Continuing the DailyView binge this Sunday morning, I pulled up HBO Max and picked out the film Kramer vs. Kramer starring Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep.

Kramer vs. Kramer is a tough watch at times as the emotions are a major component of the story.

Joanna (Meryl Streep) has been unhappy in her marriage to Ted (Dustin Hoffman) for years and she has finally gotten to the point that she was ready to leave him and find out who she was. Unfortunately, her situation did not allow her to take her son, Billy (Justin Henry), with her. So she leaves Billy with Ted and walks out.

Ted had never been the most present parent. Working at the ad agency, Ted spent more time at work than being a father. With Joanna gone, Ted was forced to change his life to accommodate his son. At the beginning, the times were rocky, with Ted struggle with his newly defined roles. However, over the months, he slowly began to improve. Above all, he loved his son and he made the adjustments he needed to make.

With things going well, Joanna returned to the picture, having found the personal self-worth she was in search of, and she wanted custody of Billy. The Kramers went to court to fight, often times dirty, to get custody of their son.

Meryl Streep’s character in Kramer vs. Kramer is not as developed as Hoffman’s, mainly because of a lack of screen time in the normal moments. We only seen Joanna in highly emotional states and that colors our perceptions of her. We see the negative side of Ted, but we also get the chance to see him change and to improve his fathering. This is something we do not see with Joanna. We are told that she is a great mother, but we never get a chance to see it. Even when she gets her time with Billy after being gone for months, we do not get to see them interact.

Because of this, Kramer vs. Kramer feels unbalanced. We find ourselves rooting for Ted because we have seen his transformation and we have seen how the relationship between him and Billy has grown. Joanna is not given that same development and one wonders how emotional the movie could have been had it been set up with more of a balance between the mother and father.

The ending also feels as if it comes out of nowhere. We do not see Joanna make any of the revelations that she does in order to come to the decision that she makes. It makes her look even more flighty than she had during the film. It feels as if the character of Joanna is really underserved with the story.

However, the acting in the film is top notch. Both Meryl Streep and Dustin Hoffman are at the top of their game and the only reason you have connection with Joanna at all is because of the skill of Meryl Streep. Strep and Hoffman both won Academy Awards for their work in Kramer vs. Kramer. An unsung performance is that of Justin Henry as Billy. Every scene that required emotional depth, he knocked out of the park. He fit right in with Hoffman and Streep, which is impressive for an eight year old. Though he did not win, Justin Henry was nominated for Best Supporting Actor too.

Though it did feel too one sides, Kramer vs. Kramer is an emotional roller coaster and shows how a father-son relationship can be a successful one. It showed how much the character of Ted loved his son and it explored the pain that can come from custody hearing. I wish they had made Joanna more of a complete character, or at least let us see her develop as well.

Gene Hackman is a natural treasure.

He can make you root for and cheer for a character that is utterly rotten, and he does that in what is considered to be one of the greatest movies made in The French Connection, my next film in the DailyView.

The currently retired Hackman is desperately missed as one of the great actors around. His character of Jimmy ‘Popeye’ Doyle is racist, hard headed, obnoxious, and short-tempered, and, yet, the audience is behind him as he pursued the gentleman Frenchman Alain Charnier (Fernando Rey), a criminal and one of the largest drug suppliers of pure heroin to North America.

Some of the chase scenes in The French Connection are amazing. Filmed practically, the chases (in particularly, the elevated train chase) are breathtaking and thrilling.

The first part of The French Connection is slow and I have to say that I had a hard time getting into the movie at the beginning, but as I moved along, things got considerably more intense and I became more invested.

I found the ending extremely unsettling too, and I loved it. Apparently these characters are based on real people, but it has never stopped films from changing things up for the story. The fact that the end of The French Connection is so shocking that it can be upsetting is a great thing.

The French Connection is a good movie. I did not love it as much as everyone else seemed to, but I did like it.

One of the reasons that I began this DailyView binge this summer was to fill some of the gaping holes of my movie viewing life, especially with the beloved classics. Admittedly, some of the films that I have watched so far in the binge would not be considered classics. However, I have been able to see several that would be considered classics such as The Sound of Music, Apocalypse Now, Saving Private Ryan and Caddyshack. These would fit into that category. So does today’s first film, Michael Mann’s classic heist film, Heat, starring Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino.

Considered one of the greatest heist movies made, Heat was a long film, but it is masterfully developed from the beginning to a major banger of a conclusion. There were definitely a lot to follow here as Heat had a ton of moving parts of the plot with a large group of interwoven characters.

In fact, Heat is absolutely a film that you have to pay attention to and not one that you can put on in the background if you want to understand what was going on. Although, you can also break this down into the basic plot of good vs. evil as the film staged the idea of DeNiro and Pacino facing off with one another.

You see that as early as the iconic scene of DeNiro and Pacino together in the restaurant, “having coffee” but really setting the stage for the rest of the movie. The dialogue in this scene is just tremendous and you can certainly see why this is considered such an amazing scene.

The cast of this movie is just filled with unbelievably talented actors. Sure the eyes are on DeNiro and Pacino, but the fact is that every role, no matter how minor, is cast with amazing actors. Val Kilmer received nearly top billing along with the two icons as his name appeared on the poster. We also had Jon Voight, Tom Sizemore, Amy Brenneman, Ashley Judd, Ted Levine, Dennis Haysbert, Natalie Portman, Mykelti Williamson, Wes Studi, Diane Venora, Tom Noonan, William Fichtner, Hank Azaria, Danny Trejo, Tone Loc, Xander Berkeley, Jeremy Piven, Steven Ford, Patricia Healy, and Martin Ferrero, among others.

The bank robbery scene and the ensuing chaos that is the result of the heist is one of the most insane, breathtaking scenes I have seen in any crime movie. It is set up beautifully by Michael Mann and his crew and it truly shows how skilled Mann is in this genre.

I did struggle at the very beginning keeping everything straight, but Heat pays off in the second and third acts like few other movies. There was an intensity of performance and situation that is able to isolate the similarities and differences between our protagonist and antagonist. There is almost a respect between them that demands to be faced.

Having said that, there may have been a plot point or two that could have been taken out which wouldn’t have affected the overall story (I’m thinking about much of Pacino’s home life issues). The extra bits do help deepen the characters, but some of the side plot points do wind up unresolved so do they really serve a purpose?

Heat is not a movie that I would normally seek out, but I am glad I did. I got a chance to see two powerhouse actors in their prime and delivering a master class in acting, despite only being on screen with each other a minimal amount of time. The film has been carefully constructed and works on many levels.

Trying to fit one more movie into the DailyView today, but the time was limited. As I was going through the list of Starz movies, I came across the cult film that spawned a huge hit TV show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

I had never seen the movie, but I was a big fan of the TV series with Sarah Michelle Geller as the Slayer. I had always heard that the movie Buffy was not very good and so I had avoided it. However, this felt like a good moment to sample it (especially since it was just 85 minutes).

You know what? I did not hate it.

Yes, it wasn’t anywhere near as good as the series. You could tell that the series took the best parts of the concept and built something awesome out of it.

Joss Whedon was the writer on the movie, and he would take the ideas and build a great series later, but the writing on the film was a drawback. This did not have the typically witty and funny dialogue that Whedon is known for. In fact, the dialogue here was the biggest weakness of the movie.

The cast was deep and strong with Kristy Swanson as Buffy Summers leading the pack. Then we had Rutger Hauer, Paul Reubens, Donald Sutherland, Luke Perry, Hilary Swank, David Arquette, and Stephen Root. This is a really strong cast. Unfortunately, they just did not have enough to do for this great ensemble.

Kristy Swanson did a solid job as Buffy, but she is always going to pale in comparison to Sarah Michelle Geller. Still, her efforts here keep the film on a path.

The story felt too crammed into the time frame of the film. A TV series is a much more effective way to tell this story and you can tell why the TV show was such a hit. The tone was a bit too goofy in the movie. In the TV show, even the ridiculous parts were treated seriously. That helped make the humorous parts stand out more. The movie had silly reactions and moments that undermined the action/story with the response (aka Paul Reubens’ death scene for example).

I also missed the vampires turning into dust when stabbed with the wooden stakes. That is an effect that was added to the TV show and made a very solid visual image.

Now, it may not be fair for me to compare the TV show to the movie. The TV show had the advantage of improving the areas that needed improving and spreading out the story elements. The movie did not have that benefit. Looking at it only as a movie and not comparing it to the TV show, the movie was okay. It was better than I thought it would be. It had some story issues and the pacing was off, but I have certainly seen worse movies.

I tried watching this film yesterday, but HBO Max was having some spasms here, so I had to put off this science fiction film, the feature film debut of George Lucas. The film was called THX 1138 and it is a futuristic, dystopian world where people do not have names, only designations and all sexual encounters have been removed.

THX (Robert Duvall) and LUH (Maggie McOmie) rebelled against this rigid society’s rules and connected with each other.

I was just bored out of my mind with this movie. While it is a beautiful film to watch with some of the more intriguing visual shots you are going to see in a science fiction movie with its minimalist style and white backgrounds, I just could not get into this story. The lack of exposition, while a brave choice, keeps the audience members at arms length, since it only continues to increase a level of confusion about what was happening.

The film feels like a thought experiment more than it does a story, but there just is not enough ideas here to make it a science fiction story. There are some fascinating visual storytelling here and you can see some of the director’s chops that would help create on of the seminal works of fiction of all time in Star Wars.

Not one of my favorite films for the DailyView.

I think this is the first movie with Walter Matthau that I have reviewed. I have seen movies with Matthau in them, but I do not think that I have written up any of them. The first film from the classic actor that will make the DailyView and Doc’s Classic Movies Reviewed is The Taking of Pelham One Two Three.

A group of four heavily armed men, led by Mr. Blue (Robert Shaw), hijacked one of the New York Subway Trains, holding the passengers on it hostage. The men made a demand of $1,000,000 or else they would begin killing hostages one at a time. Matthau is Lt. Zachary Garber, who is part of the NY Transit Police, communicates with the hijackers and get their list of demands. He also manages the attempt to stop what they were intending to do.

Walter Matthau is excellent here, his snarky dialogue and sarcastic tone working in overdrive. His character is in direct contradiction to Mr. Blue’s refined, snobby European type character. One would think there eventually was some inspiration from Mr. Blue for the character of Hans Gruber in Die Hard.

Jaws’ Robert Shaw is a wonderful opposition to Matthau’s character. Shaw is playing a thinking man’s villain and is about as cold blooded as you could get.

The film does a great job of keeping you on the edge of your seat while still having moments of humor. The differing tones do not feel out of place and work together well.

The ending of the movie really works well and provides a couple of shocking moments that you do not see coming. The film is making the argument about how the desire for money can poison some people.

The film includes several familiar faces including character actors Martin Balsam, Earl Hindman, Jerry Stiller, Dick O’Neill, Doris Roberts, James Broderick, Nathan George, Lee Wallace (playing a Mayor as he did several times in his career) and Hector Elizondo. Many of these actors wound up playing supporting roles on sitcoms over the years.

This was a quick, enjoyable story of the conflict between good and evil, and showcases the efforts of the public servants in emergencies. There was a bit with four Japanese businessmen early into the film that made no sense and felt a little racist, but that is the time frame of the 1970s sticking its backward thinking into the film. Other than that, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three was a lot of fun and was exciting to see.

Listening to SEN Live from yesterday and the panel wound up discussing a movie called The Kid Detective. It sounded interesting so I checked it out on Starz for the next movie on the DailyView.

Abe Applebaum (Adam Brody) had been a detective since he was 12-years old. He had experienced a lot of success with the simple cases of the school. So much so that the town made him a small celebrity with headlines and awards. However, when he was hired to find Gracie Gulliver (Kaitlyn Chalmers-Rizzato), a missing girl, Abe struggled with the real life aspect of the case. Unable to find the girl, Abe had taken the weight of the failure on his shoulders, bringing him down into a depressive state for many years.

Going through the motions, solving cases of missing cats, it is not until high school student Caroline (Sophie Nélisse), the girlfriend of a kid who had been murdered a few weeks before, came to hire Abe to solve the murder.

I liked this movie quite a bit. The best part of this is Adam Brody, who carries himself with such a sadness that you can not help but root for him to solve the case even though the more you see him work, the less likely he was going to solve anything. Even still, he has a lot of charm and charisma to carry him through the film.

The story is well done, with several intriguing shifts to keep the audience guessing. This is filmed in a neo-noir style and presents that manner in a wonderfully creative way.

It is also a dark comedy, as many of the jokes deal with some seriously disturbing topics. However, it is very funny and you can’t help but laugh when the writing is this good. The dialogue is crisp and believable. The delivery of the lines and the physical comedic moments are spot on.

While it is only 90 minutes long, The Kid Detective does feel longer. The first act or two are pretty slow burns as Abe is investigating the crime as only he knows how to do. The slow burn in this case is not a bad thing and helps us develop these characters besides just the plot.

Adam Brody is excellent here and he carries the most weight of the movie. His character has many layers, dealing with his own feelings of guilt and failure while trying to find his way through the difficulties of life.

A new reimagining of the classic fairy tale Cinderella appears today as the DailyView continues. Ever After: A Cinderella Story was on Disney + and retold the Cinderella story with some more realistic tendencies.

Of course, they included Leonardo Da Vinci (Patrick Godfrey) in the story too.

We see the background of how Danielle (Drew Barrymore) wound up a servant to her step-mother The Baroness (Anjelica Huston) when her father suffered a tragic fate. Danielle worked for the Baroness and her two daughters, the wicked Marguerite (Megan Dodds) and the soft spoken Jacqueline (Melanie Lynskey) at her father’s home.

A chance meeting between Danielle and the rebellious Prince Henry (Dougray Scott) set them up as an unlikely couple. Danielle pretended to be of wealthy and royalty, hiding the truth about her life.

When Prince Henry’s father (Timothy West) had an arranged marriage for him, Prince Henry revolted. The King gave him five days in which to find someone he loved or else the King would make the choice for him. He announced a Ball where Prince Henry would reveal his choice.

Meanwhile, the wicked step-mother, Baroness plotted on ways to make that choice be Marguerite.

I enjoyed this version of the classic tale. The story removed all of the fantastical elements such as the Fairy Godmother, the magical pumpkin coach and the changing back at the stroke of midnight and made it a more realistic take on the story, which was welcome.

Drew Barrymore and Dougray Scott made a wonderful pair, their chemistry was undeniable. The film spent some time with the pair together, giving us reasons to believe that they were in love besides just love at first site. And the movie made Danielle highly capable, specifically showing how she could take care of herself and not just be a damsel in distress.

Danielle reminded me of Belle from the Beauty and the Beast movies. Her intelligence, love of books and rebuke of those who she sees as fools match right along with the Disney Princess.

In a story that had been told many times, it was nice to have the chance to see how it could be changed up. While it remained familiar, the story had many new bits and helped make it more timely and continued to be full of romance.

I was browsing around on Amazon Prime this morning and I came across a film with a title that caught my attention. The Town that Dreaded Sundown was a fascinating title for a movie and then when I read the synopsis, I was all in for the next film in the DailyView.

It is loosely based on a series of cases that actually happened back in Texarkana in the 1940s. A man in a mask, who would become known as the Phantom Killer, attacked several couples out on “lover’s lane”, injuring the first ones and then killing others. The local police put out a manhunt during the time for the predator, but they were never able to capture him.

This is considered one of the first slasher films, being an inspiration for many to come. This feels like it is taking advantage of the real life Zodiac Killer who had been terrorizing San Francisco over the last few years. In this movie, the Phantom Killer does much the same as Zodiac did at his beginning. He would approach parked cars with couples inside and he would attack them. The Phantom used a gun a couple of times, which Zodiac did as well (though Zodiac used a knife too).

The hooded face also made on think back to the Zodiac, in particular with the famous moment in the park.

It was also nice to see Dawn Wells (RIP) appearing here after her years on Gilligan’s Island. I will admit to her presence being a distraction because… hey! it’s Mary Ann! Still, I am happy she was able to get work outside the island.

The film had some truly noticeable tone shifts. In fact, there were a couple of times when I thought the film had gone from a horror/crime film to a slapstick comedy. Those moments did not work at all with the story and were major problems for the narrative.

The film was told in a mock documentary style, which worked much better. If I were redoing this movie, I would lean heavier on that documentary and use that framing device much more freely.

It was a decent little movie, but there was not much about it that stood out.

I went on quite the voyage this morning for the DailyView.

This tip requires some background. At my school, we were discussing last day before summer break activities and the idea of a movie came up. When it comes to movies, people tend to look to me since I have some knowledge. During the discussion, one of the other teachers mentioned about a movie that her teachers would show when she was in school called The Gods Must Be Crazy. I had never heard of this movie before, so I added it to the DailyView list.

The Gods Must Be Crazy is not easy to find.

However, I thought I found the full movie on YouTube and so I planned on watching it this morning.

What the hell am I watching?

About half way through, I was starting to doubt that this was the same movie.

The first thing that made me question it was that Conrad Janis, who appeared as Mindy’s father on Mork and Mindy, was here as a cowboy hat wearing businessman and his name did not appear on the IMDB for The Gods Must Be Crazy. He was a recognizable actor and would have been on the cast list. Suddenly, I was not sure what I was watching. The lead actor here, N!xau (who was a San from the Kalahari Desert and had been discovered by the director of The Gods Must Be Crazy, Jamie Uys), was definitely the same man from the movie I was looking for so I kept watching.

Another question I had was that The Gods Must Be Crazy held am 85% on Rotten Tomatoes and what I was watching did not feel like it would be “fresh” at all. In fact, this was clearly a terrible movie.

I started my search to see exactly what it was that I was watching.

I went again to IMDB and went to Conrad Janis’s page to see what movie it listed him starring in, but funny enough, it was not on his page. Was that a commentary on the film? Undeterred, I went to the page for N!xau and I saw several films. Clicking on each, I was looking for one that would match the weird storyline that I was seeing.

N!xau, who played Xi, wound up with a bottle that contained a bird and he went on a journey to free the bird. It ended up in Kowloon, on the streets of Hong Kong. From there, it was a fish-out-of-water story as Xi tried to make his way through the culture of the land he did not understand.

There was a plot with some bumbling diamond thieves (who wore sunglasses and trench coats) too that came from out of nowhere. Carina Lau played the businesswoman who Xi followed and Ching Wan Lau played her assistant John, whom got stuck with Xi on his misadventures.

Finally, I was able to track down the title of this movie (which was listed as The Gods Must Be Crazy on YouTube0. It was Crazy Hong Kong, the fourth film in the Gods Must Be Crazy series. There turned out to be five of them in this series. This one certainly did not inspire me to watch the rest.

The production values on this were terrible. The dubbing was bad (even the dubbing for Conrad Janis was echo-y and poorly done). The story was nonsensical.

Still, it is one of those films that you can sit down with and have a good time making fun of.

I hope to still search out The Gods Must Be Crazy, which sounds like a considerably better movie, and I won’t be fooled again.

The DailyView binge has given me an opportunity to fill some gaps in my movie viewing knowledge. Caddyshack is one of the gaps that I had. I had never seen Caddyshack despite its reputation as one of the great comedies of all time. It is highly quotable and, out of context, has some classic lines.

However, I found this to be dumb, boring and exceedingly unfunny. The humor was crass and sophomoric.

The only thing I thought was even remotely funny was the performance from Bill Murray because it was such a committed performance. His battle with the gopher had its moments and it is certainly iconic.

Other than that… just not a fan.

I have always enjoyed Rodney Dangerfield, but his performance in the movie was the same as everything he ever does. It was his act and I had heard the jokes before.

The story was a loosely strung together group of sight gags or juvenile gross bodily fluids jokes. Mistaking a Baby Ruth candy bar for a turd? Ha Ha. That one is so funny.

Then the ending scene was both completely predictable and confusing as can be. The golf challenge strokes do not seem to add up, but what was going to happen was telegraphed a mile away.

I thought that I would enjoy this, but I simply did not. I was wishing it would end during the first 20 minutes. This one is just not in my humor range.

I feel as if this is a hot take, so I will say that if you are someone who loved Caddyshack and believes it is one of the funniest movies of all time, more power to you. You are welcome to your opinion. My opinion is different. Movies are subjective. Humor is subjective. I did not like this movie. It does not mean that you can’t. Just stemming off the haters.

I’m not sure what is going on at WordPress. It says that I have a six day streak posting at Embrace Your Geekness despite the fact that I have posted a post every day since April 29th with the DailyView. It is really weird and I am not really sure of the data they are using. Anyway… going for a seven day streak today with today’s film, The ‘Burbs.

I added this film to the list after watching the Schmoedown Horror Exhibition from a few weeks ago. It was the answer to one of the questions and critic/Schmoedown star William Bibbiani made a comment about The ‘Burbs being one of his favorite movies and I knew I had never seen it. I was surprised that it was included in a horror Schmoedown because I did not think that The ‘Burbs was that kind of movie. I was intrigued.

Then I looked at Rotten Tomatoes and I saw it was at 53%, which is one of my memories of the film- the reviews were bad. It just kept being an intriguing film. So I watched it today and I found it great. It was funny, interesting and I was never sure what was going to happen next.

Some new neighbors move in to the house next to Ray Peterson (Tom Hanks) in the suburbs and they start to show some questionable actions. They were rarely seen, weird noises coming from their basement and Ray saw them digging in their backyard during a rainstorm.

Ray, along with his neighbors Rumsfield (Bruce Dern) and Art (Rick Ducommun), begin to look into the neighbors when another neighbor, old man Walter (Gale Gordon) disappeared without a trace.

The paranoia continued to build among the neighborhood as strange occurrences continue to happen. One of the fun aspect of the film is that Corey Feldman’s character Ricky is one of the neighbors and he spends his time on the porch watching everything that is happening in the cul-de-sac. He would invite his girlfriend and his friends over to watch the events happening around them.

The cast is fun, including Tom Hanks who was still in his comedy acting style of his early movies. It was great seeing Carrie Fisher too as she was Tom Hanks’ wife.

As I was watching this, The ‘Burbs made me feel as if I had been transported back into the 1980s. This film had a tone much similar to The Goonies and other comedic action films of the time. The music, the dialogue, the over-the-top situations are all so very 80s and hit on the nostalgia. I wonder if I would have thought differently had I saw this in the actual 80s.

I enjoyed this quite a bit and I am glad that I finally saw it.

One more Memorial Day movie for the DailyView is Black Hawk Down, the 2001 film from director Ridley Scott and starring a potpourri of actors.

Black Hawk Down tells the true story of a US Army Rangers mission into Somalia on October 3, 1993 to attempt to capture two top lieutenants of a Somali warlord. Unfortunately, this mission took a turn and resulted in a massive firefight between the US forces and a group of heavily armed Somali gunmen. The film is then a drawn out battle sequence displaying the pain and anguish associated with war as we see first hand the injured Americans suffer and die trying desperately to hold on until reinforcements could arrive.

There is a huge ensemble cast in this movie, and to be honest, half of them I could not tell who they were. With the short haircuts and the helmets and gear, when I looked at IMDb for the cast list, I kept hearing myself say… “he’s in this?” I was able to recognize Eric Bana easily enough and I spied Jeremy Piven. Josh Hartnett is the “lead” of the protagonists if there is one. There is also Tom Sizemore, Ewan McGregor, Tom Hardy, William Fichtner, Sam Shepard, Ioan Gruffudd, Jason Isaacs, Steven Ford, Orlando Bloom, Ty Burrell, Gabriel Casseus, Ewen Bremner and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau.

With a cast this size, one of the drawbacks of Black Hawk Down is the fact that we do not get much character development from any of the characters, save a few. And even those are limited. I honestly had a hard time knowing which characters were which and that limited the amount of concern I had for them.

Despite this, they were absolutely placed in a tense situation and I did not want to see them getting killed. There were a few emotional moments, mainly because they were the Americans and I am trained to root for them. I believe, though, that if there was more time spent on character development in the movie, I would have been more emotionally invested.

The gunfire scenes are very well done and create an anxious movie viewing experience. Again, I might have preferred to lower the sheer amount of firefights with bullets everywhere and focus in on something more human. I am afraid that the continuous gunfire desensitized me to the action scenes and made me care less.

The film looked great and the scenes where the soldiers are being shot/injured are certainly difficult to watch. I believed that these soldiers were in a situation where they were in serious jeopardy and I was unsure how they were going to be able to survive. It looked like a warzone and convinced me of the danger.

In the end, this is a very competent war movie that I would have liked to readjust some of the time given to the constant gun fighting in order to develop the characters in a deeper level. If you are a fan of war movies, this one is probably for you.

The second documentary during the DailyView is a partner to Apocalypse Now, which I watched earlier this morning. It is the Fax Bahr, George Hickenlooper, and Eleanor Coppola directed documentary dealing with the creation of Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now.

Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse tells the story of the difficult process of making Apocalypse Now, which suffered from script difficulties, weather challenges, Marlon Brando, and Francis Ford Coppola’s self-doubt and insecurities.

The documentary included footage and sound secretly recorded by Coppola’s wife, Eleanor during the filming of Apocalypse Now.

One of the most fascinating aspects of the documentary was it truly showed how Francis Ford Coppola was dealing with the constant issues in much the same way as the characters of Apocalypse Now were dealing with their struggles. There are times when, in his own words, you can hear Coppola taking his stress and frustrations to levels unimaginable. It is ironic that a movie about characters dealing with situations that could drive them insane seemed to be doing that very thing to the director as well.

The words of Coppola when he found out about the heart attack suffered by leading man Martin Sheen were shockingly cold. I am sure that he did not mean it the way it comes across, but you can hear that he has been pushed past a certain point.

This does a monumental job of giving us the behind the scenes details that only serve to enrich the success of the final product. It is amazing that the movie is able to be completed considering the amount of distractions and hurdles that the production had to handle.