Sometimes slow is good...

Rating: Null/10 (30 April 2001)

The reviews for this movie were so mixed that I avoided it until it went on the "cheap" shelf at the video store.
I thought it a really fine piece of movie-making, on its own terms (that is, putting aside that it's a remake of "Death Takes a Holiday"). It's nice to have time to get to know a character, and this movie was mostly about two: Bill Parrish (Anthony Hopkins) and his daughter Susan (Claire Forlani). By the time it was all over, I admired an obscenely wealthy man, and was in love with Susan. Brad Pitt did a wonderful job of playing a one-dimensional character (which I thought was the point), and Jeffrey Tambor and Marcia Gay Harden were terrific in support.
The Thomas Newman soundtrack is superb; the movie looks great; and even the closing titles are moving (accompanied by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's amazing rendition of "Over The Rainbow/What A Wonderful World").
But my main reason for writing is that last night ABC showed something like the infamous "Airline Version"--the entire backstory concerning the plotting behind Parrish's back to overthrow his publishing empire was expunged, and most of Tambor's best scenes along with it.
That the networks regard themselves as entitled to butcher movies I find quite as startling as that some think themselves entitled to negatively review a movie they haven't, by their own admission, actually watched...