John & Mary
by Peter Yates
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Dustin Hoffman, Mia Farrow, Michael Tolan, Stanley Beck, Sunny GriffinDirector: Peter Yates
Brand: Fox
Cinematographer: Gayne Rescher
Editor: Frank P. Keller
Producer: Ben Kadish
Writer: John Mortimer
Writer: Mervyn Jones
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 1.0; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 1.0
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 92 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-03-06
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Movie Reviews of John & Mary
Movie Review: Okay Movie
Summary: 4 Stars
I watched this movie last spring and I thought it was okay. There are two things that really bother me about this movie: One, Mia Farrow spends almost the entire film wearing a dreaded baby doll dress (probably a more worse 60's fashion than the miniskirt) and then makes the cut more deeper by wearing heavy tights to match the color (it was brown). As that weren't enough Dustin Hoffman's character John discovers that Mary doesn't wear a bra; which means that she's a feminist. That raises the question: If Mary (Farrow) is a feminist then why is she wearing a baby doll ensemble?
The second thing that bothers me is the film's rating. As you know when "John and Mary" was released in the fall of 1969 it was rated R, then when it was released on video in the 80's the MPAA changed it down to PG. Guess what this movie is rated now it's available on DVD? R again! (the MPAA has done another flip-flop as what they did to "Targets" for example) And you know why: It's because of a very tame scene that occurs in the first ten minutes in which the camera catches Mia Farrow's butt and the rest of her naked body. That raises the burning question: What had changed? I must admit this rating system is a joke. So much that I wrote a letter to the company's president Dan Glickman telling him this is got to stop and that this is a classic example of why America will never escape the shadow of the 60's. Above all, it is average and my mother actually liked it. Oh, did I forget to mention that I almost got myself a hard-on from the last scene in this movie in which Hoffman and Farrow strip nude and get into bed?
Summary of John & Mary
Screen legends Dustin Hoffman and Mia Farrow light up the screen in this engaging and subtle film directed by Peter Yates.Based on the novel by Mervyn Jones, John And Mary stars Hoffman as a furniture designer and Farrow as an art gallery assistant who meet in an upscale New York singles bar and go home together. The next day, they individually wander around the city, wondering what their night together might have meant Â? if anything. Even though both carry over-the-limit baggage from unsuccessful earlier affairs, and both are stocked with enough hang-ups to fill volumes of psychological textbooks, thereÂ's still a chance that theyÂ'll wind up together at least one more time Â? and if nothing else, learn each other's names for the first time!
A perceptive analysis of a one night stand, John and Mary arrived with the tagline, "It's not your mother's love story." And so it isn't. With hindsight, though, this New York-set, European-style romance seems more quaint than revolutionary. John (Dustin Hoffman) meets Mary (Mia Farrow) at a bar where they bond over Jean-Luc Godard. Turns out she isn't a fan, but the ice has been broken, and a connection is made. The timeline proceeds to shift from the night they met, the day after their tryst, and their previous relationships (his with a flighty model, hers with a married politician). Aside from quotable lines, like "Cinema verité is just an excuse to follow a little girl into the ladies room," John Mortimer's script uses voiceover to convey the couple?s inner thoughts. With his preppy outfits, Hoffman looks much like his post-collegiate character in The Graduate, while Farrow, with her baby-doll dresses, looks much like her hip housewife in Rosemary's Baby, though their performances here are quite different. Featuring a spare soundtrack by Quincy Jones and direction by the versatile, if inconsistent Peter Yates (Bullitt), John and Mary is an underrated look at love among young singles torn between convention and desire. The sexual politics may seem dated, but the chemistry between Hoffman's fastidious John and Farrow's flippant Mary is as appealing as it is unlikely (TIME magazine dubbed them "The Moonchild and the Fifth Beatle"). With Olympia Dukakis as John's mother and Tyne Daly as Mary's roommate. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
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