Megalopolis (Francis Ford Coppola, 2024) • Page 16

Starting

 

Good luck.

 

The tone is already so all over the place but I am captivated. I think I am going to like this

 

Game of Thrones actress is just out of her league but it makes the movie all that more absurd

 

I wish he got a crack at this back in the 80s/90s with practical effects. Some of the visuals here are just cgi slop. Adds to the uncanniness of it all with the bad acting, but it is so clear that he has a unique vision

 

Voiceover: the richest kids in the world. And rumor has it, theyre sleeping with each other too!

 

This reminds me of a Neil Breen movie (complimentary)

 

I paused halfway through to make a drink. This is fascinating. I truly don’t understand thinking this is “bad”

 

it's NOT bad

 

The design montage with the people stacking in top of each other and Driver tossing the ball and the broken dog leg is so funny

 

It’s fantastic. Really want to rewatch when I have a chance

 

Nush Berman

 

Is the looming threat of a falling satellite a Wet Hot American Summer reference?

 

You wish

 

Did Nush Berman die offscreen from the satellite and they just showed it in a cutaway?

 

This medical scene puts it even more over the top holy shit I love this. “We found a sample of Sunny’s hair”?!?!? That puts his face back together???

 

Oh my god the Night of the Hunter references I am awestruck

 

What do you think of this boner I’ve got?

 

Intentionally and unintentionally hilarious, a beautiful, ugly mess that contains brilliance and some of the dumbest shit I’ve seen. Moving and corny and wholly unique. To not at the very least put trust in Coppola that he was fully in control of this vision (aside from what I assume are monetary constraints) is to be naive. A fascinating film that I laughed with and at.

 

This might be a new litmus test for who “gets it” and who doesn’t. Maybe my years of watching and appreciating the minor brilliance in SOV cinema warmed me to this. If you’re stuck on the tonal inconsistencies or some of the acting or the effects or the writing…I don’t know what to tell you. This left me with a feeling of hope and admiration for the medium that I last got so profoundly while watching Cannibal Campout, so take that as you will.

 

This is a good way of putting it. It is easy to point out some of the tonal inconsistencies or stranger plot developments, but you are missing the heart. There are a lot of films that come out every year that are more professional or more finely edited and analyzed by the financiers, but they are empty calories.

 

In my film and music class I try, in vain, to push my students past surface level analysis of the music to get to visceral reactions. It is hard to do. They are also passive consumers of media. They (for the most part) don’t give a shit one way or the other.

To be a critic or a self avowed movie fan and to dismiss this film does not make sense to me. There is so much in here to love and admire and be entertained by.

 

My students have been really annoying me with the way they talk about the Coen version of Macbeth. They don't understand that the sets, the black and white, and all sorts of things are artistic choices and not Cinema Sins-level mistakes.

Is it going to stand with his Seventies masterpieces? No, but it is better than probably half of the films competing for major awards right now.

 

I think it’s possible to both celebrate the auteur and think this movie is bad haha.

I am happy it’s starting conversations about consuming/understanding art and media.

 

I don’t think the movie was bad