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As an after thought, I found it quite ironic that less than a year after the release of Blow, the Director Ted Demme died of a Cocaine induced heart attack.
>>>Overall:<<<
I thought that Blow was a really good film, It covers a good few decades of Jungs life and shows him dealing with ... Read review
A briskly paced hybrid ofBoogie NightsandGoodfellas,Blowchronicles the three-decade rise ... more
and fall of George Jung (Johnny Depp), a normal American kid who makes a personal vow against poverty, builds a marijuana empire in the 1960s, multiplies his fortu...
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A briskly paced hybrid ofBoogie NightsandGoodfellas,Blowchronicles the three-decade rise ... more
and fall of George Jung (Johnny Depp), a normal American kid who makes a personal vow against poverty, builds a marijuana empire in the 1960s, multiplies his fortu...
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George Jung (Johnny Depp) doesn't want to live like his father (Ray Liotta)--always short ... more
of money and always berated by his mother. So he sets off for California to live on the beach. George finds he can make a living selling drugs. One day he lear...
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From the hippy innocence of the 60's to the money-chasing haze of the 80's, George Jung ... more
pursued what he thought was the American Dream. Moving to California he discovers sun, sex, and the profitable pleasures of selling marijuana. At first, dealing dru...
Starring Rachel Leigh Cook Josh Hartnett and Alan Rickman in a great ensemble cast the ... more
Academy Award nominated writer of 'The Full Monty' has crafted a hilarious comedy about the things everyone wants in life: love happiness and great hair! As the National Hair Championships descend upon a small town in England the country's top stylists aren't expecting much from the local talent. But they didn't count on Phil Allen (Rickman) the retired golden boy of the competition circuit entering the fray...
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A great movie! -Pauline Kael The New Yorker. John Travolta (Pulp Fiction Face/Off) ... more
stars in this riveting mystery/thriller filled with powerful performances intense action and an engrossing web of suspense and intrigue (Blockbuster Entertainment Guide). Written and directed by master filmmaker Brian De Palma (Mission: Impossible) Blow Out is a heart-stopping adventure hailed by Rolling Stone as an American moviemaking triumph! Jack Terri (Travolta) is a talented audio technician who makes his living by recording unique sounds for horror movies. But when he accidentally tapes an automobile crash that kills a presidential candidate and injures his young mistress Sally (Nancy Allen) Jack is hurled into a mystery far more terrifying than any of his films! Soon he and Sally must fight to stay alive as they uncover an explosive political conspiracy that will send shockwaves to the highest levels of government.
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Production Year: 2004 - Drama - Director: John Duigan - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring: Charlize Theron, Stuart Townsend, Penelope Cruz
Production Year: 2004 - Drama - Director: Nick Cassavetes - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over, 12 years and over - Starring: Rachel McAdams, Ryan Gosling, Gena Rowlands
Advantages: Johnny Depp, Acting Disadvantages: Glamorises a filthy trade
...>>>Overall:<<<
I thought that Blow was a really good film, It covers a good few decades of Jungs life and shows him dealing with the highs and lows of the trade he chose, all the actors are superb and that benefits the film no end. I didn't like the romanticised high life of the drug trafficker or that it seemed to push us to feel sorry of the real life Jung at the end, but looking it as a film only I can thoroughly recommended ... more
>>>The Film<<< George Jung (Johnny Depp) vows never to struggle in life as his father, Fred (Ray Liotta) has done. So as soon as he is able, he and his best friend Tuna (Ethan Suplee) move to California where they get involved in some low level supplying of weed to the locals. It is here in California where he meets Barbara (Franka Potente), the love of his life and between them and a few other people including Derek Foreal (Paul Reubens) they start to move small amounts of weed back to their home town, this is aided by the fact that Barbara is an air stewardess.
Tragedy strikes and after a spell in jail he meets Diego Delgado (Jordi Molla) who arranges him to meet ones of the worlds most dangerous drug criminals of the time, one Pablo Escobar. George doesn't look back, getting involved in the Medellin Cartel and supplying an estimated 85% of all Cocaine into the United States.
In an attempt to find love again Jung gets married to Mirtha (Penélope Cruz) and they have a child Kristina. But Mirtha is not as loving or as supportive as Barbara and her Latin temperament shines through when things aren't going her way, we soon see George emulating the situation his father found himself in many years before.
To be honest I didn't know until the very end that this was based on a true story. I either missed the bit at the beginning where it states that, or it just wasn't there. But had I known then I think my opinion of the film may have been different. I took this as a work of fiction, following the life and path of one fictitious character through the ups and downs of life as a drug trafficker. The film gave us a glossed up and romanticised view of this life and what great fun it was to get laid and smoke pot in the Californian sun and then the fun lifestyle that the Cocaine brought him, not the greatest of messages to put people off.
Then there are the ending statements where we find out (for those that didn't A: read the beginning (if it was there) or B: Just plain didn't know) that this George Jung is a real person, serving a real life prison sentence (until 2014, ouch). How can I sympathise with this man? After all he is, or I should say was, a drug trafficker, bringing in bucket loads of Cocaine into the states, which in turn caused untold misery for millions of users and their families over the years. How can I truly feel sorry for a person like that? It certainly isn't ever mentioned in the movie, and as this is a Biopic of the man I must assume that he never actually gave a passing thought to the lives he was destroying, this is George Jung's world, and we just live in it.
The film was never about the drug trade directly, nor was it about the users, which is a good thing as if it was there would be people watching this film and then setting up in the trafficking trade the morning after. it is simply about George Jung a guy that made some pretty crap choices which eventually land him with that big prison sentence, and to give George that sympathetic edge who better to play him than Johnny Depp, a brilliant actor with such an impressive range of acting that he goes from playing a teenager up to and including a middle aged man.
Liotta and Molla are worthy of special mention too. Liotta who plays Fred is a likeable guy who tries to do the best for his family, all the time hampered by his materialistic wife Ermine (Rachel Griffiths), he disagrees with what his son has turned too but doesn't argue about it and "goes with the flow". Molla as Deigo goes from likeable rogue to complete arse and I'm sure I could detect some actual madness in there as I could when I saw him as Johnny Tapia in Bad Boys 2. The rest of the supporting cast all give good accounts for themselves although I feel that Franka Potente really deserves space on the front cover as I feel she displayed a character that we actually felt for than the fiery Mirtha, but I guess Penelope Cruz on the front cover sells more disks.
I have to say by the end of the movie I feel sorry for the George, I thought it a tragedy that his daughter never came to see him in prison. But in reality it was the character that Depp portrayed that made me feel that way and not Jung himself, as the last scenes fade from the screen and we see George Jungs face, sorrow etched within his face, we realise that he made all his own choices and that his dealings with the Medellin Cartel brought misery to millions, and he ultimately got his comeuppance, he may well be sorry for what he did, (its never mentioned if he apologised) but I think that the families of those that bought the product he brought into the country were sorry he was not locked up sooner..
As an after thought, I found it quite ironic that less than a year after the release of Blow, the Director Ted Demme died of a Cocaine induced heart attack.
>>>Overall:<<< I thought that Blow was a really good film, It covers a good few decades of Jungs life and shows him dealing with the highs and lows of the trade he chose, all the actors are superb and that benefits the film no end. I didn't like the romanticised high life of the drug trafficker or that it seemed to push us to feel sorry of the real life Jung at the end, but looking it as a film only I can thoroughly recommended it.
Review originally posted by me on Digital Lard - http://www.digitallard.com/moviereview/734/index.htm
Advantages: Depp and Liotta, good direction by Demme. Disadvantages: Based on a book which was based on real life - but presented as true. Yeah, right. I didn't like the hero drug dealer approach either.
...instead I turned up for Blow with an idle indifference.
Blow is a movie about the famous Boston George, only I hadn’t heard anything about him before (I would have guessed serial killer with a name like that). George Jung sold drugs, lots of drugs, he moved up from selling weed on beaches to flooding America with crack cocaine - and for this the movie tries to present him as some hard working hero.
Johnny Depp has a talent when it comes to ... ...down at the film that Blow was a Demme picture then I suspect I would have been very much more enthusiastic about watching it. Here, I think, the pieces of the puzzle start to come together. The evil of the people in the film – albeit a casual and careless evil, often presented as the only viable choice – begins to make sense. Demme is a master at creating those subtle nuances which build up to pretty much depict devil horns on people.
...
Manx 30.05.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Blow (DVD)
Advantages: Johnny Depp, great soundtrack Disadvantages: Overlong
Ted Demme's BLOW was released in 2001 amidst comparisons with Scorsese's GOODFELLAS. Any film compared to that particular great film and with Johnny Depp in the lead role can't be anything but interesting; but how good is it?
Circa 1950s and as a boy George Jung was raised in an honourable family whose hard-working father provided for him and his self-serving mother adequately until business ran dry and he was forced into bankruptcy, his wife, George's ... ...in part through evoking vignettes. BLOW is in fact a clever telling of facts, of the familiar rise and fall of a real drug smuggler, and unlike GOODFELLAS the moral-laden road to tragedy it takes doesn't merge cleverly into fate, it merely takes you there, offering a guided fun-filled tour on the way; but with plenty of laughs, upsets and shocks you'll be more than satisfied, if not a little heart broken, by the time the end credits roll up the screen. ...
Charles_Strickland 13.02.2007
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Blow (DVD)
Advantages: Good DVD extras, good performances. Disadvantages: Nothing new, even the style is recycled.
...one of the producers of Blow by the way), directing Leary's concert movies and theatrical features such as The Ref, and Monument Avenue. Demme also directed the Eddie Murphy, Martin Lawrence prison comedy film: Life. Blow proves without a doubt that Ted Demme obviously can make a very slick professional film. Now he needs to work on making a good and original one actually worth watching. If you want to see a watered down, overly slick, overly familiar ... ...of a famous drug dealer, BLOW is going to be your kind of movie. If you're curious about the subject matter, have read the source book, are big fans of the stars, you'll find the movie is exactly what your impression of the film probably were from the theatrical trailer. It's a film that truly did not have to be made because similar and better movies have already been made. However, there are some very impressive extras on the DVD that are worth ...
ChrisJarmick 01.11.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Blow (DVD)
Advantages: Johnny Depp - He does no wrong, good story and acting Disadvantages: Perhaps a little too long
...based on a true story, Blow tells about the life of George Jung (Johnny Depp) and how he become one of the most influential drug smugglers/dealers of our time.
Starting off with George as a child we see his close relationship with his father (Ray Liotta) and his not so close relationship with his mother (actress unknown-sorry). His father has his own business that starts failing, his mother is money obsessed so isn’t to fond of this and frequently ... ...and little George decides he I never going to be poor.
When old enough, George and his best mate Tuna move to california. Here they find that all the girls are pretty and everyone is getting high. Tuna gets a load of dope (not very high quality) in an attempt to make some money but George’s new girlfriend, Barbara (Franka Portente – Run Lola Run, Anatomie) knows a better dealer, her friend Duncan (Paul Ruebens) and so begins George’s ...
Staggly 04.07.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Blow (DVD)
Advantages: Johmmy does us all proud Disadvantages: Dragged at times
...the 1970’s and 1980’s.
Blow follows the life of George, played by the fantastic Johnny Depp, as he tries to earn his fortune by dealing on the beaches of California so he wont end up bankrupt like his father. You see the highs and the lows of the business and it questions the prison systems ability to rehabilitate when it becomes like a school of crime.
Johnny carries himself well throughout all stages of his life from a young man on ... ...and an old man going a wee bit mad. It’s great to see him on top form. I have always enjoyed his work and again he comes up trumps.
The not so innocent Penelope Cruz did well in her role of George’s wife, from the spoilt rich girl to the messed up addict. All were very well done.
The soundtrack is varied and fun, yet I felt that it was under- used. As some events can be seen as repetative it helps to have something distinguishing them ...
ruthio 06.07.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Blow (DVD)
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Advantages: Great political thriller Disadvantages: Dated somewhat now
(Like music to an Andrex advert). Is he selling us an evil uncharted horror tale, or sanitary towels to hear the score isolated from the movie it's difficult to tell. What his score is however orchestral brilliance, 80's modern with a touch of 60's chic.
Blow Out may or may not be one of the finest movies of that time period (1981) I personally can't decide, what I do know is that it's a chilling and enticing that begs out to be seen, and also shows what a good director can achieve when he does not let his fame and ego get in the way.
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sghawken 25.03.2008
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Blow Out (DVD)
isn't really the right word . I did find it thought provoking, touching, original, and sad , and although I might watch it again, I don't think it's something I could watch often - it's just far too depressing .
I do think its worth recommending,and that it is a remarkable film, but its not one for a fun DVD night! ...
The story of George Jung who was instrumental in the explosion of the US market for cocaine in the 1970s. Despite his wealth and power the true cost of his ways eventually catches up with him...
Interview - George Jung, Documentaries, Audio Commentary, Outtakes, Deleted Scenes, Music Video, Optional Subtitle Track - Facts and Trivia, Trailer - 1. Original Theatrical, Production Diary, Filmographies
Sound
Dolby Digital 5.1
Dubbing Sound
Dolby Digital 5.1 English
Professional reviews
Review
"...Completely brilliant..." (Cosmopolitan, )
"...[Depp's] witty, spare performance gives the picture a poignancy....Mr. Demme's storytelling is quick and engaging..." (New York Times, p.E23, 06/04/2001)
"BLOW will knock your eyes out! Smart, sexy, funny and dangerous!" (Rolling Stone, )
DVD Description
George Jung (Johnny Depp) doesn't want to live like his father (Ray Liotta)--always short of money and constantly berated by his mother (Rachel Griffiths). So he sets off for California to live on the beach, where he finds he can make a living selling drugs. Soon George's drug dealing business expands into shipping drugs across the country. Needing a bigger supply of drugs, he travels to Columbia and meets Pablo Escobar (Cliff Curtis). Before long, George becomes the biggest trafficker of cocaine in the United States. In BLOW, director Ted Demme and scriptwriters Nick Cassevetes and David McKenna chart George's strange course into a world of girls and sun, drugs and fun. It's all so easy until events change George's life forever. Depp gives one of his best performances as George, instilling the character with a complicated mixture of emotions. For the supporting roles, Demme's eccentric casting includes German actress Franka Potente as George's girlfriend; Spanish actress Penelope Cruz as his wife; Australian actress Rachel Griffiths (who in real life is five years younger than Depp) as his withering mother; and Paul Reubens (in an excellent performance) as a hairdresser-cum-drug dealer.
![Blow [DVD] [2001]](http://picnica.ciao.com/uk/78523600.jpg)
