MOST VALUABLE PLAYERS ON DVD
MOST VALUABLE PLAYERS ON DVD
MOST VALUABLE PLAYERS ON DVD#1
Posted: 2/23/12 at 10:15am
The award-winning documentary about high school musical theater is now available on DVD at all online retailers (like Amazon) and at iTunes for digital purchase or rental.
The movie made its TV premiere on OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network last September and follows three high school theater troupes en route to the "Freddy Awards," the Tony Awards for high school musicals.
TV GUIDE calls the film "charming and disarming...A genuine treat." STAR MAGAZINE gives it 3 1/2 out of 4 stars saying, "If you ever did theater in high school, you'll find it irresitable." The movie won many awards including the prestigious "Documentary Channel Audience Award" at the Nashville Film Festival.
The DVD bonus features include eight additional minutes not seen on OWN, nine deleted scenes, a reunion show with cast members, filmmaker commentary and more.
Here's a link to the trailer:
http://www.mostvaluableplayersmovie.com/hi-def-trailer
And a link to its Amazon page:
MOST VALUABLE PLAYERS at AMAZON
MOST VALUABLE PLAYERS ON DVD #2
Posted: 2/26/12 at 11:49am
Above review is from Star Magazine.
Here's a DVD review by Gary Drezka from MovieCityNews.com
Touted as a charter presentation of Oprah’s Documentary Club, the joyous “Most Valuable Players” DVD can stand on its merits as a marvelously entertaining evening of musical theater. It shouldn’t take Oprah’s imprimatur to attract attention to such a worthwhile film, but if a little high-octane clout clears a path for it in stores, so be it. Imagine “Glee,” if it were actually sung, danced and acted by kids of high school age. That’s “Most Valuable Players.” The documentary chronicles the excitement that precedes the 2008 Freddy Award ceremony, at which high school theater departments in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley compete for prizes in several divisions. In a sense, it is to the Tonys what a needle is to a haystack. For the kids, though, it’s everything. They rehearse and perform with the same passion and dedication as any athletic team in the sports-crazy region. Parents, fellow students and teachers get as pumped up by the competition as the participants in the show. For all I know, this sort of thing happens everywhere in the U.S. and I simply am unaware of such contests, which can’t be cheap to produce.
What possibly differentiates what happens in Lehigh Valley from most other school districts is the attention paid to the kids and competition by the local media. The nominations are announced on local television as if they matter as much as the results of a football or basketball tournament, which they do. The ceremony not only is produced within an inch of the Tony, Emmy and Oscar awards presentations, it also manages to be far more fun and enjoyable to watch. Filmmakers Christopher Lockhart and Matthew Kallis discovered the Freddy competition while looking for something else on YouTube and made viewers care very much about the kids, teachers and their individual stories. The DVD adds an update on the participants, three years later.
Here's Matt Roush's TV GUIDE review from September 2011:
Sleeper of the Week: Like a real-life Glee, and possibly the most charming and disarming documentary since BBC America's The Choir last summer, the OWN Documentary Club presents Most Valuable Players (9/8c), which puts the spotlight on the "Freddy Awards," a yearly competition for high school musical theater in the Lehigh Valley (Pa.) region. This 90-minute film tracks three high schools as they put on their shows — the rivalry intensified when two schools decide to do Les Miz — then sweat out the nominations and awards. The camaraderie among the theater kids is touching and funny, and the emotion is palpable when the awards' ebullient coordinator is diagnosed with cancer but is determined to present the award for that year's outstanding musical production. I can't remember when I last enjoyed a Tony broadcast this much. A genuine treat.
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