AuthorGreedo Where to watch:
Amazon Prime; the open prairie Impression: No, not the cult. Heaven's Gate is mostly remembered for being an enormous financial bust that ended the prevailing studio system in the late 70's and early 80's. Reaction: A couple things that stand out: Prepare for 5 minutes of total darkness while great background music plays. You might think your television broke because the screen stays black, but you slowly realize the music is still playing. Hold on to your hat. Speaking of hats, it looks like they paid 1,000 extras for this movie. Every scene is full of dust, must, fog, orange light and approximately 3 hundred extras. You get a real sense of claustrophobia when Kris Kristofferson shimmies his way through a crowded haberdashery. The score fits snugly against the epic scenery and costumes, providing rustic, classical guitar lines and lush violins. The sound design is also worth mentioning: children screams and laughter, creaking train axles and a hundred other ambient sounds saturate and accentuate the documentary-like footage of Kris Kristofferson and Chris Walken milling about in period garb. Other than the obvious time and effort that went into production, I can't figure out what this movie is about. There is a weird love triangle that is uninteresting and some sort of kill list for the residents of a particular county for reasons I don't understand. In spite of these taudry plot points, not much ever happens. Probably the worst part of the movie is when John Hurt's character disappears after a long and weird opening scene. Favorite Line/Scene: Sam Waterston getting pimp smacked while John Hurt claps like a lunatic. Speaking of John Hurt, what a great addition to anything. Speaking of Kris Kristofferson, he's the Tom Skerritt of country music movie stars. Other notables: Heaven's Gate was received so poorly that critics revised downward their opinions of Cimino's Oscar-winning The Deer Hunter, which pretty much tells you what you need to know about the yearly popularity contest. Other other notables: Kris Kristofferson isn't much remembered these days outside of playing Whistler in the Blade franchise. At one point in American history, he was a handsome leading man writing hit songs for the likes of Janis Joplin (Me and Bobby McGee) and Johnny Cash (Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down). Conclusion: Apparently there is a 4 hour director's cut out there that will totally change your opinion of this crappy movie. No, it is not the Snyder cut. Arbitrary rating: One glass half full of spiders.
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