Nuovo cinema Paradiso 1988

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: Where the original release was an essay in childish delight and adolescent longing, topped off by a muted coda implying that you really can go home again, the reissue is a fully realized epic of the heart. Read more

Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: The film's final hour, where nearly all the previous unseen material resides, is unconvincing soap opera that Tornatore was right to cut. Read more

Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune: I don't think most of the people who loved the 1989 Paradiso will prefer this new version. But I do. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: This film is sometimes funny, sometimes joyful, and sometimes poignant, but it's always warm, wonderful, and satisfying. Read more

Tom Keogh, Seattle Times: The heightened symmetry of this new/old Cinema Paradiso makes the film a fuller experience, like an old friend haunted by the exigencies of time. Read more

Eric Harrison, Houston Chronicle: In the director's cut, the film is not only a love song to the movies but it also is more fully an example of the kind of lush, all-enveloping movie experience it rhapsodizes. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: The new version isn't just endless. It heightens the deeply conservative spirit of Giuseppe Tornatore's fable in a surprising new way. Read more

Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News: As it turns out, you can go home again. Read more

Dan Fienberg, L.A. Weekly: This version moves beyond the original's nostalgia for the communal film experiences of yesteryear to a deeper realization of cinema's inability to stand in for true, lived experience. Read more

Stephen Holden, New York Times: More romantic, more emotional and ultimately more satisfying than the teary-eyed original. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: I'm happy to have seen it -- not as an alternate version, but as the ultimate exercise in viewing deleted scenes. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: This director's cut -- which adds 51 minutes -- takes a great film and turns it into a mundane soap opera. Read more

Guy Lodge, Time Out: Returning to cinemas in spiffily remastered form ... the film retains its wide-eyed charm, pitched halfway between unrestrained romanticism and unknowing kitsch. Read more

Desson Thomson, Washington Post: For the most part, this hamfisted movie is very enjoyable. Read more

Rita Kempley, Washington Post: It is, in a word, exquisite. Read more