Dinner With Friends
by Norman Jewison
List Price:
Our Price: $0.99
You Save: $8.98 (90%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD details
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
DVD details
Actor: Andie Mac Dowell, Dennis Quaid, Greg Kinnear, Toni ColletteDirector: Norman Jewison
Brand: HBO Home Video
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; Spanish (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 95 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2002-01-22
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Model: 91893
Studio: Hbo Home Video
Product features:
- From the director of "Moonstruck" comes a movie about food, fun, and infidelity. Gabe and Karen. Beth and Tom. Four close friends, two great couples. Married for 12 years, they planned on eating, drinking, and parenting their way into old age together. But when Gabe and Karen host a dinner to try out some new recipes on their best friends, only one arrives, bringing news that will test their frien
DVD Reviews of Dinner With Friends
DVD Review: "Oh, My Precious Lifestyle!"
Summary: 2 Stars
One of the reviewers here stated that this is a movie "we can all relate to."
But we *can't* all relate to it. Why? Because it's demographically impossible for all of us to relate to it. ... We aren't all yuppies. ... We aren't all upper middle class. ... We don't all have jobs like the people in this movie.
Here's a movie that, hopefully, the filmmakers want a wide variety of economic classes to watch, and yet it's about a class of people whose lives and experiences are light years removed from the day-to-day realities of millions of Americans -- and certainly light years away from the "felt-lives" of millions of people throughout the world.
So how is it that the people who like this movie "relate" to it. The fact is, they don't relate to it. They suspend their disbelief by pretending that the people in this movie can actually live in our world completely unaware, completely unaffected and completley unconcerned about the social, political and economic forces that exist around them.
Of course this is not to say that Hollywood pays much attention to these powerful (perhaps deterministic) social, political and economic forces; they rarely do. But this movie wants to take you to La-La Land and lock the door behind you.
Another reviewer claimed that this movie is about "human nature." Are you serious?! This movie's relationship to "human nature" is akin to learning about a culture by driving by a newsstand in a torrential rain.
Even people who fall into the socioeconomic class of the people in this movie aren't in any way enlightened by the condescending drivel that passes for dialogue.
Here's a rather telling example of what this movie is all about.
ANDIE MACDOWELL'S CHARACTER (to Greg Kinnear's character, Greg Kinnear's character having admitted he cheated on his wife): "I mean, it's so squalid (having an affair with) -- A STEWARDESS!"
GREG KINNEAR'S CHARACTER: "A stewardess! Is that what she (my wife) told you? A stewardess! She's not a stewardess, she's a travel agent."
Now let's stop and think about the composition of the audience watching this film. ...
No doubt the filmmakers want this movie to appeal to a wide, demographically broad-based audience. So who, pray tell, is apt to be in that multicultural audience?
Maybe some airline stewardesses.
Maybe ome people who work at MacDonald's.
Maybe a few million people who, given the realities of our "global economy," have low-paying dead-end jobs.
What are the characters in this movie saying about such people? Answer: That they're *below* them. That having an affair with a travel agent is one thing (a rung higher up on the economic hierarchy) but A STEWARDESS?!
And what might they say about a cab driver or a hod carrier or typist or a film cutter?
It reminds me of the scene in "Five Easy Pieces" where Jack Nicholson, the oh-so-precious *artiste,* bawls out the waitress for not giving him precisely what he wants at the diner. ... But what about *her* dignity; what about how *her* day is going; what about *her* worth as a human being?
The movie is quite clear about the waitress. She doesn't count. She's just a waitress.
-- "A STEWARDESS!"
-- "Is that what she told you? She's not a stewardess -- she's a travel agent!"
And it's from characters like this that you're going to learn something about human nature? It's from characters like this that you're going to learn something about "relationships"? These are selfish, condescending, consumer-obsessed idiots. The word "idiot" coming from the ancient Greeks and meaning people only concerned with their id drives -- the drive for food, shelter and clothing -- albeit in the case of these latte-sipping yuppies, *fancy* food, *fancy* clothes and *fancy* shelter. Notwithstanding, idiots just the same.
Notice, too, how Denis Quaid's character is drawn by the screenwriter. He's pussy-whipped. "Oh honey"-this and "oh honey"- that. I have the feeling the screenwriter pussy-whipped the Dennis Quaid character to immunize himself from being criticized as "not relating to women." So what does he do, he p-whips one of the husbands.
Most couples who question their relationship with their mate (surprise!) also taking into account not just the relationship but everything else that's "outside over there." Meaning: the social, political and economic forces that movies like this assiduously AVOID!!!
This is what Plato called "The Big Lie," that is to say, "the lie to the soul" that movies like this trade on.
What I found offensive about this movie is how seriously it takes itself. How it purports to advise the audience on love, marriage, sex, communication, relationships. The list goes on and obnoxiously on.
And who are the people who made this movie? Is their day similar to your day? No. Are their realities your realities? No.
Instead, they've willfully and diligently insulated themselves from what average ordinary people experience in their lives -- and then have the nerve to turn around and tell us how we should live our lives. About which they know or desire to know absolutely zero.
Look at the faces of these four characters. Do they look like they've experienced the same world, the same realities you've experienced?
Description of Dinner With Friends
DINNER WITH FRIENDS - DVD MovieBestsellers in DVD
![The Story of Jeremiah [VHS] Image](/images/noimg.gif)
The Story of Jeremiah [VHS]Vision Video; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Wresting With God [VHS]by Vision Video
Vision Video; Published: 1990-10-01; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Price in other shops:
Study Bible Video with Workbook [VHS]Spring Arbor Distributors; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $7.95
Price in other shops:
Tempo:Childrens TV Favourites Video [VHS]HarperCollins Audio; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $9.17
Price in other shops:
Tempo.Herbs:Parseley'Sb/ Party Video [VHS]HarperCollins Audio; VHS Tape; VHS Video
![Strike the Original Match [VHS] Image](/images/Strike-the-Original-Match-VHS-0001374079-X.jpg)
Strike the Original Match [VHS]New Liberty Films; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Price in other shops:
![Medjugorje The Miracles and the Message [VHS] Image](/images/Medjugorje-The-Miracles-and-the-Message-VHS-0001373293-X.jpg)
Medjugorje The Miracles and the Message [VHS]JPN Film Production; Release date: 1995-12-15; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $29.99
Mayo Clinic Echocardiography Review Course for Boards and Recertification DVD 2008by Mayo
DVD
Price in other shops:
Pediatric Diagnostic Imaging DVD: Single Userby Oakstone
DVD
Price in other shops:
Cost Accounting [VHS]by Charles T. Horngren, George Foster, Srikant M. Datar, Howard Teall
Pearson Canada, Toronto; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Similar DVDs, VHS Video, Audio CDs
The Object of BeautyLions Gate; Release date: 2002-06-18; DVD
Best price: $1.06
Price in other shops:
Yours, Mine & Ours (Widescreen Edition)Paramount Pictures; Release date: 2006-02-28; Published: 2006-02-01; DVD
Best price: $2.59
Price in other shops:
As Good As It GetsNICHOLSON,JACK; Release date: 1998-05-19; DVD
Best price: $3.74
Price in other shops:
UnknownGenius; Release date: 2007-01-30; DVD
Best price: $2.94
Price in other shops:
The MuseUniversal Studios; Release date: 2010-05-04; DVD
Best price: $6.01
Price in other shops:
Someone Like YouFox; Release date: 2003-01-14; DVD
Best price: $3.05
Price in other shops:
Green CardBuena Vista Home Video; Release date: 2003-03-04; DVD
Best price: $7.10
Price in other shops:
Something to Talk AboutWHV; Release date: 2010-11-09; DVD
Best price: $3.60
Price in other shops:
CrushSony; Release date: 2002-08-27; DVD
Best price: $5.97
Price in other shops:
Dinner with Friendsby Donald Margulies
Theatre Communications Group; Published: 2000-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.99
Price in other shops: