Once Upon a Time in America (Two-Disc Special Edition)
by Sergio Leone
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Actor: Elizabeth McGovern, James Woods, Robert De Niro, Treat Williams, Tuesday WeldDirector: Sergio Leone
Brand: Warner Brothers
Writer: Enrico Medioli
Writer: Ernesto Gastaldi
Writer: Franco Arcalli
Writer: Franco Ferrini
Writer: Harry Grey
Writer: Leonardo Benvenuti
Writer: Piero De Bernardi
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); French (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, NTSC, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 229 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-06-10
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Warner Home Video
DVD Reviews of Once Upon a Time in America (Two-Disc Special Edition)
DVD Review: Leone's "Godfather" Version, And About As Good
Summary: 5 Stars
This Godfather-type film was done by Sergio Leone, of spaghetti-western fame, so you know you will see and experience several of his trademarks. Namely: (1) a lot of facial closeups; (2) some slow-motion or slow-moving dramatic scenes; (3) good overall photography and (4) a unique soundtrack.
The period sets here are magnificent. You get a real feel of the time, whether it's 1910, 1933 or 1967. The colors are awash in blacks, browns and grays and the DVD brings all these out very well, especially considering the film is 25 years old. Now the next step is a Blu-Ray version.
This is a fascinating film to watch for the story, too. There are numerous memorable scenes, some of them involving some downright shocking violence, even for today's movies. However, the amount of violence is less than what you often see today in crime films.
The movie also sports an interesting twist near the end involving the two major characters, played by Robert De Niro and James Woods. The story is not always clear, either, so be prepared to be possibly confused about a few things....at least on the first viewing. Intense actors such as the two men just mentioned, along with Elizabeth McGovern, Tuesday Weld, Joe Pecsi, Burt Young, Treat Williams and more, just add to the five-star rating of this movie.
The child actors in here take up almost half the movie and are excellent. What an injustice they don't receive any publicity for their acting, especially the kids who played De Niro and Woods as youngsters. One of the girls has become a famous adult actress: Jennifer Connelly. She was 12 years old in this film and was already alluring.
This is Godfather-type crime movie that ranks right up there with that famous film, not taking a back seat to it at all.
DVD Review: Once Upon a Time in an Editing Room...
Summary: 3 Stars
This movie is almost 5 hours long. For most movies, a running time half of that is pushing it. I fell asleep at some point in the film. At which point? I have no idea, because the movie flip-flops all over the place. For example, after having watched the movie I had no idea that Noodles' girl in Florida poolside is the same one murdered in the first scene...until I read some Amazon reviews here. It's hard to follow.
But...there are a lot of great scenes. My friends and I were screaming at that stupid kid for eating that cake for example. That's great stuff. A lot of great violent scenes (the opener for starters...even now in 2009 it was shocking to me, and I've seen everything!). The 2nd rape scene has really stuck with me. Powerful stuff. And lots of others too.
It's packed with a lot of great stuff. But some of the scenes were unnecessarily slow. You'll be watching and DeNiro will be looking or walking around a room...quite slowly...all while this annoying, repetitive music plays (I have no idea why the score has been praised...it's among the most annoying scores I've heard, up there with Doctor Zhivago and Eyes Wide Shut).
It's a great big mess. But there's enough greatness in this big mess for me to recommend it to anyone not too scared off by the prospect of a 5 hour gangster epic.
I'd definitely see it again. So three stars it is.
DVD Review: De Niro and Woods deliver the best performances in a remarkable cast...
Summary: 4 Stars
Leone's most ambitious epic moves across three separate time periods: the twenties, the thirties and the late sixties...
It starts in 1933, with the murder of a woman after merciless gangsters have briefly interrogate her (while Noodles hides out in an opium den), then returns to the disastrous night of the bloody betrayal, then jumps to Noodles' return to New York in 1968, then shifts back to the early 1920s to their adolescence... This display in a series of flashbacks and flash-forwards is used throughout the film, until the climax where all the dissociated parts of the story fall into place...
"Once Upon a Time in America" tells the story of five precocious teenagers born in Brooklyn and the Bronx, Noodles (Robert DeNiro), Max (James Woods), Patsy (James Hayden), Cockeye (William Forsythe), and Dominic (Noah Moazezi), the youngest...
As kids in 1921 Prohibition New York, they take only superficial interest in minor street crime, spoiling things or stealing from drunks, until they start running their own rackets...
Noodles is sexually attracted to Deborah (Jennifer Connelly/Elizabeth McGovern), the mesmerizing ballet dancer, sister of their loyal friend Fat Moe (Larry Rapp), the son of a saloon-keeper... But the gang's rivalry with Bugsy (James Russo), another street hoodlum, leads to Dominic being fatally wounded and Noodles going to jail for years for taking a bloody revenge in a blind rage...
When Noodles is released from prison a decade later, Max was there with a car and a hooker... Noodles joins his three pals, who have become prosperous by continuing in the crime world including entwining with unions and the strikers, led by their leader Jimmy Conway (Treat Williams)...
The four best friends accept to assault a jeweler in Detroit, for a major mafioso Frankie Minoldi (Joe Pesci), and his sidekick Joe (Burt Young)... And at the end of Prohibition in 1933, the top mob criminals find themselves having gathered $1 million...
In their vacation in Miami, Noodles was highly worried that Max's next plan is a step too dangerous to take and too risky...
The most tragic and moving part of the film is probably the romantic obsessions of Noodles... Noodles and Deborah have deep and strong affinity for one another... Noodles feels he has the right to Deborah's feelings, but she closed herself to him years ago when he responded Max's call over her own... Noodles seem unaware of her decision... Their meeting in 1968 only communicates what could have been...
In one memorable scene, young Patsy (Brian Bloom) is awaiting for a young hooker... Her price is a fancy frosted cake... While awaiting, Patsy attentively observes the cake and recognizes he can scoop some of the white cream without damaging it... Tempted by the good taste of the cream, he devours entirely the cake on the staircase and forgets the girl... Here we felt the kid's innocence and hesitancy between pastry over sex...
Friendship, innocence, trust, passion, honor, betrayal, and guilt are the most important basis on which Leone's encircles his masterpiece...
DVD Review: Spagetti Director
Summary: 5 Stars
This is one of a number of Sergio Leone movies. I love them all, this I found almost by mistake after "Once upon a time in the West". The other movies he did with Clint Eastwood, as far as I'm concerned are classic gold. One indicator of how good this "Once upon a time in America" is,,,it came out in 1984, still cost 22 buck and I paid shipping.DVD Review: Brilliant masterpiece
Summary: 5 Stars
I remember watching this movie as a young girl on HBO. Through the rose colored glasses of youth I watched and was awed and completely mesmerized by the story unfolding. Not until I purchased this film recently did I really see the movie for what it really was. The most beautiful part of the film is the music score by Ennio Morricone. Hauntingly tragic music that helps keep the movie moving. I really wish the ending had been different. But overall the movie is still stirring and definately gave Martin Scorsese something to reinvent with Gangs of New York.
Description of Once Upon a Time in America (Two-Disc Special Edition)
Ten years in planning Sergio Leone's epic Once upon a Time in America portrays 50 years of riveting underworld history and offers rich roles to a remarkable cast. Robert De Niro and James Woods play lifelong Lower East Side pals whose wary partnership unravels in death and mystery. Strong support comes from Tuesday Weld Joe Pesci Jennifer Connelly Elizabeth McGovern and the young actors playing the central characters as ghetto kids. To see this film (offered for the first time in the full version 1984 Cannes Film Festival audiences cheered) is "to be swept away by the assurance and vitality of a great director making his final statement in a medium he adored" (Kenneth Turan Los Angeles Times).Running Time: 229 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre:?DRAMA Rating:?R UPC:?085393190927 Manufacturer No:?31909This movie has a checkered history, having been chopped from its original 227-minute director's cut to 139 minutes for its U.S. release. This longer edition benefits from having the complete story (the short version has huge gaps) about turn-of-the-century Jewish immigrants in America finding their way into lives of crime, as told in flashback by an aging Jewish gangster named Noodles (Robert De Niro). On the other hand, it's almost four hours long, and this sometimes-indulgent Sergio Leone film is no Godfather. Still, it is notable for the contrast between Leone's elegiac take on the gangster film and his occasional explosive action, as well as for the mix of the stoic, inexpressive De Niro and the hyperactive James Woods as his lifelong friend and rival. --Marshall Fine
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