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Classic Review: Apocalypse Now (1979)

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  Contains some spoilers for the film, if you haven’t seen it go see it.           Last night I got to see the (fairly) new released Final Cut of Francis Ford Coppola’s masterpiece,  Apocalypse Now , on the big screen at Sheffield’s own Film Unit Cinema. I’d seen the film once before with an edit unseen to most people, in year eleven history class with my teacher omitting any of the film’s darker scenes, intercut with parts from  Platoon . A less than ideal way to watch. Going into the Final Cut last night I had almost forgotten most of the film apart from some of the most well known scenes. It was the first time I’d gotten to sit down and enjoy the film in one sitting, with Coppola’s final vision of it. I was not disappointed.            As the lights went down and the screen widened, I could hear the drones of helicopters moving from left to right on the surround speakers behind me. Then the start of ...
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2019 Favourites.

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I already made a Letterboxd list of my top five of the year but I kind of wanted to expand a bit on my picks. 5. Parasite (Joon-Ho, S. Korea) Okay so this one hasn't had a proper UK release yet (I had to turn to the dark world of putlocker don't hate me I was desperate) but even on the small screen this is one of the most powerful films I've seen in a long time. A masterclass in suspense, performance, direction, social commentary and just about everything else. I can't wait to watch this legally, on a cinema screen. 4. Marriage Story (Baumbach, USA) I'm quite a big fan of Baumbach's previous work and this has already taken the top spot for me. The argument scenes are just so impressive and the last big one is easily my favourite scene of the year if not the decade. Seamlessly switching from being the most emotionally strong thing I've seen to being the funniest thing I've seen in less than a second. It just feels like a miracle that the script ...
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New Years TV.

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In all honesty I haven't watched a whole lot of films in the past couple of weeks (apart from my second viewing of Cats) so today I'm just going to blog about something I feel like I've seen a lot of. TV. Specifically New Years Day TV. At 6.55pm Doctor Who returned to our screens after a year long hiatus, with ' Spyfall Part One', written by series showrunner Chris Chibnall. I've been a big fan of the show since I was young and it will always feel very special to me. I don't think I could ever hate the show. I loved Whittaker's first series but in all honesty this return did very little for me and I don't feel like I have much to talk about here. It plays out as an old spy B movie with an extra-terrestrial twist but I just really didn't care. A large amount of the praise comes from the twist ending and Master reveal but all I can saw is: Why? One of my favourite things about Series 11 was it's originality, and how it acted as a fresh start...
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Intro.

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I’ve tried starting a film blog so many times now, so about three neglected Wordpress blogs down I’m finally going to start one for real as part of a new years resolution. I feel like I’ve got a lot to say but whenever I get round to starting one I usually just forget or struggle for ideas. I’m going to be writing reviews but also pretty much everything else; generally it’ll be about films but if I feel like writing about anything else I will. I’m not a great writer (brace yourselves for the cheesiness when I’m blogging about something I like, I write like a greeting card) but it’s something I really want to work on. It’ll all definitely come in handy for my uni course and I’m excited to get into it. You can subscribe (or however it works on Blogger) but I’ll also be posting on all my socials (I’ll drop them below) whenever anything gets published here. Instagram and Twitter : benmtthws_ Letterboxd : benmatthews
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