Coming up on Saturday at the Described Movies: Apocalypse Now and Enter the Dragon.

From this Saturday at 12am Eastern, that’s 4pm Saturday in NZ, 2pm in Sydney and 5am in the UK, and repeated every four hours throughout the day, it’s
the described movies Apocalypse Now from 1979 and Enter the Dragon from 1973.
Apocalypse Now is a 1979 American epic psychological war film directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola.
It stars Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, Martin Sheen, Frederic Forrest, Albert Hall, Sam Bottoms, Laurence Fishburne, Harrison Ford, and Dennis Hopper.
The screenplay, co-written by Coppola and John Milius with narration written by Michael Herr, is loosely based on the 1899 novella Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, with the setting changed from late 19th-century Congo to the Vietnam War.
The film follows a river journey from South Vietnam into Cambodia undertaken by Captain Benjamin L. Willard (Sheen), who is on a secret mission to assassinate Colonel Kurtz (Brando), a renegade Army Special Forces officer accused of murder and who is presumed insane.
Milius became interested in adapting Heart of Darkness for a Vietnam War setting in the late 1960s, and initially began developing the film with Coppola as producer and George Lucas as director.
After Lucas became unavailable, Coppola took over directorial control, and was influenced by Werner Herzog's Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972) in his approach to the material.
Initially set to be a five-month shoot, the film became noted for the problems encountered while making it for over a year, as chronicled in the documentary Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (1991).
These problems included expensive sets being destroyed by severe weather, Brando showing up on set overweight and completely unprepared, and Sheen having a breakdown and suffering a near-fatal heart attack while on location.
Problems continued after production as the release was postponed several times while Coppola edited over a million feet of film.
Apocalypse Now was honoured with the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, where it premiered unfinished before it was finally released on 15 August, 1979, by United Artists.
The film performed well at the box office, grossing $78 million domestically and going on to gross over $150 million worldwide.
Initial reviews were mixed; while Vittorio Storaro's cinematography was widely acclaimed, several critics found Coppola's handling of the story's major themes to be anticlimactic and intellectually disappointing.
Apocalypse Now is today widely considered one of the greatest films ever made.
It was nominated for eight Academy Awards at the 52nd Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director (Coppola), and Best Supporting Actor for Duvall, and went on to win for Best Cinematography and Best Sound.
It ranked No. 14 in Sight & Sound's greatest films poll in 2012, and No. 6 in the Director's Poll of greatest films of all time.
Roger Ebert also included it in his top 10 list of greatest films ever in 2012.
In 2000, the film was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant".
Directed by: Francis Coppola.
Produced by: Francis Coppola.
Written by: John Milius and Francis Coppola.
Narration by: Michael Herr.
Starring: Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, Martin Sheen, Frederic Forrest, Albert Hall, Sam Bottoms, Larry Fishburne and Dennis Hopper.
Music by: Carmine Coppola and Francis Coppola.
Cinematography: Vittorio Storaro.
Edited by: Richard Marks, Walter Murch, Gerald B. Greenberg and Lisa Fruchtman.
Production company: Omni Zoetrope.
Distributed by: United Artists.
Release date: 19 May , 1979 ( Cannes) and 15 August , 1979 (United States).
File Length : 141 minutes.
Country: United States.
Language: English.
Budget: $31 million.
Box office: $150 million.
Enter the Dragon is a 1973 martial arts action film directed by Robert Clouse.
The film stars Bruce Lee, John Saxon and Jim Kelly.
It would be Lee's final completed film appearance before his death on 20 July 1973 at age 32.
An American and Hong Kong co-production, it premiered in Los Angeles on 19 August 1973, one month after Lee's death.
The film went on to gross an estimated US$350 million worldwide (equivalent to more than $1 billion adjusted for inflation), against a budget of $850,000.
Having earned over 400 times its budget, it is one of the most profitable films of all time, as well as being the most profitable martial arts film.
Enter the Dragon is widely regarded as one of the greatest martial arts films of all time.
In 2004, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Among the first films to combine martial arts action with spy film elements and the emerging blaxploitation genre, its success led to a series of similar productions combining the martial arts and blaxploitation genres.
Its themes have also generated scholarly debate about how they reflect the changes taking place within post-colonial Asian societies following the end of World War II.
Enter the Dragon is also considered one of the most influential action films of all time, with its success contributing to mainstream worldwide interest in the martial arts as well as inspiring numerous fictional works, including action films, television shows, fighting games, comic books, manga and anime.
Directed by: Robert Clouse.
Produced by: Fred Weintraub, Paul Heller and Raymond Chow.
Written by: Michael Allin.
Starring: Bruce Lee, John Saxon, Ahna Capri, Bob Wall, Shih Kien and Jim Kelly.
Music by: Lalo Schifrin.
Cinematography: Gilbert Hubbs.
Edited by: Kurt Hirschler, George Watters and Peter Cheung.
Production companies: Warner Bros. and Concord Production Inc.
Distributed by: Golden Harvest (Hong Kong) and Warner Bros. (International).
Release date: 19 August 1973 (U.S.)
Running time: 98 minutes.
Countries: Hong Kong and United States.
Languages: English and Cantonese.
Budget: US$850,000.
Box office: US$350 million.
Any questions, comments, or ideas for future described movies: e-mail me: anthony at mushroomfm dot com (e-mail address written that way to cut down on
spam)
Enjoy the movies,