Product Description

Few times in the history of Hollywood has a film been released with the scope and daring of EVITA! Now, experience this landmark achievement as entertainment megastar Madonna -- in the role of a lifetime -- joins Antonio Banderas (ASSASSINS, DESPERADO) for the year's most talked about motion picture event! Directed by award-winning filmmaker Alan Parker (MISSISSIPPI BURNING), EVITA is the riveting true-life story of Eva Peron (MADONNA), who rose above childhood poverty and a scandalous past to achieve unimaginable fortune and fame. Despite widespread controversy, her passion changed a nation forever! Winner of the coveted Academy Award(R) for Best Song (1996) and 3 Golden Globe Awards (Best Picture, Best Actress, and Best Song) -- critics nationwide hailed EVITA as a triumphant must-see masterpiece -- and so will you!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10483 in DVD
• Color: Color
• Brand: Buena Vista Home Video
• Published on: 1998-03-01
• Released on: 1998-03-25
• Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: Spanish
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 135 minutes

Features

• Condition: New
• Format: DVD
• Closed-captioned; Color; DVD; Letterboxed; Widescreen; NTSC

Amazon.com
After more than a decade of false starts and several potential directors, the popular Andrew Lloyd Webber/Tim Rice musical finally made it to the big screen with Alan Parker (The Commitments) at the helm and Madonna in the coveted title role of Argentina's first lady, Eva Perón. A triumph of production design, costuming, cinematography, and epic-scale pageantry, the film follows the rise of Eva Perón to the level of supreme social and political celebrity in the 1940s. Like Madonna, Perón was a material girl (she was only 33 when she died); she was instrumental in the political success of her husband, Juan Perón (Jonathan Pryce). But Eva was also a supremely tragic figure whose life was essentially hollow at its core despite the lavish benefits of her nearly goddess-like status. The film has a similar quality--it's visually astonishing but emotionally distant, and benefits greatly from the singing commentary of Ché (Antonio Banderas), who serves as a passionate chorus to guide the viewer through the elaborate parade of history. --Jeff Shannon

From The New Yorker
At last, after years of rumor and negotiation-years that have made it almost as mythical as Eva Perón herself-the rock opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice comes to the screen. The problem is that it remains a rock opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. There are moments when music and lyrics bear only the faintest relation to each other, a tricky state of affairs in a work that is almost bereft of spoken dialogue. This deficit is good news for Madonna, of course-she is barely required to speak or even to act, though she does suggest, rather convincingly, that Evita's outstanding talent was a capacity for growing into an early-model Madonna. The only voices of skepticism belong to Jonathan Pryce, as a sly and troubled Juan Perón, and Antonio Banderas, who prowls through the action as our friendly smoldering narrator. This is a thin tale-poor country girl makes good, and eventually makes the grade as a semi-saint-to which the director, Alan Parker, lends energy with frenzied cutting and vast crowds. The picture blares and blazes at you without letup, and it works best when it's openly theatrical-only when it's over do you sense how little lay beneath the busy surface. It's a movie with hidden shallows. -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker