Bird | 
 enlarge | Director: Clint Eastwood
Actors: Forest Whitaker, Diane Venora, Michael Zelniker, Samuel E. Wright, Keith David
Studio: Warner Home Video
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.98
Buy New: $4.49
You Save: $10.49 (70%)
New (45) Used (16) Collectible (1) from $4.19
Rating:  36 reviews
Sales Rank: 14046
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dvd-video, Hifi Sound, Letterboxed, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), French (Original Language), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), Portuguese (Subtitled)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 160
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Picture Format: Letterbox
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 6 x 0.6
MPN: D11820D
ISBN: 0790753014
UPC: 085391182023
EAN: 9780790753010
ASIN: B000053V7P
Theatrical Release Date: September 30, 1988
Release Date: January 30, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand new, factory sealed. Fast shipping!
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com essential video
Clint Eastwood's moody, evocative direction and Forest Whitaker's strong, sensitive performance are the chief proponents to recommend an otherwise muted biopic of '40s jazz legend Charlie Parker, who fell victim to his chemical excesses and convinced the doctor who pronounced him dead that he was a good four decades older than he actually was. The film doesn't try to assign clear blame for Parker's demons, though the era's racism is addressed unflinchingly. Clearly a labor of love, Eastwood's movie structurally attempts to ape the angular music of bebop itself (there are flashbacks within flashbacks, which gets a little confusing), but doesn't quite capture the smolder of the period. Diane Venora registers strongly as Bird's wife, Chan, the woman who can't rescue Bird from the abyss into which he peers. --David Kronke
Description
Bird The year: 1946. The event: Oakland's "Jazz at the Philharmonic." The music streaked into the unknown, daring listeners to grab hold and fly there, too. On stage was the creator of those new sounds: Charles "Yardbird" Parker. In the crowd was the 16-year-old who would someday bring Parker's extraordinary story to the screen: Clint Eastwood. "Americans don't have any original art except Western movies and jazz," observes Eastwood. Movie fans, of course, know that few heroes sit as tall in the saddles as Eastwood. Now the legendary America icon, whose Dirty Harry films have been praised for their jazz scores, ventures deeper into that other original American art. Eastwood produces and directs Bird, a film burnished with the magic of that 1946 concert encounter between legend and future legend and honored with an Academy Award for Best Sound in its spellbinding recreation of a man and his music. Like jazz itself, Bird rings with counterpoints and embellishments. Past and future overlap as the film explores Yardbird's soaring skill and destructive excesses. Forest Walker (Good Morning Vietnam, The Color of Money), in his Cannes Film Festival Best Actor performance, is a candle ablaze at both ends as Parker. Diane Venora (Wolfen, Ironweed, F/X) shares that glorious light, winning the New York Film Critics Circle Best Supporting Actress Award for her portrayal of steadfast wife Chan Parker. For Bird's wall-to-wall-to-everywhere digitally-processed Surround Stereo soundtrack, Eastwood went to the source: Parker's recordings (including cuts never before released). Backgrounds were electronically eliminated. These parker "solos" were then rerecorded with accompaniment by modern musicians attuned to Yardbird's bold improvisations. It's "like Bird was in the studio," says music supervisor Lennie Niehaus. He's elsewhere, too. That's why jazz buffs and now film fans have a saying 'Bird liv
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| Customer Reviews: Read 31 more reviews...
 Honoring Charlie Parker September 9, 2008
This is a fantastic movie with lots of special features. It doesn't matter if you're a fan of Forest Whitaker as an actor, Clint Eastwood as a director or Charlie Parker as an artist (which I am, am and am now). It's just a great movie that honors a man who greatly influenced jazz and influenced all modern music. You'll see some important history from that era.
Bird movie DVD September 6, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
so pleased to find this great old classic and in such good condition for gifts!
 Dark May 14, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I love this film and the review that follows is for the DVD quality only. Some have said that the DVD is a little dark in places. Others have claimed that the film was meant to be dark because of its subject matter. Well, to say that this DVD is a little dark in some scenes is a gross undersatement. It is so dark that you cannot see any of the people in these scenes. I have the laserdisc of the film and it is no where near as dark as this DVD. This DVD needed to be recalled!! It is a joke and I am going to try and get a refund because the whole master needs to be re-done. The "remastered 5.1 sound" is also a joke. Although it sounds good, the sound on the laserdisc is vastly superior. I was anxiosly awaiting this disc because the laser is not in widescreen, but the trade-off is not worth it.
Up-date: I have just viewed both DVD and Laser simultaneously on my fairly new Samsung LCD HD TV and they actually both look the same. Since the last time I watched my laserdisc copy was on my previous TV, which was a standard set, the overly dark picture seems to be related to the inability of LCD TVs to reproduce detail in extreme shadow areas. An interesting side-note, however, is that the DVD widescreen version does not add information to the sides of the picture, it justs masks off the top and bottom.
First Class April 12, 2008
First Class Film Making by Clint Eastwood. You can tell by the quality of this film that Clint is a JAZZ Lover Extraordinary!!!!!
Dark presentation which really detracts from the film but had it been less difficult to view i would have given it a 10 out of 5 !!!!!!!!!!! I am a little miffed why this was allowed to be released with such a dark presentation especially after the professional attention given a film before release!!!!!!!????????
Essential Ornithology February 25, 2008
18 out of 21 found this review helpful
Some time after Unforgiven in the 90s I began to revise my thoughts about Clint. I had been used to him being the prototype of the mindless wordless macho or the rightwing law and order guy. Hard to take him seriously. Then he became somebody else. I heard that he had made a film about Charlie Parker in the late 80s, but I never found that one. Well, now my daughter found it for me somewhere in Shanghai. I watched as immediately as possible. Alone, as none of my women could be moved to share my interest.
I spent the first hour of an impossibly long film wondering why Clint had not bothered to hire a script writer. Then I thought, what is this obsession with scripts that I seem to have. Who needs a script for a life like this? What story could you possibly tell that requires a script writer?
What you need is Forest Whitaker, and some people who knew what happened, like Mrs. Parker, and some original soundtracks, and some good bands for replays. There you are. Nothing else required.
But you need to be a Birdfan and a Clintfan. Otherwise you might underappreciate this.
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