Apocalypse Now: The Final Cut (1979/2019):

Apocalypse Now: The Final Cut (2019): written by Francis Ford Coppola, John Milius, and Michael Herr; loosely based on the novella Heart of Darkness (1899) by Joseph Conrad; directed by Francis Ford Coppola; starring Martin Sheen (Willard), Marlon Brando (Kurtz), Laurence Fishburne (Mr. Clean), Harrison Ford (Lucas), Scott Glenn (Kurtz Convert Lt. Colby)), Robert Duvall (Kilgore), Sam Bottoms (Surfer Lance), Frederic Forrest (Chef), Albert Hall (Chief), Dennis Hopper (Photojournalist), G.D. Spradlin (General Corman), and [Uncredited] Joe Estevez (Stand-in/Partial Voice-over 'Stand-in' for brother Martin Sheen):

Hey, it's Apocalypse Now, so a chance to see it in any cut on a big screen was a treat. And it improves on Apocalypse Now Redux by omitting the dire, momentum-killing 'Crashed Playboy Bunnies' sequence!

However, it keeps the other major addition, the French Plantation sequence, to mixed effect: it's the one part of the film that plays as potentially supernatural, which is not really in keeping with the rest of the movie. However, there are also cues throughout the sequence that it might not really be happening at all -- not least of which is the sudden transition from Willard's opium scene to the boat back on the fog-saturated river. 

Brando is great, and on a big screen, almost life-sized! One of no more than a hundred of the greatest movies ever made, all done without CGI! Highly recommended, though you could replicate it by simply omitting a couple of scenes from Redux on a rewatch. The surfboard-stealing scene is also a hoot, though also in Redux. Highly recommended.

Kagemusha (1980)

Kagemusha (1980): written by Masato Ide and Akira Kurosawa; directed by Akira Kurosawa; starring Tatsuya Nakadai (Shingen Takeda/ Kagemusha), Tsutomu Yamazaki (Nobukado Takeda), Ken'ichi Hagiwara (Katsuyori Takeda), and Jinpachi Nezu (Sohachiro Tsuchiya):  

Kagemusha occurs in 16th-century feudal Japan, with financing to complete the film arranged by George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola.  Kagemusha literally means 'double' or 'shadow warrior.' It tells the tale of a thief who replaces the first-injured and then-deceased Lord Shingen Takeda so as to keep the Lord's many enemies convinced that this military genius still lives.

The American financing came about because of the scale of the final battle sequence, though even that sequence surprises us in how all that money is deployed on the screen. Akira Kurosawa was a master of surprise, among many other things. The cinematography is terrific throughout, whether for that doom-laden final battle or for an eerie dream sequence experienced by the thief or for the shadows-and-silhouettes used to indicate battle throughout.

Kurosawa also pulls off the difficult feat of giving us a movie with only one truly likable character, the thief -- and even he is a flawed creature. There's a certain elegiac quality to the proceedings as we see the warfare of the Middle Ages give way to gunpowder and cannons. But Kurosawa undercuts his elegy with both the brutal realities of combat and with the characterization of those lords and retainers still committed to the old ways: in the end, they are deluded and, in their conduct towards the thief, an ungrateful lot of upper-class pricks.

Of Kurosawa's many films involving pre-20th-century Samurai culture, this may be the least. It's certainly the most intimate, despite that giant battle sequence. Even if the least, it's Kurosawa, which beats the best of most everyone else. Kagemusha haunts one in a more mundane way than the supernaturally tinged Throne of Blood, in a less spectacular way than Ran or Seven Samurai. But it definitely haunts, especially in its last tragic, absurd shot. Highly recommended.

American Lives

The Great Gatsby: adapted by Francis Ford Coppola from the novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald; directed by Jack Clayton; starring Robert Redford (Jay Gatsby), Sam Waterston (Nick Carraway), Mia Farrow (Daisy Buchanan), Bruce Dern (Tom Buchanan), Lois Chiles (Jordan Baker), Scott Wilson (George Wilson), Karen Black (Myrtle Wilson), and Roberts Blossom (Mr. Gatz) (1974): Faithful, somewhat plodding adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's Jazz Age masterpiece. Mia Farrow makes for a somewhat weak Daisy, but Redford as Gatsby and especially Sam Waterston as Nick Carraway are pretty much pitch perfect, as is Bruce Dern as the almost Mr. Hydesque brute from old money, Tom Buchanan. Coppola parachuted in to save a hated, unfinished Truman Capote adaptation in about three weeks. It's too bad they couldn't have had him direct the film as well -- I'd imagine it would have had a lot more bounce and zest than what it got from the workmanlike Jack Clayton. Recommended.

The Last Picture Show: adapted by Peter Bogdanovich and Larry McMurtry from the novel by Larry McMurtry; directed by Peter Bogdanovich; starring Timothy Bottoms (Sonny Crawford), Jeff Bridges (Duane Jackson), Cybill Shepherd (Jacy Farrow), Ben Johnson (Sam the Lion), Cloris Leachman (Ruth Popper), Ellen Burstyn (Lois Farrow), Eileen Brennan (Genevieve), Sam Bottoms (Billy), and Randy Quaid (Lester Marlow) (1971): Often found on 100 Best Movie Lists either All-Time or All-American, The Last Picture Show is a gritty, minutely observed look at life in a small Texas town in the early 1950's.

Naturalistic and episodic though carefully structured, starkly black-and-white, beautifully acted by newcomers like Cybill Shepherd and old-timers like Ben Johnson, who would win a posthumous Best Supporting Oscar for his role as Sam the Lion. Cloris Leachman would also win an Oscar, for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as the haunted, lonely wife of the town's high school's coach and phys. ed. teacher. A young Timothy Bottoms is the protagonist, while a young Jeff Bridges plays his best friend, Duane. Well deserves its place in the upper reaches of the pantheon of American movies. Highly recommended.

Malcolm X: adapted by Spike Lee and Arnold Perl from the book by Malcolm X and Alex Haley; directed by Spike Lee; starring Denzel Washington (Malcolm Little/X), Angela Bassett (Betty Shabazz), Albert Hall (Baines), Al Freeman Jr. (Elijah Muhammad), Delroy Lindo (West Indian Archie), Spike Lee (Shorty), Lonette McKee (Louise Little), Tommy Hollis (Earl Little), James McDaniel (Brother Earl), Kate Vernon (Sophia), and Theresa Randle (Laura) (1992): Spike Lee's epic biopic towers over most movies of the 1990's, and should at the very least have earned Best Picture and Best Actor (for Denzel Washington as Malcolm X) Oscars. But Hollywood really loved Al Pacino chewing the scenery in Scent of a Woman that year. So it goes.

The movie takes surprisingly few liberties with the facts of the story, primarily in creating compound characters to streamline the narrative. As Malcolm X (nee Malcolm Little), Denzel Washington gets to travel from hustler and hood to questing intellect over the 3+ hours of the movie, and all of it convincing. The rest of the cast is superb, with stand-outs including Angela Bassett as Malcolm's wife, Betty Shabazz, and Al Freeman Jr. as the manipulative, charismatic Elijah Muhammad, head of the Nation of Islam.

Lee's direction conveys gravitas, lightness of tone, and impending disaster with equal surety. One can see the energetic, bombastic director of previous films that include Do the Right Thing, but that director can now give the viewer a moving, often very formal biopic in which the didactic moments are dramatically satisfying. Lee also plays with film stock and other factors to simulate period-specific 'real' footage from the time in as deft a manner as anything Oliver Stone had managed in JFK the previous year (and Malcolm X actually uses footage from JFK for the Kennedy assassination in this film, as Stone was one of many who helped Lee get the long-delayed Malcolm X made).

Washington, Lee, and the screenwriters credited and uncredited make Malcolm X into a sympathetic figure on an almost unbelievably rich and complex journey of spiritual growth. One misses him when he's gone from the film, while the film brilliantly shifts from its depiction of events to actual footage of the real Malcolm. The two-part conclusion to the film, with Ossie Davis's 1965 funeral oration followed by contemporary footage shot for the film, is a stunner. So too the movie. Highly recommended.