APOCALYPSE NOW REDUX directed by Francis Ford Coppola (USA,1979 – director’s cut 2001)
The directors cut of this outstanding movie is 49 minutes longer than the original release but more does not mean better.
While Coppola may have been satisfied with the revised, redux, version it’s hard to see that it adds anything radically new or notable. Aside from rejigging some scenes, the main change is the addition of a boring sequence where the crew encounter a French plantation in Cambodia.
This means we have to endure a lengthy dinner table debate about France’s involvement in the war which merely prolongs the climactic moment when Officer Willard (Martin Sheen) reaches the heart of darkness in the form Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando). Continue reading
Saddened to learn of the death of Davy Jones aged 66. Peter Tork was my favourite Monkee but I always appreciated Davy as the sole Brit in the other Fab Four. They were quite a phenomenon at the time and while the TV shows look very dated now the goofy clean-cut commercial music still sounds pretty good.
