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Chinatown |  | Director: Roman Polanski
Actors: Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston, Perry Lopez, John Hillerman
Studio: Paramount
Category: Movie
Buy New: $2.99
as of 9/8/2010 06:01 CDT details
Seller: Amazon Video On Demand
Rating:  251 reviews
Sales Rank: 1897
Genre: Classics
Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: Video On Demand
Running Time: 131 Minutes
ASIN: B000IZ7YK6
Theatrical Release Date: June 19, 1974
Release Date: March 11, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Synopsis:
Hollis Mulwray is a chief engineer of the water department. Ida Sessions, pretending to be his wife Evelyn, asks P.I. JJ Jake Gittes to investigate his adulterous ways. Jake takes photos of Hollis with a young lady. Hollis then turns up murdered, which Jake decides to investigate. Jake finds more than he was looking for. He discovers a plot to buy cheap, unwatered land for low prices, water the land, and sell it for millions of dollars. The plot is masterminded by one Noah Cross, who is Evelyn's father and Hollis' one-time business partner. His investigation leads him to an affair with Evelyn and a discussion with Noah Cross, both of whom seem curiously interested in the girl Hollis was seen with. |
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| Customer Reviews:
 Well Worth Watching August 10, 2010
Leslie A Munday (Bellevue, WA United States)
Great storyline and fine acting. The way the story twists and turns through-out and gradually changes track from a political scandal to catching a ruthlessly evil old man is extremely well intertwined.
** Spoilers:
I had trouble getting into JN's character. He toned down the overacting to such an extent that I found his character rather bland. Brilliant that he spends half the movie wearing a stupid looking bandage on his nose, and still gets the girl.
The ending:
So RP sets us up to believe that they are going to escape to Mexico, but in reality she heroine gets shot and probably dies, her father wins ... Ok, that's a nice unexpected cruel twist to the end, but what did happen to their ride to Mexico? Why were they riding in their car knowing that anyone could find them (and of course everyone did)? Why would a police officer fire live ammunition at a car containing an innocent young girl in the middle of a crowded street in Chinatown? Did he go to prison? The end, (nicely unexpected as it was) was too inconsistent.
Once everyone arrives at Chinatown, you can skip the end .. you're not going to like it anyway.
 Case for dvd came in pieces July 8, 2010
riggidy19
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
I got the dvd reasonably quick, but the case came in pieces. The seller just sent the dvd in an envelope with no protective bubble wrap or anything. I'm glad it was just the case and not the dvd. Its very disheartening when you pick up a package you have been looking forward to and hear pieces rattling around.
Centennial Collection review May 29, 2010
Brian (New York)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Everything about the style and substance of Polanski's legendary 'Chinatown' has been covered thoroughly in the surrounding reviews. This is simply to clarify what's included in the 2009 Centennial Collection edition (recently discontinued) of the film versus earlier versions: new features in this two-disc release are an audio commentary by CT screenwriter Robert Towne with David Fincher (the director of 'Seven' and 'Fight Club' I presume); 'Chinatown: an Appreciation,' a 26-minute documentary composed mainly of interviews with a handful of unrelated Hollywood illuminati; and three marginally interesting featurettes delving into the technical background of CT's 'Water and Power' plot thread. The transfer and other bonus material (three mini-docs with insights from Nicholson, Polanski, Towne and producer Robert Evans, plus theatrical trailer) seem to be identical to those that appear on the 2007 Special Collector's Edition. For completists, all that's missing here is the 13-minute Nicholson-Polanski-Towne-Evans interview featurette which can be found on the original CT DVD release (and 2006 re-release), although this becomes more or less redundant if you have the three mini-docs. So, in a nutshell, while the Centennial edition offers nothing spectacular it's probably the copy you want to own if you're reading this.
 East LA May 7, 2010
Jeanne Scott (Seattle, Washington)
This film is excellent, and made in the 70's around LA, specifically East LA where I grew up. Great murder mystery and excellent music.
In the garden of noir April 25, 2010
technoguy (Rugby)
This is a remarkable film, possibly the best work of it's director, Polanski, it's leading actor, Nicholson, and it's screenwriter, Towne. The film is bathed in sun-drenched landscapes suggesting dehydration and water scarcity. This film works at a leisurely pace and is a loving recreation of 30s noir.Jake Gittes is a well-dressed private eye,who has a dark past as a Chinatown cop, he'd rather not talk about. As played by Nicholson he is a cynical, cool operator with a hint of vulnerability and makes enough to hire two co-workers. He works in the field of divorce and adultery. The title is more about a state of mind: everybody does as little as possible, and if you help people you make sure you hurt them. But the film ends in Chinatown. The main subject is water shortages and the corrupt diversion of water supplies from the LA populace to irrigate orange groves. There is also land theft going on: bought cheaply and sold at enormously inflated prices.
Against this public corruption, there is a story of incest and sexual scandal, all coming together in the figure of Noah Cross(Huston),played malevolently with great swaggering malice. He "owns" the future and pulls all the strings, leading to the murder of Hollis Mulwray, his business partner, and Chief Engineer of the LA Water Department.Hollis's wife, Evelyn(Dunnaway), sets Gittes on the trail of what happened. She is a very alluring femme-fatale with many secrets,which she slowly reveals to Gittes. She is Cross's daughter and she seems to know about the young woman her husband was supposed to be having an affair with. Nicholson changes from a dapper, witty , charming teller of jokes to a man who gets in over his head and becomes bloodied,bowed but doggedly determined to unravel the whole sorry mess.
The cinematography is excellent with low horizon wide screen vistas of muted colours and radiant light. We are between the desert and the sea with low-slung architecture and nothing to blot out the sunlight but shadow.The music is jagged and drawn out. This is Polanski's first Hollywood film since the murder of his wife, Sharon Tate in 1969. It was also with the forthcoming sex trial, going to be his last.His future might have been different. He imbues the film with a sense of Greek tragedy,giving it the darkest(and best) ending possible, taking your breath away. He plays a mean cameo role as the midget who slices Nicholson's nose.Faye Dunnaway is remarkable in the role of a patrician lady with a dark vulnerability. Nicholson never acted better, with `The Passenger' and `One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' ahead.The script is lean, tight and full of witty lines(it went on to win Oscar for screenplay).This is real noir without one cliché, and real backbone and bite. Polanski's personal tragedies have a great bearing on the crushing despondency of the outcome.
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