Gangs of New York (Two-Disc Collector’s Edition)
January 31, 2012 by admin
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Gangs of New York (Two-Disc Collector’s Edition)
This motion picture event from acclaimed director Martin Scorsese earned 10 Academy Award(R) nominations including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor, along with 5 Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, B
List Price: $ 14.99
Price: $ 7.97
Where is the director’s cut?!?!,
One of the big controversies surrounding this film was that Martin Scorcese was forced to cut nearly an hour of footage from his final vision in order to get the studio to release it. That’s understandable, as not many people will be willing to sit through a 4 hour movie in theatres. So with the release of it on DVD, we should get the complete version, right? Well… it doesn’t seem so.
The details on this DVD mention nothing about extra footage. Isn’t one of the benefits of the DVD format that we get to see what the director intended before politics and marketing step in? I for one would like to see the COMPLETE movie, the movie that Scorcese wanted to make, rather than the movie which was released, even though that movie was quite good.
I have a feeling that the studio is just doing the usual DVD scam of releasing the theatrical version as soon as possible to catch people while they are still hyped on this movie from the theatrical release and post-Oscar boost. After a few months, hopefully they will release a director’s cut, causing many people to go back and buy the DVD a second time. I, for one, will wait as long as it takes until the full version comes out. I’m sick of getting scammed by these studios into buying one version, and then seeing a “special edition” with all sorts of extras come out a few months later. Not gonna happen this time, buddy-boy.
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|A Glorious Redemption,
Every issue with the original Blu-ray release of this movie has been fixed, moving it from one of the worst releases on the format to one of the very best. This film now looks and sounds spectacular on Blu-ray and is a must own for any fan.
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|True Or Not, It’s Still A Great Film,
There’s been a lot of flack directed at Gangs of New York for it’s supposed “Historical Inaccuracies”. I can’t add anything except this: If you go to the movies for your History Lessons, something’s wrong with you. If you go to be entertained, Gangs of New York is just the ticket.
Based on Herbert Asbury’s turn-of-the-century book, Gangs tells the epic tale of the Five-Points section of Manhattan, and the colorful gangs (The Dead Rabbits, The Plug Uglies, The Swamp Angels, The Nativists, etc.) that ruled her mean streets.
Leonardo DiCaprio plays Amsterdam Vallon, who witnessed his father “Priest” Vallon ‘s murder at the hands of Bill “The Butcher” (The amazing Daniel Day-Lewis) as a child, and in typical movie fashion, swore revenge. Amsterdam is released from reform school sixteen years later, and heads off to kill the Butcher. Along the way we get the usual romance, with Cameron Diaz acquitting herself well as pickpocket Jenny Everdeane, despite the fact that she isn’t really given much to do in the film.
Like other Historical epics (Titanic, Pearl Harbor, Saving Private Ryan), Gangs takes the central topic and places fictional characters into the action. Although there really WAS a Bill the Butcher, he died well before the draft riots that end the film. Director Martin Scorcese deserves high marks for bringing a piece of seldom-seen American history to the screen. Despite it’s nearly three-hour length, Scorcese keeps the film moving briskly along, and the opening battle, an exquisitely grotesque symphony of violence, is worth the price of admission alone. Only Scorcese could make such savagery seem beautiful…
The performances are all good, but Daniel Day-Lewis is a revelation as the charming and deadly Bill the Butcher; He blows everyone else off the screen. If he doesn’t win Best Actor at The Academy Awards it’ll be another black eye to their selection process. Hopefully Scorcese will get some long overdue recognition as well. While Gangs isn’t his best film, it’s still head-and-shoulders above most of 2002′s movies. Highly recommended.
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