Michelle Pfeiffer Books

this book will give you a little insight to what makes michelle pfeiffer the person she is today. it gives details about the love life that she likes to keep personal, it also gives a look into the many friendships she has made and kept with other hollywood stars like cher and glenn close. all in all this is a true peice of michelle pfeiffer for any fan to own.

Helmed by "Platoon" director and Vietnam vet Stone, "Born" is a profoundly moving portrait of a macho athlete whose horrific battle experience causes him to reassess his politics and reorient his give-`em-hell attitude. Cruise, in an ambitious turn away from heartthrob roles, plays Kovic with precision and conviction, especially at his darkest moments, delivering the finest work of his career. Co-written by Stone and Kovic, "Born" reflects the pain and anger felt by an entire generation of returning US soldiers, and will leave a lasting impression.

How could it have happened? Thousands of innocent soldiers and civilians killed for nothing? The most powerful nation on earth, having free speech and a free press, duped into a totally unnecesary and even counterproductive war? A Congress fooled by a dissembling and deceitful administration, with few dissenters.

Well, it happened again in 2003, and watching this movie, one of my favorites, is even more heartbreaking now than it was when I first saw it years ago. It's a period piece starting in the '50s, beautifully filmed, wonderfully acted, and perfectly capturing the spirit of three decades that I know well from personal experience. It's the story of Ron Kovic, who volunteered for duty in Vietnam, was severely wounded, and returned to find that not only had the war been unnecessary, but he and his fellow veterans were not all that welcome, especially when they started exercising their rights to protest the continuation of the war.

This is Stone's best movie by far. The joys of family life, the horrors of war, the pain of catastrophic injury, the trauma of alienation, the exhilaration of redemption... all are depicted movingly and accurately. In this movie, Stone is uncharacteristically as understated as John Williams' wonderful score. There are scenes, such as when Cruise's character, based on a real story, returns to his old neighborhood on Long Island to find his parents,family, and neighbors uneasily prepared for him, that always bring tears to my eyes. But that is just one of many such scenes.

Stone also is dead-on in his depiction of the attitude of the American public toward returning Vietnam veterans and the veterans' despair and bitterness. Alas, I fear that we have not seen yet the development of those same feelings as we have yet to see very many returning Iraq War veterans in this war, which never made any sense, but we will.

It's amazing to watch this movie again now and to see all the parallels with Vietnam, beginning with the killing of innocent civilians, confusion in the fighting, deaths of minority and working class kids, etc.

Like I said, it is heartbreaking to see this happen again, but this movie ought to be re-released or be shown in schools. Of course, being realistic, it has so much profanity and explicit references to sex that it will never be seen by those who ought to see it--impressionable kids who are brainwashed by government propaganda.

A side note: George W. Bush was probably at the 1972 GOP Convention that is depicted in the last part of this movie, so he was probably there when Ron Kovic and other Vietnam Veterans against the War were spit upon and gassed by police. Why John Kerry and his campaign did not bother to mention this--and a number of other things having to do with unnecessary wars--in the 2004 campaign is beyond me.

This is a movie to watch with your teenage son or daughter and to discuss afterward.

To be in a hot sun in a thick heavy uniform is very hard especially for those who never been in hot countries.You'd get easily confused and combined stupidities.
This movie features an ambitious young man dreams to be a hero of his land fighting enemies in other people's land.Ron Kovic has been brought up in a good family,but ends up for the rest of his life on a wheelchair.This... must be hell.
If you're born without legs,you'd never feel this kind of suffering.if you don't have love but have your legs,it would be different.Think what war can do to your children.
Kovic is interprated by Tom Cruise, an actor we have never seen so sad and depressed like in this movie.Oliver Stone is to me the 'Hero' of Vietnamese war's movies.Never forget that handsome Yankee Doodle Boy as young Kovic too.

Born on the Fourth of July follows the journey of Ron Kovic from his innocent childhood in the 1950's through his experience in the Vietnam war and its aftermath. His painful journey reflects the tumultuous journey that America took during the Vietnam War years.

Tom Cruise, delivering an intense performance as Kovic, and director Oliver Stone, a Vietnam Veteran, allows us to share in the raw emotions of the character. John Williams provides a brilliant score to add to the emotional punch.

This film was made when Stone could command a big budget post-Platoon and before he succumbed to the excesses of his later films - Born on the Fourth of July stands as his finest film.

Everything that people love and detest about Oliver Stone's films is in full flower here--ambitious theme, strengthen visual style, undisguised political biases...

The film is also an important turning point in Tom Cruise's career, completing his transformation from rising star to serious actor... He received his first Academy Award nomination for his role as antiwar activist and Vietnam veteran... Though Ron Kovic's story is presented as a distillation of the political and a violent social commotion that America went through from the mid-sixties to the mid-seventies... At heart, it's propaganda...

Stone begins the story as a twisted cinematic version with boys playing war in suburban woods... It's Massapequa, Long Island, 1956...

Ron Kovic grows up as a typical American white kid who believes in God, country, sports, and sex... His father's (Raymond J. Barry) leaving his forceful mother (Caroline Kava) as the dominant personality in the home... To Ron, she's a repressive slave driver who sets a standard he can never measure up to... That, in part, is why he enlists in the Marines, straight out of high school... Cut to the Cua Viet River, October 1967, where Sgt. Kovic is in his second tour...

The short vision of Vietnam that Stone presents here is even more surreal and horrifying than the violence in "Platoon." An attack on a village is a disaster, and the Marines' retreat from it is even worse for Kovic... That nightmare is settled when Kovic is seriously wounded, sent to a MASH unit, and then to a Bronx Veteran's Administration hospital...

Paralyzed from the waist down, Kovic sank into a deep depression... From that moment, the next hour or so is a steep downward spiral of self-pity, drunkenness, anger, misery, and, most important, guilt over one incident for which he cannot forgive himself... It's honest, unflattering, and ugly...

Cruise's performance is one of his best, capturing both the cocky, insecure young man and the haunted veteran...The motion picture is never boring and, until the last reel, the action moves forcefully...

If Stone had elected in the middle section to spend less time rolling about with pleasure in Mexican fleshpots and to pay more attention to Kovic's full development, he might have created the antiwar epic he was aiming for, revealing the physical and psychological costs of one of the most tragic events in history...

Helmed by "Platoon" director and Vietnam vet Stone, "Born" is a profoundly moving portrait of a macho athlete whose horrific battle experience causes him to reassess his politics and reorient his give-`em-hell attitude. Cruise, in an ambitious turn away from heartthrob roles, plays Kovic with precision and conviction, especially at his darkest moments, delivering the finest work of his career. Co-written by Stone and Kovic, "Born" reflects the pain and anger felt by an entire generation of returning US soldiers, and will leave a lasting impression.

How could it have happened? Thousands of innocent soldiers and civilians killed for nothing? The most powerful nation on earth, having free speech and a free press, duped into a totally unnecesary and even counterproductive war? A Congress fooled by a dissembling and deceitful administration, with few dissenters.

Well, it happened again in 2003, and watching this movie, one of my favorites, is even more heartbreaking now than it was when I first saw it years ago. It's a period piece starting in the '50s, beautifully filmed, wonderfully acted, and perfectly capturing the spirit of three decades that I know well from personal experience. It's the story of Ron Kovic, who volunteered for duty in Vietnam, was severely wounded, and returned to find that not only had the war been unnecessary, but he and his fellow veterans were not all that welcome, especially when they started exercising their rights to protest the continuation of the war.

This is Stone's best movie by far. The joys of family life, the horrors of war, the pain of catastrophic injury, the trauma of alienation, the exhilaration of redemption... all are depicted movingly and accurately. In this movie, Stone is uncharacteristically as understated as John Williams' wonderful score. There are scenes, such as when Cruise's character, based on a real story, returns to his old neighborhood on Long Island to find his parents,family, and neighbors uneasily prepared for him, that always bring tears to my eyes. But that is just one of many such scenes.

Stone also is dead-on in his depiction of the attitude of the American public toward returning Vietnam veterans and the veterans' despair and bitterness. Alas, I fear that we have not seen yet the development of those same feelings as we have yet to see very many returning Iraq War veterans in this war, which never made any sense, but we will.

It's amazing to watch this movie again now and to see all the parallels with Vietnam, beginning with the killing of innocent civilians, confusion in the fighting, deaths of minority and working class kids, etc.

Like I said, it is heartbreaking to see this happen again, but this movie ought to be re-released or be shown in schools. Of course, being realistic, it has so much profanity and explicit references to sex that it will never be seen by those who ought to see it--impressionable kids who are brainwashed by government propaganda.

A side note: George W. Bush was probably at the 1972 GOP Convention that is depicted in the last part of this movie, so he was probably there when Ron Kovic and other Vietnam Veterans against the War were spit upon and gassed by police. Why John Kerry and his campaign did not bother to mention this--and a number of other things having to do with unnecessary wars--in the 2004 campaign is beyond me.

This is a movie to watch with your teenage son or daughter and to discuss afterward.

To be in a hot sun in a thick heavy uniform is very hard especially for those who never been in hot countries.You'd get easily confused and combined stupidities.
This movie features an ambitious young man dreams to be a hero of his land fighting enemies in other people's land.Ron Kovic has been brought up in a good family,but ends up for the rest of his life on a wheelchair.This... must be hell.
If you're born without legs,you'd never feel this kind of suffering.if you don't have love but have your legs,it would be different.Think what war can do to your children.
Kovic is interprated by Tom Cruise, an actor we have never seen so sad and depressed like in this movie.Oliver Stone is to me the 'Hero' of Vietnamese war's movies.Never forget that handsome Yankee Doodle Boy as young Kovic too.

Born on the Fourth of July follows the journey of Ron Kovic from his innocent childhood in the 1950's through his experience in the Vietnam war and its aftermath. His painful journey reflects the tumultuous journey that America took during the Vietnam War years.

Tom Cruise, delivering an intense performance as Kovic, and director Oliver Stone, a Vietnam Veteran, allows us to share in the raw emotions of the character. John Williams provides a brilliant score to add to the emotional punch.

This film was made when Stone could command a big budget post-Platoon and before he succumbed to the excesses of his later films - Born on the Fourth of July stands as his finest film.

Everything that people love and detest about Oliver Stone's films is in full flower here--ambitious theme, strengthen visual style, undisguised political biases...

The film is also an important turning point in Tom Cruise's career, completing his transformation from rising star to serious actor... He received his first Academy Award nomination for his role as antiwar activist and Vietnam veteran... Though Ron Kovic's story is presented as a distillation of the political and a violent social commotion that America went through from the mid-sixties to the mid-seventies... At heart, it's propaganda...

Stone begins the story as a twisted cinematic version with boys playing war in suburban woods... It's Massapequa, Long Island, 1956...

Ron Kovic grows up as a typical American white kid who believes in God, country, sports, and sex... His father's (Raymond J. Barry) leaving his forceful mother (Caroline Kava) as the dominant personality in the home... To Ron, she's a repressive slave driver who sets a standard he can never measure up to... That, in part, is why he enlists in the Marines, straight out of high school... Cut to the Cua Viet River, October 1967, where Sgt. Kovic is in his second tour...

The short vision of Vietnam that Stone presents here is even more surreal and horrifying than the violence in "Platoon." An attack on a village is a disaster, and the Marines' retreat from it is even worse for Kovic... That nightmare is settled when Kovic is seriously wounded, sent to a MASH unit, and then to a Bronx Veteran's Administration hospital...

Paralyzed from the waist down, Kovic sank into a deep depression... From that moment, the next hour or so is a steep downward spiral of self-pity, drunkenness, anger, misery, and, most important, guilt over one incident for which he cannot forgive himself... It's honest, unflattering, and ugly...

Cruise's performance is one of his best, capturing both the cocky, insecure young man and the haunted veteran...The motion picture is never boring and, until the last reel, the action moves forcefully...

If Stone had elected in the middle section to spend less time rolling about with pleasure in Mexican fleshpots and to pay more attention to Kovic's full development, he might have created the antiwar epic he was aiming for, revealing the physical and psychological costs of one of the most tragic events in history...

Very good movie. Kid is stolen, Mom goes crazy, family becomes a mess. Kid is found but its all unpredictable. Rent it and see how the story unfolds.

It is hard to describe this film, but it is one with a very stable and unfamiliar plot. You will not be unsatisfied with this film I would recomend it to anyone with a family to look after, so you can see what really does happen. It is very suspensful and probably too much for young children to handle otherwise it is a great film.

Pfeiffer plays a mother who is devastated when her son goes AWOL in a crowd. Nine years later he returns - but is he her real son? Unbelievable coincidences apart, Deep End of the Ocean tries too hard to be faithful to Jacquelyn Mitchard's best-selling source material and winds up falling between more stools than a wino at a Scatologists convention. Pfeiffer, as always, glows.

"The Deep End of the Ocean" is based on Jacquelyn Mitchard's best-selling novel. It's the story of a busy mother, Beth Cappadora (Michelle Pfeiffer), whose son Ben is kidnapped at the age of three. Nine years later, Ben is found and is reunited with his family, but he doesn't have much interest in getting to know them and is resentful about being yanked out of his old life.

I enjoyed this movie. It's pretty true to the novel, and the few things that were changed for the film aren't all that important. I think the biggest difference between the book and the movie is that the character of Beth is much more toned-down and sympathetic on the big screen than she is on paper. Mitchard's version of the character is more interesting and complex, but I can see why the producers probably thought it wouldn't do well on the big screen. Pfeiffer delivers a strong performance, as does Jonathan Jackson, who plays the oldest Cappadora son, Vincent. The only casting decision that left me puzzled is Whoopi Goldberg, who is probably the last person on earth I would have picked to play Detective Candy Bliss, but oh well.

Bottom line: This is a good, solid film. Not great, but very good. The story is about as unrealistic as you can get and I think the ending is way too optimistic, but stranger things have been known to happen in this world.

One of the fringe benefits of a major format change is the inevitable markdowns of old stock of the old format. I've been taking advantage of the VHS sales in local video stores for quite a while now. Many of them are dirt cheap, and if you still have a functional VCR and don't demand all the "extras" of the DVD format, you can find all kinds of bargains.

And all kinds of dross too, unfortunately. I purchased this movie recently, along with several other films starring Michelle Pfeiffer and was contemplating holding my own personal "Pfeiffer Film Festival," but for better or for worse, I started out with DEEP END OF THE OCEAN and that pretty much nipped those plans in the bud. I wound up shelving the other entries in the Pfeiffer filmography for another rainy day. This one was just too depressing. And I don't mean the content.

I think most people recognize that Michelle Pfeiffer is a talented actress as well as being a very beautiful woman. But like many good actresses, she seems to wind up in mediocre film after mediocre film. Maybe it was ever thus. How many truly great films did a Katharine Hepburn or a Bette Davis really do in their day. And Liz Taylor did clunker after clunker in the late 60s and early 70s. But there was a significant change in recent decades. Even our biggest stars of today don't carry films the way they once did. No one goes to see a Michelle Pfeiffer film just because Michelle Pfeiffer is in it these days. The pressure is on, then, for an actor to pick vehicles worthy of his or her talents.

A number of the reviews I've seen posted here and elsewhere have elaborated on THE DEEP END OF THE OCEAN's storyline, so I won't belabor that here. Suffice to say that the story of a child's kidnapping and the subsequent emotional trauma it inflicts on an entire family is a potentially powerful one. Pfeiffer heads a strong cast, including Treat Williams as her equally grieving but more resilient husband. They all have good moments and make the most of their screentime, but the story never quite gels. And it doesn't get much better when after ten years, the family is abruptly reunited with their lost son.

The fact that the reunion is highly unlikely is not so much the problem. I'm not out to revoke anyone's dramatic license here. What makes no dramatic sense or even common sense is the family's handling of the situation. In the Age of Oprah, how come no one even considers any kind of counseling for ANYONE in the family. Many people (and many entire families, of course) are resistant to seeking psychological help, but under such extraordinary circumstances, it's hard to imagine this family not even considering the option. If not for themselves, how about for the boy? After all he's been through, even the proudest of families should feel little compunction about his receiving professional help.

Like many other reviewers who have not read Jacquelyn Michaud's acclaimed novel upon which this film is based, I am guessing that this is likely one more case in which the "book was better." A novel, of course, can indulge in more leisurely pacing, and provide more background and, most importantly, can utilize techniques like interior monologue which contemporary cinema rightly eschews. (Voiceovers don't cut it--and never did). I wonder too if the book might not have provided us with some kind of explanation for the evocative title. There seems to be a trend toward a kind of emotional topography in recent fiction and cinema (not only "deep ends of the ocean" but also "maps of the world" and of "the human heart"). Apparently, they mean something. The book may make it clear. The movie doesn't really bother.