Product Description

A SHELTERED SIMPLETON WHO ONLY KNOWS WHAT HE'S WATCHED ON TV BECOMES A PRESIDENTIAL ADVISOR.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4265 in DVD
• Brand: WARNER HOME VIDEO
• Released on: 2009-02-03
• Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.77:1
• Formats: Color, DVD, Original recording remastered, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 130 minutes

Features

• Being There author Jerzy Kosinski got a telegram from the books lead character Chance the Gardener: ?Available in my garden or outside of it.? Kosinski dialed the accompanying phone number and Peter Sellers answered. The result was Sellers indelible performance (scoring National Board of Review and Golden Globe Best Actor Awards and an Academy Award nomination*) in this modern comedyic. Isolated a

Customer Reviews

Deluxe Edition? Bluff package!
I don't intend to question the movie, which is excellent indeed. My rating is based on the fact, that this so-called "Deluxe Edition" is only a hoax, a bluff package.

The only bonus material are the recollections of Melvyn Douglas' granddaughter (16 minutes runtime, intercut with scenes from the movie) and the trailer.

Sorry, that's not luxurious, but simply ridiculous. Thanks Warner Bros. for another rip-off.

Still great after 30 years...
This is a wonderful film that I saw theatrically some 30 years ago. This blu-ray is sharp and film like, with muted colors appropriate to the story, but still very nice to finally watch in hi def. Don't expect it to look like a modern day film. I saw several subtle things I hadn't noticed before, because of the sharp resolution.

The extras are nice, but brief. One short scene and one 'extension' plus the alternate (original) ending. Also, there's a promo piece for distributors with Peter and Hal Ashby. Nice to have these, but I'm wondering what happened to all those hours of videotapes of alternates of the whole film that I read about before. Were they poor quality or impossible to find? I heard some crumbled into dust when played back so perhaps they're gone for good.

The making of only has Illana Douglas (granddaughter of Melvyn)who was on set as a youngster. (Where is Shirley Maclaine? Most of the others are, of course, no longer with us.)

A no brainer buy for fans and if you haven't seen it - rent it!
A great performance from Peter Sellers and all involved.

Great film; mediocre Blu-ray
This is a comedy classic. It is arguably the best film about television ever made. And it is clearly the best film about "the suit makes the man" to the extreme.

And it looks better than it ever has before.

But it could look better. Black levels are poor, with murky grays everywhere, and noise reduction has been over-used. One professional review notes: "the studio applied some aggressive Digital Noise Reduction. The problem is quite severe in some scenes, especially the opening. Film grain freezes in place while the action of the scene moves around it. Detail is mushy, and objects smear when in motion."

The sound is good. You really get the clear-but-clanky presentation of the TV shows that form the backgroun or foreground of many scenes. But beware, for some bizarre reason, the default soundtrack is not the lossless track, but the DD1.0 track. Whose silly idea was that?