This article contains Once Upon a Time in America spoilers.
The Godfather is a great movie, possibly the best ever made. Its sequel, The Godfather, Part II, often follows it in the pantheon of classic cinema, some critics even believe it is the better film. Robert Evans, head of production at Paramount in the early 1970s, wanted The Godfather to be directed by an Italian American. Francis Ford Coppola was very much a last resort. The studio’s first choice was Sergio Leone, but he was getting ready to make his own gangster epic, Once Upon a Time in America. Though less known, it is equally magnificent.
Robert De Niro, as David “Noodles” Aaronson, and James Woods, as Maximillian “Max” Bercovicz, make up a dream gangster film pairing in Once Upon a Time in America, on par with late 1930s audiences seeing Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney team for The Roaring Twenties...
The Godfather is a great movie, possibly the best ever made. Its sequel, The Godfather, Part II, often follows it in the pantheon of classic cinema, some critics even believe it is the better film. Robert Evans, head of production at Paramount in the early 1970s, wanted The Godfather to be directed by an Italian American. Francis Ford Coppola was very much a last resort. The studio’s first choice was Sergio Leone, but he was getting ready to make his own gangster epic, Once Upon a Time in America. Though less known, it is equally magnificent.
Robert De Niro, as David “Noodles” Aaronson, and James Woods, as Maximillian “Max” Bercovicz, make up a dream gangster film pairing in Once Upon a Time in America, on par with late 1930s audiences seeing Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney team for The Roaring Twenties...
- 9/7/2021
- by David Crow
- Den of Geek
A macabre and heartbreaking tale has been unfolding in Boyle Heights, East Los Angeles: the mystery began in July of 2010, after 80-year-old grandmother Maria de Jesus Arroyo was pronounced dead of a heart attack; a few days later, she was found in a hospital morgue in a shocking state – covered in cuts and bruises, lying face-down in a shredded body bag. Arroyo's relatives filed a wrongful death lawsuit against White Memorial Medical Center, claiming that the injuries were not present at the time she was admitted to the hospital, and that she had been zipped into the shroud and placed in a morgue drawer while she was still alive. “She must have got the wounds while her heart was pumping,” says the family's attorney, Scott Schutzman, based on medical evidence that surfaced in 2011. “[S]he was fighting her way out.” According to NBC4 News, a California appeals court has allowed the lawsuit to move forward,...
- 4/7/2014
- by Gregory Burkart
- FEARnet
Sergio Leone’s epic coming-of-age crime saga has been screaming out for a high definition transfer since the birth of blu-ray, not only for it’s stunning cinematography but because blu-ray is the only format that can contain Once Upon a Time in America’s epic three hour fifty minute running time!
Making a seamless transition from the western to the gangster genre, Sergio Leone undertook what is probably still the most thorough and thought-provoking depiction of prohibition era criminality ever exposed to celluloid. Documenting a fifty year journey for it’s central character ‘Noodles’ (Robert De Niro) – Once Upon a Time in America delves more darkly and deeply into the spiral-like path of becoming an underworld icon.
The film moves back and forth from Noodles’ childhood where he meets his life long friend and criminal partner Max (James Woods) to the height of power in prohibition era New York to his contemplative old age.
Making a seamless transition from the western to the gangster genre, Sergio Leone undertook what is probably still the most thorough and thought-provoking depiction of prohibition era criminality ever exposed to celluloid. Documenting a fifty year journey for it’s central character ‘Noodles’ (Robert De Niro) – Once Upon a Time in America delves more darkly and deeply into the spiral-like path of becoming an underworld icon.
The film moves back and forth from Noodles’ childhood where he meets his life long friend and criminal partner Max (James Woods) to the height of power in prohibition era New York to his contemplative old age.
- 2/24/2011
- by Paul Cook
- Obsessed with Film
Sergio Leone.s claim to fame may be his spaghetti westerns, but towards the end of his career he helmed this gangster masterwork. Sadly, it was butchered on its Us release and in recent years has been revealed to be the maestro.s final masterpiece. We follow a group of kids from a Jewish neighborhood (not exactly the stereotypical Italian gangsters), .Noodles. (Scott Tiler), Max (Rusty Jacobs), Patsy (Brian Bloom), .Cockeye. (Adrian Currie), and Dominic (Noah Mozelli), in the 1920s. Noodles loves Deborah (Jennifer Connelly, in her debut) from afar, but their ambitions and social standing make their romance improbable. The group begins to get more into crime and a rival gang leader causes the death of Dominic...
- 1/10/2011
- by Jeff Swindoll
- Monsters and Critics
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