LL Cool J wrote:
Cannes Snooze Festival wrote:Is Apocalypse Now a classic (1979)? If so that gets my vote. One great scene with Robert Duvall in the midst of hours (seemingly) of tedious crap with several more hours (seemingly) of Brando mumbling about something or other at the end.
It sounds like you watched the Redux version, which added what seems like an enormous amount of irrelevant crap. The low point is when they're eating dinner in some French plantation forever, nothing happens, there's an argument (in French, with no subtitles) and then Martin Sheen smokes opium and has sex with some woman.
Try the original. It's a masterpiece and if you still think it's crap then you are just wrong about movies.
What I find frustrating about "Apocalypse Now" is that, after watching the original theatrical release as well as the "director's cut" (Redux), I think that a better film than either version would have resulted by adding some of the Redux footage to the portion of the original release that follows the initial meeting with Kurtz, but leaves out the French plantation scenes and the scene involving a conversation between a soldier and a Playboy playmate. I still think that it's a great film (and I probably do favor the original theatrical release), but could have been better with some judicious editing.
In that regard, I happened to be reading about the making of "The Godfather" earlier today. I hadn't realized that Coppola originally submitted a 130-minute version, but Bob Evans re-edited it to add considerable footage, telling Coppola that he had merely submitted a "trailer" instead of a complete movie. Some very bad blood among some very big egos on that film.