Rating: Summary: hilarious Review: aside from everything else that is wonderful about this film, what is truly memorable is the side-splitting, delightfully anachronistic performance of Jeffrey Jones as the emperor. like mozart's music, it hits all the right notes.
Rating: Summary: Wonderful morality tale Review: This film is a morality tale about talent and how people with talents use (and misuse) them. The story is seen through the eyes of Antonio Salieri, court composer to Austrian Emperor Joseph II (excellently portrayed by Jeffrey Jones). Salieri has prayed to God all his life for the gift of being able to bring God's presence to people through music. In his rage at realizing that he doesn't have this gift, he fails to realize that God has given him some extraordinary gifts. One is the ablilty realize that God can become present to people through music. Another is the ability to recognize that gift when he hears it. (To his chagrin, that gift lies in a vulgar, conceited little man called Mozart.) The third gift Gid gives Salieri is placing him in a position where he can help Mozart recognize this gift and bring it out as purely as possible.Tragically, instead of recognizing and using these gifts, Salieri rebels against God and his "creature" Mozart and comspires to defeat them both. F. Murray Abraham won a well-deserved Oscar for his portrayal of a man split between enraged jealousy and awestruck reverence for Mozart's music. Tom Hulce is also excellent as the quite ordinary young man who just happens to be a musical genius such as the world has never seen before or since. As conceited as he is, even he doesn't appreciate his own genius to the extent that Salieri does. Great film! Highly recommended!
Rating: Summary: Excellent movie! Review: I've always loved this movie. I thought the perspective of the movie was incredible. I love the way the depicted Solieri's wrath at God and Mozart and his compulsion to destroy Mozart. How often do they make a movie from a the viewpoint of the hero's rival? Solieri's humanity was displayed in the most open of ways, reminding us that humanity's need for self-worth sometimes get's the better of us. Tom Hulce was also brilliant.
Rating: Summary: The best movie I've ever seen! Review: I am 9 years old and had to write a biography book report for school. After I read the book my mom let me watch this movie. I can watch it over and over. I loved the costumes and music. The actors made the characters real to me. I highly recommend this movie to all people to learn to appreciate classical music.
Rating: Summary: "Terrifying and wondeful to watch" Review: I first saw this movie when I was in the 5th grade, and when I found out my parent's had taped it way back when, I was almost exstatic. I absolutely love this movie. I could probably recite the lines start to finish without a problem..that's how many times I've seen it! The monologues in this film are wonderful, and the Opera scenes are great! The innacuracies are numerous, but Peter Scaffer said himself that it was not meant to be a biography...so good for him. I recommend this to anyone who wants to see the only good movie ever made.
Rating: Summary: Excellent Choice Review: There is a reason this movie won 8 academy awards. The acting is superb. The costumes and casting are magnificant. It's a movie that can never be watched just once.
Rating: Summary: Gorgeous Portrayl of a little know relationship Review: Fabulous acting and wonderful directing in this excellent screenplay
Rating: Summary: Beyond excellent!! Review: This movie is as great and ingenious as Mozart's music. There is no question that this is the best movie ever made. Period. If you want to see but one movie in your entire life, this one is it!!
Rating: Summary: Superb and Excellent!!!! Review: Simply the best movie that has ever been made in the history of mankind!!!!
Rating: Summary: Generous backgrounds yield generous rating. Review: A film comprised of the elements that make a handful of modern movies rewarding, and far more prevalantly, infuriating. No one can quarrel with nothing less than glorious to behold; and add on-location shooting in Mozart's own Vienna, for a prodigously authentic feel. Further delights include even the undertaking of what originally seemed a very uncommercial project; and Peter Shaffer's intelligent and intriguing portrait of antagonist and protagonist. It also includes some of the more compelling first-person narration--excellently done by F. Murray Abraham--seen in quite awhile. These compensations are enough to recommend the film; but the what's left fail to raise this film to another level. First, it's too long, for what could have been a riveting, tight character drama; i.e., much of the counterpoint is blunted by its flabbiness. More importantly (and disappointingly) is the approach to the Mozart character. I fully understand the intention to convey the character with the parallel of a modern punk-rocker; as well as the fact that the viewpoint is Salieri's--convinced that Mozart was some kind of sublime idiot. Even so, why must the character and his relationship with others by guided with such an unsubtle hand? If the film-makers had been content to make their points by implication, it would have resulted in a much more persuasive and satisfying film. Instead, everything is elaborately spelled out in a gratingly coarse manner. I have always felt that the textbook illustration of recreating the distant past was Fred Zinnemann's "A Man for All Seasons." Here, the crudities only offend and alienate the audience. The caricaturization makes it tough to sympathize with the characters.
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