Nobody-27

Don't bother with the average rating of this film. No Man's Land is TERRIBLY underrated. It deserves at least 9 if not 10 stars. Remember, this is not John Ford or European New Wave, or Japanese Kurosawa or cruelty a la Scarface or Godfather. No Man's land is a smart, fun crime/drama in the spirit of Thief, To Live and Die in L. A., Beverly Hills Cop, Top Gun, Midnight Run, and other memorable gems of the 80s. Besides giving us plenty to be entertained with, I was impressed by the performances. Charlie Sheen shines, as does D. B. Sweeney, Randy Quaid, and every other actor in the film. Sweeney's character is truly both impressed and intimidated by Sheen's swaggy, overconfident character. He is even more impressed by Sheen's sister, and the quiet tension that grows between them over the course of 100 min is brilliant. Saying anything more would be spoilers, so rent it, buy it, rob a bank if you can't afford it, but watch this film! Really everything to gain and nothing to criticize. This is brilliant, fun action with a well thought out plot. Too bad the director and writer didn't make more like this one - they sure knew what they were doing when they made No Man's Land. Kudos to Ron Howard for achieving what only Bruckheimer-Simpson team could at the time.

There's not much that hasn't been said about this film. I will not try to convince anyone that this is a great film in almost every way.

However, a film with a major thread being the love story of the protagonist (as reflected and evoked by the amazing last sequence) drops that same thread like it never happened! Why? First, the director put too much of the ending to it in its first incarnation. Then he shortened it, at which point it was great and that was the version I saw. But then, someone convinced the director that the one single second after the credits was still too much (How is tying up loose ends too much?), and that got taken out. What we are left with is a film that has the most stupid ending and after-the-credits revelation ever! We see the protagonist look up at something that gets his attention, and cut to black.

That's it.

If you never saw the version I saw, you are left wondering. "What the heck did just happen? Can I see what he saw also?" No, you can't.

The first time I saw this latest and unfortunately the most popular version of the film, I thought I received an improperly made DVD. But ending was not done in error, it was fully intentional.

Finally, after seeing that the good version is all but non-existent, I had to come here to warn others: yes, there is a great version of "Cinema Paradiso" out there, but no, it is not available anymore. If you can find the 1990s US NTSC VHS tape, you can see it, otherwise, you are out of luck. It is either the new, shortest version of this film with a bad ending, or the original, overly long version with also a bad ending (That version did poorly in theaters which is why it was shortened).

Ah, the ruinous nature of never-ending fiddling with a good film. With the all important one second shot at the end of the credit, right after the protagonist looks up at something, it is a perfect 10. As it is, the film is lacking the single most important shot and does not deserve the praise it gets.

This film is a perfect example of a film too personal and unrelatable to be of any interest to anyone other than the author herself.

Documentaries are usually safe from such errors as they capture the unexpected and the unscripted so the audience gets their share of real-life surprises (Court and Cortney, Sherpa, Capturing Friedmans, come to mind). Even with less successful examples, I have never seen a documentary that didn't provide something of interest.

That's why so far, for me at least, documentaries have been a safe bet. But, as they say, there's a first time for everything, and this is it.

News From Home is a documentary only in the name of the genre that someone attached to it. In reality, this is a protracted read of soulless letters from a mother to her daughter, talking about the mundane and superficial. It may as well have been made into a bad radio drama, as a failed one act attempt. The letters are presented as the filmmakers lifeless voice-over, and are forcefully paired with unrelated images of dead-end streets, loading docks, and bankrupt businesses of 1970's NYC.

Only if you are a masochist who's enjoys being tortured by a monotonous drone describing someone's flu, cost of postage, or father's low blood pressure, you may be able to make it through this film. Otherwise, News From Home was made for one viewer only, the director/writer herself and I am not sure that it was successful at that either.