[Tiny Review] Cinema Paradiso

pinback · Post by **pinback** » Mon May 23, 2005 9:02 pm

It was Psychology 101, a $25-a-credit course at Northern Virginia Community College, 1988. Here was your boy, snoozing away in the back of the class, when the teacher gave us an offer: Go see Cinema Paradiso, and we'd get an automatic A on the next test.

Well, it took me 17 years, but I finally got it done. WHERE'S MY A, BITCH

Anyhoo: A sappy, somewhat disjointed, but generally jovial and delightful film about the Love of the Movies. A "Babette's Feast", with celluloid instead of demi-glace. The final scene is one of the greatest (and yet most obligatory) final scenes in movie history.

Also, contains one of my new favorite lines: "There comes a time when things are the same whether you talk or not. So why not just shut up."

That's how I've felt most of the last year/life.

Anyway. Worse ways to spend a couple hours. ***.

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Mon May 23, 2005 9:24 pm

Sounds like something for hipsters. She should have given you an "A" for being able to quote old movies.

Since I'll never, ever watch this -- how would you describe the final scene?

pinback · Post by **pinback** » Mon May 23, 2005 9:31 pm

SPOILER WARNING

GAY-ASS WARNING

In the beginning, the guy is a little kid, sneaking into the projection booth. The Catholic priest running the town watches all the movies ahead of time and insists on the old projectionist (who the little kid learns to love) snipping out all the kissing (and otherwise naughty) scenes in all the movies they show. The kid asks if he can take the little snippings home to look at through candlelight and get his jollies. The gruff but lovable projectionist refuses.

At the end, the little kid is an older man now, and the gruff but lovable projectionist has died. But the projectionist left him a present. A roll of film.

He sets up the film in a theater and sits there by himself to watch.

And there, on the screen, are all the old kissing scenes, spliced together.

AWWWWWWWWwwwwwwwww.

bruce · Post by **bruce** » Tue May 24, 2005 7:52 am

pinback wrote:And there, on the screen, are all the old kissing scenes, spliced together.

Are they interspliced with shots of the priest's wang? Because if not, it's just not very naturalistic.

Bruce

pinback · Post by **pinback** » Tue May 24, 2005 7:54 am

Bruce, why do you have to take everything beautiful, and turn it into something horrible and ugly?