I can't imagine a more pointless presentation than this. It skips along at an Mtv pace and along the way completely ruins any film one hasn't yet seen by revealing all the plot points - actually showing some of the most tremendous moments in film history completely out of context!
Some of the moments cut and pasted into this "Idiots Guide to Cinema" are absolutely senseless outside of the body of the films they belong to. The Russian roulette sequence from "The Deer Hunter" has no impact at all (excepting shock violence to anyone that hasn't seen it) because the people playing it are NOBODY. They have no history, they are only images playing a game that will water down one of the most electric scenes ever edited together. Another example is the shoddy treatment given to "Lawrence of Arabia." You wait 219 minutes for that final moment where you learn T.E. knows he has no future. Well, they rip that scene out and play it after a 3 minute synopsis of the film, along the way telling you nothing new about the film that can't be read in a write-up in TVGuide.
This nonsense is just a collection of vital organs taken out of the bodies of a bunch of great (and a few not-so-great) films.
What's really sad is that this thing will be used as a virtual Cliff's Notes of motion pictures. Why see "Citizen Kane" when you can get all the important points here to impress your friends and teachers?
What a rip-off.
Some of the moments cut and pasted into this "Idiots Guide to Cinema" are absolutely senseless outside of the body of the films they belong to. The Russian roulette sequence from "The Deer Hunter" has no impact at all (excepting shock violence to anyone that hasn't seen it) because the people playing it are NOBODY. They have no history, they are only images playing a game that will water down one of the most electric scenes ever edited together. Another example is the shoddy treatment given to "Lawrence of Arabia." You wait 219 minutes for that final moment where you learn T.E. knows he has no future. Well, they rip that scene out and play it after a 3 minute synopsis of the film, along the way telling you nothing new about the film that can't be read in a write-up in TVGuide.
This nonsense is just a collection of vital organs taken out of the bodies of a bunch of great (and a few not-so-great) films.
What's really sad is that this thing will be used as a virtual Cliff's Notes of motion pictures. Why see "Citizen Kane" when you can get all the important points here to impress your friends and teachers?
What a rip-off.