1941 (Collector's Edition)

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

"Directors Cut" is awful and no original cut included, 2010-08-26
If I am not mistaken the same problem occurred with the directors cut of Blues Brothers. These dum dums release these so-called "Directors Cuts" without including the original version. This longer version of 1941 completely ruins the pacing of the original version destroys the film. The original had a madcap pacing all this extra footage just weighs it down. Total bummer this movie has finally been letterboxed but the film is ruined with extra useless footage that belonged in the deleted scenes extras section

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Decent DVD transfer needed, 2010-07-07
First of all I do not argue with people about what is funny. I think this movie is very funny, and ingenious in its details in the frame, like the old Mad comics. What is needed is a decent DVD -- this one isn't even anamorphic; the window floats in your screen, wasting about 2/3 of it. Of course blu-ray would be best.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

It's not fair to say Steven Spielberg's "1941" lacks "pacing.", 2010-05-24
It's got it, all right, but all at the same pace: The movie relentlessly throws gags at us until we're dizzy. It's an attempt at that most tricky of genres, the blockbuster comedy, and it tries so hard to dazzle us that we want a break. It's a good-hearted, cheerfully disorganized mess that makes us appreciate Dr. Strangelove," just a little bit more. br / br /It takes place in the opening days of World War II, as rumors of a Japanese invasion sweep the west coast and a real Japanese submarine finds itself somewhere off Long Beach. California's in the grip of war fever, every red-blooded young man wants to be in uniform, the dance halls are jammed to the music of Glenn Miller, and up on Hollywood Boulevard the zoot-suiters are rioting. br / br /Spielberg apparently originally conceived some of this material as a series of set pieces, and there's a sequence in the dance hall that works wonderfully: While lookalikes for the Andrews Sisters go berserk at the microphone, servicemen and their girls get into a dance contest that degenerates into a cross between a brawl and the big dance number in "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers." br / br /Because Spielberg allows this sequence to continue until it finds its own rhythm, it has a nice zany feel to it. But most of the other stuff in "1941" feels forced together chaotically, as if the editors wanted to keep the material moving at any cost. The movie finally reduces itself to an assault on our eyes and ears, a nonstop series of climaxes, screams, explosions, double-takes, sight gags, and ethnic jokes that's finally just not very funny. br / br /The closest thing the movie has to a central character is John Belushi, as a P-40 fighter pilot who flies up and down the coast looking for Japanese and finally crash-lands in the middle of Hollywood Boulevard. The boulevard has earlier been the scene of several other buzzings by military aircraft, in scenes involving lots of special effects thatt must have been difficult to create but come out so disorganized that we're more confused than amused. With the exception of a few high points like a runaway ferris wheel, the special effects in "1941" seem disorganized in general: If we don't have a clear idea of what the big moments mean to the plot, how can we know if they're funny? br / br /That leads to the real problem with "1941", I think: This movie was never thought through on a basic level of character and story. All sorts of things are happening, but we're never clear why they have to happen and we haven't been told enough about the characters to care if they survive or not. br / br /Everybody races around like people caught in a Jack Davis drawing for "Mad" magazine. Comic talent is wasted. Belushi hardly has 25 words of dialogue in the whole movie, and is called upon only to look manic, run around frantically, and play the slob in the cockpit. At one point, scurrying bandy-legged here and there, he's even repeating a piece of business from "Animal House." Why not? Nobody's given him a new character to play. br /

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

This is one of my top 10 movies!, 2010-05-14
The scene with Slim Pickens arriving back at Hollis Wood trees, with the ninja Japanese soldiers dressed as Xmas trees is worth every nickel of the collectors edition.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

One of my favorite movies ... seriously!, 2010-04-16
I can't help myself -- I LOVE this movie. I think it's one of those flicks you either love or absolutely despise. br / br /From the opening sequence (a hysterical send-up of the "Jaws" opening) to the final crazy madness, I couldn't stop laughing. Yes, the story is ridiculous (the "love story" especially is kind of dumb, and the "sex only in an airplane" is just stupid), but from what I've heard from older family members who lived in that part of the world in 1941, the movie accurately depicts the attitudes of many folks -- the near hysteria over possible additional attacks, the civilian look-outs, etc. OK, so maybe it's a *little* exaggerated in this movie, but it was very real at the time. br / br /Everyone's sense of what's funny and what isn't is different, so this will definitely not appeal to EVERYONE. But I count it among my favorite movies -- along with "A Letter to Three Wives," "Raising Arizona," "Singing in the Rain," and "Joe vs the Volcano."