Cinema Paradiso

Ass-Headed Bottom: I had a crappy mid-afternoon nap-dream--I won't dignify it with the title of nightmare--in which I hocked my cherished sentimentality for an over-intellectualized idolatry for a silent French guy in a fedora smoking a cigarette next to a bird. Fortunately, then I woke up. Slothrop calls Cinema Paradiso--get this now--"a turgid piece of shit." Lurid! Can't even imagine what Koko would call it. I call it the only movie I know equally gorgeous when watched with one's lover or one's mother. That's enough to make today's American male uncomfortable, and also enough to reassure me that movies aren't always a waste of time and eyestrain...

Slothrop:  Has the world gone crazy!!!?? If I wanted to waste three (!!!!!!!!!!!!!) hours of my life, again, there's still the orange button on guitar hero. This movie is not only dull, but is a plethora of sentimental grog that makes my tummy hurt just thinking about it. It is Amarcord without a brain and without real tenderness for the people that live in its world--why? Because cardboard cut-outs walking around and jabbering for three hours is a sign the director, too, would rather be mastering the orange button instead of his own craft. To you ludicrous sentimental fools (btw, Ass-Head, those who endorse Cinema Paradiso also endorse Wings of Desire. That's right! You, too, are now a german circus clown who believes in angels) who are able to  tolerate this movie, I insist you watch Amarcord. Then watch this cotton candy machine and try not to engage in an involuntary protein spill. 

Ass-Headed Bottom: Three hours? Movie's two hours. I think you probably watched the shitty director's cut with all kinds of nonsense like the love-interest showing up again instead of simply never showing up again. In other words, the version in which cheap sentimentality spoils the properly edited version's perfectly-pitched, surprisingly-often-frustrated sentimentality. So, one moral of this story: never watch the director's cut, except in obscure cases in which the original editing is unforgivable. Editing exists for a reason; the director's cut is too frequently the sad ruination of a movie that kicked ass back in the day (e.g. Apocalypse Now [omigod!], as opposed to Apocalypse Now Redux [whywhywhywhywhy?!]). And by the way I reserve my right to detest pretentious garbage like Wings of Desire while continuing to enjoy a movie that closes with a whole bunch of perfectly spontaneous, perfectly anonymous, and perfectly beautiful (there's your word, you aesthete-hole) French-kissing. You're the one who had a choice between Italian sentimentality and German hackery, and you chose to equate them, which is, my friend, your loss.

Slothrop: If you're going to be a wet candle and not warn me against such toxic poison, then at least be consistent in your rhetoric. The choice, apparently, was between "the shitty director's cut with all kinds of nonesense" and "german hackery." My choosing to equate them is due to the skills I learned in Ms. Zelinsky's algebra class, and that woman knew how to teach math. So go back and relearn your 8th grade arithmetic, Ass-Head. The equation is correct.