Among my favorite movies, Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now ranks very high. It’s a brilliant and disturbing look at war and its effect on the men who fight it. Plus, it’s full of great performances from an amazing cast, action and also makes you think. What more could you ask from a film?

Nothing, really, except for all of the film’s brilliance and cinematic power, it never got the Blu-ray release it deserved. But now, it seems, that’s going to be remedied as Lionsgate is releasing the film on Blu-ray. Not only will the film be on Blu-ray, the release will come in two different versions, the standard and “full disclosure” edition, which will contain a host of impressive features.

Among these are both versions of the film, never seen before interviews with Coppola and other involved in the production, production stills, script notes, the Hearts of Darkness documentary and so much more. For the full list of features in both editions, check out the full press release after the jump.

Also, be sure to check out the Blu-ray trailer for the film after the jump as well. The Apocalypse Now Blu-ray will hit store shelves on October 19th.

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This is only the second installment of Western Wednesday, and I believe I have already seen the messiest and strangest film that ever boasted a horse, a pistol, and a sunset: Mad Dog Morgan. It was a toss-up between Morgan and The Ox-Bow Incident, but I had a thirst for some Ozploitation, and Morgan is a pretty legendary piece of Australian filmmaking.

It also seemed like a good idea to expand the cinematic frontier early on in this feature, and visit a place that has a remarkably similar history. Americans tend to think that the myth of the Wild Wild West is theirs, and theirs alone – and it certainly is, but Australia enjoyed a settlement experience that was just as violent and lawless as our own. They just had kangaroos instead of buffalo, and convicts instead of hardy pioneers.

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