Oliver! (1998)
Oliver! Image Cover
Additional Images
Director:Carol Reed
Studio:Sony Pictures
Rating:4.5
Rated:G
Date Added:2006-01-01
Purchased On:2006-01-01
ASIN:076781326X
UPC:0043396021372
Price:27.95
Genre:Musical
Release:1998-12-08
Location:0001
Duration:146
Picture Format:Widescreen
Aspect Ratio:2.35:1
Custom 1:Copied
Carol Reed  ...  (Director)
  ...  (Writer)
 
Ron Moody, Shani Wallis, Oliver Reed, Harry Secombe, Mark Leste  ...  
Summary: Film buffs and critics can argue until their faces turn blue about whether this lavish Dickensian musical deserved the Academy Award for Best Picture of 1968, but the movie speaks for itself on grandly entertaining terms. Adapted from Dickens's classic novel, it's one of the most dramatically involving and artistically impressive musicals of the 1960s, directed by Carol Reed with a delightful enthusiasm that would surely have impressed Dickens himself. Mark Lester plays the waifish orphan Oliver Twist, who is befriended by the pickpocketing Artful Dodger (Jack Wild) and recruited into the gang of boy thieves led by Fagin (played to perfection by Ron Moody). The villainous Bill Sikes (Oliver Reed) casts his long shadow over Oliver and his friends, but the young orphan is still able to find loving care in the most desperate of circumstances. Full of memorable melodies and splendid lyrics, Oliver! is a timeless film, prompting even hard-to-please critic Pauline Kael to call it "a superb demonstration of intelligent craftsmanship," and to further observe that "it's as if the movie set out to be a tribute to Dickens and his melodramatic art as well as to tell the story of Oliver Twist."--Jeff Shannon