City of Angels | Nicolas Cage, Meg Ryan

City of Angels | Nicolas Cage, Meg Ryan | The Ending

vhs video:

City of Angels

	City of Angels Nicolas Cage, Meg Ryan Warner Home Video, 1999 average customer review:based on 318 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

It stands alone.

I watch movies, read books and listen to music for the sheer joy of doing it. I don't consider myself any kind of expert on what any particular film was based on, so learning this movie was based on a more poetic german masterpiece only meant that I had to add another movie to the list of movies I'd like to see.

But this movie, this movie was a classic in it's own right. What woman doesn't dream of an angel falling so deeply in love with her that the angel would forego even heaven to be by her side, hell, to ask it even more honestly, what woman doesn't dream of anyone falling in love with them enough to give up something they have and/or love? I caught this movie by mistake one day, buying a center channel speaker for my home theatre system the guy at the store started this movie and I was hooked from the first compelling scenes with the little girl and her mother. I paid full price for an open item in order to take this movie home and watch it. My money has rarely been spent better.

The moods were well played and well set by the director, the casting was spot on and the music did what music should do in movies, it made the scenes better. Anyone who sees this movie will feel the hot tempo of Paula Cole's "Feelin' Love" while Seth (Nicolas Cage) sits outside the bathroom where Maggie (Meg Ryan) is bathing while thinking his name and immediately want to find themselves in a like situation, it's impossible not to. The Googoo Dolls and Sarah McLachlan songs are also extremely well placed but my favorite song was actually the U2 offering "If God Will Send His Angels".

Although the line Maggie says to Seth is beautiful and moving, I will say that the last line Seth says to Cassiel comes off a little too dramatic and slightly forced, but it doesn't in any way deter from the sheer beauty of this movie.

If you do see it, please, do yourself the favor of trying not to have any distractions and open yourself up to the poignancy of the movie in each scene and as a whole, it's really a worthwhile watch and more, a worthwhile feel.

for more information click here

The Ending

I love this movie. That is my review. I love the scenes in Lake Tahoe - the cinematography, the colors, the love...

I have one question. Does Seth dive into the ocean at the end to kill himself, or to just enjoy the ocean.

Help, Please!!!

City of Angels Review

I love the product, it arrived in a timely manner and well packaged, thanks Amazon!

Rubie Ochoa
Houston, TX

This quiet and dreamy film may draw you in...

Years ago I rented "Wings of Desire" after reading how wonderful it was. I'm sorry to say I was confused and uninterested from the start and did an extremely rare thing for me: I turned it off. It could very well have been wonderful, and had I invested a little more time in it, I might have become a fan of it. It's something I wonder about to this day--but honestly, not enough to rent "Wings" again.

I knew "City of Angels" was the American "re-make" of "Wings" and I chose to see it anyway. I'll tell you this: my house may be been burgled or burned while I watched. I'll never know. I was drawn in by "City of Angels'" imagery, it's music, it's quiet and careful pacing, and by the understated performances of Cage and Ryan. It is one of only a handful of films I can think of that I couldn't get out of my mind--for days!

The out of this world fantastic subject matter of an angel falling in love with a human and contemplating relinquishing his immortality could make this movie a bit of an eyeroller, but the filmmakers respect both the story and their audience and they make it work. This is a quiet, romantic, and melancholy film. It is almost like a dream and it is likely to draw you into it's unusual little world.

DVD features: Nice additional behind the scenes interviews and music videos (from a soundtrack that is equally familar and challenging and ultimately, rewarding).

for more information click here

American Pop Translation of Wenders' Classic Turns Lush Film into Romantic Whimsy

This 1998 romantic drama is as fanciful as fantasy movies come, and John Seale's beautiful cinematography goes a long way toward creating the dream-like quality essential to pull this type of movie off. Director Brad Silberling and screenwriter Dana Stevens have decided to amplify the romantic elements of Win Wenders' wondrous 1987 classic, "Wings of Desire", but stick to the basic plot elements. The transatlantic adaptation is not altogether successful because the greater themes of immortality and human fallibility in the original film have been submerged in favor of more individualized needs like sensuality and love. The thematic change trivializes the film into little more than a piece of romantic whimsy.

Now set in Los Angeles, the plot focuses on an angel named Seth who walks freely among the living and remains unseen unless he so desires. He gets drawn to Maggie Rice, an exacting surgeon who loses her first patient on the operating table. In the middle of her personal crisis, Seth comes into her life filling an emotional void, setting the stage for the pivotal decision he needs to make - remaining immortal as an angel or becoming human to experience the passion he feels for Maggie. Luckily, in probably her best dramatic performance, Meg Ryan is especially resonant as Maggie as she mutes her natural sprite-like manner into a palpable sadness that fits the character.

With a part that risks skirting parody during the first half, a steadily unblinking Nicolas Cage plays Seth in a plaintive, child-like manner until the story moves toward its inevitable climax. I still find it difficult to believe that Seth's discomforting, Norman Bates-like manner would provide such a powerful attraction to Maggie at the outset. I also think the ending plot manipulations are a botch, a contemptible attempt to twist the viewer into thinking a greater point has been made when in fact, the viewer has been sucker-punched. Andre Braugher's becalming manner is used to good effect as fellow angel Cassiel, and Dennis Franz is appropriately ostentatious as a junk-food-addicted hospital patient who is not what he appears to be. By the way, the interiors of the San Francisco Main Library (opened two years before) never looked better than under the guise of LA's in this movie.

There are a surprising number of extras for such an early release DVD (1998) with three separate commentary tracks, the first by Silberling, the second by Stevens and co-producer Charles Roven, and the third by composer Gabriel Yared. Seale and production designer Lilly Kilvert contribute select-scene commentaries on the other side of the disc. There are two featurettes - a half-hour making-of documentary called "Making Angels" and a ten-minute short focused strictly on the visual effects. Seven deleted scenes, two music videos (including the Goo Goo Dolls' then-omnipresent MTV hit, "Iris"), and the theatrical trailer round out the major DVD extras.

for more information click here