graduate

The Graduate (1967 Film)
$7.99
Nice CD, I'm 26 and I enjoy listening to the tunes with my 21 year old BOyfriend, we love the classic 60's music from when music was really GOOD music, like Michael Jackson. It's a good have for a music lover. Kid not.

The Graduate
$13.00
I have seen the movie a couple of times but have never read the book. Frankly I never even considered that there was a novel and was intrigued to see a new audiobook version on our library's shelves; and I was especially happy to discover that it was read by Scott Brick (my favorite audiobook reader).

This book is a lot of fun. One can think of this as a coming of age story where a lost, disillusioned young man (what's he so disillusioned about, anyway?) is seduced by an older woman and subsequently "finds" himself and finds true love, rises up against his parents generation, and finds true love.

That's the import of the movie. The book is similar but I had a little different impression - that of Benjamin "graduating" from prey to predator.

A couple of questions, though. Why was Benjamin so disillusioned? 1963 was probably one of the best times in history to be a college graduate. Well, who knows - I guess you had to be there. But more puzzling is why did Elaine love Benjamin? From her point of view he should have seemed like a super-creep.

One more note - the dialogue in this book is characterized by excessive use of the word "what." For example:

"Statement or question."
"What?"
"Statement or question repeated or slightly rephrased"

This is used by every character and in ever conversation. That's fine - just sort of funny. Maybe I noticed it more because it was an audiobook.

Challenge: guess what the last line of the novel is.

One more thing - I was delighted to find, when I googled the novel, that a sequel has been released (Home School). It had been written thirty years ago but not published because of issues involving the author and film rights (the author received nothing from the successful film version of The Graduate) and was finally released in 2007. I have ordered it and look forward to find out what happens next to Benjamin & Elaine.

The Graduate
$40.00
I missed this one when it first came out as a movie. The reviews across the years caused me to want to see it. You had it on DVD. This was my chance to view it. I was not disappointed. Keep the "old ones" coming!

The Graduate (+ Widescreen DVD) [Blu-ray]
$24.99
(Sorry, couldn't resist the pun on that one;)


This release was quite a positive surprise; considering it was not really something I expected to benefit greatly in getting the high-def treatment. However, the picture quality is very respectable throughout, and does not appear to have been artificially "souped-up" with edge-enhancement or digital noise reduction. It does have a few (mostly scenery or reduced-lighting scenes) which do show the age if one looks closely, but still I have to admit that it looked pretty fresh for being a 40+ year old catalog title.

The audio I did expect to benefit greatly from being remastered into lossless 5.1, though, and the DTS HD Master Audio track delivered in spades. Both the dialogue--which is clear and intelligible throughout--but not least the excellent music by Simon & Garfunkel makes this worth buying just for the soundtrack alone.

As for the movie itself, the performance by Dustin Hoffman is superb--I feel he perfectly captured all the mannerisms; the awkwardness & uneasiness his character exhibits after being thrust into the situations by the also brilliant Anne Bancroft (in an iconic performance)--in a way that is so subtle but still hilariously funny at the same time--that it deserves some major credit (this was after all his first major role.) I notice another reviewer mentioned that he came across as "annoying"--which just shows what a great performance it really is (not that this reviewer thought so, but I can see how it can be interpreted that way)

The directing is also flawless, and a Mike Nichols movie through and through. (Only bettered by Catch-22 in my opinion--can't wait to see that on this format as well!)

All in all, a true gem that can be highly recommended. Probably the best $8.99 I've ever spent on a film purchase. And it even included a DVD of the movie as well.