Moustroll
Good movie but grossly overrated
JinRoz
For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!
Lucia Ayala
It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.
lobotomyboy63
I had been waiting for this to come out on DVD but I don't know if it ever will. Then I happened to find it on youtube. The book is a real gem. I've read it many times. I have my own ideas about who should play the various characters and so on. If I only had the money to finance the production, right? So it's just a question of how far this falls from the ideal.Short story long, this drops the ball. Too much nuance and delight are lost. I guess I'm glad they made the movie to bring it to a larger audience, but you really need to read the book.If all you can do is see the film, do so. But the book is out there. Take the time.
ejprice
When the navy officer father goes off to war and leave his son and wife to cope and the uncle moves in to be the "man of the family" but is nothing more than a leach things get interesting. Set against the background of the second world war and new Mexico I find many contemporary comparisons. Richard Thomas as the son and Claire Bloom as the mother are both excellent. Gregory Sierra as the sheriff trying to maintain order in a mixed race town is excellent. In our world today there is always a background of war as there was then, yet young people must come of age and mature and this movie captures that time of youth as no other I have seen. It is not sugar coated, but presented as life is. It mesmerizes you and at the same time makes you feel slightly uneasy about a time when the world was at war, fathers left to serve and families coped as best they could. I recommend seeing red sky at morning and let yourself be taken back to another era and at the same time to the era in which we live.
cliftonassoc
I saw this movie the year it came out. I was 19 and living in Corrales, New Mexico. It was a year after I graduated from High School in California and hit the road. The cinema is shot mostly outdoors and really captures the charm and essence of the New Mexico landscape and the flavor and culture of the rural villages. The storyline was brilliant and the actors were matched beautifully to the characters they played. It is a very funny, touching and emotional film at several levels. It is truly classic and timeless. The movie left a lasting impression on me. I think of it often over the years and how much I enjoyed it and would like to get a copy. It is a crime that Universal Studios will not release this movie to CD or video. I cannot understand it. I guess Universal feels it's too "indie" to generate any major income from commercial resale.
rfield-2
I viewed this film for the first time in a motel room at White Sands, New Mexico in 1997. I was completely bowled over. This was a stunning piece of photography (yes, filmography) and truly touching in its use of apace, fauna, and New Mexico geography. Richard Thomas and Desi Arnez,jr were wonderful. This is a real "coming of age" film. I wish to high heaven it were on video. I was, obviously, quite moved.The idea of placing characters from the WWII era in a desert,detached setting seemed uninteresting and silly to me, at first. As the film progressed, however, one realizes that World War is always somewhere in the background, a father who could hold it all together gone. What a trial for the young people of this film and we come to understand them and their anxieties.
