Open Range (2003) - Costner impresses with fabulous classic western

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+ Comeback of the Year: Kevin Costner + Best Western of the Year

 

A shoot-out is about to commence on this thrilling poster for Kevin Costner's Open Range

 

Four sympathetic open range Montana cattlemen become 2½, when they head in to buy supplies in a small, inhospitable town. The two men that are left unharmed now must claim their right to freedom against the town's corrupt reign.

 

Open Range is written by Craig Storper (The Truth About Alex (1986, TV movie)), adapting The Open Range Men (1990) by Lauran Paine (Skye (1986)), and directed by Kevin Costner (Dances with Wolves (1990)), who also co-produced and co-stars in the film.

The first half is the best; after this comes a long prelude to the grand, final showdown, - which is very classical and really well-made, SPOILER followed by an overlong and overly sentimental round-off.

But Open Range is still a really good western. Annette Bening (The Siege (1998)) is good, and Costner and Robert Duvall (The Godfather (1972)) are not to be messed with here, class acts all three. The American open range is the film's fourth lead. Open Range is impressive and full of warmth.

 

Related posts:

Kevin Costner: Molly's Game (2017) - Chastain is luminous in Sorkin's great true-crime debut (co-star)

Man of Steel (2013) or, Superman v Zod: Sunset of Destruction (co-star)

2003 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II] 

Thirteen Days (2000) - Electrifying Cuban Missile Crisis thriller (actor/producer)  

Dances with Wolves (1990) - Costner's triumphant, simpatico western 

 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 22 mil. $

Box office: 68.2 mil. $

= Box office success (returned 3.1 times its cost)

[Open Range premiered 11 August (USA) and runs 139 minutes. Shooting took place from June - September 2002 in Alberta, Canada. More than a million $ were spent to build the town in the film, as well as 40k $ to lay a road to it. 225 head of cattle were used in the film, handled by professional cowboys. The film opened #3, behind fellow new release Freddy vs. Jason and holdover hit S.W.A.T., to a 14 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another 2 weekends in the top 5 (#3-#4), grossing 58.3 mil. $ (85.5 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were France with 2.7 mil. $ (4 %) and the UK with 1.9 mil. $ (2.8 %). Roger Ebert gave the film a 3.5/4 star review, translating to a notch over this one. Costner didn't direct again for nearly 20 years but is now shooting his next film, Civil War western Horizon. As an actor he returned in The Upside of Anger (2005); Duvall in Secondhand Lions (2003); and Bening in The Sopranos (2004, TV-series) and theatrically in Being Julia (2004). Open Range is certified fresh at 79 % with a 6.80/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of Open Range? 

Deep Impact (1998) - Leder offers one of the worst disaster pics of all time

[ZERO]

 

+ Worst Movie of the Year

+ Most Undeserved Hit of the Year

 

Things are looking grim for old mother Earth on this animated poster for Mimi Leder's Deep Impact

A gigantic comet is heading towards Earth with disastrous force. - Can it be stopped? 

Deep Impact is written by Michael Tolkin (The Player (1997, TV movie)) and Bruce Joel Rubin (Jacob's Ladder (1990)) and directed by Mimi Leder (The Peacemaker (1997)).

The film actually focuses on several other things than the overwhelming problem with the comet: A teenage romance, a relationship to a father that needs mending before the impending apocalypse, - and then there's the insufferably unaffected gravitas-enshrouded US president played by Morgan Freeman (Nurse Betty (2000)). The comet and a lame mission to alter the outcome enter the plot on occasion in this thoroughly horrendous film, which is mysteriously hideous to sit through.

James Horner's (The Life Before Her Eyes (2007)) score is splashed on as if it was an all-mending lacquer, while sentimentality pulsates from every scene, and everything rings so entirely false that it almost makes the thinking audience-member sick.

Leder's film is the upmost in grade zero trash; it makes its immediate competition Armageddon (1998) look like Doctor Zhivago (1965). Deep Impact's impact is rage.

 

Related post:

 

1998 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 

 

 

Watch a 3-minute excerpt from the film here

 

Cost: 80 mil. $

Box office: 349.4 mil. $

= Big hit (returned 4.36 times its cost)

[Deep Impact premiered 7 May (Mexico) and runs 121 minutes. Development began in the late 1970s. The film meshes attempts to remake When Worlds Collide (1951) and Arthur C. Clarke's novel The Hammer of God (1993). Steven Spielberg had meant to direct the film but had to bow out due to making Amistad (1997), - and because the production was racing to not be left on the platform behind the year's other major comet-hitting-Earth disaster action adventure Armageddon. Shooting took place from June - October 1997 in Virginia, Maryland, Washington DC, California, including Los Angeles, and in New York. The film opened #1 to a 41.1 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another 5 weekends in the top 5 (#1-#2-#2-#3-#5) and grossed 140.4 mil. $ (40.2 % of the total gross). Armageddon was released later in 1998: It cost more and grossed more, but astronomers concluded that Deep Impact was more scientifically accurate. Roger Ebert gave the film a 2.5/4 star review, translating to 3 notches over this one. Leder returned with Sentimental Journey (1999, short) and theatrically with Pay It Forward (2000). Freeman returned in Under Suspicion (2000); Téa Leoni (Bad Boys (1995)) in The Naked Truth (1998, TV-series) and theatrically in Life in the Fast Lane (1998); Robert Duvall (The Outer Limits (1964, TV-series)) in A Civil Action (1998). Deep Impact is rotten at 45 % with a 5.80/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Deep Impact?

Gone in 60 Seconds (2000) - Cage, cast and LA shine in wonderful Bruckheimer vehicle

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Nicolas Cage's intense stare, Angelina Jolie's sexpot stare and a promise of speed work their magic on this poster for Dominic Sena's Gone in 60 Seconds

When his little brother finds himself in really deep trouble, Los Angeles premier ex-car thief, Memphis, is forced to tread backwards and drive him out of his morass; by stealing 50 cars in one night - without getting caught!

Gone in 60 Seconds is written by Scott Rosenberg (High Fidelity (2000)) and directed by Dominic Sena (Kalifornia (1993)), loosely remaking the 1974 mega-hit indie movie of the same name.

Producer Jerry Bruckheimer's (Chase (2010-11)) largesse is here perfectly combined with Nicolas Cage's (Bangkok Dangerous (2008)) larger-than-life showmanship, coupled with an ensemble cast with James Duvall (Mission Possible (2018)), Robert Duvall (The Conversation (1974)), Grace Zabriskie (George B. (1997)), Scott Caan (In Enemy Hands (2004)), Angelina Jolie (Playing God (1997)), Delroy Lindo (The Core (2003)), Timothy Olyphant (Meet Bill (2007)) and more. Marvelous car chases en masse and a fairly amusing script, which runs like a masterclass in structure and brother mythology, helps rev the entertaining Gone in 60 Seconds into the 6th gear.

Cage gives an interview about the film here

Cost: 90 - 103.3 mil. $ (different reports)

Box office: 237.2 mil. $

= Minor flop or box office success (returned between 2.29 - 2.63 times its cost)

[Gone in 60 Seconds premiered 5 June (Los Angeles) and runs 118 minutes. Development began in 1995. Shooting took place in Ontario and in California, including Los Angeles, from May - October 1999. The film opened #1 to a 25.3 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another 2 weeks in the top % (#2-#4) and grossed 101.6 mil. $ (42.8 % of the total gross). While the film's Box Office Mojo site claims a 90 mil. $, a Slate.com article claims the 103.3 mil. $ number, (which could hint to the film going 13.3 mil. $ over budget), and the numbers make the difference between whether the film ranks as a minor flop or a box office success theatrically. It likely made a healthy pile of money on secondary markets. Roger Ebert gave it a 2/4 star review, translating to 2 notches harder than this one. Sena returned with Swordfish (2001). Cage returned in The Family Man (2000). Gone in 60 Seconds is rotten at 26 % with a 4.40/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Gone in 60 Seconds?

Falling Down (1993) - Schumacher's arguably best film, a fiery dragon of a societal thriller

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+ Best Los Angeles Movie of the Year + Best Societal Critique of the Year + Best Thriller of the Year 

Michael Douglas' white shirt, tie and crew cut character towers as a troubling exclamation mark in LA's simmering heat on this truly great poster for Joel Schumacher's Falling Down

A man leaves his car in a traffic jam under a bridge during a heatwave one day in Los Angeles. He has had enough, and he is determined to go home to his ex-wife for their daughter's birthday, no matter the cost.

Falling Down is written by Ebbe Roe Smith (Car 54, Where Are You? (1994)) and directed by great New-Yorker filmmaker Joel Schumacher (Flawless (1999)), whose best film it arguably is, matched in quality, probably, only by his very different type of thriller, Veronica Guerin (2003) .
Michael Douglas (Coma (1978)) is utterly peerless as the man who 'falls down', William 'D-FENS' Foster, in a kind of paralleled plot, which other side is Robert Duvall (Network (1976)) as the police sergeant on his last day on the job, who gets the unenviable task of stopping Foster's rampage.
Falling Down is lit by a zeitgeist in its bold tackling of modern, urban themes, an indignation in the Foster character, which may seem persuasive even as it becomes amoral and wrong, and a societal critique arriving in the guise of pure loathing. Foster is a unique character in mainstream American cinema, who is repelling yet keen in some of his observations.
Falling Down is a character-driven, masterly thriller with torrid scenes, major suspense and a killer plot. It is a must-see.

Related posts:

Joel Schumacher: 1993 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 

The Lost Boys (1987) - A crazy 80's teen vampire bonanza

Watch the sensational opening scene of the film here

Cost: 25 mil. $
Box office: 40.9 mil. $ (North America only)
= Uncertain - but likely a box office success
[Falling Down was released 26 February (USA) and runs 113 minutes. Shooting took place from March - June 1992 in California, including Los Angeles, partly during the race riots, which caused production delays in March and April. The film opened #1 with an 8.7 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it retained the spot for another week and stayed in the top 5 for a 3rd week (#3), grossing 40.9 mil. $. The world gross is not reported, as was common at the time, but if we make the cautious estimate of the film making 50 % of its gross domestically, its 81.8 mil. $ end gross would render it a box office success. It competed for the Palme d'Or at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival. Douglas' film legend father Kirk Douglas praised his son's performance as "his best piece of work to date." Roger Ebert gave the film a 3/4 star review, translating to a notch harder than this one. Korean Americans, Korean grocers and unemployed defense workers were among the groups who protested the film. The man responsible for shooting and killing 3 Muslim neighbors in an alleged parking dispute in North Carolina's 2015 Chapel Hill shooting allegedly praised Falling Down as his favorite film and watched it "incessantly". Schumacher returned with the European music video for Lenny Kravitz's Heaven Help (1993) and theatrically with The Client (1994). Douglas returned in Disclosure (1994). Falling Down is certified fresh at 73 % with a 6.7/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Falling Down?

Get Low (2009) - Great stars caught in not very good period drama about a hermit and his funeral

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Contours of the stars against a dark sky and a Robert Duvall looking wise fill out this poster for Aaron Schneider's Get Low

An odd, old hermit, who has lived alone in his forest house for 40 years, comes out into society with a peculiar wish: To arrange his own funeral, which he wants to attend while still alive.

Audiences who expect a comedy will be disappointed here. Despite the involvement of Bill Murray (Coming Attractions (1978)) as an undertaker and short moments of some amusing value along the way, Get Low is clearly most of all a drama, and a small, short story-inspired-like one at that, (although it is actually inspired by a true 1938 Tennessee man.)
The overshadowing problem for the film is that for its entire duration it feels unclear, why this story is relayed to us. This is despite good efforts by Sissy Spacek (JFK (1991)) and particularly grand old man lead Robert Duvall (The Detective (1968)), whose character's outlandish, several decades long hermit life remains a claim that is never illuminated.
Get Low is written by Chris Provenzano (Silicon Valley (2017), TV-series) and C. Gaby Mitchell (Blood Diamond (2006), story), with Scott Seeke (Boxes (2013), short, producer) contributing story elements, and directed by debuting Aaron Schneider (Kiss the Girls (1997), cinematographer), who has kept himself to only operating the camera in his few credits since.  
Get Low is set in Tennessee in the 1930s but doesn't present a vivid portrayal of its time or place either. It is a film with some good parts and an interesting premise, which only makes it more of a shame that it simply doesn't work.

Related post:

2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: Reportedly 7 - 7.5 mil. $
Box office: 10.5 mil. $
= Big flop
[Get Low premiered 12 September (Toronto International Film Festival) and runs 100 minutes. Shooting took place in Georgia, including in Atlanta. The film opened #32 in 4 theaters to a 88k $ first weekend in North America, where it peaked at #16 and in 570 theaters (different weeks), played for a very long 29 weeks and grossed 9.1 mil. $ (86.7 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Australia with 491k $ (4.7 %) and Poland with 407k $ (3.9 %), (the film is a US-German-Polish co-production.) Roger Ebert gave it a 3/4 star review, translating to two notches higher than this one. The film was nominated for two Film Independent Spirit Awards, winning for Best First Feature. Get Low is certified fresh at 85 % with a 7.2/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Get Low?

The Eagle Has Landed (1976) - Sturges' enjoyable, last man's adventure

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One of the deliciously colored, neat posters for John Sturges' The Eagle Has Landed

QUICK REVIEW:

In 1943 in small town Norfolk, England, German colonel Michael Caine (The Swarm (1978)) and joyous adventurer Donald Sutherland (Virus (1999)) land with a group of Polish paratroopers on a secret mission: To kidnap British PM Churchill. But things get complicated ...

The Eagle Has Landed is an adaptation of Jack Higgins' (The Iron Tiger (1966)) same-titled 1975 bestseller by Tom Mankiewicz (Diamonds Are Forever (1971)) and directed by John Sturges (Ice Station Zebra (1968)). It is a very exciting film of a fictitious high-risk kidnapping attempt by the Germans in WWII. Eagle is elementary, male-eschewed suspense of the type that Sturges was often successful with, a real boyish adventure yarn and a well-made one.
Lalo Schifrin (The Mean Season (1985)) has made a fine, militaristic score, and the film has fine performances, apart from the stars already mentioned also from Treat Williams (Chicago Fire (2013-15))  as a very American soldier, Donald Pleasence (Phenomena (1985)) as Nazi Himmler and Robert Duvall (The Apostle (1997)), also as a Nazi, and actually seeming like one.

Related review:

John Sturges: Chino/Valdez, Il Mezzosangue/Valdez the Half BreedThe Valdez Horses (1973) - Bronson is his own man only in Sturges' good spaghetti western

Robert Duvall is credible as a Nazi in John Sturges' The Eagle Has Landed

In lieu of a trailer for the film, not currently on Youtube, listen here to Schifrin's theme for the film

Cost: 6 mil. $
Box office: Unknown
= Uncertainty (but likely a big hit)
[The Eagle Has Landed was released December 25 (Sweden and Finland) and runs 130 minutes. The film was shot on location in England and Finland from May - August 1976. Caine has later related how Sturges confided to him that he only accepted the job, which became his last film, so he could get money to go fishing after. He has also written that Sturges never appeared for any post production duties on Eagle. The film was released in North America in a slightly shorter (124 min.) version, but the film is mostly seen in its longer version on DVD and Blu-ray today. It was well-received by public and press alike and is said to have made a tidy profit, although without numbers, I can't say for sure how much. 13,917 IMDb users have given The Eagle Has Landed a 6.9 average rating.]

What do you think of The Eagle Has Landed?

Days of Thunder (1990) or, Very Little Thunder

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The flashy poster for Tony Scott's Days of Thunder doesn't exactly sell its star Tom Cruise short

QUICK REVIEW:

The prince of racing and his ups and downs.

Thunder presents a thick story that's simultaneously a thin story, you might say. Tom Cruise (Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015)) is terrific from first shot, while Randy Quaid (Not Another Teen Movie (2001)) and Robert Duvall (True Confessions (1981)) yell and scream, respectively, while trotting around in the background in this dull case, which is an obvious attempt to make a new Top Gun (1986), only in new surroundings.
Nicole Kidman (Eyes Wide Shut (1999)) has charm as Cruise's love interest, - the two got married off-camera in 1990, (and divorced 11 years later), - and the two, understandably, have good chemistry here, but Kidman's role in Thunder is far beneath her talent. And that is a general problem for this weak, only slightly interesting serving of sports nonsense.
It was written by Robert Towne (Shampoo (1975)), with Cruise supplying story elements, and directed by the late English master filmmaker Tony Scott (The Hunger (1983)).
- Not much thunder in this vehicle.

Related reviews:
 
Tony Scott: Stoker (2013) - Chan-wook Park's over-styled American debut revolts and bores in turns (producer)  
Déjà Vu (2006) - T. Scott cuts a helluva suspense-cake!
Domino (2005) - T. Scott's bounty-hunter biopic a complete misfire, mega-flop

Watch the original trailer for the film here

Cost: 60 mil. $
Box office: 157.9 mil. $
= Box office success
[Days of Thunder was released June 27 and runs 108 minutes. It was shot in Daytona and Charlotte, North Carolina from January - May 1990, going no less than 3 months over schedule. The shoot was fraught with problems and a team of producers, Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, writer Towne and director Scott, who argued a lot and, reportedly especially the former three, increased the spendings drastically with outrageous production decisions like building a private gym for themselves, giving away designer dresses to woo women, building sets multiple times, throwing expensive parties and pressing cast and crew members to work (expensive) overtime. The result was a nearly doubled budget that could have posed a serious problem for them all. But the film opened #1 to 15.4 mil. $ in North America, where it grossed 82.6 mil. $ (52.3 % of the total gross). The film was Oscar-nominated for Best Sound, losing to Dances with Wolves (1990). It was also successful on video, making at least an additional 40 mil. $ there. - But the bloated budget and diminished quality of the film still makes its success much smaller than Top Gun's, which made back its budget almost 24 times, (Thunder only did so 2.6 times.) Days of Thunder is rotten at 38 % with a 4.8 critical average on Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Days of Thunder?

Jack Reacher (2012) - Highly entertaining, dark hero-vehicle for Tom Cruise

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A poster for Christopher McQuarrie's Jack Reacher

QUICK REVIEW:

Jack Reacher is summoned by a mass-murder-accused sniper in Pittsburgh, but the horrible crime goes deeper than that ...
Dark, good-looking action picture with good actors: German master director Werner Herzog (Die Andere Heimat (2013)) is an evil, cynical villain; Robert Duvall (A Night in Old Mexico (2013)) is good as helper to our hero, and Rosamund Pike (Die Another Day (2002)) is fine, as usual, as an ambitious but uncourageous district attorney. The center is Tom Cruise (Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)) as our hero Reacher. In a couple of scenes, his self-confidence and nonchalance probably goes farther than is good for himself and the movie, but he still delivers here.
Jack Reacher is entertaining, - particularly the Camaro-chase scene, which Cruise did without a stunt driver's help, and the massacre in the beginning are very well-achieved.
It is directed by Christopher McQuarrie, whose only other feature directing was on The Way of the Gun (2000). He is now slated to direct Mission: Impossible 5.
The film is the first in a series, based on the popular book series by Lee Childs.
Reacher came out right along the Sandy Hook Elementary-massacre that shook America to its core and the premiere was therefore delayed. There were hesitations about a sequel, but it seems to be happening now, from the book Never Go Back.

Tom Cruise, the world's greatest movie star, in the Camaro-chase in Christopher McQuarrie's Jack Reacher

Watch the cool trailer here

Budget: 60 mil. $
Box office: 218.3 mil. $
= Big hit

What do you think of Jack Reacher?

Apocalypse Now (1979, redux version) - Coppola's dizzying whirlpool epic of the horror of war

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An all-time great in poster art; this evocative, dark work full of depth and atmosphere by Bob Peak and Tom Jung for Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now

Vietnam War-traumatized US Captain Willard receives a new mission: Sail up a Vietnamese river into Cambodia during the flaming grandeur of the Vietnam War and terminate an insane, rogue US colonel by the name of Kurtz. With "extreme prejudice."

An adaptation of Joseph Conrad's (Victory (1915)) classic masterpiece novella, Heart of Darkness (1899) written by John Millius (Red Dawn (1984)), Michael Herr (Full Metal Jacket (1987)) writing narration and Michigander master filmmaker and in this case co-writer/producer/director/co-composer Francis Ford Coppola (Tonight for Sure (1962)) changed a lot of Conrad's dark story to fit it into their current Vietnam perspective, (it originally takes place on a river in the Congo.) This is a review of the 2001-released 49-minute extended Redux-version of Apocalypse Now.
From being a story more exclusively about the darkness in the human soul, it grows in their hands into a horrifying Vietnam-tale, and a forecast of the apocalypse of the entire American system, its way of thought, or of the war effort in Vietnam at the very least, depending on the interpreter. A moral and human apocalypse of endless proportions.
Most of all, though, it still concerns itself with the savage, the uncontrollable, and the evil; the indefinable and incurable darkness in man.
Right from the first shot of helicopters rising in a cloud of napalm to the doomed sounds of The Doors' The End, the movie spellbinds its viewer in visual and sheer scope-of-production awe, fascination, and transformative despair.
Martin Sheen (The 3 Wise Men (2003, voice)) and Marlon Brando (The Formula (1980)) are majestic, and we have the sense all through the film that we so deserve this apocalypse that we are witnessing the journey towards.
The incredible near 300 day-shooting of the film in the civil war-plagued Philippines at the time with Sheen suffering a heart attack, choppers loaned directly from war there, Brando's troubling obesity, mumbling and refusal to prepare, tropical, disastrous storms, deaths, near-insanity and everything in between are portrayed by Coppola's wife Eleanor Coppola (Paris Can Wait (2016)), in her Heart of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (1991), a great and very recommendable documentary on extreme filmmaking.
Apocalypse Now may be the best war movie ever made, and it is arguably one of the greatest 10 or 20 films of all time. An incredible achievement and experience that is never forgotten.

Related posts:

Francis Ford Coppola: Twixt (2011) - Coppola's dreamlike Gothic is a late-night gem

Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) - Coppola goes for the jugular with unsubtle, overlong adaptation

Top 10: The best adaptations reviewed by Film Excess to date

Dementia 13/The Haunted and the Hunted (1963) - Coppola's gothic AIP castle horror 
 

Watch a teaser for the film here

Budget: 31.5 mil. $
Box office: 150 mil. $ + 12.5 mil. $ (Redux)
= Big hit (returned 5.15 times the cost)
[Apocalypse Now premiered 19 May (Cannes Film Festival, France, in competition) and runs 153 minutes/202 minutes (Redux version). Coppola paid Milius 15k $ to write the screenplay, which he finished a first draft for in '69. He eventually reportedly wrote10 drafts, more than 1,000 pages. George Lucas was engaged to direct for a period, and had in mind a low-budget approach, but was overtaken by work on Star Wars. Instead Coppola himself took the helm with a budget of 12-14 mil. $. He personally dined with the dictator of the Philippines Ferdinand Marcos to arrange the use of his country's military in the long Philippine shoot. Several stars turned down offers to play Willard due to the long jungle shoot. Brando was contracted for 1 months shooting for outrageous 3.5 mil. $. Harvey Keitel started out playing Willard, but Coppola was unhappy with him and replaced him with Sheen. Shooting took place in the Philippines and in California from March 1976 - May 1977. The budget ballooned during the enormously long production, which suffered countless problems. Editing took 2 years. The film won the Palm d'Or in Cannes together with Volker Schlöndorff's The Tin Drum. It was nominated for 8 Oscars, winning for Best Cinematogrpahy (Vittorio Storaro (Caravaggio (2007, TV movie))) and Best Sound, losing Best Supporting Actor (Duvall) to Melvyn Douglas in Being There, Art/Set Decoration to All That Jazz, Director to Robert Benton for Kramer vs. Kramer, Editing to All That Jazz, Picture and Adapted Screenplay to Kramer vs. Kramer. It won 3/4 Golden Globe nominations, 2/9 BAFTA noms, a César award nomination, won a David di Donatello award, a Grammy nomination, a National Board of Review award and other honors. It grossed 78 mil. $ domestically (52 % of the total gross). Roger Ebert has called it the finest war film ever made and given it a 4/4 star review, equal to its rating here. It was nominated for  The 2001 Redux release added 12.5 mil. $ to the total gross. It currently sits at #49 on IMDb's user-generated Top 250, between The Prestige (2006) and Memento (2000). Coppola returned with One from the Heart (1981). Sheen returned in Blind Ambition (1979, miniseries) and theatrically in Eagle's Wing (1979), Duvall in The Great Santini (1979), and Brando in The Formula (1980). Apocalypse Now is certified fresh at 93 % with a 7.8/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

Share your personal experience with Apocalypse Now here