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Film Reviews

Choke and Cinema's Most Adventurous Book Adaptations
David Moats , November 24th, 2008 03:26

Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk's work is notoriously difficult to translate into film. Dave Moats reviews the latest adaptation Choke and collects the 10 most adventurous book to film adaptations.

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Apocalypse Now

You probably knew that Apocalypse Now is loosely based on Conrad's Heart of Darkness but did you know that it was written by the baseball cap wearing card carrying conservative who directed Conan the Barbarian and Red Dawn? It's an interesting fact which seriously begs the question is Apocalypse Now an anti-war film? It seems to romanticize war if anything - not by making it look like a picnic but by making it look seductive. I suppose Heart of Darkness wasn't exactly anti-colonial either. It's not really the script which makes Apocalypse Now so good it's the performances. The most memorable lines like "a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor" were all ad-libbed by the great Brando who it seems was already well on the path to getting fat and donating small islands to Michael Jackson. Platoon is the better film but Apocalypse Now has always been cooler. (You're fired, Ed)