Rating: 
Summary: One of the best films ever
Review: Leoné's final film is easily his best. I'm not going to give you a detailed description of the movie, because it would not do it justice. Go get this. It's worth every penny.
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Summary: so beautiful of the movie
Review: I watched the movie twice in a whole day. It's so beautiful of its music and scene painting. Recalling the movie, it looked like old unforgetable pictures one by one appearing in your mind .
Rating: 
Summary: Once upon a time in America
Review: The phone that keeps ringing and ringing and ringing in the beginning... I realize this is some artsy symbolic thing, but truly it was simply annoying as all get out. This was a dark, sad, depressing film. Too artsy for me to appreciate.
Rating:
Summary: Maybe the best movie of all time.
Review: Mere words cannot describe the artistic triumph that is Once Upon a Time in America.
So I won't even try.
Just watch it. (wide screen DVD version only - VHS doesn't do it justice)
Rating:
Summary: It is about time!! GREAT MOVIE
Review: Sergio Leone's "Once Upon a Time in America" was released almost 20 years ago, and it is still one of my all time favorite films. The film spans over a period of 20 years. The characters - Max, Noodles, Cockeye, Patsy, and Fat Moe, all grew up in the violent immigrant ghetto of New York's lower east side. The tough streets forced the group of friends to grow up fast, which in turn forces them to fight their way to the top. All of them vow to stick together. The story fastforwards 20 years into the future where childhood friends Max ( James Woods) and Noodles (Robert De Niro) form a partnership to run a powerful crime organization along with the rest of their childhood buddies -Cockeye (William Forsythe), Patsy ( James Hayden), and Fat Moe(Larry Rapp). However as time passes, things start to spin out of control, and the partnership between Max and Noodles unravels in death and mystery..."Once Upon a Time in America" utilizes the four basic traits of human nature - friendship, crime, love, and betrayal, to create one of the most dramatic and rich stories ever captured on screen. The entire cast - Robert De Niro, James Woods, William Forsythe, Elizabeth McGovern, Treat Williams, Larry Rapp, James Hayden, Joe Pesci, and Danny Aiello were all unbelieveable and each helped to bring the story to life. However, the best performances given in my opinion were by the young actors that were chosen to play the characters as children. Their performances meant the most to the film, because that was the age when the tragic pattern of the characters lives were set. This film marked the first time appearance of Jennifer Connely, and even then at the age of 14, you could tell that she was a fantastic actress. Sergio Leone drew inspiration from the New York ghetto photographs of Jacob Riis. The authenticity that the photos provided to the settings was absolutely outstanding, and were the film's best feature. The actors, well developed story, and stunning authenticity really provide for a wonderful film. "Once Upon A Time in America" offers a look at the dark side of the American dream that you can watch time and time again. Not to mention the fact, that this film finally came out on DVD!! If there was ever a film that deserved the special treatment of a DVD, it was this one. The movie is finally available with the best picture and sound quality available and we don't have to sit through the grainy picture of a videocasette either. This 2 Disc DVD set truly is a must buy!!
Rating: 
Summary: before Gangs of NewYork there was Once Upon a Time...
Review: this movie is a must see for any fan of Robert De Niro.its a timeless glance back to the way life was in NewYork after the turn of the century.with a superb cast this is one of my favorites.
Rating:
Summary: the persistence of memory
Review: To summarize my interest in this movie, there is one scene and one dramatic device that I would refer to: (1) DeNiro peering through the hole in the bathroom wall to watch the young Jennifer Conolly dance in the storeroom at Fat Moe's, and (2) the phone ringing incessantly. These are but two of many interesting techniques Sergio Leone uses to drive the narrative arc of this movie. The movie is maddening for some, because of its unusually slow pace and its insistence on music defining the time period in which a given scene occurs. While these are interesting techniques, and they are somewhat maddening to the viewer more accustomed to the frenetic pace of Legally Blond and its hectic ilk, they are not techniques unique to Leone, and, even if they were they are remarkably effective. After all, this is a movie about a man's interior dialogue with himself. The frustrating question, for which we don't have an answer is: Does Noodle's dialogue take place in the late 60s when he is middle-aged, or does his interior dialogue occur in his mid-20s. The latter, of course, implies that most of the movie is either recollection of the past or conjecture about the future, while the former implies that almost all the movie is recollection of the past. That either of these two interpretations can be deduced from the movie's narrative structure is testament to the brilliant conceit that Leone creates here: the only thing persistent in life is our memories (an idea to which Marcel Proust refers repeatedly).
Rating: 
Summary: Even in death and DVD Leone still can't get a good edit.
Review: Once again Sergio Leone proves that he is the master of the classically "American" genre film, this time training his exquisite eye from the Western to the gangster film...gangster EPIC, actually.
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This movie takes place via disjointed flashbacks over a period of fifty years, focusing on the life (and death) of crime as experienced by four childhood friends, specifically David "Noodles" Aaronson, portrayed in maturity by Robert DeNiro in another typically inspired performance.
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The movie in its American release nearly 20 years ago was absolutely butchered by the US-based distributor, with over an hour of footage removed from the feature in order to make it more managable for US audiences. The result was that the personality of the movie was essentially siphoned off and the film was savaged by film critics nationwide. When the movie was released for cable a year or so later, a fair bit of the footage was restored (and in fact another edit presented the film exclusively in chronological order from Noodles' youth to old age).
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This restored version does include as much as the film's original footage as can be accounted for (to our knowledge), and the effect is somewhat more enlightening than the cable edit I first saw (and legitimately loved) almost two decades prior. The violence edited back into the movie makes it more difficult for the viewer to find sympathy/empathy with any of the characters (which may have been a stretch to begin with)...but while the extra features are a wonderful addition to the DVD (James Woods' admission on the Leone bio piece that to this day he is asked what exactly happened in "his" last scene...and to this day he's uncertain himself...is worth the price of purchase alone. And Richard Schickel's film-length commentary track is also a joy to watch/listen to.
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But Warner Brothers REALLY dropped the ball by deciding to split the film into two equal lengths for the purpose of placing it on 2 discs; particularly when considering that in fact Leone did make provision for an intermission within 2:45 of the film's original running time. The most obvious issue is that yes, a rather crucial scene was unceremoniously interrupted as Disc One ends and resumed at the beginning of Disc Two. Arguments will be made that this was necessary to include the full-length commentary track for both discs, but even "Pulp Fiction" with a complete running time of over two-and-a-half hours was able to complete the presentation with commentary track on the same disc; you have to believe Warner Borthers could at least have done a better job with Leone's final masterpiece. As it is, the perfect realization of the film that was by all admissions nearest and dearest to the Italian film maestro's heart still eludes him, even in this digital age. Had he lived to see it, he could not have been pleased with this treatment. Nor was I. A terrific film, beautifully and lovingly shot as always, speaking to the emotions of the viewer in a way that so many American directors simply can't pull off...but once again the editors have failed the artist. I own it, and will view it regularly out of respect to its brilliance as a film, but someone should have been sacked over this DVD presentation.
Rating:
Summary: Dissapointing DVD transfer - bad audio & video
Review: I've ben waiting for this movie to be released on DVD for 5 years. My friend and I, both fans of the shorter VHS version for years, watched it last night. Here are our comments:
A: If you did not see the original, this film can be confusing.
B: The audio is horrible. Forget surround sound, everything is mono, the volume levels are in general extra low, yet spike up loudly for no reason. The bass is muddy.
C: The video quality looks no better than the recent transfers I did myself of home VHS movies to DVD.
D: The 1st disc ends VERY ABRUBTLY at Chapter 35. But it's SUPPOSED to end at Chapter 44 (as per the DVD case chapter index). So we popped out Disk 1 and cleaned it, assuming dirt had made the laser mis-track. Nope. Then we pop int disk 2 and it starts playing at chapter 35. And 10 chapters later is says "INTERMISSION" on the screen!! They screwed up and cut the CD's 10 chapters to early!
E: There are plenty of obvious places where the audio and video are out of synch (lips not moving in synch with words) All in all, we felt ripped off. Sure, it was an excuse for friends and I to get together for dinner and 4 hours of "hanging out", so that was good. BUT...the time would have been better spent watching something else. We're all into Home Theather, and this movie should have been watched on a 20" mono TV.... I bet there $60 "Collector Edition" is just as bad. These guys have some nerve. GREASE and SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER DVD's were remaststered and worth the money, this was not.
Rating:
Summary: misunderstood masterpiece-spoilers abound
Review: The first half of this film is wonderful in the same way that the first half of goodfellas is. It shows how a young gang of kids in new york city grows up to become the cities most powerful mobsters. I thoroughly enjoyed this part, but I felt as if the movie had graduated to a higher level of film when the next part begun, because the next part is the truly mind boggling part of the story. Thought it was boring? Me too at first, but I didn't understand it. Remember how it begins? Noodles is in an opium parlor, he's probably in his 30's, a walking corpse. The phone triggers his memory, we learn of how the kids grew up, how noodles went to jail, what happened when he came out. We learn that his best friend in the gang, Max, wants to rob the federal reserve. Noodles knows his friend will die, so he phones in the police tipping them off about a small booze transaction that will be conducted, so his friend can wind up in jail for a couple years and be unable to pull of the grand robbery. Noodles thinks he's saved his friends lives, but in a violent shoot out, they all die, or did they? Ahh, we see noodles now as an old man, brought back to new york by the invitation to a party by a secretary bailey. He meets up with his old girlfriend, who he brutally raped and hasn't spoken with since, and asks her for information about secretary bailey. She hasn't aged, he has. Make sense? Not yet. Did the costume designer go home after he/she did deniros makeup? Nope, sergio wanted it that way just to confuse you. How does Noodles know that his old flame knows secretary bailey? Some bit of left out investigation I suppose, leads him to the knowledge that his old flame is now the mistress of secretary bailey. Sound plausible? Nope. How did Bailey get him back to New York anyway, why would he come if he merely got an invitation? She tells him not to go to the party or all of his old memories will vanish. Hmm, cryptic message. He shows up anyway, Sec. bailey turns out to be Max, noodles' best friend, who apparently did not die in the shootout, but faked his death, stole the gangs money, stole noodle's girl and orchestrated his return to new york. Make sense? Please. Sound plausible? No way. But very interesting story none the less. Max wants noodles to kill him because he couldn't stand to be killed by anyone else and he knows someone put a hit out on him. How about that part, does it make sense to you? Doesn't to me. He's got all this money, he can go to another country, hire body guards, etc. He doesn't seem like the type to lie down and give up. Moving on, noodles turns him down and we see a garbage truck outside, the garbage crusher's wheels turning, and a number 35 signifying the number of years they have been apart I suppose, is firmly planted on the side. This can mean many things. IS max's body in there? Nah, doesn't look like it. Was max going to put fake bullets in the gun so that when noodles quickly ran out, after thinking he shot his friend, he would be killed and his body crushed in the garbage truck and passed off as max's body, letting max off scott free again? Well that sounds very witty, but I don't think so. Then it ends with Noodles in the opium parlor again. Grinning wildly, as if he knows the truth, and at the same time knows its a lie. It was all a dream. Many people missed this (I did the first time), some fail to acknowledge or agree with this interpretation, but hey, a lot of things there didn't make sense, a lot of things in dreams don't make sense. Noodles killed his friends, by accident, and he took the money too, and he feels so guilty he gets high and hallucinates some ridiculous story about his friend actually living (who knows what happened to the other gang members, presumably noodles believes max killed them as well to alleviate that guilt too). Regardless, his dream induced halucinated future alleviates all guilt from his drug corrupted mind leaving him with that sinister look on his face and explaining why so much of the last quarter of the movie made so little sense. Did you see Mulholland drive too? Well you may not have thought about this ending, you may disagree with it, but at least it makes the movie more interesting. That aside, the acting and cinematography are wonderful. The sets are amazing. I could have done without the rape scene, but I suppose it was necessary to show what a low life character noodles is.
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