Apocalypse Now (1979)

I have seen a lot of movies that I didn't like the first time. When I have watch them again I find that I like them more (even if it's ever so slightly). I think it is because I notice things about the movie that I didn't notice before. I have watched Apocalypse Now twice, and I did notice more about the movie the second time. The only problem is that the things that I noticed made me hate the movie more. I suppose you don't need to finish reading this review because you know how I feel, but then you wouldn't hear me complain about how dumb this movie was.

Apocalypse Now takes place during the Vietnam war. Martin Sheen plays a special operations captain, Captain Willard. Captain Willard is given an assignment to go deep into the Cambodian jungle to kill a rogue, and insane, Colonel Kurtz (played by Marlon Brando). What follows is a strange, and mostly boring, three hours of Vietnam war stuff. This movie gave me the impression that Francis Ford Coppola was trying to make the quintessential Vietnam movie (like The Band of Brothers is for WWII) but he fell very short of his goal. Probably because he based it on "The Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad.

Let me take a moment and talk about "The Heart of Darkness." My senior year in High School I was in an A.P. Literature class. One of our assignments was to read this book. I really gave it an honest try, but could not get past the first 5 pages. It was so boring. Me being the lazy S.O.B. that I am, I decided to never open that book again. On top of us being expected to read this book on our own, we reread everything again as a class. You would think that I would at least listen then. WRONG! I slept instead. Needless to say, when it came time for the test I was a little unprepared. Five minutes before class started I asked a girl that was in my class what the book was about. As we walked to class together she gave me a rough outline of the plot. Armed with that knowledge I took the test, and got the highest score in the class. That says a lot about our education system doesn't it? Now back to the movie.

The Vietnam war, as everyone knows, was very controversial. Compared to WWII, which is seen as a very noble war, Vietnam is seen as one big mistake. That doesn't stop people from doing Vietnam reenactments at country clubs all over the country.



In all seriousness though, a lot of people came home from Vietnam completely messed up. But then again, who wouldn't be messed up after experiences like the one below?



Not to get too political, but maybe Vietnam wouldn't have turned out so badly if we didn't have the draft. There are a lot of people in this country I wouldn't want to have a rifle in their hands. With the draft everyone was there, so a lot of people that had no business fighting in a war got themselves killed.

Basically this movie confused me, made me tired, and made me angry that I had to waste so much time to watch it. That's three hours of my life (6 if you count the previous viewing) that I will never get back.

The bottom line:
Rating: 2.3
Would I own it? Do pigs have wings?
Would I recommend it? I would recommend the movie "Spy Kids" over this movie.

Double Indemnity (1944)

I am so sorry to all my devote fans (all 6 of you) for not writing in such a long time. I must be honest I really didn't want to start the next few movies on the list. I finally sucked it up and watched the next few movies on the list. Here is Double Indemnity:


It's no secret that I don't like being pulled over. It's because I never get pulled over for being a bad driver. I always get pulled over because I forgot to put my registration stickers on my license plate. My least favorite part about being pulled over is not the actual pulling over, but that the officer will pull me over for one thing and then give me a ticket for something else entirely. For example a while back I got pulled over for, you guessed it, registration. As if he was doing me a favor the officer didn't give me a ticket for it. What a nice guy, right? WRONG! He was more than happy to give me a ticket for no insurance. His smug expression said it all, "Got you punk!" In my defense, I had insurance I just didn't put my proof in my glove box. Also it is important to note that most of my pull over experiences happened in high school. Why am I bringing this up? Well because Double Indemnity is about a life insurance policy, and a murder plot...the connection was kind of a stretch, I realize that.

Walter Neff is a honest insurance agent. On a routine trip to the house of a man that owns car insurance with his company Walter meets Phyllis. Her husband is gone, but she is interested in finding out more about life insurance so she invites him in. Maybe it's just the way that strangers talked to each other back then, but almost immediately Walter and Phyllis begin dropping hints that they both want to do the no pants dance together. Long story short they decide that they are going to off Phyllis' husband and collect on a life insurance policy. A life insurance policy, I might add, that he didn't even know he had. Walter covers the plan from every angle so as to throw the company's claims investigator off the scent. Despite all their planning, the investigator feels that something isn't quite right.

This movie was very predictable. I was surprised by their clever plan, but I knew in the first few minutes of the movie how it was going to play out. I suppose that's what I get for watching CSI.

Note: I apologize for the poor quality of this clip. It's the only one I could find:



The movie wasn't bad, but it wasn't great. It was made while WWII was still going on, so with that considered it's pretty impressive. Even with that in mind it doesn't make the movie amazing. All in all this was an average movie.

The bottom line:
Rating: 3.5
Would I own it? I really don't see that happening.
Would I recommend it? I guess...it's good as far as insurance movies go.