Movie 2: Apocalypse Now Redux

Apocalypse Now Redux (1979/2001)
Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, Laurence Fishburne, Dennis Hopper, Harrison Ford, Scott Glenn
Screenplay by John Milius & Francis Ford Coppola
Based on “Heart Of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola

I always knew that “Apocalypse Now” was a movie that needed special attention when it was being viewed. The way people talked about it gave it sense of importance and prominence. This is a very deep and thoughtful story. It’s not your shoot ‘em up war movie. There’s plenty of fighting and war scenes throughout, but there’s something much more intellectual here.

From the beginning challenge presented to the main character, Sheen’s Captain Willard: track down a brilliant and successful Colonel and kill him because he’s gone insane. The entire voyage up river to find this strayed officer, Brando’s Colonel Kurtz, takes place as Captain Willard educates himself about the Colonel and tries to understand the man by reading entries in his file.

In one of these entries, Kurtz says soMerging that really struck me. It’s as relevant today as it would have been during the Vietnam War. He was talking about a time when his unit went and inoculated children in a remote village. The local soldiers had come to town after the US unit had left and had cut off the arms of all the children where the had been inoculated.  In trying to understand these soldiers, Colonel Kurtz came to this realization:
“These were not monsters. These were men... who fought with their hearts, who had families, who have children, who are filled with love - but the had the strength... to do that [cut off the children’s arms]! If I had ten divisions of those men our troubles here would be over very quickly. You have to have men who are moral and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling, without passion, without judgment... Because it’s judgment that defeats us.”

If the war in Vietnam was fought with soldiers like that, it could have been won very easily. But to have that kind of victory, there would have been a massive human rights catastrophe. Indiscriminate killing of anyone suspected of being an enemy. How would anyone be able to tell who was guilty or not? More than half of the population would have had to been slaughtered. And even then, that crime would only create further issues. The same reasoning can be said for both Afghanistan and Iraq. We never went to Total War because we knew that would have lead to much more devastation, destruction, and death. 

One thing that really surprised me was how similar Martin Sheen looks like his son Charlie Sheen. I’d always seen Martin Sheen as an older actor, never young.

Robert Duvall was excellent as Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore. He owned every scene he was in. The entire ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ scene with the helicopters was impressive. A great scene using a great piece of music. 

This was a great movie and I’m glad I finally took the time to watch it. 

Movie 1: 8 Heads In A Duffel Bag

8 Heads In A Duffel Bag (1997)
Joe Pesci, Andy Comeau, Kristy Swanson, George Hamilton, Dyan Cannon, David Spade, Todd Louiso
Written & Directed by Tom Schulman

This was such a forgettable movie. It has a funny premise, one that always kept me interested in seeing it.

Of course Joe Pesci is an excellent actor who's had his share of good comedic roles (My Cousin Vinny, The Super, Home Alone, Lethal Weapon 2-4). His role just seemed like a walking stereotype and impersonation of Goodfellas character.

Andy Comeau, the actual lead character, was pretty boring. Kristy Swanson's time was wasted in such a small unexplored role.

The story seemed repetitive, with the same gags and events going on again and again. But there was a lot that didn't make sense. We're to believe the main character hadn't seen his girlfriend in six months? He said she was a race car driver, but that was never mentioned again. So many plot holes.

I'll give the premise it's due: it sounded really funny. The execution just didn't pan out as well.

Own It But Never Seen It Movie Marathon

So, I own a lot of DVDs. A lot. Like my CD collection, it's pretty epic. Buying used DVDs at the Record Archive really helped my collection explode in size. Then came Netflix (when they sent discs in the mail) and the technology to copy and burn DVDs. Explode times ten.

So many movies added to the collection and there was no way for me to keep up with them. So many of them just went into the collection unseen. Saved for a rainy day when I could put one on. Those rainy days never really came.

I used to have a way to keep track of the movies I'd never seen. Instead of having them stand upright, I'd have the ones I hadn't seen laying sideways. It was a good system. And one that always had people asking what was up with it.

So here we are now. The Great Coronavirus Pandemic of 2020. We're all supposed to be staying home to help "flatten the curve." So now I have a lot of time on my hands. I've done movie marathons before through my collection, but I had an idea for this one: Why not try to hit a bunch of these that I hadn't seen yet?

So I began my journey on the Own It But Never Seen It Movie Marathon...

Top Ten List Redux

So, I didn't realise I wrote and posted the intro already. There was actually another one I started to write, not quite sure where that incomplete article is. Well, here's my re-do…

My iPod is one of my favorite things that I own. I have always liked to have music with me wherever I am. It’s an amazing progression: from mix tapes, mix CDs and now to playlists.  I bought my first iPod in the Spring of 2010. It was the impressive 160 GB iPod Classic, the iPod with the largest capacity. For my own amazing music collection, nothing else would suffice.

I can honestly say that every song on my iPod has been hand selected to be added.  I am not someone to just put a whole cd on there.  If I don't like a song, it doesn't get added, simple as that.  I spend a lot of time listening to new music – or new to me music – and deciding what gets added.

In 2005, I had the idea to list my favourite artists and my favourite songs by them.  It was at the beginning stages of MP3 players. While most of them were financially out of my reach, I was able to find a Sony Discman that would play data cds containing MP3 files.  I spent a great deal of time in 2005 listening to my music collection and cataloging each of the songs I liked. When that was done, I picked and listed the ten (sometimes twenty) that I liked the best.  I made ten MP3 discs of these favourites – one with all the number one songs, one with all the second ranked songs and so on.

In 2006 I got my first MP3 player, a Creative Labs Nomad. 30 GB of portable music.  The MP3 discs became obsolete.  As did the top ten lists, because I could now have all those songs with me on this new device.

In 2012 I found a 6th generation iPod Nano on Craigslist for a very cheap price.  I had the idea to have a separate iPod with songs of just my favourite artists.  It was then I remembered my previous cataloging and decided to revive it. This time, it would be strictly my own personal top ten songs from each artist.

I find it very interesting as to how my musical tastes have expanded from 2005 to now.  It's also interesting to see the changes of favoured songs from certain artists. Since 2012, I have updated the lists as I encounter new music from different artists, as I've also updated the iPod from an 8GB 6th generation Nano to a 16GB 7th generation Nano.

My top ten songs are chosen for what they mean to me.  They’re chosen because they remind me of a certain time in my life, things I went through or how they make me understand humanity. It's easy to include ‘Margaritaville’ and ‘Dancing Queen’ even though they are the obvious choices for both artists, because they are excellent songs that evoke many memories. But I also have gems like ‘Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On’ and ‘My Love, My Life’ that most people wouldn't know, but are truly amazing.

Music has been my constant companion my entire life. The words and music have always helped me carry on day to day.  There's always that question about your ‘desert island albums.’  I'd rather have my Top Ten iPod.

The Top Ten Lists

In 2005, I saw the future of personal music was going to be carried on an MP3 player.  I had a vast collection of cds.  I always wish I had kept track each time I did an inventory as to where I was.  So when I wrote something like this, I could say something smart like, “in the summer of 2005 I had 1,328 cds in my collection.” 

The Rasselas, 2003-2006

 

In my car, I had a 72-disc case that I filled with burned cds.  Mix cds of my favourite songs from my favourite artists.  It was a great collection.  But I knew of the size limitations on MP3 players.  I knew that I couldn’t fit everything I owned on one.  I probably couldn’t even fit all 72 of those mixed cds, plus everything else that was missing from those onto an MP3 player. 

I came up with a plan: I’d make a list of my every song I liked from my top artists, and then pick a top ten.  That way, at least I’d get ten of those songs on there.   I had seventy-nine top ten lists.

Flash forward to the summer of 2012.  While browsing on Craigslist, I happened to find a seller practically giving away a new 6^th Generation 8GB iPod Nano.  I got it, but then wasn’t sure what I was going to do with it.  As I said in a previous post, my main iPod is a 160GB iPod Classic.  It’s got everything I cherish musically on it.  While going through a box of old stuff, I found the old composition book from 2005 with the lists in it.  I decided to do a current version, and put that music on the new iPod. 

I didn’t even look at the old book when I made the new lists.  I flipped through my iPod and listed the artists that would be included.  I came up with 134 of them.  As I started the process, I realized there were other artists that I needed to include, that I had forgotten.  I’m currently at 167 artists, with at least six more in the “research” mode.

So, the question becomes, who’s your favourite artist?  What are your top ten songs of theirs? Why?

I'll start going through mine, and even comparing and contrasting the 2012 lists with the 2005 lists.  It's amazing how they've evolved...

Bad Boys (1983)

When Amy isn’t home for the night, I tend to stay up way too late.  With August upon us, that means that Amy is once again at her camp as the director and will be spending a few nights each week there.  Once I get all my household chores done, I then have time to sit around and watch movies that, more likely than not, Amy would never watch with me.

Last week I watched Bad Boys.  No, not the one with the Fresh Prince and Martin Lawrence.  This one came out in 1983 and starred Sean Penn.  I remember first seeing this on HBO back in either ’83 or ’84.  It was on at like one or two in the morning.  I remember my older brother Petr goading me to stay up late to watch it.  At one point he made me put a cold washcloth on my face to stay awake.  I remember this movie scaring the crap out of me.  At the time I didn’t understand all of the criminal aspects of what was going on, but did begin to think that if you did bad things then you’d end up in a nasty place like the juvenile detention center in the movie.  I remember hearing about bad kids being sent to “juvie hall” or “reform school” and always picturing this is where they went.

Watching this movie now at this point in my life, I find it to be a really good movie.  Sure it’s got your typical prison movie clichés, but they don’t detract from the story.  I always find the portrayal of high schools in movies from the 80’s to be quite interesting.  The high school here looks quite unwelcoming and past its’ glory days. It seems like existence as a student there is tough in such an intimidating place, and that you need to be aware of your surroundings at all times.  This setting is familiar to the high schools in Wildcats, Lean On Me, and many episodes of 21 Jump Street. Other smaller details also popped up that I found funny, watching from a 2011 perspective: The RC Cola machine in the detention hall.  I think it cost a quarter for a can of soda.  Then there’s the kids who go around selling name-brand cigarettes for ten dollars a carton!

It’s interesting to see actors who emerge later in their careers here, too. Clancy Brown plays the cell block alpha male ‘Viking Lofgren,’ and will go on to play such memorable roles as ‘The Kurgan’ in Highlander and prison guard ‘Byron Hadley’ in The Shawshank Redemption. Also, Alan Ruck plays Sean Penn’s character’s best friend.  Ruck, of course, will live on forever as ‘Cameron Frye’ in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.  It’s hard to imagine a young Sean Penn and not think of ‘Jeff Spicoli,’ but he is excellent in this role, even when he doesn’t have many lines to speak or much to say.  Because of his roles in this movie as well as La Bamba, I can’t help but subconsciously always think of Esai Morales as a bad guy.  After watching the movie and reading reviews about it, I was surprised (in an, ‘oh that’s interesting’ way) to find out this was Ally Sheedy’s first film (as well as Esai Morales).  Upon further research, I also found out that the actor who played Ramon Herrera, the social worker who believes some of the kids can be rehabilitated, Reni Santoni, would go on to play Poppy in a few classic episodes of Seinfeld.

I’ll always remember watching this movie as a six or seven year-old and the profound effect it had on me.  I always figured some kids are just bad because they’re bad, I guess.  But now, I understand that there are reasons some kids are bad: poverty, family situations, the people they associate with, etc.  I may have been way off base on that, but maybe this movie did help me in one way: the scary juvenile hall scenes made me realise I never wanted to end up in a place like that.

Greatest Hits

Greatest Hits albums are one of the biggest swindles of the music industry. Well, Greatest Hits albums and Cher Farewell Tours, of course. But, I have to admit, they do serve their purpose. Back in the days before iPods, when we had to carry several cds or tapes with us, like when we were going on a trip and couldn’t bring all our music, it was convenient to just grab Billy Joel’s Greatest Hits I & II and leave Glass Houses, An Innocent Man and Storm Front behind. But unfortunately, people began to just buy a Greatest Hits cd and forget about the albums that came before. I will not deny that Billy Joel’s Greatest Hits I & II isn’t a phenomenal double-cd. It truly is. And there’s a reason why Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975) by the Eagles is the best selling record with 29 million copies sold in the United States alone (tied with another record for that title). But albums like An Innocent Man, Turnstiles, and Piano Man by Billy Joel hold amazing material not present on his Greatest Hits Volume I & II. Sometimes, greatest hits albums go too far. Do you know that Poison has released seven studio albums? They’ve also released seven greatest hits collections.

Whenever I met somebody at Oswego, and I’d be in their room, presumably drinking a few beers or whatnot, I’d always take a look at the cds they had with them. I always found it interesting to see what other people listened to. When I first came to Oswego, I brought with me my entire cd collection that numbered at just under 500 cds. I remember one girl I was involved with said that she was a he Billy Joel fan, and as proof she had his Greatest Hits cds. When I asked her if she liked ‘Summer, Highland Falls’ or ‘If I Only Had The Words (To Tell You),’ she wasn’t aware of those songs. ‘I’ve Loved These Days’ is probably one of Billy Joel’s greatest songs, but it’s not on Greatest Hits Volume I. 

To me, all those albums that come before a greatest hits package are the true treasures. Sure, maybe you can skip over 1974’s Streetlife Serenade, but still, if you did, you would totally miss out on ‘Souvenir,’ a song I only recently truly came to appreciate as a gem.

I will admit, until May of 2001, the only Springsteen cd I owned was the Greatest Hits cd that came out in 1995.  My parents had a few of the albums, Born To Run, Darkness On The Edge Of Town, and Born In The USA as well as the Live/1975-85 box set, which would be the next Springsteen entry to my collection. Over the next year-and-a-half I would accumulate the remaining albums of his catalogue. These have absolutely broadened not only my musical horizons, but also affected the way I feel for others, the way I write, and the way I feel about the world around me.

I know most people don’t ‘get’ music like I do. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who has such a constant need to have music surrounding them. I have come to accept that some people are content with their greatest hits collections, and that they are quite fine turning off their radio when that last track finishes.