How do you turn a charming movie into a bloated monstrosity? Director's cut!

How to make a charming, 90-minute classic film into a bloated 3-hour monstrosity. Two magic words: Director's cut. The cinematic equivalent of vanity press. Well, my fears were a bit unfounded on "Cinema Paradiso." The three-hour version too much to handle in one night, we broke it up and watched the first 90 minutes last night - made it much more palatable. The film still does have the charm that I remember from first viewing, the wonderful sense of the small Sicilian town whose cultural and social life revolves around the cinema, the young boy obsessed with everything about film, his touching bonding with the gruff but lovable projectionist - all a bit cornball and sentimental, even when viewed through the frame of the adult Toto, now a director, alienated, wealthy, la dolce vita - he's like Mastrioni in LDV or 8 1/2. At least the first half didn't seem too long - I'm worried about part two because what seems to have been added is Toto's adolescent love for the fair-haired banker's daughter - a completely different kind of movie, and much more traveled ground. If I'm right, that who strand of the story was wisely cut, leaving the focus on the boy/man's relation with the projectionist father figure, Alfredo, and on his lifelong fascination with cinema. We'll see how it holds up as a 3-hour show. Either way, the older scenes in the village, apparently just after the war, are the strongest and most real - at times even surreal. The burning of the cinema and its reconstruction as a modern film palace moves the film into less interesting territory, because much more explored.