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Missed Close Encounters back when, saw it in 70mm "Director's Cut". Missed Apocalypse Now back when, saw it restored in "Director's Cut". Ditto Blade Runner. Ditto even ET! There I was gratified too by Spielberg's digitally removing those nasty guns. I don't think there should be lethal weapons in any movie, or in life. I wholeheartedly support gun image removal.
And today we have another must-see-now: Cinema Paradiso. Get a load of this review!
clark

New version is a shining 'Paradiso' found

By Ty Burr, Globe Staff, 6/28/2002
The ''Cinema Paradiso'' that opens today is not the ''Cinema Paradiso'' that won the 1989 Oscar for best foreign film. It's better: darker, more idiosyncratic, and certainly more interesting.
Longer, too, by 51 minutes. What's the chief addition? Not much: just an entire third act. 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, with a message that's as clear as it is chilling: To be an artist is to live without love.
Title aside, this is actually closer to the old version of ''Paradiso'' - the 155-minute cut director Giuseppe Tornatore released to thundering indifference in Italy in 1988. Subsequently cut to two hours, it won a Jury Prize at Cannes, was picked up by Miramax for US release, and proved a hit here - all good reasons for Tornatore to restore the scissored scenes plus 12 additional minutes. Miramax calls this the ''new version,'' but it's not - it's what Tornatore wanted us to see in the first place.
Don't worry, though; the cute kid's still here. In fact, the first hour of ''Paradiso'' plays just as you remember it, with the adorable Toto (Salvatore Cascia) pestering his rural village's grumpy movie projectionist (Philippe Noiret) into giving him the run of the booth. This section's still a lovely depiction of post- World War II Sicily and a paean to the joys of a film-besotted childhood.
New footage starts creeping in only when Toto grows into young Salvatore (Marco Leonardi) and falls hard for upper-class Elena (Agnese Nano). A number of previously unseen scenes transform the hero from a bland hunk into a believably self-absorbed, even selfish, teenager.
By the time we hit the second-hour mark, we're in a whole new movie. (Spoilers ahead, so walk away if you want to stay surprised.) In the original release, we never knew what the middle-aged Salvatore (Jacques Perrin) did for a living; now, we learn, he's a much-admired filmmaker. Previously, we got the sense that he kind of missed his lost love Elena; now we understand that he's obsessed with her. What's more, he tracks her down and forces a reunion. What's more, she's willing. What's more, she spills a long-held secret that completely changes our understanding of kindly old Alfredo the projectionist: Salvatore sees, as do we, that the old man was willing to be a monster to ensure his protege's future calling.
Not one whit of this was in the 1989 version. What was left was a sweet but ultimately harmless slice of art-house nostalgia (and, not coincidentally, a blueprint for later Miramax successes such as ''Chocolat'' and ''Il Postino''). You can argue that Tornatore's uncut vision is just as sentimental in its dourness, and maybe even a little silly - plenty of great artists have both lived and loved - but you can't say that it's not a complete experience. There have always been those who felt that ''Cinema Paradiso'' wasn't worthy of its Oscar. It is now.
Cinema Paradiso: The New Version
Directed by Giuseppe Tornatore
Screenplay by: Peter Fernandez and Giuseppe Tornatore
Starring: Philippe Noiret, Salvatore Cascia, Marco Leonardi, Jacques Perrin
At: Kendall Square Cinema
Running time: 170 minutes

Films/DVD Asylum

Glad I waited! (Part the Many)