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(Michael Cimino, 1980; Second Sight, 15)

This important double-disc set contains two essential films. This is the first time Michael Cimino's epic 216-minute western has been available for domestic viewing in Britain. The second disc contains a shortened version of Michael Epstein's documentary feature Final Cut: The Making and Unmaking of Heaven's Gate. Beautifully restored on DVD and Blu-ray, Heaven's Gate is one of the finest westerns ever made. It's a measured, magisterial account of the Johnson County War in 1892 Wyoming, when the powerful stock growers' association brought in a vast posse of assassins to destroy the wave of European immigrants they saw as threatening their monopoly of grazing land.

The film is seen largely through the eyes of an alcoholic aristocrat belonging to the stock growers (John Hurt) and two class enemies: a Harvard-educated sheriff who sides with the settlers (Kris Kristofferson) and an immigrant hired gun working for...

It's hard to express how great the last few days of movie watching have been for me. In preparation for the coming RopeofSilicon Movie Club I watched Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock and Ang Lee's The Ice Storm. I hadn't seen either film and that was the main reason I chose them for the Club, and both should certainly offer more than enough spirited conversation. That said, if you aren't familiar with what I'm talking about when I say "RopeofSilicon Movie Club," click here for more information as I will have a fully functional homepage for the club soon enough. Picnic and Ice Storm are the first two titles we'll be discussing, beginning October 15. Then I watched Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate. A film credited with marking the end of the New Hollywood generation of the '70s, ruining United Artists and ending Cimino's career. A restored version of...

BERLIN -- Films about films tend to be straightforward "making of" efforts, but a pair of movies screening during the Berlinale have taken a different approach. Based on a True Story, directed by Dutch documentary maker Walter Stokman, tries to unravel the real-life drama behind the Brooklyn bank robbery that inspired Sidney Lumet's 1975 picture Dog Day Afternoon, and Michael Epstein's The Final Cut: The Making and Unmaking of Heaven's Gate puts forward a case for re-evaluating Michael Cimino's epic, which became notorious as one of the biggest flops in Hollywood history. Both films could play a role in rekindling interest in the originals, offering the possibility of premium bonus material on any DVD rereleases.

COLOGNE -- A newly restored and uncut version of Michael Cimino's epic 1980 western, the financially disastrous Heaven's Gate, will screen at this year's Berlin International Film Festival in the International Forum sidebar, organizers announced on Thursday. Cimino's monumental depiction of the 1890s Johnson County Wars in Wyoming was the director's follow-up to his Vietnam classic The Deer Hunter. But Heaven's Gate, which featured an all-star cast including Kris Kristofferson, Christopher Walken, John Hurt and Isabelle Huppert, was a boxoffice flop blamed for single-handedly bringing down production studio United Artists. The forum will screen the original 225-minute cut of the film, which was never released commercially in Europe. The forum will also feature the European premiere of Michael Epstein's new documentary on the film's evolution and the ensuing financial fall-out: Final Cut: The Making and Unmaking of 'Heaven's Gate'.