Genres

Visitors Review

2013-05-18 19:52:38

Inexcusably bad transfer

Midler works hard in the role and it shows. Her performance (along with Bates and Forrest)are what makes what sometimes descends into a cliche-fest have some merit. I saw this movie in a theater, so I know what it COULD sound like. This DVD has such bad audio, and considering the music is the thing here, it's almost not worth watching until they come up with a better transfer.

2013-05-18 09:57:42

Amazing!

It's hard to believe that I've missed this film until now! When I picked it up, finally, in the library I thought it was the life of Janis Joplin. Well, obviously it's based on her life but this is presented as a fictional character. I was a big Joplin fan back in the day but I really can't imagine that she would have done a better job than Better Midler.The story is pretty predictable. We've seen the brilliant, talented, self-destructive, musicians' lives before, complete with romantic heartbreak, booze and drugs. Nothing new here. But Midler does is so well. Her singing and acting are both superlative. This is not a one-dimensional performance. As firey and wild as she is at times, she's also amazingly delicate and fragile at others. Frederick Forrest is wonderful, too, as the fellow who seems to have the best chance of saving her from herself. He's a terrific actor and very cute. Alan Bates is good, too, as the greedy manager with the 70's hairdo.There are a lot of concert shots which are filled with energy and style but some of her best performances are the smaller ones, like in the drag club. Midler, as the Rose, fills her performances with so much energy and joy that you have to love her and root for her.The film is a perfect shanpshot of a moment in time---the rock scene of the 60's and 70's. But it holds up today, unlike others of that genre, mostly because of the performance of the Divine Miss M. She's a great singer, a terrific comedienne and a powerful dramatic actress---what a combination. She is quite slender and beautiful here, too. As tragic as the story is, it's also highly entertaining with lots of humour and certainly great costumes.

2013-05-13 22:28:51

Midler dazzles.

The Rose starring Bette Midler in her feature film debut is a good film but not brilliant. Midler is the best thing in this film, The Rose is loosely-based on the life on Janis Joplin. Midler gives an intense and courageous performance. That beautiful song, The Rose still gives me chills, amazing! The ending is so sudden and sad, if you are a die-hard Bette fan then give this musical/drama a run through, enjoy!

niara 2013-05-13 09:04:47

"Stay With Me, Baby"

I saw this film in college for $1 in 1980 and never really appreciatedit until now.It is amazing to note that this is the same Bette Midler who did allthose Disney/Touchtone movies (Down and Out in Beverly Hills, etc.)!This is not a happy film. It has no happy ending. Most of the film isdark, adding to the dreariness of the story.But you just watch Bette watching Houston Dyer leave her because hecouldn't put up with her life. Watch him as he pauses before he getsinto the tractor trailer that he's just hitched a ride with, watch himas he looks back at her, almost reflecting, thinking, for just amoment, reconsidering his choice, and then makes the decision to livewith the choice and get on the truck, going God only knows where,leaving her.Camera goes back to Bette, on the ground, wailing in agony, despair,and sadness.You just watch Bette singing "Stay With Me, Baby" at the end of thefilm at the concert when she goes back to her hometown. How many takesbefore they got it right? Once? 37? She's on her knees, she's cradlingthe microphone, her eyes are blackened with the makeup that has mingledwith the tears. Watch David Keith applaud from offstage as he'swatching her give the performance of her life and KNOW that thatapplause was ad-libbed, that he was completely knocked out by herperformance.And then come back and tell me that this film was crap. I've seen NormaRae and always believed that Sally Field deserved her Oscar but I nolonger think that. Bette was robbed, plain and simple.

Woodyanders 2013-05-11 21:41:24

A poignant & powerful rock drama with a remarkable Bette Midler performance

Better Midler gives a smashing, touching, tear-the-house-down dynamicand exhilarating Oscar-nominated performance as the Rose, a fabulouslywealthy and successful popular rock superstar sensation who's beenburnt-out and worn down by too much long hard time on the road, toomuch booze and drugs (Rose likes to swig Southern Comfort straight fromthe bottle while performing live on stage), too many cameras in herface and too much time spent recording songs in the studio at theexpense of having a meaningful and fulfilling personal life, all ofwhich leaves Rose feeling terribly lonely, unhappy and unloved. Rosewants to take a much-needed vacation, but her pushy, ruthless,overbearing greedhead manager Rudge Campbell (flawlessly played tointensely contemptible perfection by Alan Bates) urges her to do aspecial hometown concert. Rose finds temporary solace in herrelationship with good-looking nice guy drifter Houston Dyer (acharacteristically top-drawer turn by the criminally undervaluedFrederic Forrest, who deservedly snagged a Best Supporting Actornomination for his superlative work here), but Dyer's inability toeasily handle Rose's wild lifestyle of debauched excess onlyexacerbates the severity of Rose's depression, which goes off the deepend into total despair with tragic consequences.Loosely based on the real-life flash-in-the-pan live fast, live hard,live like today's almost over and tomorrow ain't never gonna happen andif you live like this too much you will most certainly die youngsex'n'drugs'n'rock'n'roll exploits of Janis Joplin, "The Rose"poignantly exposes the horrible price of fame and fortune, showing tooften devastating effect the way fame destroys one's ability to have apersonal life, pushes people to a near breaking point, and grindspeople down to nothing after they lose the strength needed to withstandthe strain being a famous person grimly entails. Mark Rydell'sperceptive direction and the trenchant script by Bill Kirby and BoGoldman neither glorifies nor vilifies the rock'n'roll lifestyle,opting instead to merely show its potentially dangerous pratfalls witha properly glum, depressing tone and an arresting, unflinchingfrankness.Vilmos Zsigmund's glittering, burnished, faded cinematography gives thefilm an appropriately blinding brightly saturated color flashy look,shooting the lively, uninhibited concert sequences through a densesmoky haze of piercing reddish hues (such fellow noted cameramen asLaszlo Kovacs, Owen Roizman and Haskell Wexler also lent a hand to thedazzling concert sequences). Toni Basil, who had a fluke top 10 hittune with the waggish novelty song "Hey Mickey," did theraunchy'n'raucous dance choreography. Midler belts out all her songs ina hoarse, bluesy, whiskey-ravaged alto with incredible incendiarygusto; the highlights include the hauntingly beautiful and melancholytitle ballad, a torchy, slow-burning rendition of "When a Man Loves aWoman," and a hilariously campy shredding of Bob Seger's "Fire DownBelow" done in a drag queen bar with a bunch of outrageous transvestitecelebrity lady impersonators (70's mock disco diva Sylvestor plays theDiana Ross lookalike). Midler's show-dominating tour-de-force portrayalgets sterling support from an exceptional cast peppered with stand-outcharacter actors: David Keith as a bashful soldier, Jack Starrett as acountry music road manager, John Dennis Johnson as a rowdy hick jerk ina hillbilly bar, Jonathan Banks as an oily TV promoter, Don Calfa as asmarmy music biz leech, Victor Argo as a bath house locker roomattendant, Will Hare as an amiable grocer, and, in a particularlychilling and startling cameo, the great Harry Dean Stanton as acold-hearted a**hole country singer/songwriter who flatly tells Roseright to her face that he thinks her singing stinks. A sad, insightfuland eye-opening film, "The Rose" makes for a truly heart-breaking, butundeniably powerful portrait of an all-too-human and fragile person whogets led down the road to ruin by the very business that ironicallymade her.

2013-05-11 07:27:42

A wonderful and heartbreaking performance from Bette Midler....

When The Rose was originally released, in 1979, I was not even a glimmer in my mom's eye, but, knew well of the famous title song, growing up and into my early college years. The haunting melody and lyric are so beautiful and memorable, I even learned to play it on the piano and sing it for a music class. It nearly made me cry. While a young teenager, I had the great good fortune of being introduced to some of the most legendary music of the 1960s and 1970s. My mom had been a radio show producer, for some five years, and had a great record collection and wonderful ear for good songs. One of the singers I came to fall in love with was the late, great Janis Joplin, who became a part of the ill-fated "27 Club." Some of the best and brightest musicians were snuffed out, at age twenty seven years old, due to hard living (read: substance abuse, destructive life choices).This film depicts the life of a Janis Joplin-esque rock star (Bette Midler), who goes by "The Rose." She is burnt out by her hard life on the road, filled with empty affairs, hard drugs and plenty of alcohol. She is exhausted, drained and self destructive. Though she begs for time off from the road - a year off to get some much needed rest - from her manager (Alan Bates) he does not allow it. There is too much money riding on her gigs. So, The Rose must force herself to sing, tour and takes different measures to maintain her fiery, sultry and charismatic stage persona (self medicating with booze, drugs and picking up groupies along the way - male and female).Bette Midler has an amazing and ethereal quality, here. She is funny, haunted and absolutely unforgettable. She sings and struts her way through a string of hard, bluesy and sexy songs. You feel her character's emptiness, despair and instability. Her wicked manager uses her as his cash cow, even though it is clear that she is destroying herself over her level of fame and the pressures of the road that completely take her away from any sense of peace. The performances are sensitive, gritty and unabashedly believable. It saddens me that Bette Midler did not win an Academy Award for this wonderful performance of her career. What a brilliant performer - as actress and singer. Wow. This film will stay with me for some time. Unforgettable.

2013-04-02 02:14:12

Come on Fox. Where is the DVD. It's been 20 years.

Almost everyone I know, including those who only recently first watched it, is simply blown away. The concert sequences are so jump'in and Bette Midler is so great at rock and roll that you actually ask if the Rose was a real person. But the video quality is so poor that I cannot give a final 5th but highly deserved star. The year 2000 is the 30 anniversary of Janis Joplin's death. Mayber something by then?

Cheryl 2013-04-02 00:59:08

The Rose

"The Rose" is one of the best movies I've ever seen.Didn't know it at the time, but my friend edited it!Had the honour to have known Mr. O'Meara for 19 years.Unfortunately, he passed away on 16 May 2007.Here's to you, my love and friend! You are dearly remembered by so many!Love,Cheryl Sherman.

ftgplus4 2013-03-29 18:06:15

What's the motivation?

I saw most of "The Rose" on TV a few years after it came out. I don'tknow quite how much I missed (just the beginning, I think), and I won'tclaim to remember the parts I saw very well. But as for what I did see,I remember very clearly what my reaction to it was, and other commentsshow me that I'm not the only one to feel this way. I saw a lot ofthings done by the characters -- things that were loud, emotional, rashand sudden; things that had to have some very strong motivations behindthem. But at no point was I able to tell WHY any character was doingwhat they did. And when a movie is full of actions that requiredefinite motivations, but don't have them, that movie ends up beingtiring, pointless and unsatisfying -- which is what "The Rose" is.

2013-03-29 02:30:58

great

This review is from: The Rose (DVD) My mom loves this movie, she was so happy when she got it for Christmas. Was in good condition good job

joe golden 2013-03-24 18:12:47

Drugs!Sex!and Rock and Roll!

Well two out of three can kill you these days.But The Rose was set inthe late sixty's or early seventy's where drugs were all she really hadto worry about.She diden,t.If your a fan of Bette Midlers or JanisJoplin you should love The Rose.Bette Midler Gives an Oscar worthyperformance (she was nominated,but Sally Field won for NormaRae)in herfirst major film role.Rose Foster is a major star in the rock and bluesmusic world But being a great success with a voice that most of theworld would kill for is not enough to fill her emptiness.Shes on thebooze in the first few frames,the drugs soon follow.Recently relesed onDVD,The Rose is not the feel good movie of 79 or any year but BetteMidler,her voice and her acting talent make this film well worthwatching.

Isaac5855 2013-03-24 13:11:15

Bette Midler's Showstopping Film Debut Still Packs a Punch

Bette Midler delivered an electrifying performance in 1979's THE ROSE,an explosive and emotionally charged musical drama, oh-so-loosely basedon the life of rocker Janis Joplin, that earned Midler an Oscarnomination for Best Actress. Midler pulls out all the stops as a burntout rock and roller who thinks she has everything in the world shecould possibly want, except for the love of a good man, which shealmost finds with a chauffeur/drifter (Frederic Forrest)who has asecret or two of his own. Midler is in virtually every frame of thisfilm and completely commands the screen that completely belies the factthat this is her first film. Forrest provides solid support as the newman in The Rose's life as does Alan Bates, who plays her hard-nosedmanager. Midler proves herself to be a powerful actress, but the film;mreally comes alive during the musical sequences with "When a Man Lovesa Woman" and "Stay With Me Baby" as definite standouts. Staticdirection and a somewhat clichéd screenplay are completely overpoweredby Hurricane Bette. If you're a Midler fan, this is a must-see.

bruce johnson 2013-03-17 23:12:44

A surprisingly good mix of fact & fiction!

Originally intended as a flat-out biography of Janis Joplin's last daystitled "Pearl" ( Janis' nickname and alter-ego ) the filmakers allegedlyraninto privacy issues with the Joplin family which caused them to take amore"loosely based" approach of a "composite" character! Even Bette Midlerherself had some ideas of her own that promised to provide a fictiousportrayal! Since I had always found Janis Joplin's life both fascinatingandtragic I had to write off seeing this movie in the theatres when it firstcame out in 1979.It wasn't until sitting through it on HBO that I couldtruly appreciate how utterly great Bette Midler's performance was!Itcertainly stayed close enough to the "truth" while adding some dynamicelements that a Janis biography portrayed by anyone else would have sorelylacked!Bette Midler is truely at her best! She pours outherheart and soul into this role and leaves nothing behind!Her rock concertscenes alone show her broad talent as a stage performer! Her scenes drunk&stoned give a rare glimpse into a lonely and crazy world of rockstars(likeJanis Joplin was!) Her scene with her childhood country-music idolremindedme of a similar situation between Janis and Johnny Cash! Her formerlesbianlover is reminiscent of Janis' one-time "biographer/lover" Peggy Caserta!The "homecoming" concert at the film's end reminded me of Janis'10-year-highschool reunion which she attended only shortly before herdeath!All in All I regret not having seen (in thetheatre)this "loosely based" and yet "thinly disguised" story of Janis!With BetteMidler at center stage it stands as both a glowing tribute to Janis ANDBette!

2013-03-17 10:08:12

Leaving off one star due to the directores missteps

Pure, powerful, raw, intense and unforgettable. This movie really is all those. Bette Midler took a role that legally had to change it's main characterization and managed to give that years best (yes, even over Sally Field) performance. She is thee reason to watch and though the time period should have been more defined it still gives a sense of how music was changing to the corporate [stuff] we now have before us.

sultana-1 2013-02-28 12:46:46

Haunting and bleak magnificently acted film

Loosely based upon the life of Janis Joplin and her struggles with fameanddrugs, the Rose stays with the viewer long after the final fadeout.Actingtour-de-forces are manifest everywhere, and although virtually the entiresupporting cast brings a Broadway-style truth and urgency that make thusexcellent.

Oscar1 2013-02-28 02:47:16

Great Fan

I love anything that Bette Midler puts out, I have alway loved this movie even as a kid. Nothing's change, for anyone in the music industry this is a must see!!

dm317 2013-02-27 12:26:10

An OSCAR worthy film and performance.

The Rose is about a woman whose sole purpose in life was to give ofherselfcompletely. Protected from adult responsibilities by her manager, "Rose"dug further and further inside herself, alienating all those who lovedher.With an adolescent attitude toward life, she indulged in every excess.Thepoignant scene in the phone booth, where she overdoses on a lethalcombination of pain killers, heroin, and booze is certainly worthy of anAcademy Award. We feel her pain, and we really believe we are seeing awoman in the last hour of her life. Killing herself before our eyes, yetweare helpless to stop her.We can't stop watching. The final scene, and the final song Rose sings,Stay With Me, is filmmaking at its best.It sums up her life, and the life of so many talented musicians (KurtCobane, Jim Morrison, etc). Rose was desperate to have someone, anyone,whowas there just for her. Yet she pushed everyone away who truly caredabouther. Bette Midler's passionate and inspired performances in concertfootageis unforgettable. The Rose is one of the best movies evermade.

2013-02-27 00:28:39

Another one...

... to pollute your garbage (shortage is not coming).If you want 'when a man wants a woman', you first have to make sure 'he' s a man and 'she's a woman. From what I saw (and heard) before this was put where it belonged (in the garbage), i'm not quite sure this had anything related to Janis joplin (if it is, i'm very sorry for her). If it had, i'm sure that everyone involved with this crap wanted every viewer despising her.

2013-02-17 08:49:23

Good Buy

This review is from: The Rose (DVD) I bought this DVD for my sister-in-law.....she loved it! She said it played great for being an older movie, just like she remembered seeing it before. Highly recommended!~

2013-02-17 02:46:13

Midler an extraordinary performer

It's hard to imagine any one else but Bette Midler in this role.What helps of course, is that Midler is so thoroughly an *honest* artist, one who brings so much truth to her performances: she has not a phony bone in her body. There is not a false note in Midler's portrayal of a neurotic, desperately needy, burned-out, over-stimulated rock star who's had too much of everything in the wrong dosages. Midler brings a buzzing, physical charge to the movie, one that carries itself over to the viewer: it can leave you exhausted long before the movie's end. Enacting the role of a rock singer, Midler is the real thing. It helps, of course, that her true calling is that of a concert singer, but she has all the vitality, hyperkinetic presence and true star quality of the greatest female performers: the audience's response to her in the concert scenes has total believability. It's entirely possible, too, to feel both revulsion and a deep pity for the character's horrifying unpredictability and destructive lifestyle. Midler is such a charismatic presence that when you see her downing all the pills and booze leading to her death, you can actually feel the force of her own personality (and unerring acting skills) transmitting through to the viewer, of the drug's increasing take over. In the end, as her Rose, in the midst of a song, teeters further into her drug-induced stupor, and topples over in death, Midler achieves a genuine horror and tragedy. How Midler manages to leave such a feeling of dread and queasiness is a testament to her genius; her voice, her body, and soul seem to be dying right in front of our very eyes - it no longer feels like a performance. It's as if a real singer was somehow caught on film in the last stages of being self-snuffed out. Bette Midler by this performance alone confirms herself as an extraordinary artist.