Making Love [VHS]

Making Love [VHS]
by Arthur Hiller

List Price: ~~$29.98~~
Category: VHS Video
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Product details

Actor: Arthur Hill, Harry Hamlin, Kate Jackson, Michael Ontkean, Wendy Hiller
Director: Arthur Hiller
Edition: VHS Tape
Format: Color, HiFi Sound, NTSC
Release Date: 1982-06-30
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Publisher: Fox Home Entertainment
Studio: Fox Home Entertainment

VHS Movie Reviews of Making Love [VHS]

Movie Review: Great movie...mediocre product
Summary: 3 Stars

Probably the best movie about gay subject matter before Brokeback Mountain. It deals with the issue in a very rational, non-stereotypical, and realistic way. You wont find any lisping queens in drag, though most of the gay characters are quite promiscuous. This was the pre-AIDs era after all.

The DVD itself is very bargain-basement. My case arrived with a warped and cheap feeling cover. No booklet. No features other than the theatrical trailer (complete with the "OMG this movie might freak you out, so be careful!" warning message in red right before it plays). While the video and sound are not great quality (this is a pretty old movie), they are acceptable and it is in widescreen format.

Personally, I am happy to have a DVD version finally, so I'm not complaining. But this is definitely not a deluxe edition.

Movie Review: Another wonderful blast from the past
Summary: 5 Stars

A wonderful film about coming out in the 1990's. I remember going to see this film in the movie theaters like 4-5 times. It was just before I came out myself and it meant so much to me to see this in a mainstream movie theater. As I watched this dvd, all of those memories came flooding back. A beautiful love story and also a story of a man discovering himself. A classic film for anyone interested in how being gay has been interpreted in cinema.

Movie Review: making love
Summary: 5 Stars

this is a gay themed love story, about a married man's struggle to accept his homosexuality. he is torn between two worlds and doesnt want
to hurt the woman he loves, but needs to be true to himself at the same time.

Movie Review: Destined to become a classic
Summary: 4 Stars

This is one of those films that makes your realize just how far we've come from quality, creative filmmaking. I was really shocked at how much I enjoyed this film the second time around so many years later. It must be that I'm so bored with modern crap. At the time this film was released in 1982 (just prior to AIDS becoming a household word), it was considered rather dull and contrite. I remember watching it when I was a kid, and thought it was a snoozer, too. Now, 27 years later, it's like watching a masterpiece in comparison to the banal, preachy crap that is released today. "Making Love" is a perfect example of a pre-PC film, which is frank in its depiction of the characters' lives, the good and the bad, foregoing artificial representations merely to perpetuate a political agenda. Unlike most today's films, the plot in "Making Love" stays true to form, the characters are believable and don't sway from their true natures merely to express a politically correct viewpoint, and the director trusts the audiences' intelligence by keeping the camera on the characters and the scenes. There is nothing flashy or forced. The film coloring is typical of the 1980s: very autumn-like, doing away with flashy color so that the audience can focus on the characters and their story. Some viewers may consider the scenes where the individual characters talk to the audience as disjointing, as I did back when it was first released, but watching it now I realize they are necessary in giving the viewers a more in-depth understanding of the characters. The performances are honest and believable. Kate Jackson acts like anyone would if they learned their husband were gay. Michael Ontkean is perfect for the role of the sexually confused husband. And Harry Hamlin (one of People magazine's "Most Beautiful Men Alive" celebrities in the 1980s), is realistic as a gallivanting single gay man in the pre-AIDS days. There are no "heroes" or "villains" in this film as they have in today's silly movies. There's just people, with lives. If "Making Love" were made today, it would most likely be filled with homophobes and bad guys looking to harm the "innocent" characters all in true PC form. The audience would undoubtedly be bashed over the head with preachiness and false PC depictions of gay life, which, in reality, comes in as many forms as "straight" life. When "Brokeback Mountain" was released in 2006, I didn't quite understand why so many people lauded it as a milestone in gay filmmaking when 25 years earlier "Making Love" was targeted to mainstream audiences as well. People's knowledge of the past is extremely limited these days. I would recommend this film to appreciate the finer qualities of filmmaker prior to the PC error, and also for an interesting history of how tolerant Americans were even in the early 1980s. I agree with many of the other reviews: "Making Love" is destined to become a classic that must be seen, especially when compared with today's simplistic and spurious garbage.

Movie Review: Worth viewing again
Summary: 4 Stars

For those of us who were old enough to see "Making Love" when it first came out over a quarter century ago, a second look is well worth it. At the time, this film was considered groundbreaking, if not overly deep, but one is reminded that this was a pre-AIDS era and one where gay themes had not yet been tackled in a two-hour film.

The story is simple enough...a triangulation of people in love and a marriage which fails due not to any malicious intent. While the acting is not exactly gripping, it does have a poignancy and relevance to 2008. "Making Love" could be made today with some minor changes, but the core of the film is good.

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Summary of Making Love [VHS]

The studio marketed Making Love as "one of the most honest and controversial films we have ever released," adding that "it may be too strong for some people." That was then, and what once seemed shocking now seems tame. Still, it's hard to imagine the more sexually explicit Brokeback Mountain without it. On the surface, Beverly Hills physician Zack (Michael Ontkean, Twin Peaks) and his TV producer wife, Claire (Kate Jackson, Charlie's Angels), are the ideal couple. A smartly-dressed Gilbert and Sullivan fan, Zack appears to have little in common with denim-clad, openly-gay novelist Bart (Harry Hamlin, L.A. Law). They meet when Bart makes an appointment for a check-up, and the two hit it off. Turns out they share a love of "corny old movies." Afterwards, Zack can't stop thinking about his vain, if affectionate patient. Lunch leads to dinner, which leads to physical intimacy (sex is suggested rather than shown). Zack is falling in love, but Bart has no interest in commitment, and Claire suspects another woman. Making Love is narrated by Claire and Bart, who speak directly to the camera. It's unclear whether Arthur Hiller, best known for Love Story, is going for documentary-style realism or foreign film-style sophistication, but the technique does differentiate Making Love from your average soap opera (story credit goes to Pulitzer Prize-winning author A. Scott Berg). Though Hamlin has maintained the highest profile since, it's the sensitive performances of Ontkean and Jackson that anchor this no longer groundbreaking, but still relevant romantic drama. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

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