Always Die Hard

Nicholas Waxman reflects on what Die Hard (1988) means to him…

I was only 6 months old when Die Hard blasted onto movie screens around the world and raised the bar to an unreachable height for all action movies to come. Die Hard is arguably the best action film ever made, it is most certainly the greatest Hollywood has ever attempted, and is definitely my favorite. You can separate Die Hard from the rest of the franchise (as most would with others quadrilogies such as the Alien, Indiana Jones and Rambo films) because Die Hard was the first off the rank and its success led producers to the next three films. The quality and success of the rest of the series is separate from our first outing with John McClane.

So, forget Die Harder (1992 – even though it was cool), remove Die Hard With a Vengeance (1995 – regardless of how awesome it was) from your mind and shatter the memory of Die Hard 4.0 / Live Free or Die Hard (2007) because it was more a John McClane film that a Die Hard film anyway. We are talking about the brilliance of Die Hard.

The title, how I wish I could have been a fly on the wall for that decision. The title of the book that the film is based on Nothing Lasts Forever (1979, Roderick Thorp) would have been an awful movie title and the franchise would surely have failed (Nothing Lasts Forever 2: Nothing Lasts Forever’er ?) But to take a gamble on a title like Die Hard, feels to me a similar decision to Snakes on a Plane; but this was well before action movies were self aware enough to know that Die Hard, although an awesomely cool title, is ridiculous! You can’t ‘die hard’ – or soft for that matter – but it utilized a noun and an adjective to get our blood pumping (it may also be used as an adverb in this case).

Die Hard is the kind of title that gets every testosterone-fuelled human on this planet lining up at the cinemas, but as we know now, the producers weren’t so sure about that.
 Die Hard was saved, on my count, at least 12 times from doom.
The film was originally going to be Commando 2, with Schwarzenegger taking the lead and ruining it for everyone – can you imagine Arnold as John McClane saying “Now I know what a TV dinner feels like”, “Son of a bitch! Fist with your toes”,  not to mention “Yippie-Ki-Yay Mother F*&^%$#!”. 
Happily and luckily the film was saved from Arnold, but that wasn’t the end of potential doom. After Mr. Schwarzenegger turned it down Stalone was asked, he declined; then Burt Reynolds (what?!), and after he said thanks but no thanks Richard Gere was asked (which is madness, absolute madness); after Gere rejected the idea Harrison Ford was considered; before finally resting on the brilliant Bruce, Mel Gibson was asked to take the plunge. That Mel Gibson was asked is somewhat ironic because if Mel had done the film then Bruce Willis probably would not have had his John McClane cameo in Loaded Weapon (1993), a piss-take of Mel Gibson’s star vehicle Lethal Weapon (1987).

Bruce Willis seems like an obvious choice now of course, because he was brilliant, but he wasn’t even included on the original posters because the producers feared all those Willis-haters out there wouldn’t come and see it. But, the posters as we know were changed after its initial success.
 The film is cast almost perfectly (which makes it that much better) with strong actors taking up small and large roles; Alan Rickman as Hans Gruber in his first feature (although he was in BBC R&J as Tybalt –very funny). Alan Rickman is a joy onscreen; a smarmy, sarcastic thief with sharp edges and a smooth, deep voice. He is pathetic and strong, happy to use violence and negotiation to get his way. What a villain! He is the strongest performer after Willis in this film – if not equally strong.
 Bonnie Bedelia is gorgeous and funny as Holly Gennaro (McClane’s estranged wife), her emotional range in this film is extensive considering her brief screen-time and she hits her marks with aplomb. I was always very sad to miss out on seeing her development over the series. Gennaro was a great character. 
William Atherton as Richard Thornburg the TV journalist is either done very well or quite poorly; he is over the top and incredibly unlikable; the man is a leech, which means job well done for Mr. Atherton.
The prize for best ensemble character must go to Harry Ellis, played by Hart Bochner. Ellis is a deluded fool with a cocaine problem, he is a patronizing tool who gets his comeuppance, not what he deserves, but it is satisfying in the moment.
 There are many more strong performances in the film including Reginald VelJohnson as the very funny, tortured cop with a heart of gold and John McClane’s only friend on the outside.

But what’s fun about that! Lets talk about the massive acting fails! 
Paul Gleason and Robert Davi are by far the worst thing about this film. Paul Gleason is DPC Dwayne T. Robinson, and all the acting classes in the world couldn’t save this guy from being an archetypal idiot. He yells, he screams, he has no time for courtesy until the FBI arrive, he doesn’t listen and he assumes the worst always. He is an idiot and if he had been mastered by the right man (or woman), this could have been a great character piece, like many of the others throughout the film (Argyle for instance).
 The worst performance in this movie though is Robert Davi as FBI agent Big Johnson. It is bad, it is bad, it is bad. The actor is over-confident with his comedy style dialogue and he underplays the mass murder he is potentially party to. It is a small role and made all the smaller for lack of a decent actor. I am glad FBI Agent Johnson is dead.
 That might have been a tad too rough, but when all the other actors are pulling their weight it’s hard to ignore the bad apples. 
It takes a tribe to raise a child and the same can be said for making a movie, John McTiernan directs this awesome movie, he is famous for directing bloody, action blockbusters and this is the greatest of his many greats.

The writing team is also superb and you can tell when the dialogue starts that this is not just a shoot-em-up pointless action, but there is heart, comedy and pain in this movie. Jeb Stuart (The Fugitive, 1993) and Steven E. de Souza (48 Hrs, 1982) re-wrote Roderick Thorp’s novel into a smorgasbord of gripping dialogue and iconic one-liners. 
Die Hard inserts itself easily and quickly into pop culture as “Yippie-Ki-Yay Mother F*&^%$#!” quickly became the [potentially] greatest overloaded, self referential, sarcastic remark in film history and will echo ever in eternity through universities and wherever more than 10 boys [or girls] drink beer. The Simpsons, Friends, The Sopranos, How I Met Your Mother, as well as countless movies and other TV shows have borrowed the premise, quotes and title for their own storytelling. 
Die Hard is a film yet to be rivaled and it stands alone as the best action movie of all time. I would like for Hollywood to come up with a better one, but I don’t think that is going to happen anytime soon.
 Die Hard is a must-see movie event, this is not for DVD consumption and The Astor is the only place to see it, on the BIG SCREEN.
 I absolutely love it.

Written by Nicholas Waxman for the Astor Theatre. 

Die Hard screens this Wednesday before the latest, somewhat more dire instalment in the franchise, A Good Day To Die Hard. Wicked Wednesday – All tickets $10

Cinema Fiasco return with the ‘Best Worst Movie’ of all time!

This Friday (May 03, 8pm) Cinema Fiasco, fresh from its recent triumph at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, returns to the Astor for another night of bad movie appreciation and one of the ‘best worst’ movies ever made: Troll 2 (1990)

A family of really terrible actors head off on holiday to a small town where they encounter a bunch of goblins who want to turn them into plants and eat them. This bogus sequel bears no relation whatsoever to Troll (not that that’s a bad thing) but is terrible in its own particular way with a bizarre cast of serious nonactors, oodles of camp dialogue (“Joshua is not a little shit. He’s just sensitive!”) and make-up effects that look like they cost about twenty bucks. The director is the great Italian schlock-master Claudio Fragasso. His deft touch shows in every frame.

It’s worth noting that in five years of entertaining Melbourne’s bad movie fans, Cinema Fiasco hosts Geoff Wallis and Janet A. McLeod have NEVER seen a movie quite like this one. It took them nearly three hours to watch a 95 minute movie because they kept rewinding the bits that made no sense – which was pretty much the entire film. They also had to stop the DVD for about ten minutes at one point because they were laughing so hard they couldn’t breathe.

Janet and Geoff will be presenting Troll 2 with their very special brand of live commentary throughout. That is if they don’t lose it like they did in rehearsal. © Geoff Wallis

So get down here on Friday night for what’s sure to be one of the ‘best worst’ cinema experiences of your life! Cinema Fiasco includes live commentary throughout the entire film. Special Prices apply, No Free List. For further info, please visit: astortheatre.net.au

Your Passport to Confrontation

One of contemporary cinema’s most significant and celebrated auteurs, Michael Haneke, joins a host of other greats to have multiple films grace our big screen, starting Monday with his early feature films The Seventh Continent (1989) and Benny’s Video (1992).

Haneke, notorious for using cinema as a social and political tool, turning the lens back onto his audience, always rendering the viewer implicit in the onscreen horrors, is a director deserving of a full retrospective. However, as anyone who regularly reads our blog posts will know, not all of his films were available to us at the time of programming owing to various expired theatrical screening rights.

Ensuring we could still show a challenging and rewarding selection of his beautiful and challenging works, we are pleased to present four very special sessions across March and April leading up to our screening of his latest Academy Award winning feature, Amour (2012). A mini retrospective, this is a rare chance to immerse yourself in one this century’s greatest creative minds. It will be difficult viewing, but for those of you who make it through every single session from start to finish*, there will a reward.

Having seen so many of Michael Haneke’s films on the big screen is of course reward enough (!) but as an added incentive we’ll be giving extra great gifts to the most stoic amongst you. And thanks to Madman Entertainment, some of those prizes will include DVD copies of films we aren’t showing during the retrospective, including The Piano Teacher (2001) and 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance (1994).

* Please note that in order to be eligible to win you must attend all five sessions of Michael Haneke films we are screening, from start to finish. On Monday 18th you will be issued with a passport at the ticket box if you wish to take part, please make sure you do so on Monday as we cannot give out passports after this date. Each time you arrive and depart from a Haneke session you will need to have your passport validated by one of our members of staff – either the ticket seller if in attendance or the supervisor at our candy bar. Please note that prizes will be of a limited quantity and that we cannot guarantee you will receive a prize of your choosing. The Astor Theatre reserve the right to refuse prizes to anyone who does not meet the entry requirements. 

For full season details, visit our website listings here.

St Patrick’s Day Special Screening

Every day is a special event here at the Astor and we strive to continue to find great cinema to celebrate. With that in mind, we’d love to tell you a little bit about a special St Patrick’s Day screening of The Guard (2011), accompanied by three unique short films; Origin, Home Turf and Asal, courtesy of the Irish Film Board.

Origin, an animated short about a man on the brink of emigration, finally seeing the spirit of Dublin; Home Turf, a visual celebration of the dying art of turf cutting exploring the battle between man and machine; and Asal, the story of a young fisherman who risks his own life to save a friend, will screen before odd-couple comedy The Guard.

The films were programmed with the assistance of Melbourne-based Cork native Dr Liam Burke. Lecturer in Media Studies at Swinburne University of Technology, Dr Burke will introduce the screening on Sunday March 17. For more info or to book advance tickets, visit our website. We’ll see you at 2pm on the 17th – we look forward to a foyer glowing green!

Andy Warhol Presents Paul Morrissey who presents Udo Kier who wants wirgins…

Monday February 4th (tonight) at the Astor Theatre is one of those rare occasions where we offer more than just movies, and an actual opportunity to know life. And, as you will learn if you come down here at 7.30pm, “To know life, first you must **** death in the gallbladder.” Yes, tonight we’re preparing for a fantasmagorically gory, kitsch, camp and over-honestly crazy celebration of 1970s American underground counter-culture. All in stunning, rare, 35mm film print glory!

Paul Morrissey met Andy Warhol in 1965 after he began making short films. His background had included a brief stint in the army and not so underground employment in insurance and social work before he took up the camera, but he was a clear artistic talent from the start and after his collaboration and distribution management on Warhol’s Chelsea Girls (1966), Imitation of Christ (1967) and Bike Boy (1967), Morrissey was ready for his first solo project: writer, director and producer on Lonesome Cowboy (1967). From here Morrissey turned his filmmaking intentions towards creating a new type of counter-culture within the American Underground that would come to be known as “trash aesthetics” matched with a camp-kitsch sensibility. This new style brought cinema a trilogy like no other; Flesh (1968), Trash (1970), Heat (1972). These films, and indeed everything branded by the Warhol Factory, made stars of its misfits – very much in the same way that John Waters was doing at the time in Baltimore with his own homegrown stars. Morrissey had an eye for fame and along with Joe Dallesandro whose pimply derriere will forever be immortalised on film, Morrrissey made Nico a star by adding her to the Factory’s rock ‘n’ roll group that would become iconic and influential, The Velvet Underground.

Following the underground success of his trilogy, Morrissey went on to make what are often still referred to as “Andy Warhol’s Dracula” and “Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein”, despite their both being decidedly Paul Morrissey films. Alternatively titled Blood For Dracula (1974) and Flesh For Frankenstein (1973), Morrissey’s somewhat ‘loose’ interpretation of Bram Stoker’s and Mary Shelley’s greats became cult triumphs that blended camp and kitsch sensibilities with gore and trash aesthetics and a linear, character driven narrative to achieve a type of pop-cult cinema. Where Warhol’s Blow Job and Chelsea Girls today find themselves projected onto white walls in modern art galleries, Morrissey’s films still find themselves occasionally clearing cobwebs and re-presented up on the big screen. With two stunning, rare and deliciously glorious 35mm film prints, we take great pleasure in presenting two of the “Factory’s” greatest tonight onscreen: Paul Morrissey’s Blood for Dracula and Flesh For Frankenstein.

And if you love all things counter-culture then you’re in for even more of a treat as, thanks to our good friends at Shock Entertainment, we have posters and DVD copies of the cult lover’s documentary American Grindhouse to giveaway! All you have to do to be in with a chance to win is turn up, get gory, experience a formal introduction to Udo Kier, and even learn a little something by really letting life **** you in the gallbladder.

We Wish You An EPIC! Christmas

Irregardless of our indidvidual religious beliefs, Christmas has long been a time to celebrate cinema going and great epic movies. That’s why this Sunday we’re screening both a brand new super high definition 4K digital DCP format remaster of The Ten Commandments and a glorious 70mm film print of Ben Hur on our giant Astor SuperScreen. Before the days of CGI, such films engaged large-scale set production and thousands of extras to achieve their grand epic proportions. Famous and remarkable sequences such as Ben Hur‘s gripping chariot race and The Ten Commandment‘s truly awesome parting of the red sea have become famous and acclaimed moments in movie-history as well as landmarks in production achievement in the field. They certainly don’t make ‘em like they used to…

And thanks to our good friends at the Jewish Museum we have 35 passes (some complimentary and some two-for-one) to giveaway to their current exhibition: EPIC! 100 Years of Film and the Bible. The first 35 people to purchase tickets from our ticket box to The Ten Commandments (ticket box opens Sunday at 1pm) will receive a pass. Having visited the exhibition ourselves we can definitely recommend it as a holiday season must-see (exhibition runs until February 3rd 2013).

Curated almost entirely from one man’s private collection (Father Michael Morris O.P., Professor of Religion and the Arts at the Dominican School of Philosophy & Theology at the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, California), EPIC! includes original press kits, lobby cards, daybills, one sheets and more from the films’ original publicity materials, including some very rare and impressive posters from Europe. A vibrant lay-out complements the many kitsch, camp and stylised pieces set out under four sub-categories; Gender & Sexuality, Violence & Catastrophe, Magnificence & the Monumental, Righteousness & Redemption.

From Adam and Eve, through to David & Goliath and Sodom and Gomorrah, EPIC! 100 Years of Film and the Bible offers a look at the items surrounding public film exhibition, offering up publicity materials as works of art in their own right. And, much like the movies they relate to, they sure don’t make ‘em like they used to.

‘Tis the Season…

Let’s talk about what constitutes “a Christmas movie”. We all have favourites and special picks we like to watch year in, year out in the lead up to Christmas- and indeed, often up to and even into the New Year. But what happens when you discover that your favourite festive flick is, to others, just a regular year-round movie, and not specifically a Christmas flick at all? (Not everyone agrees that Gremlins singing Christmas carols warms the cockles and heralds season’s greetings!) Well, if it truly ’tis the season to be jolly, then is “Christmas” about good will, giving, loving, friends and family? Or is it about nicely decorated trees and the baby Jesus?

It was about a week ago that we suggested our Die Hard/Predator double bill might actually be a Christmas double bill – if only we could work out what makes Predator a Christmas flick…

These days, the fastest way to find out such a thing is to ask the twitterverse, and we did. Here are the three winning suggestions we received:

• Being an invisible alien thrill hunter, how else could you describe it but that
  “he sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake”
• The follow up movie to Predator and Predator 2, Predator Vs. Aliens: Requiem was released on Christmas Day in cinemas.
  The original movie Predator, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger is a Christmas movie because one of the main charters Dillon says “There is two to three men out there at the most….”
  He may very well have been talking about the 3 wise men! And this is the reason why I believe Predator is a Christmas Movie!
• All that red & green blood everywhere is in the Christmas spirit!

So, maybe it’s coded meanings or release dates or allegory that makes a movie a Christmas flick? Or is anything that conveys “the Christmas spirit” (as elusive as that may be) a contender? Better questions might be, does the film narrative need to be about Christmas? Or can it be set at, during or around Christmas time and qualify? Does Santa need to make an appearance? Do we consider it a genre, and if so, what are its generic tropes? Or is it a trans-generic category? A thematic? Maybe its more ethereal than that? So many questions…

Some of these questions (along with available theatrical rights of course) have meant some very diverse programming on our part over the past week and indeed coming up in the week following our season of The Master in 70mm. 

(The Master, a Christmas flick? We’re as confused as Joaquin…)

That said, we are really keen to find out what your favourite Christmas flicks are and most curiously, why. What makes them your favourite flicks at this time of year? Leave an answer in the comments section of this blog (up until Christmas eve, we’ll publish them all then), and the three entries that please Marzipan the Astor Cat best (yes, that’s right, the cat needs to be impressed) will win some special Christmas prizes! We look forward reading about all the usual suspects as well as the weird and wonderful ones we couldn’t ever have imagined but that maybe only the Christmas spirit can create!

HALLOWEEN IS ALMOST HERE!

Not that we really require an occasion to get excited and of course every session at the Astor is an event, BUT, that doesn’t mean we can’t get extra excited about Halloween!

We’ve got three really sensational Halloween sessions coming up, starting TONIGHT – Friday October 26th – continuing Sunday October 28th and of course, on the hallowed eve itself. Session details at: astortheatre.net.au

Make sure you don’t miss our Halloween specials because we’ve got some great goodies to giveaway thanks to our friends at Umbrella Entertainment!

We’ll have DVDs of Romero’s Dead films and Carpenter’s Halloween plus Hardware to give away on both Sunday 28th at our Trilogy of the Dead session and also on the most WICKED of all WEDNESDAYs this year – October 31st! For the chance to win, just do the following two things:

1) Pick up two of these great zombie postcards from our foyer, compliments of our friends at Able and Game, and featured below. Keep one and let us know on the back of the other one what your favourite horror movie for the big screen would be. Hand it in at the ticket box.

2) Attend our Trilogy of the Dead on the 28th and our Halloween/Hardware double feature on the 31st. Winners will be drawn and awarded on the nights!

Check out Able & Game online:

Blog: http://www.ableandgame.blogspot.com.au
Twitter: @ableandgame
Facey: facebook.com/ableandgame

WHO YOU GONNA CALL?

Following the world premiere of the Ghostbusters (1984) new 2K digital presentation held at The Astor Theatre Monday December 10th 2011, by popular demand, we are proud to announce another three off-calendar screenings: Friday October 21 9.30pm, Saturday October 22 9pm and Sunday October 23 9.20pm, in addition to our already scheduled December repeat screening, Monday 12th, 8pm. So when we asked our regular E-news contributor Mark Vanselow the aforementioned question, he said “Astor Theatre”…  

 

One of my most vivid childhood recollections is attending the cinema in the hopes of seeing Ghostbusters (1984), the Ivan Reitman science-fiction comedy horror about four intrepid men who must save New York City – and indeed, the entire world – from destruction at the hands of paranormal beings from another dimension. Note that I didn’t actually see Ghostbusters at the cinema when I was a child: the particular session that we (the family) had planned to enter had sold out. All these years later, it remains the only time that I have attended a multiplex only to learn that the session has reached capacity. Indeed, those were the last dying days of a now bygone era, when it was commonplace for cinema audiences to line up around the block for movie tickets (okay, so it still happens at the Astor on occasion). Fortunately, another 1984 blockbuster, Joe Dante’s Gremlins (1984) was playing at the same cinema. Ah yes, that’s another thing you don’t see at the multiplex these days: the presence of more than one film that you are really desperate to experience. Ghostbusters was our first preference that day but my brother and I were equally enthusiastic about seeing Gremlins (which we did, and believe me, it scared the living daylights out of me—hey, I was six!)
My first glimpse of Ghostbusters came in the form of a sneak peak on The Mike Walsh Show back in 1984. Those were the days before the internet and illegal online downloads pretty much ruined the prolonged building of suspense that television shows could achieve with cleverly cut excerpts from a feature film. Back in those days, you actually had to leave your house and buy a ticket to be the first on your block to discover what happened next. Ghostbusters premiered on television a number of years later and it was no small event, accompanied by a behind-the-scenes documentary about the making of the film. Of course I watched Ghostbusters on the small screen and it was indeed wonderful. It was not until many years later that I experienced Ghostbusters presented on the big screen in its original 35mm format, courtesy of the Astor Theatre, no less. (You shall be happy to know that when its sequel Ghostbusters II hit the big screen in 1989, my brother and I were successful in gaining admission to the cinema).

 

Flash forward to 2011 and the cinematic world is abuzz with news that Ghostbusters III is scheduled for release in the year 2012. Ivan Reitman, director of the first two chapters of the saga, has been confirmed to helm this latest installment. Rumours abound as to who else is on board for this exciting new project, but to speculate any further about this would be pointless. What I can tell you is that the Astor Theatre, Melbourne’s sole-surviving cinema palace, is to screen the original Ghostbusters in 2K Digital format this month. The re-release of this classic 1980s treasure is a global event that shall undoubtedly fuel interest in Ghostbusters III, not to mention introducing a new generation of film-goers to the whole Ghostbusters phenomenon.
Without divulging too much to readers who might not have seen Ghostbusters (where have you been?), the story concerns a trio of university professors, unemployed and desperate, who decide to set up their own ghost-catching business in New York City. At first business is non-existent, but after a spate of paranormal activity across the Big Apple and success in trapping ghosts, Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis), Peter Venkman (Bill Murray) and Raymond Stantz (Dan Aykroyd) find themselves as not only successful businessmen, they have become genuine celebrities. Three becomes four when Winston Zeddmore (Ernie Hudson) wanders into the Ghostbusters office, and after what might be the greatest job interview in history, picks up a positron glider and joins Egon, Peter and Raymond in clearing otherworldly beings from the metropolis.

 

Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis wrote Ghostbusters, and the film benefits from one of the most inventive and quotable scripts committed to film. References to Ghostbusters have worked themselves into everyday vernacular, with many of the best one-liners in the film being delivered by Bill Murray. Apart from the actors who portray the eponymous superheroes, Ghostbusters features Rick Moranis, Sigourney Weaver, plus a host of fantastic phantoms and other assorted creatures that have become pop culture icons in their own right. Speaking of all things iconic, Ghostbusters features one of the most familiar pop music numbers of the 1980s, courtesy of Ray Parker, Jr., as its title song. The tune itself proved to be controversial, as there was some similarity between Ray’s ditty and the earlier song “I Want a New Drug” by Huey Lewis and the News. Accusing the Ghostbusters singer of plagiarism, Huey attempted to sue Ray Parker, Jr., the issue settled ultimately out of court. Numerous other pop songs are featured in the film, such as Magic by Mick Smiley, with the movie’s original score provided by Elmer Bernstein.
Quite simply, Ghostbusters is strong in every major department, from the quality of the screenplay to the cinematography by Laszlo Kovacs. From typewriter to celluloid, this is a film that was seemingly blessed every step of the way. The special effects in this movie (including liberal use of stop-motion animation) really have stood the test of time, and it is a credit to the actual human beings featured in this movie that their performances and charm are not overshadowed by the visual trickery on display. Just remember, no matter how many times you have experienced Ghostbusters on the small screen, the film is much better enjoyed at the cinema on the largest screen possible, augmented by superior sound and the whole cinematic atmosphere that only a place such as the Astor Theatre can provide. Please do make certain that you bring yourself and as many people as possible to the Astor this coming weekend for the theatre’s follow up screenings of Ghsotbusters in 2K Digital Format. Given the quality of programming at the Astor, it is no small statement to say that this shall be a continuation of one of the biggest events of the year for the venue, not to mention one of the biggest events on Melbourne’s cinematic calendar for 2011.

Written by Mark Vanselow for The Astor Theatre.

For more information and session details, visit our new website: www.astortheatre.net.au

Apocalypse Now: Redux

Arguably no other film in history (with exception of John Huston’s The African Queen, 1951) has had a more infamous production than Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979). The film suffered enormous set-backs, disasters, financial woes and scheduling issues that plagued the film’s production; the lead star was replaced three weeks into production, then the replacement suffered an almost-fatal heart attack, another star showed up on set unorganised and not prepared to take the director’s orders, sets were hit and practically destroyed by a mass hurricane, crew members got sick and began to go mad, the director went over budget due to elaborate, larger than life sequences, and had to dig into his own pocket and even mortgage his own house and belongings to complete the film. One by one, disaster after disaster, the film  higher and higher into debt and further and further over schedule. With an original shooting schedule of six weeks that turned into a grueling sixteen month shoot – amounting to an un-matched six million feet of footage that made editing near impossible- it’s no wonder that the media labelled the film ‘Apocalypse When?’ “We had access to too much money, too much equipment, and little by little we went insane” is how Coppola put it. But what it amounted to was one of the greatest milestones, and arguably the greatest war film in cinema history.

This epic Vietnam war film tells the story of US Captain Benjamin Willard who is sent on a mission to assassinate renegade Green Beret Colonel Walter E. Kurtz who has formed a sadistic cult of local tribes people on a remote island in Cambodia and declared himself a God. Willard sets out down a dangerous river on a journey that will leave him and his short-lived comrades never the same again. As Willard’s passage unravels he learns the true meaning of war, and finds out who he truly is. A young and fit Martin Sheen stars as Willard while an aging and over-weight Marlon Brando plays Colonel Kurtz. The film features an array of brilliant big-name talents in supporting roles including Robert Duvall and Dennis Hopper with Laurence Fishburne and Harrison Ford in one of their earliest film roles.

Three years after production had begun, Apocalypse Now opened at the Cannes Film Festival in 1979 to a standing ovation and prolonged applause, before becoming the winner of the festival’s coveted Palme d’Or award. When the film opened in theatres later that year, it earned approximately US $150 million at the box-office worldwide, and became the US’s third highest grossing film of the year. The film was nominated for 8 Academy Awards including Best Director, Best Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium and Best Picture. Out of the 8 nominations the film walked away with 2 Oscars one for legendary Vittoria Storaro’s brilliant Cinematography and one for Best Sound.

However, it was in 2001 that Coppola released Apocalypse Now: Redux, an all new re-cut and extended (by approximately 50 minutes) version of the movie. As legend goes, Coppola was watching television late at night sometime in the late 1990s when Apocalypse Now came on. He, for the first time in years, watched the film and came to the conclusion that it was “tame” in comparison to the day’s standards – A thought that eventually lead to this re-imagining of his original masterpiece, which was placed at #28 on the American Film Institute’s list of 100 greatest films of all time and which now sits at #31 on IMDB’s list of Top 250 best films.

Running at just under 3 and a half hours (but don’t worry you’ll get an intermission,) Apocalypse Now: Redux is considered the definitive version of the film and we are proud to present this masterpiece of filmmaking on an amazing, original 35mm Technicolor dye-transfer print – the way it was meant to be seen. If you are a fan of the film, but have never seen it on the big screen, take it from me, you have never fully experienced the film. From the opening sequence of whirring helicopters and exploding napalm, to the spooky carnivalesque battle camp scene, right to the powerful and sadistic Kurtz Compound sequence at the end of the film, your eyes will be glued to the screen. You will be absolutely blown away by the film’s pristine image, a clarity brought through in what amounts to a highly stylised, surrealistic and saturated Technicolor experience. The film has a large screen space in its 2.35:1 aspect ratio and an amazing DTS digital soundtrack, which both amount to a film experience like no other, putting you right in the centre of the action. Coppola once said, “My film is not about Vietnam, it is Vietnam,” and after you walk out of the theatre you will feel like you were there. This is definitely one film you will want to see from the very front row, and one film experience you do not want to miss. And the only place you can see it is at the Astor Theatre.
Written by our E-news reviewer Dave Lee for The Astor Theatre.

Apocalypse Now: Redux screens at The Astor Theatre on Thursday August 25th 2011, 7.30pm.

For more information, visit our website.