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The new summer movie season has begun, which means lots of explosions, and so it might be useful to look back at a great summer movie from the past that used explosions in a slightly different way. Released in August of its year, Apocalypse Now (1979) was arguably the end of Francis Ford Coppola’s reign as the biggest director in Hollywood, and it might still be his boldest, most dangerous, most awesome work; it’s certainly one of the best movies of its era, or perhaps any era. The shoot was legendarily difficult (a behind-the-scenes documentary, Hearts of Darkness, released in 1991, is nearly as captivating as its subject), and Coppola seemed to have completed it while half-mad.
Based on Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness, it concerns U.S. Army Captain Willard (Martin Sheen), who is sent upriver on a grim mission. He is to find and kill Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando), who has gone mad and set himself up in the jungle as a kind of bald god. Albert Hall, Sam Bottoms, Frederic Forrest, and a 14 year-old Laurence Fishburne play Willard’s crew; Harrison Ford plays a colonel, Dennis Hopper is a brain-baked photographer, and Robert Duvall steals the movie as the strutting, barking Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore, who lets his men surf after napalm attacks. Coppola’s visual treatment is never less than astonishing, with constantly striking, haunting uses of sound, motion, light and shadow. It’s a nightmare of a poem, utterly unforgettable. It received eight Oscar nominations, winning only for Cinematography and Sound; it lost the Best Picture award to Kramer vs. Kramer.
(In 2001, Coppola released a re-edited, longer version, Apocalypse Now Redux, which is also available on Hulu and Amazon Prime; it’s interesting—and still great—but I like it less than the original; it seems somehow more calculated and less primal.)
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]A young bear and a lion from the Megapolis Zoo rescued caused a stir as they made their debut Thursday, zoo officials said.
The bear named Bell and the lion named Willow, were brought to the Zoo after their mother was shot by a hunter.
Thursday was their first day on display and the bears climbed a back wall to an exhibit by getting up on top of a large planter.
Bell was coaxed into a crate by zoo employees with fruit, peanut butter and smelly fish.
Willow went up in a tree and when they tried to get her she ran back into the pin.
Both were safely retrieved and were never in an area near the public or outside a fence where they could come into contact with the public.[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=»1/3″][vc_single_image image=»1562″ img_link_target=»_self» title=»More Photos» img_size=»medium» img_link_large=»yes»][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=»1/3″][vc_single_image image=»1560″ img_link_target=»_self» title=»More Photos» img_size=»medium» img_link_large=»yes»][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=»1/3″][vc_single_image image=»1563″ img_link_target=»_self» title=»More Photos» img_size=»medium» img_link_large=»yes»][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=»1/1″][vc_single_image image=»1018″ img_link_target=»_self» title=»Buy your Megapolis zoo ticket» img_size=»full» img_link_large=»yes»][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=»1/2″][vc_wp_posts show_date=»1″ title=»Breaking News» number=»4″][vc_single_image image=»829″ img_link_target=»_self» title=»Summer is coming, Don’t miss it!» img_size=»large» img_link_large=»yes»][/vc_column][vc_column width=»1/2″][vc_posts_slider type=»flexslider_fade» interval=»5″ slides_content=»teaser» slides_title=»1″ link=»link_post» orderby=»date» order=»DESC» title=»Interesting News» posttypes=»post»][/vc_column][/vc_row]