Princess Caraboo (DVD)

Princess Caraboo (1994) starring Phoebe Cates, Jim Broadbent, Wendy Hughes, Kevin Kline, John Lithgow, Stephen Rae. In 1817 in England, a time when harsh laws constrain vagrants and beggars, a young woman (Cates) -- of exotic appearance and speaking no English -- appears on the side of a country road. She is quickly adopted by a couple (Broadbent and Hughes), who come to believe that she is a foreign princess named Caraboo who has washed up on English shores after escaping a slave ship. Rae plays a journalist named Gutch, who is enchanted with Caraboo but can't quite bring himself to believe her story. Others take her for an impostor, but she manages to win them over. The performances by the whole cast are very good. The fact that the movie is subtitled "A True Story" adds another layer of wonder to the whole entertainment. The subtitles are available in several languages, including English. I had a lot of fun watching it. Grade: B+

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (DVD)

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969) starring Maggie Smith. At a girls' school in Scotland in the 1930s, Miss Jean Brodie (Smith) teaches history -- officially -- while instructing "her girls" in art and culture. She fancies herself to be "in her prime," though viewers of the movie can see that she is verging on middle age. For her high spirits, the girls whom she teaches adore her -- but the authorities at the school where she teaches are not happy with her, nor her teaching methods. To top it all off, Miss Brodie is shockingly naive in her political beliefs -- she thinks that Mussolini in Italy and Franco in Spain are great men. She is a passionate person with many conflicting opinions. One must wonder if, ultimately, she will find life to be a disappointment. Smith won an Oscar for her performance. In acting, direction and staging, this is a nearly perfect film. The subtitles are very good. Grade: A

Priest (DVD)

Priest (1994) starring Linus Roache, Tom Wilkinson. Young priest named Father Greg (Roache) has trouble dealing with problems of the inner city, not to mention his own secret homosexuality. You might recognize Roache from his role on "Law & Order," the TV show (now canceled). Fr. Greg's first conflict comes about when a girl named Lisa tells him in the confessional that her father is sexually abusing her. How can Fr. Greg help her, without breaking the sacred trust of the confessional? Turns out, he can't. He can scarcely help himself. The scenes of two men making love to each other didn't do much for me, but the film's ending was still moving. The captions are very good. Grade: B

Please Give (DVD)

Please Give (2010) starring Oliver Platt, Catherine Keener, Amanda Peet, Rebecca Hall, Lois Smith, Ann Morgan Guilbert. A Manhattan couple (Platt and Keener) wait for their next-door neighbor (Guilbert) to die so that they can buy her apartment and expand their living space into it. When they meet the neighbor's granddaughters (Hall and Peet) things start to get complicated. It's an indie film -- not a big Hollywood production, but still a pleasure to experience. The actors all do a good job, and the script is well written and nicely balanced. The subtitles are excellent. Grade: B+

Pride and Prejudice (DVD)

Pride and Prejudice (1940) starring Laurence Olivier, Greer Garson. Olivier plays Mr. Darcy and Garson plays Elizabeth Bennet in this adaptation of Jane Austen's novel about social mores in the early 1800s in England. The five Bennet sisters -- and their mother -- are all aflutter when Mr. Bingham and Mr. Darcy, two very eligible bachelors, arrive in town. But Mr. Darcy gets off on the wrong foot with Elizabeth, and it will take the entire movie for things to be put right. Although this film was made 70 years ago, it holds up rather well. The English subtitles are very good. Grade: B+

The Pride of the Yankess (DVD)

The Pride of the Yankees (1942) starring Gary Cooper, Teresa Wright, Babe Ruth, Walter Brennan. Cooper plays Lou Gehrig, one of the greatest baseball players ever to wear the Yankee uniform, who died in 1941 from ALS, the illness that ever after was known as Lou Gehrig's Disease. The movie follows Gehrig's career from the time he was a young boy until he graduated to the major leagues, on to his courting and marriage to Chicago heiress Eleanor Twitchell (Wright). At the height of his happiness, he starts to show symptoms of the disease that we, the audience, know will kill him. My main complaint about this film is that Cooper, though his acting is good, just doesn't move like an athlete -- but maybe that's asking too much, at least of a movie of this vintage. Cooper was over 40 when this movie was made, an age which Gehrig never reached. The finale, Gehrig's famous farewell speech in Yankee Stadium, is very effective. The captions are good. Grade: B

Priceless (DVD)

Priceless (2006) starring Audrey Tautou, Gad Elmaleh. Gold-digger Irene (Tautou) mistakes bartender Jean (Elmaleh) for a rich man and sleeps with him. When she finds out he's just a working stiff, she drops him like a hot potato. But he continues to pursue her. Irene goes along with it, quickly draining him of all his savings, then telling him goodbye. But the plot thickens, as Jean acquires a sugar-momma of his own. For some reason, Jean can't stop loving Irene, even though she is a rather foul creature. No one is more surprised than I am to find that I didn't like Audrey Tautou's character in this movie, and thus found it hard to root for her to fall in love. Elmaleh, on the other hand, is an appealing guy and I did find myself rooting for him. All in all, an amusing, if not great, film. In French, with English subtitles. Grade: B-

Pretty Woman (DVD)

Pretty Woman (1990) starring Julia Roberts, Richard Gere, Ralph Bellamy, Jason Alexander, Hector Elizondo. Wealthy businessman Edward Lewis (Gere) picks up a poverty-stricken streetwalker named Vivian (Roberts) and takes her to his Beverly Hills penthouse. He needs a no-obligations companion for a week, so he hires Vivian for $3,000. Naturally, they fall (slowly) in love. Although Gere got top billing, this is the film that launched Roberts to stardom. The shopping scene on Rodeo Drive (accompanied by Roy Orbison's "Pretty Woman") is priceless. Alexander is very convincing as a sleazy lawyer who works for Lewis. The captions are very good. Grade: B+

Calamity Jane (DVD)

Calamity Jane (1953) starring Doris Day, Howard Keel. Calamity Jane (Day) sets off from Deadwood for Chicago to try and hire an actress to come and entertain at the local saloon. When the Army officer Calamity loves falls for the actress, Calam finds herself in the unaccustomed role of being jealous. Meanwhile, Calam's best friend Wild Bill Hickock (Keel) finds himself in love with her. Mixed in there, Day gets to perform the Oscar-winning song, "Secret Love," which would become a No. 1 pop hit for her. Calamity Jane is a light but enjoyable entertainment, a throwback to the days before rock 'n' roll. The subtitles on the disc are adequate at best, but the closed captions are good. Grade: B+

The President's Analyst (DVD)

The President's Analyst (1967) starring James Coburn. Dr. Sidney Schaefer (Coburn) is plucked from obscurity to be psychoanalyst to the President of the U.S. The job comes with lots of perks -- but also heavy responsibilities. It's not long before the president's analyst is driven crazy by the pressures of the job, and ends up on the run. Much silliness ensues as every foreign government, plus the "CEA" and the "FBR," try to chase Dr. Schaefer down. The ultimate is when he takes up with a band of hippies, the 1967 movie version, to avoid capture. The film spins off into lands of fantasy from there. Some pretty funny touches, but I found it ultimately unsatisfying. The captions are very good. Grade: C+

Date Night (DVD)

Date Night (2010) starring Tina Fey, Steve Carell, Leighton Meester, Jimmi Simpson, Common, Taraji P. Henson. Married couple Claire and Phil Foster (Fey and Carell) decide to spend their "date night" at a nice uptown restaurant. They don't, however, have reservations, and they have to steal someone else's reservation to get a table. Oops. The people whose reservation they steal are in big trouble with the bad guys (Simpson and Common), who naturally mistake the Fosters for them. After escaping the bad guys on their first encounter, Claire and Phil go on the run. Several comedy set-pieces follow, some funny, some not so much. The car chase scene stands out as a bad idea. Fey and Carell, however, are good together on screen, and there were moments, particularly early in the film, where I laughed out loud. The captions are excellent. Grade: B-

The Postman Always Rings Twice (DVD)

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) starring Lana Turner, John Garfield, Cecil Kellaway, Hume Cronyn. Cora and Nick (Turner and Kellaway) are a married couple who own a diner by the side of the highway; Frank (Garfield) is the hired hand who arrives hitchhiking one day. Things get sticky when Cora and Frank fall in love, then decide to do away with the likable Nick. Cronyn plays a sleazy lawyer named Keats who, after Nick's death, ends up playing Cora and Frank off against each other. Many complications follow, but suffice it to say that Cora and Frank both end up paying for their crime. I was not too thrilled by this film. In particular, I thought the chemistry between Turner and Garfield seemed phony. Neither was a great actor. The captions on this disc are very good. Grade: B

Posse (DVD)

Posse (1975) starring Kirk Douglas, Bruce Dern, Bo Hopkins, James Stacy, Luke Askew, David Canary. Old West lawman named Nightingale (Douglas) aims to advance his campaign for Senate by catching notorious crook Strawhorn (Dern). But Strawhorn proves to be elusive prey. Once captured, he soon escapes and begins to wreak havoc. In a surprising turn of events, Strawhorn takes Nightingale captive, and it is up to the posse to rectify the situation. Nightingale's electioneering forms the backdrop against which the good guys vs. bad guys action takes place. The ending is quite a surprise, definitely not what you'd expect in a Western. The subtitles supplied on the disc are good. Grade: B

Emmanuelle (DVD)

Emmanuelle (1974) starring Sylvia Kristel. The actress who plays Emmanuelle is very pretty. She has sex with various men -- and women. Her husband tells her he wants her to be free to do whatever she wants. But when she fails to come home one night, he is alarmed. Later, he entrusts her to the tender care of an older man named Mario, who is to instruct her in the ways of "eroticism." Mario spouts a bunch of nonsense. That's pretty much the plot, such as it is. What a travesty. Grade: D