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Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

List Price: $19.98
Your Price: $15.98
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Get Ready to Be DEPRESSED!
Review: I've only got a few things to say about this movie: BEAUTIFULLY ACTED, AMAZINGLY CRAFTED & DON'T EXPECT TO BE HAPPY AFTER SEEING IT!!!

This movie is amazing in every sense. The script is fabulous and the actors couldn't have done anything better with this movie. Liz Taylor was absolutely "the limit" with this role - her best one ever. Richard Burton was marvelous, too - he played the downtrodden husband better than anyone could hope for.

The basic guts of this movie are that Liz and Richard invite a young couple over to have dinner and drinks but PLAY WITH THEIR MINDS throughout the entire show. You have to watch the movie to understand the level of this ugly game that they are imposing on their guests. To put it plainly, this movie is a mind f***.

Beware ye, all extremely sensitive viewers, you may watch this movie and be depressed for a few days straight! That's not a joke - it has a tremendous effect on all who watch it.

This movie should be seen just for the fabulous performances of the actors. See it and be depressed, weep, WHATEVER!!!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The most FACINATING film of all time!
Review: I had vaguely heared of this movie a while back and decided to rent it one day. From the moment it started, I was on the edge of my seat with intrigue. I could not believe the acting, the dialogue and the directing. It was perfect. After seeing it, I ended up bying it and have seen it probably fifteen to twenty times since then. I've since became a huge Liz fan and have seen pretty much all of her movies. But this one just hit me. I've done research of this film online, and found out that years following the release of this film, performing arts universities all over the world had refrenced the supperb acting techniques that Liz and Burton protrade in "Virginia Woolf". This film will truley go down in histery for it's acting as well as censorship breakthroughs. It is my favorite, most respected film of all time!!!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Powerfully disturbing film
Review: This film is so mentally clausterphobic and emotionally intense that it's almost painful to watch, but simultaneously I couldn't pull myself from the screen. Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton both deliver incredible performances as George and Martha, married university intellectuals whose mutual hatred for one another and love for hard liquor spark some of the most degrading and sharply caustic dialogue I've ever seen on screen. But that's not where it ends: enter George Segal and Sandy Dennis as Nick and Honey, a young professor and his wife who come to George and Martha's for drinks after a faculty party. And there the turbulent psychological torture begins.

It's not enough for George and Martha to ridicule and torture each other with their abrasive dialogue; they drag the young, naïve-looking couple into it, resulting in a powerful climax. The entire film takes place over a couple of hours on that one night, so concentrated that it's hard to absorb all that is said or implied between the characters. As the night progresses, the words and actions between the characters become more and more vulgar and degrading; at times I couldn't believe I was seeing and hearing this, especially since it was filmed in 1966. It's a powerful piece of cinema, the dialogue is sharp and biting, the camera angles are superb, and the actors are phenomenal. The film is disturbing beyond words, but incredibly powerful. It even manipulates the viewer's mind; you're being dragged into the psychological torture too, whether you want to or not.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Absolutely flawless performances
Review: If one were an actress, Martha would be the meatiest, bitchiest, sexiest, foulest, richest, tastiest, most appalling role she could ever play.
And Elizabeth Taylor plays her to perfection.

This is the movie about a middle aged couple (Liz and Richard Burtain) who love to play strange games. They thrive on it. They delight in it. Their marriage appears to be based on it.

But one night when they have a young couple (George Segal and Sandy Dennis) over for a few cocktails, their little Phychological games get a little dangerous, outrageous, sexually kinky.

I found myself gasping at times, because I could not belive what was unfolding before my eyes...Martha and George find the weakness in people and then begin tearing them apart (Little by Little) until nothing is left. Words can be like razors and cut, cut, cut. And they do this exceptionally well.

The venom rushes out of their pink mouths as if they are creating a web and then there is no stopping them ....Even sleeping with their sweet, young guests is not out of the question.

Martha and Goerge are dysfunction at the highest level, but the writing and acting is so excellent that the audience will feel for them, want to see them redeem themselves, and hope that their marriage will work.

Stunning performances by Burtain,Taylor, Dennis, and Segal...But Taylor shines beyond words.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: One of the most effective & disturbing films I've seen
Review: Don't get me wrong - I don't like this film at all - but its portrayal of perverse psychological games was grist in the mill for the generation of college students who were 5-10 years my senior. I got to see these types of psychological/emotional games played firsthand by one of my cousins, her spouse and their friends/associates, albeit on a much less grandiose scale. Those folks were so subtly afflicted, and inflicted this garbage on others, partly thinking it was cool [intellectually fashionable, maybe even Darwinian, or Machiavellian) to do so, partly unconscious of the gritty little bursts of havoc they were releasing on those of us who were too young to have experienced the film, being still in high school during its first run.

Then again maybe the play/movie itself was just symptomatic of those troubled times, before the breakthroughs of our own peace-love generation. Myself, I didn't see ['Virginia Woolf'] until 5-6 years ago, and thus was semi-oblivious to its influence on me (through these aforementioned cousins, etc.).

While I was never tempted to turn this off before it was over (cf. 'Mephisto' - my companion Cindy forced me to leave the movie house in the middle of the show; and 'Under the Volcano' where I forced her to leave) - it was quite the mindbender - kind of like 'Blue Velvet' during its first run (before that film became a cult classic where students seeing it at film societies 5-10 years later were laughing en masse at many of the happenings). My friend Dino and I were harassed by memories of seeing it for 2-3 days afterwards - we experienced it as a real-life horror story without the usual supernatural characters - just ghastly sado-realism at its most intense level.

'Who's Afraid . . .' certainly doesn't have any of this type of horrific, almost magical realism to it - but it is indeed macabre existentialism played out, directed and experienced at astoundingly intense levels. [No, not Kafka-esque or even Sartrean - it's clearly its own brand of glib, torrid emotionalism, wonderfully portrayed, but ultimately mind-numbing - probably for some, soul-wrenching.] Is 'suburban' analogous to 'subhuman' - it might be if you take this affrontery to innocence and good will too seriously.

Better to rent it first, you may get the gist of it [or as much as you can stand] in one viewing. Then again for those hardened souls who grew up in its shadow, and strangely pine for it - by all means, make this a required purchase. Place it on your holiday wish/hit list.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Masterful, but only a one-time watcher
Review: This movie was acted with passion and talent, the direction and writing show genious, but would you ever want to watch it again? No. This is a dark and disturbing picture of what a marraige can turn into when you let everything spiral downwards and yet it's more complex than that (it definitely feels more like a play than a movie). The funny thing for me was that no matter how horrible Elizabeth Taylor's character, no matter how drunk, rude, and braying she was, and despite the fact she was looking older, I could still only look at her and admire how stunningly beautiful she was. I'll admit this film had some merit, but I never want to see it again. I rank it in the same category as Vertigo and possibly The Country Wife - masterful yet too disturbing to want to watch over and over (although I would like to see Country Wife again if it ever comes out on DVD). As far as the DVD goes, someone else already mentioned that you'll have to turn your TV almost up to full volume because of the transfer.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Wonderful
Review: My two favorite actors/actresses Mr. and Mrs. Richard Burton pull off incredible performances in my favorite movie of all time. Burton deserved an Oscar. The dialogue is as venemous as you remember it, the play is just as good. Read it after seeing this. The only problem with the DVD is that the sound volume is a bit low so you need to turn it up if you want it loud. The DVD has only a commentary for real extras (which only runs for the first 100 minutes) but it is quite informative. Honestly, do we really need any cheesy documentaries with old hacks coughing out their lungs to fill out a DVD?

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: My dad loves it...
Review: I have never seen this movie. However, my dad, who is in his mid 60s, loves it. He thinks its the greatest movie Taylor and Burton ever did. So, maybe that will help some one.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Be Warned
Review: The DVD transfer of this great film appears to have been made by a two year old orangutan. Haskell Wexler's cinematography is totally ruined in this appalling disaster of a DVD. The sound is also laughably bad and requires the film to be played at nearly full volume. This DVD is an insult to everyone who made this film. Warner Brothers should be ashamed. Maybe someday somebody (hopefully not Warner Bros.) will re-master this and give it the care and respect it deserves.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Games of the Mind
Review: This incredible movie, with a cast of just four people (and a one-line performance from a barman) is breathtaking in terms of the acting and dialogue.

It starts out with ascerbic wit and dark humour and goes on to become filled with unexpected turns from the cast, and cruelty and violence of the mind.

George (Richard Burton) is a washed out history professor, with a sardonic but quiet manner, and his wife Martha (Elizabeth Taylor) is a slovenly, alcoholic with a permanently vicious tongue.

They invite Nick (George Segal) and Honey (Sandy Dennis) to late night drinks at their home, where the older couple tear each other to pieces, drawing the innocent younger couple into their warped and vicious mind-games with large quantities of alcohol for all, to help the destructive process along.

The dialogue draws from hilarious humour, such as where George refers to Martha's University Dean father as having 'beady red eyes', and where quiet and sweet Honey becomes drunk and for the first time, vocal , to scenes of horror , such as where George becomes more vicious than his wife.

While Martha certainly brought this on herself, it is with a sense of disgust that we see him turn unprovoked on Honey, who he tears to shreds- a classic case of the depraved savaging the innocent.

The story draws on to reveal through various twists and turns to reveal just how depraved the older couple are, while one wonders why the younger couple stay on at their house....


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