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Mystery, Alaska
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Genre | Drama |
Format | NTSC, Color, Multiple Formats, Closed-captioned |
Contributor | Maury Chaykin, Brent Stait, Burt Reynolds, Mary McCormack, Beth Littleford, Scott Grimes, Judith Ivey, Hank Azaria, Sean O'Byrne, Megyn Price, Michael McKean, Russell Crowe, Adam Beach, Peter Deming, Jay Roach, Colm Meaney, Rachel Wilson, Kevin Durand, Lolita Davidovich, Ryan Northcott, David E. Kelley, Ron Eldard See more |
Language | English |
Number Of Discs | 1 |
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Product Description
Product Description
With Russell Crowe (THE INSIDER, A BEAUTIFUL MIND), Hank Azaria (GODZILLA, THE BIRD CAGE), and Burt Reynolds leading an incredible all-star cast, here's a fun, uplifting, action-packed story that everyone will love! A remote hockey-obsessed town populated by 633 of the most eccentric characters you'd ever want to meet, Mystery is the kind of place where nothing ever changes. But then life as they know it gets turned completely upside down! When a publicity stunt brings the world-famous New York Rangers -- and the national spotlight -- to Mystery for a game with the local team of weekend warriors, the whole town rises to meet the challenge of a lifetime! Also starring Mary McCormack (TRUE CRIME, DEEP IMPACT) and Lolita Davidovich (PLAY IT TO THE BONE, JUNGLE 2 JUNGLE) in another critical favorite from the hit-making director of AUSTIN POWERS 1&2 -- you'll stand and cheer as this ragtag bunch shows that nothing can melt their dreams of a miracle on ice!
Amazon.com
When it comes to the subject of community, David E. Kelley--the prolific writer-producer behind television's The Practice and Ally McBeal--falls somewhere on a continuum between directors Howard Hawks and Robert Benton. While Hawks's professional characters are bound by a knowledge of how to do what they do even if they don't know why, Benton's people, professional or not, have long ago substituted their own eccentric reasons for that elusive why. Thus we get the kind of in-house, oddball rituals sandwiched between passages of actual work on Ally, and the affectionately entangled personal and professional ties between small-town folks in Kelley's earlier TV series Picket Fences.
Kelley's script for Mystery, Alaska (co-authored by Sean O'Byrne) takes that level of eccentricity to a geographical and spiritual extreme. The film revives the hackneyed Rocky formula, setting a lopsided hockey match within a remote, self-contained hamlet where the members of a tiny population all have to wear multiple hats and still keep neighborly ties intact. The story concerns the town's chief source of identity and pride: so-called "Saturday games," in which local men divide into teams and play pond hockey for the locals. When a prodigal son (Hank Azaria) of Mystery shows up with a television network offer to bring the New York Rangers in for a televised match against the homegrown team, the town fathers agree. Coaching falls to the town sheriff, John Biebe (Russell Crowe), an admirable man and a longtime player recently bumped from the team. John, however, doesn't want the job: everyone knows the real coach in those parts is Judge Burns (Burt Reynolds), but he wants no part of it either. All of that changes after a sad tragedy forces everyone to reevaluate their positions and pull together in order to beat the Rangers.
Following the success of Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, Jay Roach proves to be an able director of drama, swift action, and low-key, character-driven comedy not unlike that in Benton's Nobody's Fool. He has to deal with some pure corn at the end, but Roach pulls it off and guides the actors to and through far better moments. --Tom Keogh
Product details
- Aspect Ratio : 2.35:1
- Is Discontinued By Manufacturer : No
- MPAA rating : R (Restricted)
- Product Dimensions : 0.6 x 5.3 x 7.5 inches; 2.72 ounces
- Item model number : TM2553
- Director : Jay Roach, Peter Deming
- Media Format : NTSC, Color, Multiple Formats, Closed-captioned
- Run time : 1 hour and 59 minutes
- Release date : May 9, 2000
- Actors : Russell Crowe, Colm Meaney, Beth Littleford, Hank Azaria, Brent Stait
- Language : English (Dolby Digital 5.1), Unqualified
- Studio : HOLLYWOOD PICTURES
- ASIN : B00003CWUX
- Writers : David E. Kelley, Sean O'Byrne
- Number of discs : 1
- Best Sellers Rank: #7,855 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
- #61 in Sports (Movies & TV)
- #900 in Comedy (Movies & TV)
- #1,185 in Drama DVDs
- Customer Reviews:
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All movies takes artistic license. But after seeing this movie I, sincerely, searched for a town that this might have been based on, loosely. No such place exists.
Back to the movie. This movie is much more about relationships in a small town and within families than it is about hockey. The game is simply another backdrop. Maybe all the hockey scenes are not 100% accurate, however, the relationships are. Having lived much of my life in small town America I have seen these sorts of characters from many walks of life.
The interactions in the locker room are represented pretty faithfully to the actual beer league hockey locker rooms that I've been in. And the film captures the sights, sounds and sense of urgency when playing a game that matters to you. To the people that complained I suggest you rewatch the final game scene listen to the skates on the ice, the sound of the puck on blade during the passing, the puck hitting the goal post, the final buzzer, and most dramatically the puck hitting the ice. These are the details that were not overlooked and add dramatic effect. If you love hockey at this level you'll be intimately familiar with these sights and sounds. This moment in the film captures them beautifully.
It would be no exaggeration to say I have seen this movie more than 100 times. I have gone through a DVD, Blu-ray and bought two digital copies (1 on Amazon and 1 on iTunes). When Maury Chaykin's character is describing, in court, the town's passion for the game of hockey he could well be describing my own.