Rating: 
Summary: Shockingly bad...
Review: Criterion usually sticks with the classics so I was really looking forward to viewing this movie, Amarcord.Boy, what a bad movie. I can deal with plotless, "slice of life" movies such as Nashville but this one is just Italian trash. More flatulence jokes than you will find in a comedy for children. Every woman is treated either as a slave or as a sex object. This film does not belong in the Criterion collection nor does it deserve it's reputation as a classic. Finishing watching this movie was like reading a school textbook cover-to-cover for fun.
Rating: 
Summary: Isn't this to review Fellini?
Review: Definitely he was a greatest director of all times! And "Amarcord" was one of his best movies, and one of the best movies of all times! I cant wait until they issue all his movies on DVD!
Rating:
Summary: Memories of a Genius.
Review: Director Federico Fellini was undoubtedly a film maker genius!
Since his earlier works "La Strada" (1954) and "La Dolce Vita" (1960) thru "Fellini Satyricon" (1969) and "Amarcord" (1973) till his lasts "Ginger and Fred" (1986) and "The Voice of the Moon" (1990) he has left a legacy treasure for film lovers and film makers.
Most of his films combine fantasy and reality in a rich mixture with no fixed boundaries. He displays his own personal conflicts in regard to religious belief; sex and love; youngsters' education; political and religious power; richness and poverty; all this themes and more are shown with a visceral approach.
The viewer will be attracted and repelled alternatively and at the end of each of his movies will go out of the theater (or the bed room or living-room) knowing that he/she has assisted to the show of a unique piece of art.
"Amarcord" shows the memories of life as it was in `30s Italy. The story encompass one year in the life of young Titta and his family. Is a coming of age tale where sex and infatuation play a major role. It also shows how confusing to a young mind are some social messages. Mussolini appears in a fantasy scene adorned with all the attributes of a demigod and in the next scene reality explodes in the form of a band of fascist thugs harassing Titta's relatives.
Photography and music score are outstanding.
The film collected numerous awards including Foreign Film Oscar.
A marvelous film to see! Just a last warning some scenes may be inconvenient for young audiences.
Reviewed by Max Yofre.
Rating:
Summary: masterpiece doesnt even cut it
Review: fellini is a filmmaking god. filmmakers arent really gods but hes really really good. this film, amarcord, i havent even seen but im sure to watch it tomorrow. la strada was so great because of gelsomina and when she smiles. the score is great too. i have very high expectations for this film. if its no good, i will be beyond letdown. after all, it did cost 35 dollars.
Rating:
Summary: One of Fellini's greatest films
Review: Fellini is truly one of the greatest film makers of all time. "Masterpiece" can be used to describe so many of his films and "Amarcord" can surely fit that descriptive word. The atmosphere of his films is enhanced by Nino Rota's classic music scores. This Criterion Collection is a perfect print. The quality of this Criterion Collection is sheer perfection on every aspect. A must for every lover of great films. I definitely hope all of Fellini's films will be released on DVD.
Rating:
Summary: The magic of Fellini
Review: Fellini's theme of coming of age memoir works as a beautiful nostalgic piece. The film resonates from an earlier film of his 8 1/2 showing the director's flashes to his seaside hometown. I've watched this film several times and on every occassion find something new. Here's a tip to enjoy watching a foreign film - Do NOT watch the English dubbed version if there is any - so much is lost in the film. Fellini's films work with subtitles because they make you forget you're reading them at all and as always, Fellini pleases both eye and ear and subsequently the heart. The musical score by Nino Rota is something one looks forward to in every scene. His music perfectly sets the tempo of each image, and I mean each and every one. What a duo of artistic genius these two men are! Watching the film on its excellent Criterion-restored DVD version, one can only wonder what the cinema world would be without Fellini.
Rating:
Summary: Fellini's greatest accomplishment
Review: I can't believe how much I love this film. This is a film with splendid visuals: of course, there is the peacock in the snow, but how about the scene of Tio climbing the tree during his outing with the family, the motorcyclist racing through the walls of snow, or the fantasy marriage conducted by Mussolini. Fellini's imagination, and the visuals he produces to match these memories, makes this an unforgettable treat. He looks back fondly, perhaps too fondly, on the pre-World War II era in Italy. But we also see a memoir of a young man, coming of age during one highly eventful year of growing up.
Rating:
Summary: A Town Called Mad
Review: I remember (Amacord), is as fantasy memoir and an outrageously good piece of town comedy that still hasn't been topped. Imagine, if you will, the nuttiest town in Italy, set during the 1930s, where the local masked biker appears every 30 minutes or so only to just rip his bike up and down the street and finally goes out of frame to reveal a hot temptress who is trying to chat up the local builders, the foreman of which is having trouble with rising fascism and his mentally imbalanced brother in law who has recently got himself stuck up a tree because he needs a woman while at the same time his son's hormonal change is starting to get on his nerves. In 118 minutes nowhere else have so many characters and so many plots been explored completely! It is no wonder why this picked up so many awards and Oscars.
Basically the story revolves around Fellini's life as a boy in his hometown... however it s multilayered with many fantasy moments that are like twisted reality. You then get taken away in several directions, one involving school children and the other about the town's problem with sexual tension. It is all wonderfully comic stuff.
The old Technicolor looks is simply gorgeous and the framing exceptional. The direction is like one big Italian personality x 100, with fights at dinner really flaring up to the point that mothers threaten to kill themselves - I will cut my throat with this butter knife! The humour is mostly dark, sexy or just plain insane. Also the movie takes place over the four seasons, so it nicely wraps up in the end to create an almost eternal view of life. It is a lovely trick that makes this film very memorable.
At times Amacord suffers simply from too much going on, but in many ways that is why we watch it again and again and we always find something that we missed before. This is two hours of sheer hysterics and some dazzling cinema to boot. Do not pass up on this just because it is a foreign film. It has accolade for good reason - you will simply not find a better town comedy, that looks so good, anywhere else.
- As a note this is not really for children, even though Italian children have seen it on Sunday afternoon television, as it features a sizeable amount of sexual comic references and some topless smut near the end. Note the R rating.
Rating:
Summary: My All Time Favourite. A Fellini's Masterpiece.
Review: I suspect this is one of those love or hate movies depending on whether or not it strikes an emotional cord within the viewer. To those used to such absolutes as plot and action it will be a bust. To those who love the David Lean directorial approach of each scene being a visual image that could stand alone, then this is a treat. I believe the title is Italian for I remember, and this is what the movie is. Fellini's reminscences of growing up in pre-war Italy. They are presented as a series of linked vignettes populated with an extravagant and eccentric collection of characters. Wonderfully evocative, lewd and bawdy, funny and sad, it's a languid walk through one man's memories. I don't collect movies but this is one I own and love to dip into once in a while. It's a treasure to be savoured when the world gets too heavy and we begin to take ourselves too seriously. I love it.
Rating:
Summary: some of the most awful dialogue in cinema history
Review: I'm a Fellini fan, yet I HATED this movie! Watching in disbelief, I could not believe that the director of The White Sheik, 8 1/2, Nights of Cabiria and Juliet of the Spirits (terrific films all) was perpetrating such a disgusting, meandering, pointless vulgar mess. It isn't about "memories," it's about having nothing to say. Holding the remote control in hand, I kept telling myself --it's going to get better, it's going to get better. Soon the real movie will begin. And you know what? It never did. I did see the subtitled version, yet I can't imagine what translation would benefit lines like "Teacher, may I be excused from class? Fazio has let a stinker," and so on and so on until we are senseless and numb. In this wretched film, Fellini revels in an obsession with flatulence that would make even Mel Brooks blush. YUCK!!! Preserve Fellini's reputation (in your own mind at least) by sparing yourself this sophomoric horror. I hate to be the one to say it, guys, but let's face it --even the first installment of Porky's was a less terrible film than this. Eeeeeaagh!!
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