Customer Reviews
Jonathan Livingston Seagull 
2008-09-26
This is the worst "Preview" I have ever seen. I wanted to decide whether or not to buy this DVD movie and all you showed me were the titles. Is there vocales? Are they songs or speech, characters talking to each other?Is someone "reading" the book and CGI figures follow the script. If it's read, who reads it. I used to have a cassette of Richard Harris reading the book, it was wonderful...but I have lost it. Do you have sonething like that. Show me previews with some meat about what the DVD is really like, not just the credits. I want to buy, but not sight unseen.
My favorite "non-greatest hits" album from Neil Diamond 
2008-08-11
I've had this CD for over 20 years now. It's a masterpiece in its own right. When you listen to a Neil Diamond song, you are focused on that one song as a great moment for Neil, even if the rest of his album may not impress you. But this album of "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" is something to be cherished from Neil Diamond as a whole concept, a project.
On this album, Neil Diamond's voice really is only merely another instrument in what can easily be perceived as an instrumental album. Although he sings or speaks on most of the tracks here, it's the instrumentation that makes this album more than just another Neil Diamond album. Two tracks barely charted on the radio from this album. The song "Be" charted #34, and "Skybird" even lower at #75. But the album charted #2 for one week, and it happens to be Neil Diamond's highest charting album of all time. So, what does that tell ya?
I'm surprised that an effort hasn't been made to remaster this album so that the orchestration can be made fuller and more glorified.
I've never seen the movie and I'm hearing mixed reviews on the film being either a great movie achievement or just a dull passage of non-exciting events that portray the life of a single seagull.
Well, whether the movie is great or not, this album is definitely a masterpiece. It came out in 1973. Alot of fantastic albums came out of 1973. The year for ground-breaking starts for many artists. Pink Floyd, Elton John, Abba, Paul McCartney and Wings, Steve Miller Band, etc. etc.
And even some more brave Pioneers of Technical Sound Invention got recognized in 1973, like Emerson Lake and Palmer, Tangerine Dream, Rick Wakeman, Mike Oldfield.....
Yeah, I know I drifted here, but you'd have to agree that Neil Diamond couldn't have release this album at a better time than the glorious year of 1973. And just after he left MCA to sign on with Columbia.
I'll bet that MCA cried that year. Because Columbia also picked up Pink Floyd the following year and they really began to soar.
But, too bad Neil's music wasn't maintaining its appeal after "Jonathan Livingston Seagull". Sure, he was still putting out hits, but he just wasn't that Aggressive Jewish Folk Rock Vocalist that he once was. I think he "Barry Manilow'd" on us and was performing "wussy pop suicide" which could only appeal to listeners his age and older. Much older.
"The Jazz Singer" was a remotely interesting comeback in 1980. But, I think nearly everything else on pop radio was pretty weak in 1980. 1980 was a bad year for everybody in music. 1981 and 1982 were pretty decent but MTV changed everything about how we listened to music.
Jeez, I can still go on and on, but I think I better end this review right here.
This story will change your life forever... 2008-07-20
This story will change your life forever, if you understand the message.
I read this book and saw the movie as a student in the 8th grade. This book has a very strong meaning and has helped me to make a difference in my life. This book has remained as my favorite book, to this day. I still love to read it. Jonathan Livingston Seagull is my role model. I feel that this story also helped me to develop strong charisma in my life.
I strongly recommend this book for class readings for anyone with students age 12 or older. I am very thankful to my teacher, Mrs. Jimenez, for sharing this book with her class and me.
jonathan 2008-06-05
I absolutely love Neil Diamond as a singer/songwriter since I was 16 and now am 56. I had the Jonathan Livingston Seagull music as an album when it first came out. I have always loved the music and especially, when he plays it in concert. So, naturally, I love this cd.
A Diamond Constantly Above the Crowd 2008-05-25
It's good to see the renewed interest in Neil Diamond's work. Although most people know him via his hits during the 60s, 70s and early 80s, this album is completely different from most of his other recordings.
I heard this album the first time a few years after its release and despite a young age got hooked on it. It has a majestic feel all over, as if it flew over the musical landscape of its period, and probably would do the same even if being released today. One could claim that it gave signals of the new age sound that later developed. In other words, it has aged remarkably well.
Anyone who has any of his compilations and actually listens to them should not let this Jonathan Livingston pass them by. Even those who do not have any interest in Diamond's other work may enjoy this album. It is timeless and a constant pleasure.
Finally available 
2008-04-24
Jonathan is sick and tired of the boring life in his sea-gull clan. He rather experiments with new always more daring flying techniques. Since he doesn't fit in the elders expel him from the clan. So he sets out to discover the world beyond the horizon in quest for wisdom.System Requirements:Running Time: 109 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: G UPC: 097360872347 Manufacturer No: 087234
A great soundtrack 2008-03-29
Neil Diamond was coming off of his last recording for MCA (Hot August Nights) and he spent several years working on this project. It is different than his other earlier recordings but you have to remember that this is a soundtrack for a movie that did nothing at the box office (based on a book that sold well). Anyway, each song flows into the next and the music takes you a lot further than the movie did.
Wonderful Movie, Crappy conversion to DVD 
2008-03-12
I read the book and I loved it. Then I heard there was a movie about this, so I did some research and found the movie here at amazon. Reading other reviews, it was clear that the conversion to DVD was poorly done.
Well, the reviews are right. The movie is stunning, the story is beautiful, the photography is spectacular, the Soundtrack great, and the sound... Well, the sound is what took two stars away from my review.
Paramount should be ashamed of letting such a wonderful movie, where the soundtrack is basically half of everything, being release with no work at all at the sound quality. Zero, zero. The sound is MONO, and looks like somebody took an old voice recorder into the movie theater hidden in his pocket and recorded the whole thing.
I think this movie deserved a little more time and money dedicated to create a better package.
But still, the movie is worth it. I will complain at Paramount's site about this.
Etherial! 2008-01-29
The soundtrack from Johnathan Livingston Seagull is one of the most beautiful, relaxing celebratory of life CDs I have ever heard. I took my brother's record album when we were young, and I have missed the music since my record collection was ruined in the rain. I would have paid more for this beautiful music.
Needs more Neil, fewer birds 
2008-01-24
This was Neil's first project for Columbia Records, following up his glorious "Moods" album on the MCA label, the one that opens with what would become his signature tune, "Song Sung Blue," and closes out with several songs that seem to hint he was already in "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" mode: "Walk On Water," "Theme," "Prelude in E Major" and "Morningside." Having just listened again to the JLS soundtrack for the umpteenth time, and then having watched the movie for the first time, I would suggest that any ND fans out there who, like me, went decades without seeing JLS should continue avoiding that movie at all costs, and give another listen to "Moods" again.
The main problem with the movie is that Neil ran out of songs about halfway through the film, at which point either there's no sound at all for many long minutes at a time (I exaggerate slightly -- there's the occasional sound of ocean waves crashing into shore), or you get to hear James Franciscus' voiceover as Jonathan. Now, Franciscus was a fine actor in his day, in projects as diverse as "Beneath the Planet of the Apes" and the underrated TV show "Longstreet," but his was not the voice of JLS. Neil should've written another half-dozen songs and they could've had a better movie just with the seagulls flying around and letting Neil narrate/sing the whole thing, kind of like "Tommy" but as a bird opera.
Instead, we get one really good song on the soundtrack, "Be," which you'll notice appears four times out of 12 tracks, so clearly Neil recognized he had a dearth of good material so he had to stretch out the good stuff as far as it would go. "Dear Father" is okay, but feels like it's half-finished, and it appears three times. "Skybird" starts out great, but also feels unfinished, and it appears twice on the soundtrack. See the pattern here? The rest of the songs aren't really even songs -- just snippets of songs. If you want to listen to a well-thought-out spiritual odyssey, then listen to "The African Trilogy" songs on the "Taproot Manuscript" album. Much better stuff.
