a really, really long boat ride

my mistake. the movie was actually three hours and twenty two minutes.
this helps explain why i was so bitter after staying up to watch it.

in responding to encyclops post, i can understand the appreciation.
movies today are lacking any emotional adventure. they just don't take the time to
truly unwind your head.. instead they just flash eye candy in front of you over and over again for about an hour and a half. and even the movies that are intellectually intelligent barely
scratch the surface of your psyche.

but my problem with apocalypse now was it's shallow approach to the real journey into madness. i'll have to admit, i expected it to be a bit more raw and gruesome. i expected it to be a movie about the vietnam war. but it wasn't. i had no idea what this movie was about when we first started watching it. i had heard the name of the movie many times before but had only a few assumptions about it.

my criticism is in the fact that the setting of the vietnam war was the catch-all answer to the madness that ensues with each character. no one instance seems to matter, causality isn't in the film. so many "acts" are performed throughout the movie but none of them seem connected and none seem to bare on the other. from the moment he goes mad in his motel room to the moment he drives away from the island of dr. moreau, sheen's character is numb and all of the other characters are reduced to loaded popcorn kernels.. a product of too much anticipation and fear. once they poof, they turn into salty airheads.

is that the message? you're bound to find some rationale into madness if you have enough time and acid?

it's interesting that this was based off of heart of darkness. i remember falling asleep reading that book too but i remember the reference to the skulls on stakes. i remember having to write a five page analysis on keys. i have no memory of keys in the books but apparently my teacher thought it was worth writing about.

and that's another thing.. why call the movie apocalypse now? why not call it what it was.. "a very very long journey into prescribed madness". what? too long of a title?