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The Bargain Nexus - Bugsy Malone
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List Price: $14.95
Our Price: $47.95
Your Save: $ ( % )
Availability:
Manufacturer: Paramount
Starring: Jodie Foster, Scott Baio, Florrie Dugger, John Cassisi, Martin Lev
Directed By: Alan Parker
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Audience Rating: G (General Audience)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9786300216884
Format: Color
ISBN: 6300216888
Label: Paramount
Manufacturer: Paramount
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Paramount
Release Date: 1996-04-16
Running Time: 94
Studio: Paramount
Theatrical Release Date: 1976-09-15
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: Great Musical
Comment: I remember watching this movie as a kid. It really has memorable songs, and cute aspects that make an otherwise violent subject (prohibition-era gangsters) humorous. It was cool finding a clean DVD.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Let's do the time warp
Comment: The Chinese writing/Jodie Foster cover is kind of funny/weird but still, it's the same movie I saw as a kid. After reading some reviews here I find that people either love or hate this movie. I love it because it's part of my childhood. My brother and I saw it in the mid-seventies when I was around 6 and the songs stuck with us for life. He told me he often sings "So You Wanna Be a Boxer" while working and no one ever gets the reference. It is obscure but shouldn't be. Aside from the two big stars that would come out of it the movie is amazingly well done for it's time. The sets, dance routines, props (how about those pedal powered limos!), costumes and unforgettable music suggest that the producers really put their hearts into it. Yes, they plagerize mobster films to the tee but that's the point- a true children's world: Instead of brains splattering on a wall when someone is shot in the face they are litterally "creamed" with custard; steamy sex is replaced by sweet pecks and hugs, and the "big shoot out" that left a bloody mess in "Scarface" is replaced here with a food fight, singing, dancing and brotherhood. Wouldn't it be cool if the world were really like that? Maybe not to some, but to those who can see things with children's eyes it might.
Yeah, some adults may find some of this creepy, particularly the girls dancing around like Jon Benet Ramsey in short shorts, but remember this movie was made in 1976 before Ramsey, before the "tweens" ware a market or even a word, before the Britney and Lohan melt-downs, before reality only existed on TV, before children's cartoons needed parental guidance, before having to keep up with the Kardashians, before everyone felt you really didn't mind hearing their cell phone conversation, before personal computers, before paparazzi killed Diana, before the terrorists slammed into the twin towers, before Bush declared war on the world and mission accomplished and before $4/gallon gas. It was a nice time to be around for most five/six year olds and this movie takes me back. For that, it gets five stars.
Customer Rating:
Summary: BUGSY MALONE
Comment: THIS IS ONE OF THE BEST FILMS I HAVE EVER SEEN I RECOMEND IT ANYONE 5 STARS.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Works great despite region 3!
Comment: I'm 40 yrs old and have fond memories of this movie, and remember loving the music. I wanted to buy it for my kids to see now, and found it on amazon a year ago. Put off buying it, and at that time it was a Region 1 disc for $18. So when I looked it up again last week, I couldn't believe the region 1 was now $40! Started reading the reviews on the (cheaper) region 3 and was glad for the few that said it seemed to play fine. Took a chance, crossed my fingers and......received it today and it works perfect on my 6 month old Sony dvd/vcr combo player, as well as my 7+ year old Toshiba combo player! As someone said, there is no menu and it automatically starts playing in English. The back of the case says "English versions with on/off chinese/english subtitles". (Amazon should state this on the description.) Glad I didn't pay the extra $20 for a region 1!! Too bad they haven't digitally enhanced the picture, but it's rather nostalgic seeing it just as it was back in 1976. Can't wait to watch it with my 6, 8 and 11 yr olds this weekend!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Pretty good
Comment: The sound isn't that great but all in all a pretty good reproduction of the original movie. Worth the money. This is the only movie with Jodie Foster where she really looks sexy before time took its toll.
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Editorial Reviews:
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Writer-director Alan Parker's feature debut Bugsy Malone is a pastiche of American movies, a musical gangster comedy set in 1929, featuring prohibition, showgirls, and gang warfare, with references to everything from Some Like It Hot to The Godfather. Uniquely, though, all the parts are played by children, including an excellent if underused Jodie Foster as platinum-blonde singer Tallulah, Scott Baio in the title role and a nine-year-old Dexter Fletcher wielding a baseball bat. Cream-firing "spluge guns" sidestep any real violence and the movie climaxes cheerfully with the biggest custard pie fight this side of Casino Royale (1967). Unfortunately for a musical, Paul Williams's score--part honky-tonk jazz homage, part 1970s Elton John-style pop--lets the side down with a lack of memorable tunes. Nevertheless, Parker's direction is spot on and the look of the film is superb, a fantasy movie-movie existing in the same parallel reality as The Cotton Club and Chicago. A rare British love letter to classic American cinema, Bugsy Malone remains a true original; in Parker's words "the work of a madman" and one of the strangest yet most stylish children's films ever made. --Gary S. Dalkin
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