A Night at the Movies: The Gigantic World of Epics (2009 TV Movie) User Reviews

Too many films, too little time...but interesting...

[Doylenf · 7/10 · 7 December 2011]

A NIGHT AT THE MOVIES: THE GIGANTIC WORLD OF EPICS (2009) manages to squeeze an awful lot of clips from some notable epic films into an hour of running time.

The format almost works, except that it mainly goes back and forth between three films: GONE WITH THE WIND, THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI and THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. Each time it starts to get into some interesting trivia about the making of the film, it goes on to another film and then still another before returning to the original discussion on the first film. This back and forth technique gets tiresome before the hour is out.

For fans of epic films, the clips are very interesting and in addition there are "on the set" moments illustrated with still photos of behind-the-scenes action taking place during filming. From that standpoint, the documentary is a success. Especially interesting are the remarks on GONE WITH THE WIND and the change of directors (and other anecdotes) which most film fans may be familiar with.

Fair At Best

[Michael_Elliott · 26 September 2011]

Night at the Movies, A: The Gigantic World of Epics (2009)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

The second entry in TCM's series is slightly better than the previous one but once again, trying to fit hundreds of movies into 60-minutes isn't really a good idea. In the documentary we start off learning that D.W. Griffith created the epic (not totally true) and then Cecil B. DeMille carried the torch until the likes of David Lean and up to Kevin Costner. This series, so far, has been extremely hit and miss and again I think trying to fit an entire genre into such a short running time is going to cost all sorts of problems. Here we have countless films and filmmakers being overlooked while others get too much of the spotlight. GONE WITH THE WIND, THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI and DeMille's remake of THE TEN COMMANDMENTS get the most attention, which is fine considering these are classic films but we also miss out on hearing about countless others. In fact, unless you don't know what an epic is then I doubt you're going to learn too much from this thing as it's pretty simple and straight-forward to the point where I'm sure most film buffs are going to know the stories being told here and perhaps seen the majority of the films. Steven Spielberg, Kenneth Branagh, Omar Sharif, Melvyn Stokes, Rudy Behlmer and John Milius are a few of the people interviewed as well as the children or relatives of Charlton Heston, DeMille and Anthony Mann.