Product ReviewsCinema Paradiso (DVD, 1988)

Italian Gem with indelible characters

I have loved this film since the first time I saw it and wanted a copy of the film to add to my expansive collection. I was interested in seeing the Director's Cut which I watched but agreed that the theatrical release was the best version. The Director's cut expanded on the protagonist's lost love which diminished its impact. I am pleased to have this beautiful film in my DVD library.Read full review...

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Less Is More, More Is Less

The original version is a gem and the Director's Cut in comparison is a disaster. The value of good film editing makes all the difference in the world between a great film and an over-extended soap opera. The extra hour of the unedited version shows why those scenes were cut in the first place....degrading to the quality of the film, melodramatic, and unrealistic. If that was the Directors version of how it should have been edited, he should stick to directing and leave the editing to editors.Read full review...

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Cinema Paradiso- 89 Academy Award for best Foerign Film

there is nothing to dislike about this movie... it is haunting, poignant, charming,and rich with love,life,and even death. It is one of the top five movies I truly love. The Director`s cut, btw, has the intended ending... how he comes face to face with Elena again.
Both versions of this movie are exemplary... but the original leaves you wondering,thinking,pondering,not only about things in the movie, but parallels of everyday life,concerning everyman`s One That Got Away...on another level, it is an homage to the love of movies itself, what with that montage of romantic clips at the end, it is one of the most emotional rides you will ever find in cinema. Also in there is some of the most romantic prose I have ever heard,one of the most defining kisses ever recorded in the history of film, and a rich portrayal of deep characters, as we watch them age over the decades.
Cinema Paradiso is one of the most gorgeous movies you will ever hope to see. This stuff melts the hardest of hearts. Phillipe Noiret delivered the best performance that year in acting.His portrayal of Alfredo, the aging and subsequently blind projectionist who steers his young protege` into a life of movie-making, is what makes me appreciate just what a Good Actor really is. This is 5-stars out of five, literally, cinematic art.Read full review...

A Movie to Fall in Love With

One of my ten favorite movies--this is an evocative, funny, sad, poignant
coming-of-age film. A successful filmmaker returns to his impoverished boyhood home in Sicily to attend the funeral of his mentor, friend, and father-substitute who saw him through his childhood,guided him to follow his passion for movies, and banned him from Giancaldo, their dust bowl town with no future.
Told as a flashback, this simple film is centered on the relationship between these two characters. At Alfredo's knee, next to the Cinema Paradiso projector, Toto learns about life, love, movies, sex, disappointments, loyalty, longings and the central importance of this friendship that formed the child who became a successful middle aged director without personal satisfaction. His return to his roots after 30 years' absence draws into sharp focus the town, the same people--just older, the same crazy old guy "closing" the streets at night, declaring the town square his, and the Cinema Paradiso, lying in disrepair about to be razed. In this case it's: so far and yet so near. As far as he's traveled in time, place, and status, he's instantly transported back in time--but with the hindsight the passing years have given him. Watching his first film taken of his first and only real love, and watching Alfredo's bequest of a compilation of all the kisses and love scenes the town priest had years ago censored, he is moved to his core at the reminder of his past, his losses, and the price he paid for success. As the credits roll, there is a glimpse of that girl, now 30 years older, browsing in a store , no doubt in his proximity, and you can't help but wonder if he'll get it right now.Read full review...

A moving experience

This is truly one of the best movies ever made. It is my second favorite movie of all time, after The Secret in their Eyes (El secreto de sus ojos).
Cinema Paradiso is truly a beautiful film. The direction, acting, photography, and story are combined to create a gem of cinematography. I bought this copy to use it in my film high school class.Read full review...

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The Joy of Cinema

One movie critic described the Italian "Cinema Paradiso" as a "love letter to cinema". That is indeed true, but it is a love letter to the movie lover in us all as well. A letter we would all love to send one back to, if given the opportunity. This is my love letter to "Cinema Paradiso". What is so striking about this film is how, in many ways, it breaks many film traditions. The film feels like a strange mix of biography and fantasy. The viewer is enthralled with the wonderful characters that inhabit this small Italian town, who grow and evolve along with the film. Although the film centers on the growth and maturation of Toto - played by three different actors corresponding to childhood, adolescence and adulthood - the best part of the film is Alfredo, the projector operator and father figure to Toto. Alfredo is one of the very few characters that can simultaneously make the viewer feel the heights of joy with the pangs of sadness. Indeed, it was Alfredo who made me weep at the end of the film due to this strange, beautiful combination that made this wonderful piece of film-making my absolute favorite film.Read full review...

THE NIGHT THE GOLDEN STATE THEATER BURNED DOWN

The City of Riverside, California began a monthly film Festival at the Historic Fox Theater which hosted many movie premiere's over the years including the first showing of David O Selznick's "Gone With The Wind". The first film to be shown in the newly formed Friday night movie Festival in Riverside at the FOX Theater was to be "Cinema Paradiso".

The show started around 7PM and ended at about 9PM. During that time period the Golden State Theater in the next block toward the Mission Inn Hotel caught fire.

When I left the FOX Theater I could see all the Fire Trucks in front of the Golden State Theater, as the fire was in its' infancy. I was informed a fire had started in the building 2 weeks earlier and it was obviously arson. They assured me they could put it out and save this very Historic Golden State Theater.

Sadly, that was not the case as someone called in and told the Fire Dept. to do a controlled burn on the Golden State Theater building. That simply means to keep the existing fire in control and burn the building down so they would not have to tear it down. The Golden State was one of the most Historic Theater's in California and one of the oldest.

Sadly, only a parking lot is now where the Golden State Theater (aka Boring Opera House) once stood. Oddly, another Historic Film was shown at the Golden State Theater around 1915, D. W. Griffith's "The Birth of A Nation".

That is what happened in the movie "Cinema Paradiso". The movie Theatre in the film burns down at the end.

Oddly, the same thing was happening in the next block while I sat and watched "Cinema Paradiso". A very sad night to remember.Read full review...

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Great classic Italian movie!

It is a pleasure to experience this movie particularly with its many moving scenes both subtle and direct. Very glad to have the directors version as well as it adds back some key parts to the conculsion of the story. Read full review...

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MIndblowingly beautiful, painfully touching, unique.

WHat can you say about the most touching and life changing piece of art I have ever seen. I think and believe it is a complete and brutal look at life as we choose not to see it. It is a look into the weak and emotionally raw part of the soul which looks for safety and warmth. It stares at the hardest times of humans life directly in the eyes and pulls out the most tender and beautiful moments that accompany lifes tragedies. Astounding cinematography, masterful acting and better direction and music you will never find. Hope you take this film to heart and fall in love with it as much as I did.Read full review...

Don’t get the Director’s Cut

The Director’s cut is really bad, self-indulgent waste of time. Sadly it has negatively affected how I view the original. Just buy the original and stay away from the double DVD collections.

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