Cheap The Ice Storm (DVD) (Kevin Kline, Joan Allen) (Ang Lee) Price

Related Products

Customer Reviews of The Ice Storm

One of the great forgotten films of the '90's...
When Ang Lee's dark, brooding exploration of a family living in the 1970's was released in 1997, it had just as much against it as it did for it. For one, it was an American movie made by foreign director Ang Lee, and its depressing dramatic content had the capacity for being a love/hate experience (I recommended this film to a friend, and after viewing it, he called it the worst movie he'd ever seen!). On the other hand, Lee had made arguably the greatest Jane Austen adaptation ever two years previous ("Sense and Sensibility"), and famed critic Gene Siskel added to the buzz by calling it the #1 film of the year. So what's the verdict? Six years later, "The Ice Storm" shimmers in its cinematic precision, emotional complexity, and brutal honesty. In fact, this time period under the direction of Lee has its foreign sensibilities as a benefit, taking more risks and being ultimately more effective. The magnificence of "The Ice Storm" is by no means JUST Ang Lee's doing - stars Kevin Kline, Joan Allen, Christina Ricci, and a smoldering Sigourney Weaver make you wonder why this film garnered no Oscar wins or nominations. On the surface, "The Ice Storm" looks to be overtly concerned with the sexual mores of the 1970's, and that is a great part of the film (who can forget Elijah Wood fooling around with Christina Ricci touting a Richard Nixon mask?). What we see, though, is the dramatic arc of two families that clash emotionally, sexually, and physically one weekend while on the verge of a (okay, blatantly metaphorical) ice storm that threatens some and claims the life of one. Lee and his actors handle certain moments with such quirky sensiblilites it's hard to dislike the movie (a scene where Weaver scolds Ricci for playing an "I'll show you mine if you show me yours" game comes to mind). Inevitably, though, the movie's dark overtones take full manifestation of the film in its final act, and that is where the true brilliance of "The Ice Storm" shines through. All of its compelling visuals, foreshadowed themes, and subplots synthesize to its unforgettable, somewhat ambiguous conclusion. THIS is where some people fall off the "Ice Storm" wagon. What is important about the film, though, and what makes it one of the great forgotten films of the '90's, is how the collective experience of the movie is more important than simply its conclusion. Too often, movies rely on a finale to tie up its loose ends and convince the viewer one last time to like it. You'll love "The Ice Storm" early on, for it's an unbelievable pleasure to simply sit and watch great filmmaking happen every frame of this fantastic, overlooked film.

---

an "AWE" INDUCING FILM.
The Ice Storm is an excellent portrayal of a family torn by aging, sex, and most of all bitterness with boredom and bad weather. Set during an ice storm in Connecticut during the 1970's Sexual Revolution... Director Ang Lee weaves the story of a husband's affair against his frigid wife , their college-aged son's journey of bedding the girl he lusts, and their junior high aged daughter who's doing some sexual experiments on two brothers, the sons of the husband's mistress. At times, the movie moves a little slow...but it projects the same sort of feeling you'd get if you were bored during bad weather, cabin fever...if you will. The weather is very crucial to the metaphor-based story. I thought it was a beautiful film, I highly reccommend. Sigourney Weaver turns in a small but power-house performance as the bored mistress. Thus, also began the turn of character for child-star Christina Ricci. Here she sheds roles like Wednesday in THE ADDAMS FAMILY or her horrible other films like CASPER and NOW AND THEN. She turns in an award-calibre performance as the curious monotone daughter.

---

Dark,compelling story set amid social changes in the 1970s
This fim is moody and morose, just like the book which I read a few years ago. It now has a talented director (Ang Lee) and some well-known actors (Kevin Kline, Signorey Weaver). The Ice Storm is a metaphor, of course, and the scenes takes place over a Thanksgiving weekend in New Canaan, CT in the early seventies. The parents are experimenting with the sexual revolution. The teenage children and smoking pot and feeling the anti-war movement. The sudden social changes are confusing everybody.

The story is dark and compelling and the children come across as more real than the parents. It is a hard film to watch, given its subject. Thought it was was excellent athough I wasn't smiling when the film ended. I was thinking.