘advisor’ to the party. His confrères include Adolph Eichmann (Steven Elder) and Josef Goebbels (Adrian Schiller) and slowly the good man John Halder becomes immersed in the Nazi party.
Maurice, being Jewish and detesting John’s alliance with the Nazis, must escape Germany as the Jewish purge begins. His only hope is aid from Halder’s Nazi affiliation and he desperately seeks Halder’s help. Halder is unable to come to Maurice’s aid; Maurice is evacuated and Halder’s inspection of the concentration camps makes him face his worse fear about his selling out his morals and honor and his losing his closest friend.
GOOD began as a play by C.P. Taylor and was transformed into a screenplay by John Wrathall. Vicente Amorim directs a cast of mixed experience, but from Mortensen and Isaacs and Jones he draws fine performances. Throughout the film Halder has aural delusions: at times of stress he hears music, a factor that in retrospect makes us question his own stability. The music he hears is a sad rewriting of the works of Gustav Mahler -’ Die Zwei Blauen Augen von meinem Schatz’, and ‘O Mensch!’ from the Mahler 3rd Symphony (both sung in English translations by people on the street!), bit and pieces of score quoting phrases from Mahler in a very pedestrian arrangement, and finally orchestral recordings of moments from Mahler’s Symphonies No.1 and No.3. The pedestrian quality of the score weights the film down. The cinematography by Andrew Dunn is fine (the film was shot in Hungary). Overall, it feels like this is a strong idea of a statement of what happens to the minds common men in times of crises. For this viewer it simply doesn’t accomplish its goal, despite the worthy attempt Viggo Mortensen makes. Grady Harp, September 10
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When John Halder’s (Viggo Mortensen) latest novel is enlisted by powerful political figures in the Nazi party to push their agenda, his career and social standing instantly advance. But after learning of the Reich’s horrific plans for the future and the devastating effects they will have on people close to him, John must decide whether or not to take a stand and risk losing everything.
Tepid portrayal of a scholar turned Nazi – z hayes – TX
When I saw this DVD, I anticipated a well-plotted and intelligent movie along the lines of Amen. Unfortunately, even Viggo Mortensen can’t save this plodding story. Mortensen plays John Halder, an unassuming, liberal professor of literature at a German university who shuns politics (we gather this from his father-in-law constantly pestering him to join the Nazi party in order to get ahead career-wise). Halder has a close friend in psychoanalyst Maurice (Jason Isaacs) who happens to be Jewish. This does not bother Halder, and even as Hitler and the Nazis rise in power and influence, the pair continue to be good friends.
Most of the movie plods along at a soporific pace, revolving more around domestic politics, as Halder finds his marriage crumbling (he is married to a self-absorbed, neurotic wife, who bangs away at her piano day and night); his ailing mother gets more feeble and demanding; and, a nubile young student, Anne (Jodie Whittaker), the embodiment of Aryan perfection with her Nordic good looks, comes on to him. Before long, Halder has abandoned both his wife and ailing mother in favor of shacking up with Anne, a woman who is a Nazi loyalist and who has great plans for her husband. Meanwhile, Halder’s novel espousing mercy killing attracts the attention of high-ranking Nazis, who approach Halder to work for them in an “honorary” capacity as a party member.
Despite being an intellectual and a liberal, Halder allows himself to be swept along and enjoys the perks of belonging to the Nazi party. He gets a nice new house (confiscated Jewish property), a promotion to officer status, and hobnobs with high-ranking Nazis. Meanwhile, he keeps in touch with Maurice, enjoying his Jewish friend’s cooking skills, gobbling up Jewish cheesecake etc. whilst downplaying his friend’s concerns about the increasingly anti-Jewish policies.
It is difficult to sympathize with Halder – as a person, he really has no redeeming qualities. This man is supposed to be a liberal-minded intellectual, a thinking man, yet he allows himself to get flattered by Nazi interest in his work of fiction, a work which the Nazis later use to promote their euthanasia policy for the mentally-ill, the handicapped, the weak, and the Final Solution. Halder goes along like a feeble-minded sheep with a party which he claimed to disdain at the beginning. Mortensen’s portrayal of Halder is surprisingly weak and unconvincing (compared to some of his more brilliant character portrayals such as in Eastern Promises [Blu-ray]). By the time Halder tries to rescue Maurice from a terrible fate, it might be too late not just for Maurice, but also for this movie.
For those who are interested in a credible exploration of moral ambiguities and inner conflict during the Nazi period, I would recommend Amen starring Ulrich Tukur as an SS officer/chemist who discovers that his chemical invention to destroy vermin is being used to eliminate Germany of those the Nazi term ‘undesirables’, i.e. Jews. Riveting and horrific, it is a must-see.
“I’m a Jew, you’re a Nazi. End of story.” – DanD –
GOOD is one of those movies that, unfortunately, aims too high. If it had tried to be merely a personal drama set against the rise of Nazism, it would have been spectacular. Unfortunately, it reaches high, purposely intending to be a commentary on guilt and humanity. This leads to some contrived dialogue and situations that weigh the movie down.
Still, the film has its strong points. The story of a German professor coping with the pressures to join the Party (and the Party’s interest in his novel, and the eugenics preached within), the film provides ample opportunity for its cast to shine. Viggo Mortensen shines as Professor Halder, giving an understated performance that is admirable. As his Jewish friend, Jason Isaacs shines; cast against type, he is a wonder in the few scenes he’s given. Jodie Whittaker, as Halder’s love interest, holds her own amongst the greats. The entire cast performs admirably–especially Mark Strong, in his too-brief role.
While the performances are stellar, the rest of the film lags behind. The plot is non-linear at first, and it’s hard to tell when the flashbacks stop. There is an entire subplot with an infirm mother (acted wonderfully by Gemma Jones) is completely unnecessary; she’s used to display Halder’s humanity, but if the script had been what it should’ve been, her character wouldn’t have been necessary. These errors are largely unforgivable, given the effort the cast puts into it. If the movie had been more modest, hadn’t reached for the stars, it would’ve been much stronger, much more streamlined and accessible. As it is, GOOD is worth seeing for the acting, but as a morality play, it falls too far short.
A Cautionary Tale of the Slippery Slope – Yesterday and Today – D. Michael Elkins – Valrico, FL USA
Although this film depicted events that occurred in the 1930s in Germany as the Nazis have come into power, it is in many ways a cautionary warning of how easily things can change in any society, including our own, once people, no matter how “good” they may be, choose to travel step by step down one path over another.
For example, one scene depicted a college literature professor being informed that certain works in his class curriculum were no longer considered acceptable. At the same time his students were rushing to the classroom window to watch as piles of books were being burned outside. This scene brought to my mind the recent publicity surrounding the threatened burning of Korans in Gainesville, Florida. While many probably chalked this up as merely the actions of one misguided individual, there will certainly be others who will now take up his cause. Recent news stories have also mentioned certain school boards trying to sculpt history books to conform with their own ideas of how American history should be portrayed, rather than how it actually was. How many of us again took little notice of the story and merely ascribed those actions to a few misguided individuals who, fortunately, live somewhere else? How many Germans do you think felt the same whenever they read initial news stories of books being burned?
One of the main characters in this film, a Jewish psychoanalyst, is at first spared some of the harshest anti-Semitic Nazi measures due to having served in the German army in World War I. Tragically, any protection that his status as a war veteran provided him was short-lived. Many news stories during the recent New York Islamic Center controversy have reminded us that many Muslims have served honorably in our military over the past few years. How many of today’s Beckian conspiracy-minded fanatics will ignore the service provided by these individuals and see them merely as having been engaged as mole agents in some sort of anti-American plot?
I am certain that many of those drawn to the Nazis in the 1930s felt that they were “good” and patriotic citizens. I am sure that many of the “good” Americans waving their Tea Party flags at their rallies feel the same way. Nevertheless, the same sort of anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant rhetoric being spewed and ingested daily by many of these “good” Americans is very similar to the anti-Semitic propaganda that brought the Nazis to power and kept them in power. Don’t think that it can’t happen here, in many ways it already is.
“It’s real.” – J. H. Minde – Boca Raton, Florida and Brooklyn, New York
Viggo Mortensen is a chief exponent of the Block-of-Wood School of Acting, but he is perfectly cast as Professor “Johnnie” Halder, a Professor of Literature and novelist in Hitler’s Germany.
As GOOD opens, Johnnie is just like anybody else. He is dealing with a neurotic wife and demanding children, balancing home and work, and is dedicating time to caring for his increasingly frail and senile mother. Hitler has just come to power. He begins an affair with his student, Anne Hartman, more as a distraction than anything else, and maintains his friendship with Maurice Gluckstein, his former psychoanalyst. He decries Nazi book-burnings and dismisses the Fuhrer as a “joke.”
In an attempt to establish its credibility, the new government is seeking out experts to endorse its policies, and they trip across Johnnie’s sensitively written 1920s novel of a husband who aids his terminally ill wife in an assisted suicide.
Although Johnnie despises Naziism he is flattered by the attention paid to his novel, and accepts (with misgivings) an honorary commission in the SS. This opens the door to promotions at the University. He becomes Dean of Literature after the former Dean, Herr Mandelbaum “leaves in such a hurry.” He is tapped to inspect facilities for the care of the mentally ill, based on his “humanitarian” writings.
Despite pressure, he continues to befriend Maurice, who is becoming more and more bleak as time passes. He does attempt to arrange for his friend to leave Germany, but he is stopped from purchasing a ticket to Paris. Finally, he loses track of his friend in 1938, right after Kristallnacht.
Throughout GOOD, Johnnie IS “good,” but he becomes increasingly blind to what is happening around him as he travels down the slippery slope that eventually takes him to Auschwitz on an inspecton tour.
Never evil, Johnnie Halder is an Everyman who goes along, accepts what he told without question, and is increasingly co-opted by flattery and comfort. In the end, he comes to realize that he is stumbling through a waking nightmare of which he in part created. Not judgmental of its protagonist, GOOD invites us to question just what a “good” man is and does and where the bounds of responsibility lie.
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*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Oct 13, 2010 12:44:11
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