Watch The Crucible For Free

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

The Worst Film Ever

Pretty Good

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

One of the classic theatrical dramas is from a modern playwright whose Broadway credits are the types of stories that creates legendary theatrical experiences. I've seen two stage versions of this brilliant play (only just over 60 years old) and every ounce deserving of classic status.This is a story of the lusts that tear young women apart, so in love that they turn to the dark arts to get the man they want. Rumors of witchcraft spreads through the small village (where a ton of locales seem to congregate), and events which they do not understand they blame on the powers of the darkness and set out to destroy anyone and everyone who may have helped raise the level of evil. From gossip comes paranoia. From that comes injustice, and from that comes unjust executions while the young girls, as lead by the determined Winona Ryder, desperately try to keep each of the names clean, even at the expense of somebody else's life.The seemingly quiet but vindictive Ryder has intense feelings for farmer Daniel Day Lewis, secretly flattered but determined to remain faithful to his wife (Joan Allen). Easy to blame is African servant girl Charlaine Woodard (treated with disrespect even though she's presumably a paid servant, not a slave. The tension explodes thanks to the malicious flapping of the tongue, even striking down Rebecca Nurse (Elizabeth Lawrence) whose reputation for compassion and good deeds is known way past the town. By the time this occurs, the girls are all twittering like attacking birds.With a modern retelling but every inch in the era of the real Salem witch trials (1692), it is a reminder that early colonial America suffered from many of the same hypocrisies that caused the Europeans to flea to a new world in the first place. This is outstanding in practically every detail, an issue that still rings true today.

If it weren't for me reading the script to Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" I never would have understood Nicholas Hytner's adaptation of the play quite as well as I did. The movie is historical fiction which talks about the 1692 Salem Witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts. The movie stars Daniel Day- Lewis as John Proctor a farmer and a seemingly kind gentleman in the beginning of the movie but I won't try to spoil anything for those who haven't seen the movie. Miller's play was both interesting and suspenseful but the movie didn't live up to the play as much, to me Daniel Day-Lewis is the essential John Proctor. The movie also other great cast members as well such as Joan Allen (in an Oscar nominated performance) as Porctor's wife Elizabeth, Paul Scofield as Judge Danforth, Winona Ryder as Abigail but to be honest I thought her performance was a little over the top, Bruce Davison as Rev. Samuel Parris, and so many more. Hytner's direction and Miller's Oscar nominated screenplay are well worth watching unfold this is up there with some of the best period films I have ever seen. Though it isn't a great movie it was a near-masterpiece in my view, and Daniel Day-Lewis gave one of the finest performances of his entire career in this movie. This is one of the best movies of 1996.

A feverish performance by Wynona Ryder as Puritan temptress Abigail, plus a broodingly sexy turn by Daniel Day-Lewis as the wandering husband John Proctor, plus a dozen standout performances from a perfectly chosen supporting cast of all ages, all fall just short of bringing Arthur Miller's insistently simplistic anti-Black List anti-McCarthyite fable to life.Arthur Miller has no feeling for language, and no gift for characterization. What he does well is to create a story that makes audiences feel empowered because they can "see through" the characters. In the case of The Crucible, it's clear from the beginning that Abigail is just a slut, Elizabeth Proctor is a cold, humorless nag, and poor put-upon John Proctor is a "decent" man unjustly hated by women who expect him to value them for something other than the pleasures of the bed! Ironically, what comes across most strongly in Miller's version of the Salem witch trials is not the fanaticism of the Puritans but his own loathing for women and girls. He's actually a much "better" Puritan than the Puritans he denounces. His hero seduces a teenage girl, ruins her virtue, then acts a martyr's part when she turns against him! John Proctor wants to have complete authority over the women in his life, wife, mistress and servant girl alike. Yet never once does he show the slightest regard for their feelings or the slightest respect for their intelligence.In particular, note how John Proctor systematically uses bullying and the threat of violence to force timid, weak-willed Mary Warren (a sensational turn by the sadly unappreciated Karron Graves) into testifying against Abigail in court. Not for one minute do you believe that John Proctor has any real concern about what happens to Mary. Once his wife is off the hook he's going to go right back to kicking, beating, and screwing his servant girls whenever the spirit moves him. But this is Arthur Miller's "hero." Oh, and check out his neo-Existentialist rambling when the chips are down. "I f***ed a sixteen year old girl. Therefore, THERE IS NO GOD!" You wish.And they wonder why kids in high school won't read.

The Crucible Without the witch trials, Salem wouldn't be able to exploit the hanging of innocent citizens for profit.But as this drama depicts, they happened, so fridge magnets are perfectly respectful.In 1692, the single women of Salem assemble in the forest and cast love spells on their crushes.One such witch is Abigail (Winona Ryder), a former nanny to Elizabeth Proctor (Joan Allen), whose unfaithful husband John (Daniel Day-Lewis) now bares the brand of her blood-bound enchantment.Later, the girls are accused of witchery. But Abigail convinces them to feign possession, brought upon them by townsfolk who practice the dark arts.The accused, including Goody Proctor, are then tried for sorcery.Based on Arthur Miller's prominent play, this well-acted, all-star adaptation adheres to historical accuracy amid an adulterous love triangle that tests one man's newfound fidelity.As for avoiding the gallows, just get a witch doctor to declare you insane.Yellow Light vidiotreviews.blogspot.ca