The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 47

Go! Friday D2 Names Faces D4 Comedy Notes D7 Ann Landers Dll More LivingArts E12 Movie Directory D12-13 Classified D17-24 TV Radio E12-I3 Xj LJU The Boston Globe Friday, August 10, 2001 Movie Review 1 Opie Anthony. Outrageous stunts. Madonna's underwear. Has Boston radio become the 'Apocalypse Redux' is not just longer; it's improved, too i I i I I I WAV I i tu. TJ mil Martin Sheen as Willard in "Apocalypse Now Redux," which has 49 minutes of footage added to the 1979 original.

Added scenes bring a new dimension to Coppola's definitive film on Vietnam ByJayCarr GLOBE STAFF The best film of 2001 was made in 1979. Ifs Francis Ford Coppola's "Apocalypse Now." A new version, reedited to include 49 minutes of footage that never made it into the initial release, arrives at the new Boston Common big screen today as "Apocalypse Now Redux." To understate the case, it stands the test of time. Unlike all but a few films today, there's greatness here. It represents a level of aspiration all but unknown in today's dumbed-down climate of films that are bigger yet punier than ever. Now, as then, "Apocalypse Now" is the preeminent Vietnam War film.

Vietnam has gotten its due on film, thanks to "The Deer Hunter," "Platoon," "Hamburger Hill," "Go Tell the Spartans," "The Thin Red Line," and "Full Metal Jacket" But none captures as grandly and fully the fever dream the Vietnam War became. None hammers home an American audience's complicity, partly because, in addition to searing us with the horror of the war, "Apocalypse Now" is honest about what a rush it was, too. That's the source of its seductiveness, made clearer than ever in one of the film's most famous and now classic scenes the helicopter cavalry beachfront landing commanded by Robert Duvall's larger- (and loonier-) than-life Colonel Kilgore to Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" Ifs theme music that Hitler could love and for a while he was the only public figure who did. In its expanded form, the scene shows Kilgore ordering children saved and evacuated, along with the maniacal exhilaration of the "APOCALYPSE," Page D6 By Clea Simon GLOBE CORRESPONDENT To a casual listener, it might seem that testosterone levels are at an all-time high on the Boston radio airwaves. Lesbian sex tips for guys trade off with raging diatribes against liberals; bachelor-party escapades alternate with calls for incriminating photos.

Especially during those all-important commuting hours of 6 to 9 a.m. and 4 to 7 p.m., local radio rings out with the high-profile antics of male hosts playing to the lowest common denominator in their highly sought-after young male listeners. With the decision by WBCN-FM (104.1) this week to return onetime WAAF-FM (107.3) pranksters Opie and Anthony to local afternoon drive-time, "guy talk," as their sex- and violence-laced banter has been christened, now rules both major ratings periods of the onetime all-music station. (The syndicated New York-based Howard Stern fills mornings at the station with a somewhat smarter version of the same shtick.) Besides these New York-based stars, local rock stations feature the likes of pranksters Storm and Birdsey on WFNX-FM (101.7) and Rocko and Matty at WAAF, while talk station WTKK-FM (96.9) touts the macho rants of Jay Severin, all afternoon competitors. Add in the arguably calmer sports AIR CLUB, Page D10 'Dinner With Friends' simmers and sizzles i By Matthew Gilbert GLOBE STAFF What do you get when you fall in love? According to "Dinner With Friends," a challenging new HBO Television meys? Ues and pain and sorrow Review but only if you're lucky.

If you're not lucky, if your marriage doesnt explode into a messy, cathartic, liberating divorce, then you get a life filled with mundane errands and hollow materialism. You get middle-aged yuppie perfection high-powered jobs and adventurous cuisine, but not even a soupcon of intimacy, spirituality, or romance. Thafs what you get for all your trouble: emptiness and anniversaries. All right, "Dinner With Friends" doesnt take quite so dim a view as it anatomizes the marriages of Gabe and Karen (Dennis Quaid and Andie MacDowell) and Beth and Tom (Toni Collette and Greg Kinnear). Adapted by Donald Margulies from his Pulitzer Prize-winning play, the movie has a streak of comedy running through its dramatic veins ifs what we TV critics annoyingly insist on categorizing as a "hybrid" or a "dramedy." In between the hate-filled arguments and pent-up silences, it deploys a wonderfully sly sense of humor and irony, mostly about food and its significance in our lives.

And in the end the movie's weakest link when the dinners are over and the friends are gone, the script lands on a mild note that some will find comforting. Whatever it is a candid expose of the institution of marriage or a very roundabout affirmation of it "Dinner With Friends" is a thought-provoking pleasure. The movie, which premieres tomorrow at 9 p.m., opens with the big "DINNER," Page Dll 1 if i i -w 11 1 -n i "I A IIIIIIIIIIIHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIItllMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII GLOBE STAFF PHOTOSUZANNE KREITER Inside Today Bruce Mittman wants TNX to be a commercially successful station aimed at young males. Radio guru gets 'in your face' Mittman tries WAAF formula on WFNX stations It na gimmick is right out of the "in your face" playbook Mittman is using to chase WFNX radio network owner Stephen Mindich's dream of being a "dominant player" with his four stations in Boston, Providence, Portland, Maine, and Manchester, N.H. In his new job as president of that radio network, Mittman is trying to remake 1 8-year-old WFNX-FM traditionally known for a limited signal, disappointing ratings, and gutsy MITTMAN, Page DS By Mark Jurkowitz GLOBE STAFF Ifs been a long journey from Jerry Williams's silken voice to Madonna's silken underwear.

But ifs all part of the Bruce Mittman school of radio. Two decades ago, as sales manager ofWRKO-AM (680), Mittman helped launch a brash new talk format with stars such as Williams and David Brudnoy. "Most radio stations were music-oriented, passive," he recalls. "What I learned quickly from the experience is that "in your face' radio has an enormous impact" Earlier this week, Mittman's new WFNX-FM (101.7) afternoon team of Storm and Birdsey, who claim to have purchased Madonna's leopard-print panties during a celebrity auction, eagerly unveiled them at the Four Seasons Hotel, where the star was supposedly staying during her concert visit "You cant be offended if you dont listen" is the line WFNX uses to promote the Storm Birdsey show. And their Madon Invasion of the body's systems The title character of the computer-generated gross-out "Osmosis Jones," voiced by Chris Rock, is a white blood cell who thinks he's RoboCop.

D5 MOVIES OPENING TODAY: "Apocalypse Now Redux" (R) Dl; "Osmosis Jones" (PG) D5; "The Vertical Ray of the Sun" (PG-13) D6; Yi "The Others" (PG-13) D5; Vi "American Pie" (R) D6; "Greenfingers" (R) D6; Y2 "Session 9" (R) D5.