Customer Reviews

Practical Magic (Widescreen)

5 star:		(138)
4 star:		(44)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(18)

 

 

Very different from the book, but I love the movie just as much. It's absolutely beautiful to look at: the house, the seaside village in which they live, Goran Visnjic, etc. I also was touched by the relationship between sisters Sally and Gillian, the storyline between Sandra Bullock and Aidan Quinn makes me feel all mushy, and I love all the witchy stuff. One of my favourite girly movies.

the more i see this film the more i enjoy it.
it is totally magical.
i am a huge fan of alice hoffman's writing, but always apprehensive about filmed books, however, this did not disappoint. it is colourful, the actors are some of my faves,
it is light-hearted, romantic, entertaining generally and visually easy on the eye.
nicole kidman is a scream, + stockard channing particularly, makes a great, mischevious witch,
i must also mention the soundtrack, as it contains some absolutely fab songs, especially "crystal" - + I LOVE THAT HOUSE!

This was a fun movie, a romp through a fantasy life of three generations of witches. The house was set somewhere in Maine but the action took place in some strange places. It almost makes one belief that witchcraft is alive and well in the modern age.

The two older witches were especially good. Sandra Bullock, on the other hand, was playing a continuation of her character in HOPE FLOATS, same funky outfits and the acting just the same.

These beautiful witches had the bad luck to always kill the men they love. No matter how many potions they tried to concoct, nothing ever came out right. The little ones had no special magic, and yet their peers called them witches just the same.

The living dead had eyes like Riddick. Now, I understand where he got his strength; he was already dead. What'd he have to lose?

I enjoyed this romp, but I have always been interested in how the women in Salem and along the Eastern coast were burned as witches. Even Guinevere in Richard Harris' version of CAMELOT was 'almost' killed as a witch. Thank God, she was rescued by her Sir Lancelot to waste away in a nunnery. What a price women have to pay when they love the wrong men!

Can love travel back in time and heal a broken heart? I like to think so.

It was great! According to real witchcraft, it was pretty accurate!

The story line is fantastic--that of friendship, sisterhood, attaining dreams, and love. This movie shows witches in a more realistic light incomparison to the ole tale of green skin and bubbling eyes of newt. It, also, shows the politics that they face due to these deeply rooted tales and lends hope that the general populus will become more embracing/accepting of others' beliefs--particularly that of earth-based religions.

The greatest thing about this movie is the soundtrack, which is full of terrific poppy tunes, and also some oldies but goodies - particularly Elvis' "Always On My Mind".

The actresses are also great in this. Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman are two very good actresses, although their more recent films have left something to be desired, and as sisters, they're perfect. Stockard Channing - who will always be known as Rizzo from Grease to me - and Dianne Wiest make a great pair of busybodies, and make you want to have aunts like them yourself. The two strong male leads (Goran Visnjic and Aidan Quinn) make you root for the separate romances - although Goran Visnjic does remind too much of Adrian Brody for some reason! And if you've got sharp eyes, you will also need that one of Sandra Bullock's children is actually Evan Rachel Wood, who was one of the main stars in Thirteen! And she's really grown up.

Some of the best parts in this film, is the chemistry between Sandra & Aidan's characters, and also the ache you feel when Sandra's character is missing Aidan's character - it's true love enclosed in a film.

You'd be wrong if you think this is another Halloween film - it may be based around witches (and I'll hate it when I see "blood on the moon" now), but it entertains, and isn't a kiddies movie, like Hocus Pocus.

Sally Owens (Sandra Bullock) and sister Gillian (Nicole Kidman) are modern day witches, with real magical powers. Sally is shy and conventional, only wanting to ignore her power, fit into the everyday world and live a normal life. Gillian is the wild child who runs away from home to live life in the fast lane - sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll - until her psycho boyfriend turns mean and she calls on Sally for help.

I have to register one major gripe with this film. I mean, it truly drove me nuts. In the opening scene, when the girls' ancestor, witch Maria Owens, is about to be hanged, the noose around her neck isn't even pulled tight. It's about two feet across and, if she'd actually taken the big fall, would've slipped right off her head. Amazing sloppiness on the filmmakers' part. It's hard to get caught up in a movie when, during the very first scene, you're shaking your head and muttering, "What were they THINKING?"

The Owens women, thanks to a curse laid by Maria, are doomed to have any man they love die. Sally as a little girl has the perfect solution: she casts a spell wishing for a man with an impossible list of attributes. "He will hear my call a mile away. He will whistle my favorite song. He can ride a pony backwards. He can flip pancakes in the air. He'll be marveously kind. And his favorite shape will be a star." Since such a man can't possibly exist, she'll never be in love, thus never suffer a broken heart. Years later Sally falls in love, not with her dream man but a normal guy, they marry and have two beautiful daughters - then he's run over in the street. Sally, recognizing the curse, concludes she'll never love again. Then one day, up shows Aidan Quinn....

Trailers for this film were really misleading. If all you knew about Practical Magic came from them, you'd think it was a bright, happy romantic comedy. While there are certainly elements of that in here, it's actually a weird and not entirely successful blend of comedy, romance and violent, creeped-out horror story.

Scenes like Sally kissing her future husband for the first time to the bouncy strains of Faith Hill's "This Kiss" or an entire family of witches, dressed in black Halloween finery, opening their umbrellas on top of a tall house, then jumping off and drifting to the ground Mary Poppins-style, are charming. They make a strange mix, however, with things like Sally bludgeoning a man to death with a frying pan, or Nicole Kidman, possessed by the spirit of that self-same dead man (who happens to be a serial woman killer) running her tongue slooooowly along one of Sandra Bullock's incredible cheekbones and hissing, "I'm feeling VERY into sisters right now." (Got to hand it to Nicole Kidman, she does "possessed" very well. Linda Blair has nothing on this woman. Personally, I'm holding out for a movie where Nicole Kidman plays a vampire. She's already got that pale, bloodless, languid look about her; she only needs a pair of sexy needle point fangs to really rock.)

But....I digress.

In later scenes, the witch-phobic wives of the town, after decades of despising the Owens women, when called upon by Sally to help in Gillian's exorcism, instantly and cheerfully pitch in. This stretches the suspension of disbelief, to say the least.

There are good things here, mostly Sandra Bullock, owner of one of the most beautiful, expressive faces and solid set of acting skills in Hollywood. It's just awfully hard not to like Sally Owens. She's so achingly decent (and looks just like Sandra Bullock, always a positive thing). Sally's been hard used by life, but still tries to hold it all together, be a good mother to her daughters, help Gillian in her time of need, she's ALMOST given up hope she'll ever again find love and happiness. You can't help but root for Sally. She's irresistible.

Let's not forget Nicole Kidman, who obviously had a blast making this movie. No one, no matter how good an actress, could sport the evil little grin Gillian has in the "being turned around by two girls while bound to a chair" scene without the actress in question having the time of her life. Gillian is the dark to Sally's light, and for all their differences the bond between the sisters, their very real love, is well presented and quite believable.

Practical Magic can't seem to decide whether it wants to be an upbeat, life affirming romantic comedy or a grim, frightening horror movie. By trying to be both at once, it ultimately fails at both. At the same time, though the pieces of the movie don't fit very well, some of the individual pieces are fascinating. This is certainly an interesting failure, compelling in its way. If Practical Magic doesn't totally succeed, it fails while trying to pull off something quite unusual. I'm glad I saw it.

This is a very good movie. Sharp, original, and smart. Bullock and Kidman hit it out of the park here. Struggling to come to terms with who and what you are... With your lot in life. Being honest about who you are. That's what is at the heart of this film. And it works.

A truly magical ancestress, a witch in very deed, escapes the hangman's noose only to place a curse on herself and her female posterity. What ensues is an enchantingly wonderful, though sometimes dark, tale of two witch sisters who live to deal with the family curse.

Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock star as the witch sisters who approach their upbringing in magic very differently. Bullock's character, the level headed and pragmatic Sally, wants nothing more than to find true love and live a normal life while her sister Gillian (Kidman) wants to live it up and change the men in her life like most people change their socks.

The two join magical forces when one of Gillian's assorted men emerges as a sinister character played by Goran Visnjic. Their adventures seem to have gone well until a lawman (Aidan Quinn) shows up with all too many questions and seems all too familiar to Sally.

Perhaps even more appealing than Kidman and Bullock from the standpoint of screen presence, Dianne Wiest and Stockard Channing star as a couple of enchanting -- almost Victorian -- aunts of our two heroines that are absolutely spellbinding and unforgettable.

Practical Magic, regardless of the theme, is not a Halloween flick like Hocus Pocus and should not be avoided by any who might think that it has seasonal appeal.

An enchantingly entertaining film!

Douglas McAllister

Leave it to Hollywood to take a marvelous book and gut it of everything that made it great. Granted, Alice Hoffman's multi-plotted novel couldn't be brought to the screen with all of it intact, but this is a disaster. Instead of the sophisticated, tender, and truly magical feel of the book, we get basically "Boys on the Side" meets "Bewitched"...only I actually kind of liked "Boys on the Side". Director Griffin Dunne seems hell-bent on keeping everything as cutsie-poo as possible, he even has the characters do stupid little dances to oldies and soft-rock hits! Yes, its that kind of movie. None of the darker tones of Hoffman's novel are here...none of the magic, either. The two leads seem like good choices for the heroines, but their performances are all mannerism. For a much better movie about magic and sisterhood, check out the wonderous "Eve's Bayou." Or, even better, read Hoffman's book. It's a delight.
I recently heard Sandra Bullock is going to produce a sitcom version of this. I just hope Hoffman is getting a fortune for having to put up with her book being so trashed.