Songcatcher | 
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Director: Maggie Greenwald
Actors: Janet Mcteer, Michael Davis, Michael Goodwin, Greg Russell Cook, Jane Adams (ii)
Studio: Lions Gate
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.98
Buy New: $7.87
You Save: $7.11 (47%)
New (31) Used (14) from $7.50
Avg. Customer Rating:  123 reviews
Sales Rank: 3269
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dvd-video, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled)
Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 109
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 4.7 x 0.6
MPN: D7543D
ISBN: 1588173054
UPC: 031398754329
EAN: 9781588173058
ASIN: B00005O0SO
Theatrical Release Date: 2000
Release Date: October 23, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: ******BRAND NEW****** THE SOURCE FOR RARE MEDIA, THOUSANDS OF CUSTOMERS SATISFIED, AND OVER 250 000 ITEMS IN STOCK, BUY FROM A TRUSTED SOURCE, ESTABLISHED SINCE 1998 - INETVIDEO ~~~
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Hauntingly beautiful folk music and stunning Appalachian scenery take center stage in this winner of the 2000 Sundance Film Festival Special Jury Prize for outstanding ensemble performance. Musicologist Dr. Lily Penleric has a deep love of English folk ballads. After a humiliating failure to make full professor, she heads off to visit her sister's tiny school in rural Appalachia and finds herself in folk music central. Lily is entranced, but the locals are suspicious of the outlander's motivations. Issues of tolerance, clashing cultures, and Big Bad Men abound, but Songcatcher wisely focuses on the music. Janet McTeer does fine with the "repressed academic gets in touch with the earth" role, but her truly outstanding work is in revealing scholar Lily's rapture in her discoveries. McTeer leads a truly great cast, including the wonderful Pat Carroll, and a just-for-the-hell-of-it cameo by bluesman Taj Mahal. Songcatcher has a healthy respect for the mountain people it portrays, and an absolute reverence for their music. --Ali Davis
Description
When musicologist Doctor Lily Penleric (Janet McTeer) is passed over for a prominent teaching position, she leaves the city to visit her sister in the beautifully rugged mountains of Appalachia. It is here she discovers a wellspring of emotional tunes passed down from the original Irish and Scottish immigrants who settled in these parts. Determined to document the history of the songs, she immerses herself in mountain life, falls in love with a local musician, Aidan Quinn, and is profoundly changed by the generosity, strength, and freedom of the fiercely proud mountain people.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 118 more reviews...
 Songcatcher Will Put A Song In Your Heart July 7, 2008
My wife and I rented Songcatcher not knowing what to expect, but the basic story sounded interesting. Well, we loved it so much we bought the DVD. It's a good story, well told...and the only nit I will pick happens late in the movie--when an ongoing lesbian relationship is discovered (a "local" sees the women kissing passionately). The relationship had already been strongly hinted-at, so the "discovery" seemed gratuitous. And I have read criticism of the story's opening sequence--and the event that sets the table for the whole film: A female college professor being denied tenure, and resigning, to visit her sister who runs a school in the Appalachian mountains. It is argued that a female would never have been considered for tenure in the early part of the 20th century. But rather than debate that, I will only remind of the concept of "willing suspension of disbelief"...an aesthetic theory coined by the poet and aesthetic philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1817.
Songcatcher is a rewarding, lyrical and heartwarming time spent in the world of cinema.
Songcatcher June 3, 2008
Songcatcher is both an interesting drama and a showcase for some excellent singing. One of the songs is about a man who has no land of his own and thus cannot court a wife; he imaginatively describes his longing in the song. Viewers with open minds are recommended to this film.
pure enjoyment May 3, 2008
story of a music professor in search of original mountain music in the Appalachian Mountains. Old songs sung and played as they were either written or passed down. Music played on fiddle, banjo's & Mountain dulcimer (the only musical instrument originating in the United States). Great entertainment for the lover of old time music.
Little known film April 22, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I got this movie from netflix, and was very happy I did. I was somewhat surprised by the PG-13 rating, because of the lesbian sub-plot, but the movie was incredible. I find it interesting that the only two-star ratings I noticed were because of this part of the storyline. I sometimes think that these homophobes only bother to rate movies with this type of storyline just to further their own homophobic agenda. So sad. Though I am straight, I see no problem with women loving women or men loving men. I didn't read all the reviews, but I wonder if any of them had anything derogatory to say about the man who was cheating on his wife with another women. I bet they'd have had plenty to say if he'd been cheating with another man.
Catching Songs in the Appalachians March 23, 2008
"Songcatcher" is the "O Sister" equivalent to the Coen brothers' "O Brother,where art thou?" Janet McTeer stars as Lily Penleric,a music professor denied full professorship due to being a woman. Fleeing the misogyny of academia,Lily joins her sister Elna (Jane Adams) There,she becomes one with Nature, meeting the generally noble natives.
In the Appalachians, there's plenty of drama. Lily discovers-to her horror- that her younger sister is romancing an older woman,Harriet (who bears an amazing resemblance to Jean Marsh in her nurse role in "Return to Oz") Lily meets the musicians (among them Iris DeMent and Taj Mahal) She also meets the alcoholic veteran Tom Bledsoe (Aidan Quinn) At first,he's very gruff with her. Suddenly,they are enamored of each other&they're making love in the wilderness. On top of that,there's a graphic childbirth scene,as well as a love triangle. The natives are restless.
"Songcatcher" has a strong soundtrack with Emmylou Harris,Gillian Welch, Patty Loveless, Rosanne Cash and Dolly Parton. The plot is melodramatic and stereotypical--but at least it's fun. There's music in them thar hills!
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