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Pope of Greenwich Village and Desperate Hours DOUBLE FEATURE (1 Viewer)

Winston T. Boogie

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A Mickey Rourke double feature with the excellent The Pope of Greenwich Village and Michael Cimino's take on Desperate Hours. Coming June 2, 2015.


Bonus Features

  • Theatrical Trailers





Product Information

DISCS
2
RUN-TIME
120 / 105 min
ASPECT RATIO ?
1.85:1
COLOR
Color
LANGUAGE
English
REGION
A
RATING
R
PRODUCTION DATE
Various
CLOSED-CAPTION
No
SUBTITLES
English

https://sneakpeek.shoutfactory.com/film/action-adventure/the-pope-of-greenwich-village-desperate-hours-double-feature


Pope and Desperate.png



Pope Poster.jpg



Rourke Desperate Hours.jpg
 

Winston T. Boogie

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Would have been very cool if this included Cimino's far better Year of the Dragon which is with Warner Brothers:


Year of the Dragon Rourke.jpg



But still happy we are getting these.
 

Winston T. Boogie

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So, watched The Pope of Greenwich Village the other night. Directed by Stuart Rosenberg who is probably best known for directing Cool Hand Luke, a film that actually has a lot in common with The Pope of Greenwich Village. Both films are "actor's films" in that they really are designed to allow the actors to give tremendous performances. In both films not only are the leads spectacular but they are loaded with the cream of the crop of character actors to enhance the telling of the tale and every actor in the film gets his or her moment to stand out. Rosenberg had already had a long career at the point he did Pope and had directed Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Bruce Dern, Elliott Gould, Charles Bronson, Rod Steiger and Lee Marvin to name some of the leads in his films but he called the acting of Mickey Rourke and Eric Roberts maybe the best he had ever seen. Those two do give career defining performances but really if you like seeing good actors do great work, give this film a watch. Geraldine Page only has a couple of scenes in the film and she was Oscar nominated for her performance. Everybody that turns up for this one though gets great scenes to act and when you are dealing with actors like Ken McMillan, M. Emmet Walsh, Burt Young, Jack Kehoe and Tony Musante you are going to get some great stuff. You will even recognize the faces in most of the little bit parts. I get the feeling Stuart Rosenberg really loved actors and loved allowing them, even in small roles, to give the best they could give and really that's what makes this film a joy to watch.


On top of the acting we also get fantastic location photography of New York as Rosenberg insisted the film must be shot on location. This combined with all the great acting really gives this film a unique and fantastic atmosphere. This really is a great little film.


The blu-ray is well worth picking up. I don't think any clean up has been done to the film but it gave me a good film-like presentation that worked well with the gritty atmosphere of the race tracks, restaurants, back rooms, and streets of New York city where the film is set.


While it does not seem to be mentioned anywhere the disc also has a fairly lengthy group of special features that add up to a decent documentary about the making of The Pope of Greenwich Village. These are all presented in standard definition and are obviously promotional features from around the time the film was shot. Rourke put on 30 pounds for his role in Pope and it is striking to see him obviously some time after the film was completed in these features when he had taken that weight back off...he looks great and is all movie star charm and charisma...and to compare that with how he has changed over the years after far too much plastic surgery. Saw him recently in a clip from the new WWII film he is in and he does not even look like the same person...not to mention his voice now seems several octaves deeper than it was in the 1980s and really you would never know it is the same guy unless you were told it was him.


I have not watched the second film that comes in this package, Desperate Hours, which is certainly not in the same league as The Pope of Greenwich Village and will likely save that for another day. I did not like the film when I originally saw it and have not revisited it really since it was in theaters. However, this is worth picking up just for Pope which really is a gem from the 1980s that is probably Rosenberg's second best film behind Cool Hand Luke.
 

Walter Kittel

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I'm in complete agreement with your assessment of The Pope of Greenwich Village. Easily one of my favorite Rourke films (along with Alan Parker's Angel Heart).


Happy to hear that you enjoyed the presentation (gritty is a good way to describe some of the locales.)


- Walter.
 

Winston T. Boogie

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Mickey Rourke has been pretty consistent over the years in listing The Pope of Greenwich Village as his favorite of the films he has done. When asked again recently about his favorite films and roles he again listed Charlie and Pope as his best work. I am very happy with the blu-ray but still have not got around to watching the second film in this set. Instead after watching Pope I put Wolfen in the blu-ray player and that really worked surprisingly well as the second half of my Tuesday night double feature as I remained in 1980s New York albeit in some worse neighborhoods.
 

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