{"id":1767,"date":"2020-08-04T15:00:49","date_gmt":"2020-08-04T21:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=1767"},"modified":"2020-06-26T21:45:33","modified_gmt":"2020-06-27T03:45:33","slug":"movie-once-upon-a-time-in-america-1984","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2020\/08\/04\/movie-once-upon-a-time-in-america-1984\/","title":{"rendered":"MOVIE: Once Upon a Time in America (1984)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"OnceOnce Upon a Time in America<\/u><\/strong>
Year: 1984
Rating: R
Length: 229 minutes \/ 3.82 hours<\/p>\n

Nobody doubts Sergio Leone\u2019s talent as a director. While he\u2019s best known for his Spaghetti Westerns, he did make a few films like\u00a0Once Upon a Time in America<\/em>\u00a0(1984). One does wonder if Leone was given free rein with this film, as it was probably an hour longer than it needed to be and included a lot of situations that could have been cut out, or at least trimmed down. If anything, it\u2019s clear directors like Quentin Tarantino were influenced by movies like this, considering some of the similarities between it and\u00a0Once Upon a Time\u2026in Hollywood<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(2019).<\/p>\n

I will admit that most of the scenes in this fractured timeline of a story were necessary. Something that was shown early in the film would inevitably come into play near the end. However, I don\u2019t think this excuses the numerous (and gratuitous) sex scenes included in this film. With a run time of almost four hours (including an intermission to boot), at what point does the audience understand what\u2019s happening while the movie continues beating a dead horse. Granted, when a film like this is basically three separate movies with these characters at three different times in their life, it can mostly justify being this long.<\/p>\n

While\u00a0Once Upon a Time in America<\/em>\u00a0is a distinct piece of Americana (read: Jewish mobsters in New York), I can\u2019t help but recognize its notoriety due to its actors. With big players like Robert DeNiro, James Woods, and Jennifer Connelly involved, it\u2019s no wonder why it remains one of Sergio Leone\u2019s best films. Of course, I still consider his \u201cDollars Trilogy\u201d to be better, if for no other reason than for the setting and cinematography. However, there were plenty of film techniques (like the numerous crane shots) that make\u00a0Once Upon a Time in America<\/em>\u00a0a master class in how to shoot a film.<\/p>\n

An overly long Sergio Leone epic, I give\u00a0Once Upon a Time in America<\/em> 3.5 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n

\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\"\u00a0\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\"\u00a0\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\"\u00a01\/2<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Once Upon a Time in AmericaYear: 1984Rating: RLength: 229 minutes \/ 3.82 hours Nobody doubts Sergio Leone\u2019s talent as a director. While he\u2019s best known for his Spaghetti Westerns, he did make a few films like\u00a0Once Upon a Time in America\u00a0(1984). One does wonder if Leone was given free rein with this film, as it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,22,2],"tags":[2110,2114,13,2112,8,2113,2111],"class_list":["post-1767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-21","category-3-5-stars","category-movie","tag-2110","tag-mafia","tag-movie","tag-once-upon-a-time-in-america","tag-review","tag-robert-de-niro","tag-sergio-leone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1767"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2248,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1767\/revisions\/2248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}