It was 30 years ago this summer I stumbled out of the old University Theater on Bloor Street in Toronto in shock, too dazed to speak, to stunned to make human contact. Finding a bench on the street I sat down and tried to collect my thoughts.
I was 20 years old, an acting student minoring in cinema, quite happy with my life though wondering if acting was for me. Going to movies alone was something I enjoyed, even though my girlfriend at the time did not care for this habit. My feelings were it allowed me to see the films she did not care to see, right? Though I was learning the method, it seemed movies were my first love, and not to perform in them. “Apocalypse Now” defined for me what I wanted to do with cinema and my life.
In this case I had just seen the first public Toronto screening of Francis Ford Coppola’s long awaited film, and emerging from the theater into the summer sun I knew I had been altered in some way, that this film had galvanized me and changed my life. At the time I had no idea that the film had made this impact, of course, but I knew deep in my gut that something extraordinary had just happened.
As a film junkie I was aware of the history of the film, and because it was Francis Ford Coppola, who had directed “The Godfather,” “The Conversation” and my favorite of all time, “The Godfather Part II,” I was more than a little anxious to see the film. Coppola could do no wrong in the 1970s, having won Academy Awards for writing “Patton” and co-writing ‘The Godfather.” He received a Best Picture Oscar nomination for the latter and won the DGA award. For the film’s 1974 sequel, he won his Oscar for directing.
That same year his film “The Conversation” was also a Best Picture nominee, a remarkable achievement for the young director. He then made the decision to head into the jungles of the Philippines to bring “Apocalypse Now,” a loose adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness,” to the screen, hoping to entice Steve McQueen, Robert Redford, Al Pacino or Jack Nicholson to take roles in the film. All declined. He eventually cast Marlon Brando as the certifiable Col. Kurtz and Harvey Keitel as Willard (who was fired a few days into shooting in favor of Martin Sheen).
No surprise that the first unmitigated 
There isn’t very much more I can say about the writhing can of worms that is “Antichrist” until I actually get to see the film. (Anyone who can make this happen, you know where to find me.) But it’s worth mentioning this 
In our daily web round-up posts there tends to be one or two lists in the mix. I’m increasingly stunned at Premiere’s capacity for cooking these things up. It’s almost as if that once-sterling film journalism outlet has become nothing but a list generating machine.
One of the things I briefly noted (and wish I had expanded upon) in my 
As you know, despite a mixed critical reception over here in the UK, I was 
In case you didn’t get the message while the Cannes Film Festival was running, it’s clear that Jacques Audiard’s Grand Prix champ “A Prophet” is a title we’re going to be hearing a lot this year. True to its preceived status as the critical favorite, the gritty French prison drama has been voted the fest’s best in a 
Of all the literary adaptations reaching our screens this year, none is as seemingly impossible – and yet, simultaneously, rife with possibilities – as Spike Jonze’s long-awaited realization of “Where the Wild Things Are.” A work that occupies multiple positions within the popular culture pantheon – grade-school standard, highbrow literary classic, cult hipster item, fine-arts touchstone, pop psychology standby – it arguably nourishes a broader audience than any children’s text published since.
We’ve made it to the second round in our mammoth series polling In Contention readers for a list of the most influential films of all time. “Annie Hall,” “Psycho” and “The Wizard of Oz” squeezed past the competition to become our final trio to move on to the next stage. We’re getting very close now, having whittled down the original set of 66 movies to 20, all of which you’ll find listed in the sidebar poll this week.
It only occurred to me this week that I have yet to write about Sam Raimi’s “Drag Me to Hell,” which I saw weeks ago and never got around to reviewing in a timely fashion. I’ve had the artwork for whatever piece I was to conjur sitting here on my desktop, waiting for me to, you know, write the friggin’ words, but for whatever reason, the inspiration hasn’t hit.