Martin-Sheen Movie Reviews

Russian ballet star Mikhail Baryshnikov presents charming animated versions of his favorite childhood stories.This is a terrific version of beauty and the beast.A wealthy merchant ask's his three daughters what gift they would like him to bring back from his journey.The eldest demands a crown of gold,the middle,a mirror that will reflect her forever young.The youngest asks only for a crimson flower which she has seen in her dream.The merchant takes the crimson flower from the beast's yard and he demands one of his daughter's in return.The Russian animation in this movie is great.Features the voices of Amy Irving,Tim Curry,&Robert Loggia.

I remember this anime from my own childhood, its a story about the daughter of a zoo manager/ exobiologist called Alice who travels to the third planet off Aldebaran to find many interesting and novel animals for the zoo. One of the most memorable is the twoheaded "Talkingbird" who says "Talkingbird is clever and wise"(I'm not sure about the exact translation in this version - this is just what I remember) but soon the bird starts to talk about the original three astronauts and an interesting story soon unfolds as they go to find out about it, with shady characters on their tracks they find jewel-covered turtoises and flowers which record and display their surroundings... All great stuff. A memorable story and one of the best soviet animation films, worth a watch to anyone interested in what kind of animation was created behind the Iron Curtain. The story is based on a children's story by Kir Bulytchev and he actually wrote seven or more stories, its just a pity they didn't animate the rest I guess. Hopefully someone will pick up the yarn, RTBS.

Martin Sheen does his best acting job on this 1971 Movie which is essentially a one man show potraying an American civil war concientious objector(Ashley Gatrell) hiding out in the hills of Doddridge County West Virginia.Cyde Ware,the director(writer of such series as Gunsmoke,Bonanza)also does a superb job!!

In this 1971 Movie,a young Martin Sheen does a superb job on portraying a cocientious objector(Ashley Gatrell) during the American Civil War which is essentially a one man show filmed in the Hills of Doddridge County West Virginia.Cylde Ware also does a superb job of directing(Writer of such TV series such as Gunsmoke and Bonanza).Filmed at the peak of the Vietnam Anti-war movement,this film should prove to be a cult classic!!

Based on a true story of a rookie policewoman who was raped by a fellow officer this movie has an intelligent screenplay by a woman, Valerie West, and clean direction by Armand Mastroianni. It also helps that the cop is played by Full House's Lori Loughlin in a truthful and ultimately touching way, devoid of exploitation hysteria. Since Loughlin is still on a probation, her initial reluctance to report the rape is later used to condemn her, and although the cliched "I never thought it could happen to me" syndrome is evident, we still understand her logic. You might think a rookie would have some self-defence skills since the movie begins with her coping with a violent confrontation, but the argument the rapist is stronger than she, passes, since a rape victim cannot be blamed. Once Loughlin does come forward and the "blue wall of silence" goes into effect, where the police close ranks, Mastroianni employs a Karen Silkwood style conspiracy. The horror of being totally unprotected when it is the police you thought who existed to protect you being the ones who you need protection from, is realised. Loughlin's admission is prematurely interrupted more than once by inappropriate timing, which has the whiff of perverse humour, if one can be black enough to laugh about rape. There is also a laugh when a rock with "rat" painted on it is hurled through Loughlin's window, after she had been told that the "code" is you don't "rat" on "family". We are told that 40% of rapes are committed by those known to the victim, and a casual look at the perpetrator (Greg Evigan, aging to resemble Mickey Rourke) provides circumstantial clues - he drinks, chews gum, boasts of infidelities, and is bare-chested in the mixed cop locker-room. When we get to a trial, it is handled with surprising amusement. Martin Sheen as the assistant District Attorney and Loughlin's lawyer enjoys himself immensely in his cross-examinations, and even Evigan's defence counsel redeems herself in her questioning of Loughlin, after a disastrous opening speech beginning with "The truth is that there is no truth" Huh?! The presentation of night shift cops having inclusive recreational time is another cliche to be overcome. There may be some truth to the idea that their experiences give them a unique bond, but at least Loughlin has a boyfriend as an outside interest, even if he is thick enough to be unaware of her pain. I like how Mastroianni has the noise of playing children outside Loughlin's house muffle her screams, though I could have done without her flashbacks of the attack, particularly as they are standard rewinds with no attempt at point of view. Apparently most rapes go unreported because, presumably, of fear of retribution, if the statistics on the perpetrators being known to the victim are true. A rape being reported every 5 minutes is an horrific occurence, but if that is only what is reported, one dreads to think of the frequency of the attacks themselves.

This is a fantastic movie following after "Guns of Honour". The story is about friendship, love, hate, war, honour and much more. Like "Guns of Honour" it is a most see movie for all fans of good Westerns who unlike many American Westerns have an Native American as a hero and that is always good to see.

In this early 1970's movie that's in the same spirit of"Tennessee Williams" directed by Clyde Ware is a rather haunting tale starring a young Martin Sheen portraying Bluff Jackson as a Footloose,smooth talking drifter going into an isolated mountainside home in West Virginia(filmed on location in Doddridge County WV near the town of West Union)where there lives a 130 year old civil war veteran along with his 2 beautiful,blonde naive,virginal great,great,great grandaughters who have never been kissed, living in an isolated 19th Century lifestyle and how Bluff(Sheen) dramatically alters their lives.This is a little known but brilliantly acted gem of a movie.It's a fascinating,nostalgic must see film especially for Martin Sheen fans!!

"Gettysburg" has its faults: the phony beards that look like the kind you can buy at a drugstore for Halloween, the large number of overweight and overaged extras, the questionable casting (Martin Sheen as Robert E. Lee? Brian Mallon as Winfield S. Hancock?), the nearly bloodless battle scenes, the poorly choreographed hand-to-hand combat scenes, cannons firing with no recoil, extras staring into the camera or smiling at inappropriate times, and so on and so on. Most of these quibbles, however, can be explained away by the movie's TV production budget and its almost exclusive reliance on the services of Civil War reenactors as extras without whom "Gettysburg" could have never been made. Also, due to the "Gettysburg's" faithfulness to Michael Shaara's novel, "The Killer Angels;" several scenes of "dialogue" come across as very stilted and artificial- Sam Elliot's Buford talking about the high ground or Tom Berenger's Longstreet discussing his thoughts about the upcoming Pickett's Charge. In the book those scenes were thoughts not conversation; but too many longwinded voiceovers would have been overkill, so the movie has the actors giving monologues to a nodding supporting actor.

Despite its faults, I love, love, LOVE this movie. I saw it four times in the theater and uncountable number of times on video. It's a Civil War buff's dream film. I think Jeff Daniels and Tom Berenger are superb and I really love Stephen Lang's Pickett. The Battle for Little Round Top and Pickett's Charge are spectacular. The musical score was one of the best of the 90's. Even the opening credits are alot of fun to watch. Also "Gettysburg" contains numerous little details that only buffs will recognize: A.P. Hill, Myles Keogh, Alonzo Cushing, G.K. Warren, Augustus Ellis Van Horne, 2nd U.S. Sharpshooters, the Texas Brigade, the Iron Brigade in their distinctive black hats, the Irish Brigade receiving absolution from Fr. Corby, Stannard's Vermonters, the Irish 69th PA at the Angle, the reenacting of a Homer Winslow painting, one armed Oliver Howard, Alexander Webb played by Brian Pohonka, the Union divisional emblems, and numerous others. Director Ronald Maxwell went out his way to accomodate these little details, and they add alot of enjoyment to the movie.

In its review one Civil War magazine described "Gettysburg" as a "great shaggy dog of a thing"- it's a little sloppy at times; but still highly loveable. Should a movie about Gettysburg be loveable? Does "Gettysburg's" battle scenes, with their stirring music and minimal bloodshed, do justice to the carnage of July 1-3, 1863? Definetly not. Maybe someday a filmmaker with access to a HUGE budget and all the latest CGI and special effects technology will do for Pickett's Charge what Speilberg did for Omaha Beach; but I'm not going to hold my breath waiting. Until then I will enjoy "Gettysburg" for what it is- a terrific attempt to bring to life one of the classic war novels and a film that belies its television production orgins.

This movies is my all-time favorite for the war genre. It was well worth the $20 million price tag for Turner Pictures. Gettysburg is the classic war saga minus the romance along the lines of Gone With The Wind. The performances of all the actors are splendid. My personal favorites are the performances given by Tom Berenger as Lt. Gen. James Longstreet, Richard Jordan as Gen. Lewis Armistead, Jeff Daniels as Col. Joshua Chamberlain, Sam Elliott as Brig. Gen. John Buford, and of course Stephen Lang as Maj. Gen. George E. Pickett. The performance by Jordan was to be his last as he became ill with a brain tumor and died 9 months after the filming of Gettysburg. He is caught between love and war with his long-time friend Maj. Gen Winfield Hancock (Brian Mallon) on the opposing Union side. Armistead suffers considerable agony which is obvious to even the casual viewer especially when the director Ronald F. Maxwell spends considerable time on Armistead trying to bait Lt Gen Longstreet (Tom Berenger) into relieving Armistead of the upcoming battle. Jeff Daniels was a very big suprise for me. I picture Daniels in the toilet scene from Dumb and Dumber and would not have cast him myself in this epic, but that just shows the genius behind casting director Joy Todd. Sam Elliot's role as Buford can be summed up in the following quote "Meade will come in slowly, cautiously, new to command... And then, after Lee's army is entrenched behind nice fat rocks, Meade will attack finally, if he can coordinate the army. He'll attack right up that rocky slope, and up that gorgeous field of fire. And we will charge valiantly, and be butchered valiantly. And afterwards men in tall hats and gold watch fobs will thump their chest and say what a brave charge it was. Devin, I've led a soldier's life, and I've never seen anything as brutally clear as this"...wonderful! Alot of love was given to the filming of this movie. 5,000 non-paid re-enactors were hired to play the roles of the thousands of anonymous faces. Even Ted Turner himself picked up the musket and was among the ones counted during Pickett's charge. He can be seen, but only for a nano-second. I can write forever on this films' qualities but to finish it up, the accuracy in this film is phenomenal. The greatest example of this is how Ronald F.Maxwell uses actual quotes recorded by soldiers from that famous battle. Gen. Pickett: "Up men, up! And let no man forget today that you are from old Virginia!" Gen. Armistead: "Virginians! Virginians! For your land - for your homes - for your sweethearts - for your wives - for Virginia! Forward... march!"

Gettysburg, perhaps the most well known battle of The American Civil War, is an amazing movie to every history buff. The movie Gettysburg is created from the book The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara. With a great cast and story it is not even a question why I gave Gettysburg five stars. This movie shifts from Union to Confederate sides showing plans of attack and reason of fighting the war. The battles are present through the entire length of this movie. As all three days of the battle are shown it is an incredible site to see especially the final day. Picketts' charge is the most amazing thing I have ever seen. The speeches provide courage and bravery for the men as they walk into Union ground accross an open field.

I'm a hardcore Apocalypse Now fanatic, and this, the original version of the film, is what made me one, several years ago. Reviewers like to debate endlessly over which version is better, this or the Redux. Personally, I like both, but I find this original version to be more surreal, relentless, and, to quote another reviewer, more "dangerous." The fact is, Coppola used different shots and edits in the Redux, in some cases diluting the surreal impact of the original. Plus the characters Kilgore and Kurtz come off more strongly in the original; sure, we get to see more humanity from Kilgore in the Redux, but his exit in the original is much more memorable, much better than the "tossing megaphone into the air" antics as shown in the Redux. And Kurtz is a more powerful Evil One in the original version, not much more than a shadow.

What gets me is that, in the press releases that came out with Redux, Coppola claimed that he no longer considered the 1979 version of Apocalypse to be "unusual." He felt that, today, it comes off as a rather ordinary film. So he integrated an extra 50 minutes into the movie, to make it more unusual. The thing is, the Redux is, if anything, MORE normal than the original. After all, you get more character development, a romantic subplot, etc; all the things the unusual (and unique), original version lacked. The very lack of these things is what gives the original such a mysterious, dangerous edge. There is no levity in the original, no stealing of surfboards, no Playmates for the PBR crew. Only the dark jungle, and the mission.

If it's true that Coppola wanted to make the original version even more unusual, then I wonder why he chose to add the Plantation sequence and the Playboy Bunnies escapade. Having seen the Work Print, I know that there is a wealth of material Coppola could've used. Bizarre? Unusual? How about a scene in which Martin Sheen's Willard, trapped in a bamboo cage, writhes in pain as the montangnards (and Kurtz's American soldiers) dance and chant around him, as they sacrifice a pig? Or how about Willard, still in the cage, being questioned by Kurtz, who tells Willard that he's as weak as his "colleagues in Washington?" Or how about possibly the most bizarre scene of all: Dennis Hopper's Photojournalist being shotgunned to death by Scott Glenn's character Colby?

Coppola could have used any or all of these scenes to make a truly "unusual" film, one that would successfully create a darker film. If anything, the extra scenes in Redux lighten the film's mood. Coppola could have even improved on the end of the movie. That's one thing that's always bothered me about Apocalypse Now. Willard's hired to murder Kurtz; when he finally does, all he has to do is just walk into Kurtz's temple, take out one guard, and then get to hacking at Kurtz. It comes off as so easy, you wonder why the Army even bothered hiring Willard. This problem is solved in the Work Print, which features Willard taking on a host of guards, including one grisly scene in which he spears an American guard who cowers behind a young, Vietnamese boy. Now, if you ask me, that's more "unusual" than a bunch of French people arguing politics at the dinner table! But unfortunately, Coppola has chosen not to use these scenes, in either official version of the film.

I don't intend to mislead, though. I think the Redux is fine, a five-star movie. It expands on the broader themes of Apocalypse Now, but at the same time lessens the impact of the movie itself. After having watched the Redux a few times, I popped the original in for the first time in a few years. I was amazed at how the film seemed so different than the Redux, so much more psychedelic and surreal. Even the fades and images shown in the beginning and the end are different in the original, more disturbing. And that's the main difference between the two versions: the original is much more disturbing.

I'll finish with another quote, taken from the web. Which director do you think is better, the Francis Coppola of 1976/1979, or the Francis Coppola of 2001? Of these two very different directors, whose vision would you be more willing to trust?

1-Francis Ford Coppola,
At the height of his creative genuis, and with films like The Conversation, Godfather 1& 2 to his credit, he was considered to be one of the few directors/auteurs,one responsible for enriching American Cinema and lifting it to new artistic heights to this day
2-Brando..Brando..Brando..
He was paid millions to appear just for a short time at the end of the movie, and he is worth every single penny/cent and more. Forget his speech in the opening of Godfather, as great and classic as it is, the 'Horror' speech still gives me a chill down my spine, one of the most haunting speeches in cinema history.
3-Vietnam
With Deer Hunter, Apocalypse Now is the best film that dealt with the Vietnam war, and how it slowly affected the hearts and minds of some of its soldiers, pushing them into the darkest recesses of the human soul.
4-Scenes
There are many memorable scenes in Apocalypse Now, but few have forever stuck in my mind, the Helicopters attack with Wagner's music playing, and the tiger jumping out of nowhere in the dense jungle, though short was totally unexpected and scary.
5-Actors
Martin Sheen, Robert Duvall, Frederic Forrest, Dennis Hopper, Larry Fishburn,all giving 100% and more for Coppola.
6-Joseph Conrad
John Milius and Coppola adapted Conrad's novel, and though Africa became Vietnam, the spirit of the book was not compromised in any way, one of the very few who devled into the darkness of the human soul.
7-The making of Apocalypse Now, appropriately named 'Heart Of Darkness' is the most interesting making of documentary ever filmed. Done by Coppola's wife Eleanor, it brilliantly manages to be personal yet detached and objective, and captures in intimate details the creative process and the difficulties that it encountered with the heart attack (Martin Sheen), near nervous breakdown (Coppola),and logistic problems (with Phillipines army).
8-DVD
Though short on Extras, it is of excellent quality
9-Music
With a combination of classical and original score, the music expresses and complements perfectly each scene.The soundtrack CD is a must buy too, since it also includes extracts from dialogue (including the 'Horror' speech)
10-Movie Library
If you are serious about starting a movie collection or enhancing your present one, then Apocalypse Now is what a 'movie collection' is meant for, a rich and rare film, the product of a time when directors and actors had personal visions great talent, and the free hand to translate it on screen and share it with cinema lovers worldwide.

Francis Ford Coppola's original 1979 version of Apocalypse Now is a dark, sardonic, surrealistic yet mesmerizing reworking of Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness. Starring Marlon Brando, Martin Sheen, Robert Duvall, Fredric Forrest, Larry Fishbourne, and Dennis Hopper, Apocalypse Now trades Conrad's African setting for the then-still largely unexplored (by Hollywood, anyway) jungles of Vietnam.

The film's premise is deceptively simple. A hard-bitten, combat-weary Capt. Benjamin Willard (Sheen) is given a difficult (and highly classified) assignment: he is to travel up a long Vietnamese river on a Navy PBR (river patrol boat) to find the jungle outpost of Col. Walter Kurtz (Brando), a highly decorated and intelligent Special Forces officer who has gone "rogue" and utilizing what one senior officer describes as "unsound methods" to fight the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong. Willard is to locate Kurtz and "terminate (him) with extreme prejudice."

In what many viewers of this movie consider the classic centerpiece of Apocalypse Now, Willard and his uneasy Navy companions need the assistance of Lt. Col. Kilgore (Duvall) and his Air Cavalry unit's helicopters to get past a too-shallow part of the river, or else the PBR will run aground. Trouble is, as Kilgore (a "warrior-surfer") points out, "Charlie" controls the mouth of the river. Still, Kilgore agrees to escort Willard and his PBR for two reasons: he loves a good battle, and the location is ideal for surfing. (When one of his soldiers points out that the place is known as "Charlie's Point," Kilgore barks, "Charlie don't surf!")

What follows is perhaps the iconic scene no other Vietnam War movie has been able to top: the early morning helicopter assault on Charlie's Point. In a terrifying yet oddly exhilarating sequence, we see Kilgore's Huey armada sweeping in on the seaside village with the morning sun behind them and Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries blaring from their loudspeakers. It culminates with a devastating air strike on hidden gun positions which have shot down a chopper, prompting Kilgore to utter the hallmark line, "I love the smell of napalm in the morning...it smells like victory."

Coppola's film then progressively gets darker and more surreal the farther the PBR makes its way upriver for Willlard's rendezvous with the mystery of Kurtz. The deeper the motley group goes into the jungle and the more distant they are from the "world," the weirder things get. And Willard (and the viewer) begins to wonder: what made Kurtz turn his back on the tactics officially endorsed by the Army and the Pentagon? Why was he being sent to kill Kurtz? What made the generals and politicians who ran the war any better than Kurtz?

Apocalypse Now is famous for having been difficult to make and for being controversial. When the Pentagon refused to allow Coppola to use its aircraft and equipment, the Oscar-winning (The Godfather Parts I and II) director turned to the Philippine Army, which lent its Hueys and other "toys" to the production. It's also well known that Martin Sheen suffered a heart attack during filming.

What is somewhat not widely known is that Apocalypse Now was once a project George Lucas was heavily involved in. As one of Coppola's co-founders of American Zoetrope, Lucas and Coppola's collaborator John (Red Dawn) Milius came up with many of the ideas incorporated into the final film. According to Dale Pollock's 1983 biography "Skywalking: The Life and Films of George Lucas," the concept of the journey to Kurtz via a boat was Lucas'. Lucas had also wanted badly to direct Apocalypse Now, but when the production schedule dragged on and planning for Star Wars got underway, Coppola refused to wait till the science fiction film was finished to begin production of Apocalypse Now. He had set a release date for 1976, the Bicentennial year, and if Lucas went off to direct Star Wars, that date would be set back by a year. He refused to budge, and Lucas went his separate way. As it turned out, production problems, including a typhoon and Sheen's illness, slowed down production anyway and the film was released in 1979. (If you look closely, though, you'll see a visual homage to Coppola's friend and protege: the intelligence officer played by Harrison Ford wears a name tag with the name Lucas on his fatigues jacket.)

The original Paramount Widescreen Collection DVD (not to be confused with the more recent Apocalypse Now Redux) is a barebones offering. Its single disc only has English subtitles, English and French audio tracks, the original theatrical trailer, a scene called "Destruction of Kurtz Compound" which has the only bit of director's commentary by Coppola, and excerpts from the original theatrical program.

I'm a hardcore Apocalypse Now fanatic, and this, the original version of the film, is what made me one, several years ago. Reviewers like to debate endlessly over which version is better, this or the Redux. Personally, I like both, but I find this original version to be more surreal, relentless, and, to quote another reviewer, more "dangerous." The fact is, Coppola used different shots and edits in the Redux, in some cases diluting the surreal impact of the original. Plus the characters Kilgore and Kurtz come off more strongly in the original; sure, we get to see more humanity from Kilgore in the Redux, but his exit in the original is much more memorable, much better than the "tossing megaphone into the air" antics as shown in the Redux. And Kurtz is a more powerful Evil One in the original version, not much more than a shadow.

What gets me is that, in the press releases that came out with Redux, Coppola claimed that he no longer considered the 1979 version of Apocalypse to be "unusual." He felt that, today, it comes off as a rather ordinary film. So he integrated an extra 50 minutes into the movie, to make it more unusual. The thing is, the Redux is, if anything, MORE normal than the original. After all, you get more character development, a romantic subplot, etc; all the things the unusual (and unique), original version lacked. The very lack of these things is what gives the original such a mysterious, dangerous edge. There is no levity in the original, no stealing of surfboards, no Playmates for the PBR crew. Only the dark jungle, and the mission.

If it's true that Coppola wanted to make the original version even more unusual, then I wonder why he chose to add the Plantation sequence and the Playboy Bunnies escapade. Having seen the Work Print, I know that there is a wealth of material Coppola could've used. Bizarre? Unusual? How about a scene in which Martin Sheen's Willard, trapped in a bamboo cage, writhes in pain as the montangnards (and Kurtz's American soldiers) dance and chant around him, as they sacrifice a pig? Or how about Willard, still in the cage, being questioned by Kurtz, who tells Willard that he's as weak as his "colleagues in Washington?" Or how about possibly the most bizarre scene of all: Dennis Hopper's Photojournalist being shotgunned to death by Scott Glenn's character Colby?

Coppola could have used any or all of these scenes to make a truly "unusual" film, one that would successfully create a darker film. If anything, the extra scenes in Redux lighten the film's mood. Coppola could have even improved on the end of the movie. That's one thing that's always bothered me about Apocalypse Now. Willard's hired to murder Kurtz; when he finally does, all he has to do is just walk into Kurtz's temple, take out one guard, and then get to hacking at Kurtz. It comes off as so easy, you wonder why the Army even bothered hiring Willard. This problem is solved in the Work Print, which features Willard taking on a host of guards, including one grisly scene in which he spears an American guard who cowers behind a young, Vietnamese boy. Now, if you ask me, that's more "unusual" than a bunch of French people arguing politics at the dinner table! But unfortunately, Coppola has chosen not to use these scenes, in either official version of the film.

I don't intend to mislead, though. I think the Redux is fine, a five-star movie. It expands on the broader themes of Apocalypse Now, but at the same time lessens the impact of the movie itself. After having watched the Redux a few times, I popped the original in for the first time in a few years. I was amazed at how the film seemed so different than the Redux, so much more psychedelic and surreal. Even the fades and images shown in the beginning and the end are different in the original, more disturbing. And that's the main difference between the two versions: the original is much more disturbing.

I'll finish with another quote, taken from the web. Which director do you think is better, the Francis Coppola of 1976/1979, or the Francis Coppola of 2001? Of these two very different directors, whose vision would you be more willing to trust?

1-Francis Ford Coppola,
At the height of his creative genuis, and with films like The Conversation, Godfather 1& 2 to his credit, he was considered to be one of the few directors/auteurs,one responsible for enriching American Cinema and lifting it to new artistic heights to this day
2-Brando..Brando..Brando..
He was paid millions to appear just for a short time at the end of the movie, and he is worth every single penny/cent and more. Forget his speech in the opening of Godfather, as great and classic as it is, the 'Horror' speech still gives me a chill down my spine, one of the most haunting speeches in cinema history.
3-Vietnam
With Deer Hunter, Apocalypse Now is the best film that dealt with the Vietnam war, and how it slowly affected the hearts and minds of some of its soldiers, pushing them into the darkest recesses of the human soul.
4-Scenes
There are many memorable scenes in Apocalypse Now, but few have forever stuck in my mind, the Helicopters attack with Wagner's music playing, and the tiger jumping out of nowhere in the dense jungle, though short was totally unexpected and scary.
5-Actors
Martin Sheen, Robert Duvall, Frederic Forrest, Dennis Hopper, Larry Fishburn,all giving 100% and more for Coppola.
6-Joseph Conrad
John Milius and Coppola adapted Conrad's novel, and though Africa became Vietnam, the spirit of the book was not compromised in any way, one of the very few who devled into the darkness of the human soul.
7-The making of Apocalypse Now, appropriately named 'Heart Of Darkness' is the most interesting making of documentary ever filmed. Done by Coppola's wife Eleanor, it brilliantly manages to be personal yet detached and objective, and captures in intimate details the creative process and the difficulties that it encountered with the heart attack (Martin Sheen), near nervous breakdown (Coppola),and logistic problems (with Phillipines army).
8-DVD
Though short on Extras, it is of excellent quality
9-Music
With a combination of classical and original score, the music expresses and complements perfectly each scene.The soundtrack CD is a must buy too, since it also includes extracts from dialogue (including the 'Horror' speech)
10-Movie Library
If you are serious about starting a movie collection or enhancing your present one, then Apocalypse Now is what a 'movie collection' is meant for, a rich and rare film, the product of a time when directors and actors had personal visions great talent, and the free hand to translate it on screen and share it with cinema lovers worldwide.

Francis Ford Coppola's original 1979 version of Apocalypse Now is a dark, sardonic, surrealistic yet mesmerizing reworking of Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness. Starring Marlon Brando, Martin Sheen, Robert Duvall, Fredric Forrest, Larry Fishbourne, and Dennis Hopper, Apocalypse Now trades Conrad's African setting for the then-still largely unexplored (by Hollywood, anyway) jungles of Vietnam.

The film's premise is deceptively simple. A hard-bitten, combat-weary Capt. Benjamin Willard (Sheen) is given a difficult (and highly classified) assignment: he is to travel up a long Vietnamese river on a Navy PBR (river patrol boat) to find the jungle outpost of Col. Walter Kurtz (Brando), a highly decorated and intelligent Special Forces officer who has gone "rogue" and utilizing what one senior officer describes as "unsound methods" to fight the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong. Willard is to locate Kurtz and "terminate (him) with extreme prejudice."

In what many viewers of this movie consider the classic centerpiece of Apocalypse Now, Willard and his uneasy Navy companions need the assistance of Lt. Col. Kilgore (Duvall) and his Air Cavalry unit's helicopters to get past a too-shallow part of the river, or else the PBR will run aground. Trouble is, as Kilgore (a "warrior-surfer") points out, "Charlie" controls the mouth of the river. Still, Kilgore agrees to escort Willard and his PBR for two reasons: he loves a good battle, and the location is ideal for surfing. (When one of his soldiers points out that the place is known as "Charlie's Point," Kilgore barks, "Charlie don't surf!")

What follows is perhaps the iconic scene no other Vietnam War movie has been able to top: the early morning helicopter assault on Charlie's Point. In a terrifying yet oddly exhilarating sequence, we see Kilgore's Huey armada sweeping in on the seaside village with the morning sun behind them and Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries blaring from their loudspeakers. It culminates with a devastating air strike on hidden gun positions which have shot down a chopper, prompting Kilgore to utter the hallmark line, "I love the smell of napalm in the morning...it smells like victory."

Coppola's film then progressively gets darker and more surreal the farther the PBR makes its way upriver for Willlard's rendezvous with the mystery of Kurtz. The deeper the motley group goes into the jungle and the more distant they are from the "world," the weirder things get. And Willard (and the viewer) begins to wonder: what made Kurtz turn his back on the tactics officially endorsed by the Army and the Pentagon? Why was he being sent to kill Kurtz? What made the generals and politicians who ran the war any better than Kurtz?

Apocalypse Now is famous for having been difficult to make and for being controversial. When the Pentagon refused to allow Coppola to use its aircraft and equipment, the Oscar-winning (The Godfather Parts I and II) director turned to the Philippine Army, which lent its Hueys and other "toys" to the production. It's also well known that Martin Sheen suffered a heart attack during filming.

What is somewhat not widely known is that Apocalypse Now was once a project George Lucas was heavily involved in. As one of Coppola's co-founders of American Zoetrope, Lucas and Coppola's collaborator John (Red Dawn) Milius came up with many of the ideas incorporated into the final film. According to Dale Pollock's 1983 biography "Skywalking: The Life and Films of George Lucas," the concept of the journey to Kurtz via a boat was Lucas'. Lucas had also wanted badly to direct Apocalypse Now, but when the production schedule dragged on and planning for Star Wars got underway, Coppola refused to wait till the science fiction film was finished to begin production of Apocalypse Now. He had set a release date for 1976, the Bicentennial year, and if Lucas went off to direct Star Wars, that date would be set back by a year. He refused to budge, and Lucas went his separate way. As it turned out, production problems, including a typhoon and Sheen's illness, slowed down production anyway and the film was released in 1979. (If you look closely, though, you'll see a visual homage to Coppola's friend and protege: the intelligence officer played by Harrison Ford wears a name tag with the name Lucas on his fatigues jacket.)

The original Paramount Widescreen Collection DVD (not to be confused with the more recent Apocalypse Now Redux) is a barebones offering. Its single disc only has English subtitles, English and French audio tracks, the original theatrical trailer, a scene called "Destruction of Kurtz Compound" which has the only bit of director's commentary by Coppola, and excerpts from the original theatrical program.