Amadeus

For a three hour film to never get boring is a true testament. Sure, when I saw I still have half the movie left, I was less than thrilled, but the pacing is so fucking good that I was never dreading finishing it. The acting is amazing (I think Hulce is the one who should have been winning the awards though), the sets are beautiful, and the story has so many complex relationships and deep story moments, yet is easy to follow and get lost in. I did have an issue with the extended scenes of Mozart's operas having little context or explanation. The subtitles do occasionally offer some translation of the lyrics, but I never had a clue what I was seeing and thusly clueless at to what I was supposed to be getting out of them. A ten minute chunk of a German opera doesn't do anything for me. I watched the Director's Cut, so it was already longer than it originally was, but it still feels like I'm missing some of the story in the last forty minutes. I had a few "How did we get here?" moments that I still needed explained by the end. Overall, I was very happy with the film and surprised by how easy it was to get through all 180 minutes of it. Will I watch it again? Probably not, but it's not one that I would argue against if someone else chose it for a movie night.