Mister D: Just a reminder that the Special DVD edition of Beaches is out, and it’s chock full of extras. And it’s cheap, unless you’re one of those people who needlessly own one of those gas guzzling SUV’s, Hummers, and Escalades.
And I agree with Bill Maher…the price of gas ain’t high enough. While everything has skyrocketed over the years, gas has remained comparatively cheap…even now.
If the true market forces were to control the pricing, I think you might be driving something that doesn’t make you think you’re dick is bigger than the rest of us (yeah, I’m back in full form 🙂 )
ON VIDEO/DVD
New release
By Roger Moore | Sentinel Movie Critic
Posted April 29, 2005
‘Beaches’
Garry “Happy Days” Marshall directed Beaches? Who remembers that? Girl meets girl — lifelong pals stick with each other through thick and thin, more or less. Bette Midler at her peak, Barbara Hershey all puckered up. And the kids playing the young C.C. and Hillary? One of them blossomed into Mayim Bialik.The new “special edition” of this classic 1988 weeper features some pretty Beaching stuff. There are bloopers and Barbara Hershey’s screen test. Her lips, of course, got their own separate credit when the movie came out. She’d had injections, you know. A documentary called “Mayim Bialik Remembers.” A couple of Bette Midler musical moments are included, including the music video to “Wind Beneath My Wings” and a performance from a TV special called 1,000 Years: 100 Songs. No, you couldn’t make this stuff up. And Garry Marshall, a very funny man with a very funny voice, does the commentary. You know you want it. “C’mon. You’re not dead yet, so stop living as if you are!” (Buena Vista Home Video, $19.99)
Click Here To Purchase The Special Edition of “Beaches”
A decade and-a-half after it was released in theaters, “Beaches” is guaranteed to bring tears to your eyes again, this time with a special edition DVD.
Featuring Bette Midler as actress/singer C.C. Bloom and Barbara Hershey as attorney/mom Hillary Whitney, “Beaches” reminds you how precious childhood friendships are, and how lucky you are if they last into adulthood.
Based on the novel by Iris Rainer Dart, “Beaches” is directed by Garry Marshall. C.C. Bloom’s character could have been written just for Midler; even Mayim Bialik (who went on to become TV’s “Blossom”) portrays C.C. as a brassy, larger-than-life child.
For those who haven’t seen the film (is there anyone out there who hasn’t?), C.C. and Hillary meet as 11-year-olds on Atlantic City’s boardwalk. That’s the start of a long-distance, lifelong friendship.
They develop their friendship and keep in touch over the years through letter writing. Seventeen years later, it’s almost nostalgic in this age of e-mail and instant messaging to see C.C. and Hillary writing letters back and forth.
And at the end of the film, as C.C. is reading the stacks of letters written by Hillary during their three decades of friendship, I could only think that perhaps one huge drawback of the Internet age is that the art of letter-writing may become lost to technology.
“Beaches” shows how friends can change over time as individuals – and the most special friendships can overcome and adjust to those changes. The film takes C.C. and Hillary through their careers, failed marriages, and their greatest challenge together, facing Hillary’s illness.
Midler and Hershey play their roles to perfection.
As Hillary lives her last days at the beach house, few words are needed. What each character is thinking and feeling is known simply by the looks on their faces.
The cast includes John Heard, the late Spalding Gray, Lainie Kazan and James Read.
Extras include “Beaches” bloopers, originally shown to the cast at their wrap party; an interview with Bialik, who reveals that it’s not her voice we hear in her singing scenes; Hershey’s screen test; the music video for Midler’s “Wind Beneath My Wings”; the film’s original theatrical trailer; and audio commentary by Marshall, who provides lots of trivia for serious fans. (Shelley Veltri)
