DVD : Once Upon a Time in America (Two-Disc Special Edition)
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Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: DVD
Brand: Warner Brothers
EAN: 0085393190927
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Label: Warner Home Video
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Number Of Items: 2
Publisher: Warner Home Video
Region Code: 1
Release Date: June 10, 2003
Running Time: 229 minutes
Sales Rank: 3474
Studio: Warner Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: June 01, 1984
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 04/05/2005 Rating: Nr
Amazon.com essential video:
This 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
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
Once Upon a Time in America (Two-Disc Special Edition)
THE LEADING ACTOR IN SERGIO LEONE'S DREAMING EPIC IS NOT JAMES WOODS NOR IS IT ELIZABETH McGovern; NOR FOR ALL THE EXCELLENCE IN HIS PERFORMANCE, IS IT ROBERT de NIRO. THE MAIN CHARACTER IN THE FILM IS 'TIME'! THE THEME IS ONE THAT HAS ALWAYS FASCINATED MR.LEONE. ONE COULD POINT TO SOME OF THE MORE OBVIOUS SYMBOLS IN HIS EARLIER FILMS LIKE THE HANDLESS CLOCKS THAT LITTER THE LANDSCAPE OF 'ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST' OR THE MUSICAL FOB-WATCH IN 'FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE' THAT WAS A CONTINUOUS REMINDER OF RAPE AND REVENGE AND WAS USED TO TIME THE FINAL SHOOT-OUT!
IN 'ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA', THE ITEM WHICH FIRST BRINGS THE YOUNG NOODLES(de NIRO) AND MAX(JAMES WOODS) TOGETHER IF THEIR LIFE TIME OF CRIME IS A STOLEN POCKET WATCH, AND IT PASSES BETWEEN THEM THROUGHOUT THE FILM AS A KIND OF TALISMAN. MOREOVER, THE ALL-IMPORTANT KEYS THAT CAN OPEN
THE LEFT-LUGGAGE LOCKER, WHERE THE GANG STORE THEIR LOOT ARE HIDDEN IN A GRANDFATHER CLOCK. QUITE LITERALLY, SERGIO LEONE IS SAYING, THE KEY TO THE MYSTERY IS IN THE CLOCK. IN STRICT CHRONOLOGICAL TERMS, THE FILM, IS DIVIDED INTO THREE PHASES. (1)1923: THE ADOLESCENT GANG OF NOODLES, MAX, COCKEYE, DOMINIC AND PATSY IS FORMED ON THE LOWER EAST SIDE OF MANHATTAN.
(2)1933: WHEN AFTER SEVERAL SUCCESSFUL YEARS OF TRADING IN HOOCH, THE END OF PROHIBITION SPELLS AN END TO THE GANG'S ACTIVITIES, AS A RESULT OF WHICH MAX PLANS TO PULL AN AMBITIOUS BANK RAID , AND NOODLES, ... Read More
Rating: -
I had no idea that a movie could be so interesting. It truly is an absorbing and well made movie. All of the characters are unforgettable. Thank you, Sergio Leone.
Rating: -
Great movie. It's quite long and takes a little time to get into it, but it's worth the time.
Rating: -
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: From the Secret Files of Harry Pennypacker
Shadow Watcher
Nobody Drowns in Mineral Lake
I've always felt that, with the exception of THE GODFATHER TRILOGY, Sergio Leone's epic is, by far, the best of the modern gangster films. Butchered by the distributors upon its initial release, the movie was later restored to its nearly 4-hour length and form. It is this extraordinary version that is available on DVD.
"I brought back the key to your clock," says aging hood Robert DeNiro to childhood friend, "Fat Moe" (Larry Rapp), and thus begins a journey into memory. Set to the haunting music of Ennio Morricone, the picture moves back-and-forth in time as the guilt-ridden DeNiro unravels a mystery that has plagued him for more than 35 years.
"You can always tell the winners at the starting gate," he tells Moe, as he contemplates his wasted life. "You can always tell the winners...and the losers."
ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA views the experiences of a group of Jewish mobsters, headed by DeNiro and James Woods, who prosper in New York during Prohibition. We first meet them as teenage hoodlums; follow their colorful, violence-filled exploits into adulthood, until one fateful night that changes all of their lives forever.
Elizabeth McGovern is DeNiro's childhood sweetheart, an aspiring actress who, though she loves him, realizes that this is a bittersweet romance that can never be. Tuesday ... Read More
Rating: -
This is a great film -- in my view it is clearly the best film of the past 25 years. Leone's final cut, the one that played to international audiences, not the butchered format foisted on Americans, has been restored. Incidentally, I do recall going to an artsy neighborhood movie house in 1985 (they still existed back then) and seeing this precise cut. Too bad it was not the one that played on the first-run screens. It should have won best director, best film, and best score -- and DeNiro should have won best actor.
I will have to give spoilers here to explain my reaction to the film. The film is difficult enough as it is, and you can't really discuss it intelligently without getting down to specifics.
The ultimate question raised by Schickel, the commentator on the disk, is whether the movie is simply an opium dream. To support this thesis we have the film ending in the opium den, with DeNiro's smile as the opium rush overcomes him. And this scene is immediately preceded by a very dreamy segment from the future where someone who looks like James Woods' charactor (Max) walks out and disappears behind a garbage truck. Does he jump in? Is it really Max? Well he didn't jump in because the compressor is chewing up lettuce, not body parts, and apparently Leone wanted ambiguity by using a double instead of Woods for the scene and by never showing him clearly. And then these flappers in a car appear out of nowhere with Kate Smith singing "America" in the background ... Read More
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starring: Robert De Niro, James Woods, Elizabeth McGovern, Tuesday Weld, Treat Williams
directed by: Sergio Leone
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Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: DVD
Brand: Warner Brothers
EAN: 0085393190927
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Label: Warner Home Video
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Number Of Items: 2
Publisher: Warner Home Video
Region Code: 1
Release Date: June 10, 2003
Running Time: 229 minutes
Sales Rank: 3474
Studio: Warner Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: June 01, 1984
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