The Amazon Guide

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Who is better actor and director of these two?

Will Smith or Brad Pitt
Steven Spielberg or Francis Ford Coppola
Tom Hanks or Denzel Washington
Al Pacino or Jack Nicholson
Robert De Niro or Anthony Hopkins
Angelina Jolie or Catherine Zeta Jones
Di Caprio or Edward Norton
Cary Grant or Clint Eastwood
Christopher Nolan or Peter Jackson
Alfred Hitchcock or Martin Sorsese
Russel Crowe or Daniel Day Lewis
Harrison Ford or Sean Connery
Quentin Tarantino or Ridely Scott
Matt Damon or Christian Bale
Robin Williams or Kevin Spacey

Pitt–Smith is very likable but he doesn’t seem to have much range. not that Pitt has much more

Spielberg–hard because Coppola has put out a few great movies, but the sheer number of good to great movies Spielberg has done rules it. plus he invented the summer blockbuster and the modern action movie

Hanks–acting abilities are similar but Hanks has put out more good movies

Nicholson–Pacino is entertaining, no question, but nicholson is still a better actor.

DeNiro–again, I think their acting abilities are similar but Deniro has put out more great performances and more good movies

Jolie–she’s capable of great depth (Girl, Interrupted), Jones doesn’t seem to be much more than pretty actress with good charisma

Norton–after a while, I just can’t get past the unfortunate fact that DiCaprio is a world class actor stuck in the body of a back-street boy.

Eastwood–love Cary Grant but he played the same character over and over, and it wasn’t all that an interesting a character to begin with. i know some people argue Eastwood does the same thing, but I disagree. plus, his characters have a lot more depth

Peter Jackson–I’m crazy about Christopher Nolan, but as great as The Prestige, Memento, and Batman are, they don’t measure up to the accomplishment of bringing LOTR to the screen in the way Jackson did

Hitchcock–Scorses makes good, sometimes great movies, but I usually rate his movies lower than other people. Hitchcock created the psychological thriller

Daniel Day Lewis–big fans of both, but gotta give the edge to Lewis. he just seems to disappear a little further into the role

Ford–Connery is definitely likable, and everybody loves him as Bond, but he’s played in a bunch of junk. Ford at least tries to play somebody other than the same guy every once in a while

Tarantino–Scott makes great films, but Tarantino is more inventive

Damon–

Williams–Spacey plays the same wise-@$$ over and over. it grates after a while. Williams usually plays a manic, but every once in a while he steps outside his comfort zone. and when he doesn’t, he’s almost always entertaining.

One Two Three [VHS] $19.92 Hardly ever mentioned in the category of lightning-paced comedies–the His Girl Friday and Preston Sturges kind–is this breathless cold war farce from the great Billy Wilder. Adapted from a one-act play by Ferenc Molnár, Wilder and collaborator I.A.L. Diamond’s hilarious screenplay is a whirlwind collection of one-liners, gags, and double-entendres, anchored for the cameras by Jimmy Cagney’s cag…

The Apartment [VHS] $4.50 Romance at its most anti-romantic–that is the Billy Wilder stamp of genius, and this Best Picture Academy Award winner from 1960 is no exception. Set in a decidedly unsavory world of corporate climbing and philandering, the great filmmaker’s trenchant, witty satire-melodrama takes the office politics of a corporation and plays them out in the apartment of lonely clerk C.C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon). B…

Brian Wilson – I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times [VHS] $1.65 …

The Apartment (Collector’s Edition) $6.44 Romance at its most anti-romantic–that is the Billy Wilder stamp of genius, and this Best Picture Academy Award winner from 1960 is no exception. Set in a decidedly unsavory world of corporate climbing and philandering, the great filmmaker’s trenchant, witty satire-melodrama takes the office politics of a corporation and plays them out in the apartment of lonely clerk C.C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon). B…

The Fortune Cookie $7.50 Billy Wilder’s insurance-scam comedy, written with partner I.A.L. Diamond, is one of the legendary filmmaker’s surlier efforts. Were it not for the star-making performance of Walter Matthau (which won him an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor), it might not have registered so strongly with audiences. Shot in a grimy black and white, the story begins as CBS cameraman Harry Hinkle (Jack Lemmon)…

One, Two, Three $14.98 Hardly ever mentioned in the category of lightning-paced comedies–the His Girl Friday and Preston Sturges kind–is this breathless cold war farce from the great Billy Wilder. Adapted from a one-act play by Ferenc Molnár, Wilder and collaborator I.A.L. Diamond’s hilarious screenplay is a whirlwind collection of one-liners, gags, and double-entendres, anchored for the cameras by Jimmy Cagney’s cag…

Beach Boys – An American Band / Brian Wilson – I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times $6.88 A magnificent DVD pairing for Beach Boys fans, these two stylistically different films here pretty much represent the two sides of “America’s Band.” First up is The Beach Boys: An American Band, made at the height of their Reagan-era resurgence after then Interior Secretary James Watt banned them from performing at the nation’s capitol on the 4th of July. A colorful, upbeat film, it doesn’t entire…

Chamber and Gamelan Works $12.98 Lou Harrison (1917–2003) believed fervently in music’s power to create cultural bridges. To this end he applied his prodigious skills and creative energies to creating syncretic works that link diverse musical languages. Faulted at times for his eclecticism, Harrison responded with a vibrant defense of hybridity, cultivating a musical multiculturalism long before that term—or even the concept—…

Tribute to Ellington $6.25 Having proven his tango credentials, Daniel Barenboim makes another move beyond his classical orbit, into jazz. It’s a qualified success. Cliff Colnot has scaled down Ellington’s big-band arrangements for a smaller group (most of them apparently from Barenboim’s orchestra, the Chicago Symphony) with relatively convincing results. The ensemble plays well and the music still swings. However, only th…

Country life in South China;: The sociology of familism. Volume I. Phenix village, Kwantung, China …

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