Product Description

An Iowa farmer is inspired by a voice he cannot ignore to pursue a dream and turns his cornfield into a baseball field so that some baseball legends can come and play.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: PG
Release Date: 23-AUG-2005
Media Type: DVD

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7501 in DVD
• Brand: COSTNER,KEVIN
• Released on: 2004-06-08
• Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: AC-3, Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: Spanish, French
• Number of discs: 2
• Dimensions: .40 pounds
• Running time: 107 minutes

Amazon.com essential video
A phenomenal hit when it was released in 1989, Field of Dreams has become a modern classic and a uniquely American slice of cinema. It functions effectively as a moving drama about the power of dreams, a fantasy ode to our national pastime, and a brilliant adaptation of W.P. Kinsella's exquisite baseball novel Shoeless Joe. Kinsella himself found the film a delightful surprise, differing greatly from his novel but benefiting from its own creative variations. It is the film that cemented Kevin Costner's status as an all-American screen star, but the story resonates far beyond Costner's handsome appeal. As just about everyone knows by now, Costner stars as Iowa farmer Ray Kinsella, who hears the mysterious words "If you build it, he will come," and is compelled to build a baseball diamond in the middle of his cornfield. His wife (Amy Madigan) supports the wild idea, but a reclusive novelist (modeled after J.D. Salinger and played by James Earl Jones) is not so easily persuaded. The idealistic farmer is either a visionary or a deluded fool, but his persistence is rewarded when spirits from baseball's past begin appearing on the ball field. Past and present intermingle in the person of "Moonlight Graham" (superbly played by Burt Lancaster), an unknown player who sacrificed his dreams of baseball glory for a dignified life as a small-town physician ... but what all of this means is unclear until the film's memorably heartfelt conclusion. A meditation on family, memory, and faith, the film balances humor and magic to strike just the right chord of thoughtful emotion, affecting audiences so deeply that the baseball field created for the production has now become a mecca of sorts for dreamers around the world. --Jeff Shannon

Amazon.com
A phenomenal hit when it was released in 1989, Field of Dreams has become a modern classic and a uniquely American slice of cinema. It functions effectively as a moving drama about the power of dreams, a fantasy ode to our national pastime, and a brilliant adaptation of W.P. Kinsella's exquisite baseball novel Shoeless Joe. Kinsella himself found the film a delightful surprise, differing greatly from his novel but benefiting from its own creative variations. It is the film that cemented Kevin Costner's status as an all-American screen star, but the story resonates far beyond Costner's handsome appeal. As just about everyone knows by now, Costner stars as Iowa farmer Ray Kinsella, who hears the mysterious words "If you build it, he will come," and is compelled to build a baseball diamond in the middle of his cornfield. His wife (Amy Madigan) supports the wild idea, but a reclusive novelist (modeled after J.D. Salinger and played by James Earl Jones) is not so easily persuaded. The idealistic farmer is either a visionary or a deluded fool, but his persistence is rewarded when spirits from baseball's past begin appearing on the ball field. Past and present intermingle in the person of "Moonlight Graham" (superbly played by Burt Lancaster), an unknown player who sacrificed his dreams of baseball glory for a dignified life as a small-town physician ... but what all of this means is unclear until the film's memorably heartfelt conclusion. A meditation on family, memory, and faith, the film balances humor and magic to strike just the right chord of thoughtful emotion, affecting audiences so deeply that the baseball field created for the production has now become a mecca of sorts for dreamers around the world. --Jeff Shannon

DVD features
Several interesting segments were created for this 15th anniversary DVD. Best is the first anamorphic presentation of the film, nicely remastered. The 38-minute "Passing Along the Pastime" starts with real-life baseball players talking about their fathers, but turns into a nifty recollection about the film's impact from the cast (minus Kevin Costner) and crew 15 years later. One part of the legacy--how the movie's set on two farms in Iowa still inspires baseball fans--is warmly examined in the 17-minute "A Diamond in the Husks." Costner does show up for a roundtable at his house with some baseball greats (including Johnny Bench) talking about their careers and after a screening of the film. The actor--usually one of the best at delivering the goods on DVD extras--looks a bit uncomfortable in this forced and awkward segment. The commentary track is the same as on the previous DVD release, but director Phil Alden Robinson introduces 10 minutes of deleted scenes. The scenes are nice, and as the filmmaker notes, they looked good at script level but were not needed in the final cut. Even the basic making-of "From Page to Screen" aired on the Bravo Channel in 2001, does an excellent job of covering the bases on how the film was made. --Doug Thomas

Customer Reviews

Don't trade in your OLD copies of this movie....!!!
Hi...
this is a great movie..great transfer and great extra features...commentary, roundtable with hall of fame baseball players...bravo special ...current day update on the actual field of dreams location....BUT , and its a big one...it does NOT contain the fabulous hour long making of documentary from the initial release!!! as well as many of the other bonus features....
so.....if you are a fan , you will most likely want both editions...
I don't understand why they couldn't have included the bonus features from the first "collectors" edition to make this the definitive issue...but Like ON GOLDEN POND ...you get a newer edition with great extras which don't duplicate the original....
anyway...just thought I'd warn fans out there who are thinking of "trading up" for the new edition...

Baseball + Metaphysics = Perfection
I love baseball. Not only in its purest form is it the greatest game ever invented, it is also the only game that completely and thoroughly transcends and binds our country to past, present, and future--generation to generation.

Director Phil Alden Robinson's FIELD OF DREAMS pays homage to baseball's majestic, magical link to nostalgia. When a struggling Iowa farmer, Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) begins "hearing voices" and subsequently plows under his cornfield and builds a baseball diamond, he becomes a pariah to his community--to his family. But Ray knows he's tapped into a special level of consiousness: a beautiful, soothing karma that slowly but wonderfully manifests itself throughout this incredible film. The baseball field itself becomes a portal to another world, enabling players from baseball's Golden Age to return. To play baseball. As the film draws to its dramatic, moving ending, Ray surveys his field of dreams and remarks, "This is perfect."

And it is.

Kevin Costner turns in his finest performance. Ray Liotta, Amy Madigan, Timothy Busfield, and the great Burt Lancaster are exceptional. But it is James Earl Jones, who plays disgruntled author Terrence Mann and eventual soul mate to Kinsella, who is the catalyst that takes this film to a higher level. And FIELD OF DREAMS goes to that level, and beyond, like a homerun leaving the upper deck. Highly, highly recommended.

A NEAR PERFECT COLLECTOR'S DVD
Field of Dreams is a modren day fable. A fantasy played out not in an enchanted realm of dragons and faeries, but in a middle American Iowa cornfield. Costner plays Ray Kinsella, an Iowa farmer who one day hears a voice telling him "If you build it, they will come." Build what and who will come? Well the answer is, of course, a regulation baseball diamond right in the middle of his cornfield. Townspeople think Ray is nuts but his idealistic wife Annie (Amy Madigan) has faith in Ray.

Ray continues to get new messages from the voice that leads him to Boston to track down a reclusive author Terrence Mann (James Earl Jones) where, in films funniest moment, Ray explains to Mann that he has to take him to a baseball game at Fenway Park and Ray fakes having a gun in his jacket to coerce the skeptical writer.

Eventually THEY do come...spirits of deceased baseball players, right out of his cornfield to play ball on Ray's diamond, including Shoeless Joe Jackson (Ray Liotta) the wrongfully banned player from the Black Sox scandal. All the while Ray's brother in law Mark (Tim Busfield) is trying to get Ray to sell his farm before the bank forecloses on it. Eventually, as in any mythical fairy tale, all things work out and one could end the film by saying they all lived happily ever after!

Costner's "aw shucks" All-American boy style was perfectly suited to his role in this film. James Earl Jones and Burt Lancaster (as Moonlight Graham) also stood out although Liotta's Jackson was a bit too refined for a guy who was supposed to be something of a country bumpkin. This is a magnificent film and one of the best of the 1980's.

This 15th anniversary release features a host of special features including a remastered anamorphic presentation of the film. There's a new 90 minute documentary, A roundtable discussion between Costner and several former pro baseball players discussing the film, deleted scenes, Director commentary, a visit to "moonlight Graham's" hometown, and much more. Truly a worthwhile collectors edition. Highest recommendation!