That's a bummer. I saw some bad reviews of it, but then Ross Barkan had a review in Compact where he said that yes it's not great, but still worth seeing because of the expansiveness of the vision and ability to think big. But sounds like you don't agree. I still might watch it at some point when it comes to streaming. It was only in my local theater for a short time, I figured longer because of who it involved.
So not even "flawed," just incoherent suckage, like the superflous, floundering scenes that Coppola spiked his sensible editors' cut of Apocalypse Now with. Too bad, because the culture really needs a good Megalopolis movie. Curtis Yarvin and us can't be the only people noticing that leadership vacuum forming at the top of Our Democracy.
There's something to be said for the old auteur style of movie-making: film every idea that pops in your head with your lavish budget, and let the editors sort it out later. I guess Coppola is too old and proud for editing at this point. Millions of dollars, a cast of major heavy hitters, and can't even make a "flawed but brilliant" movie. Like you I'll probably see it anyway.
"So, his many films since Apocalypse Now hadn’t made much of a mark, although the biggest problem with Godfather III was probably out of Coppola’s control: As Michael Corleone, Al Pacino’s preferred acting style had evolved from ominously taciturn to shouty."
LOL, great observation; I'm thinking of Pacino in "Heat" and "Scent of Woman". It seems someone in his circle got to him 'bout 1990 and said, "Al, the "taciturn cool" thing is de classe; people want to see over-the-top emoting, man!"
Had a chance to visit the Coppola Winery last fall. The main entrance has that Tucker car on a big rotating platform; fully functional and (according to the concierge) once a month they open the doors, run a hose into the exhaust pipe, and fire it up. There are also several displays with paraphernalia from his more well known movies (wardrobes, props, pictures, notes, etc.) including The Godfather series, Apocalypse Now, Dracula (the one with Gary Oldman, Keanu Reeves and Winina Ryder), Tucker, and some others I am forgetting. Also on display are his Oscars (real or replicas I don't know).
The wine is ok, but I prefer Caymus or Duckhorn. The Negronis at Coppola are superb; the food was delicious as well (this Scots-Irish redneck LOVES Italian cooking...); supposedly some recipes inspired by his grandmother.
> I'm thinking of Pacino in "Heat" and "Scent of Woman"
Also ...And Justice for All (Jewison, 1979). I will say that I disagree with Steve if only because FFC was also the director of Godfather III, so in theory he could have directed Pacino to be more taciturn. Perhaps he felt he couldn't do that at that point.
Dracula was bad and painfully not-shot-on-location, though that may have been intended as a tribute. Unless I missed something it had a major continuity error with suave young Gary Oldman Dracula inexplicably becoming old caked-with-makeup Lizard King Dracula at some point.
Yeah, he was basically this caricature of Pacino playing Pacino. He was definitely the best character/performance in The Irishman for me, and as you noted it really could have just been a film about Hoffa rather than centered on the mob story.
Not that your list was meant to be exhaustive, but I would add former brother-in-law David Shire, who won an Academy Award for composing "It Goes Like It Goes" for Norma Rae in 1979. He also scored The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974). He was also nominated for two Tonys for scoring Baby (1983) and Big (1996).
The mention of Nicolas Cage reminded me of that great tribute to Italian opera, Moonstruck, and the contrasting performances of Cage and Danny Aiello. Cage of course is a more actorly, Coppolanian actor versus the smooth, unforced delivery of Danny Aiello. The penultimate scene at the family breakfast is hilarious.
And speaking of Jewison, he seems to have a good empathetic eye, as a Canadian Anglo, for non-Anglo culture, obviously directing the most Jewishy Jewish film ever with Fiddler on the Roof. Conversely, the Jewish Coens seem to have the same empathetic fascination with Anglo-America, and often look critically at their own Jewish culture.
Adam Sandler is an obvious Jewish partisan who revels in being Jewish for the good and the ill, e.g. Uncut Gems, which Steve just could not get into for some reason.
Moonstruck is a reminder that of all the female singers with a large gay male fanbase, Cher is perhaps the most successful at turning it into overall praise and success as an actress. I remember being dumbfounded as a child that all of Cher's movies ---Moonstruck, Witches of Eastwick, Mask--- seemed to get rave reviews, almost all listed as 4 out 4 stars in any critic guide I read. It wasn't till much later I realized that Cher's Lavender Mafia fanbois were in control of mainstream movie reviews/publications and were selling out to their diva.
(I'm only considering women who's main career was singing and then branched off into acting, e.g. second place might be Liza Minnelli, but she was always more a musical performer than a straight singer. Dolly Parton might be third.)
But most torch song singing/gay-baiting female singers seem to fall apart when they try to act, especially on the big screen. Madonna has always been a joke on screen after her brief good turn in Desperately Seeking Susan (e.g. Madonna's appearance in the Bond film Die Another Day solidified it as one of the worst in the series; in the theater, the audience laughed when she showed up). Bette Midler enjoyed some screen success doing her schtick for housewives in comedies but the Divine Miss M. failed to ever get a movie where straight males enjoyed watching her. Barbara Streisand got some love for her movie work from the homos but also a lot of hate and a lot of laughter from people with testosterone, especially when she tried to make her banana-nosed self into some kind of Jane Fonda sex symbol. And now Lady Gaga has learned in Joker 2 that despite paying off every nancy boy in Hollywood to laud her in everything and get her Oscar nods for A Star is Born that her ugliness and giant schnozz and bad acting won't cut it for straight males.
Someday, someone will have to parse out the historical divide between music industry queers and movie industry queers.
Just about every star starts out appealing to the opposite sex (e.g., Clint Eastwood in 1962). But if you want a long career, you need to appeal to your own sex.
Might explain Cher's success. Cher was a hottie back in the late 60s/early 70s, and she definitely played down/hid the fact that gays were supporting her post-Sunny music career until the 90s came and she embraced her status as Gay Icon. So many straight older men probably remembered her hotness from their youth and her plastic-surgery-retained looks and therefore gave her movies a chance.
Unlike most of the others I mention ---Bette Midler, Lada Gaga, Barbara Streisand, Liza Minnelli -- who are ugly women.
"Script doctors are relatively cheap. But Megalopolis seems to be a movie conceived by an octogenarian watching History Channel specials on the Roman Empire while mainlining Viagra."
Steve continues his war against the conclusion paragraph; I think he's convincing me (along with there being no good reason not to introduce every example with "for example". Turns out it's like using "said" for a dialog tag. It doesn't matter if it reads repetitious. Using alternatives makes the reader conscious you are trying to avoid repetition.)
I'd like to see more movies in universes in which Christianity never displaced classical Roman culture. I assume that's what's going on in this movie. If we were a polytheistic society, would there have been no psychological need for wokeness to develop? If the worship of Zeus went out of style, people could just switch to Apollo when arguing with those damned Bacchus fools.
The Netflix production KAOS explored that theme. I very much enjoyed it but the beancounters canceled after one season. This seems to be happening a lot.
The book on how a splinter Judaic sect-trying to explain the end of their history after realizing the rest of the world could just march into Zion anytime they wanted-went on to found Western civilization, is waiting to be written.
OTOH, I can see how the founding of the modern state of Israel in 1948 would be quite validating. Somewhere in the bosom of Abraham the Pharisees are congratulating each other on how right they were all along.
I prefer it when a season of TV tells a complete story. Cliff hangers to try to get a second season don't make sense anymore. "Bad Monkey" on AppleTV deserves credit for this. Season one, complete storyline with satisfying conclusion and a promise of a different story next season if it returns.
Isn't Christianity the dominant religion of the world (in power if not number) because it became the state religion of late Roman Empire and it became that because Constantine had a dream of a cross before some big battle that he won? Obviously there are more details to be filled in, but absent that, wouldn't middle ages European religion have been a mashup between Roman and Pagan gods?
It was presumably inevitable that the Greco-Roman pantheon would fall at some point after it's obvious you can just hike up Mount Olympus and not see anything. There's also the theological problem of "only room for one sheriff." (A God, having unfettered free will, could not logically coexist with another God with unfettered free will). You can explain Jesus as the God-Man part of the Godhead, but not multiple Gods all fighting and f****** each other.
There had to have been other monotheistic, meta-God sects out there. It's never been clear to me why Christianity prevailed, or maybe it really was the only game in town. For about two centuries after Jesus Christ's crucifixion, Christianity was mostly ascetic hermits living in the desert. Then it took off and became the religion of the Empire. That's the part I'm curious about.
With the mount Olympus thing you are giving people too much credit for rationality and too little credit for their ability to rationalize. I don't see why you think people couldn't accept multiple gods when they did for so long. Even Judaism and Christianity kind of have multiple gods with angels.
Why Christianity? I've read a few attempts to explain it. Might be evolutionary. Christianity is both monotheistic and proselytizing. So it demanded every other religion was not real. The Romans didn't like that the Jews didn't believe the Roman gods were real but at least the Jews didn't have the inclination or power to do anything about it. The Christians actively sought new converts and once they had the whip hand they wiped out any competitors like the cult of Mithra.
It probably helped to get enough converts in the Emperor's court, and some far-sighted Romans realize this universalist, metaphysical religion is a good fit for Empire.
If you read ancient greek stuff like the Iliad, and I think Roman (the Aeneid) they often refer to god (Deus) in the singular. It's difficult to grok how people felt about things in the past but I've wondered how literally they took the multiple gods back then and if some of them had this more abstract idea in mind
Unlikely. The crash of the Western Roman Empire cut off much of Europe from Rome, and yet Christianity persisted, and in some places (Ireland) got so strong they started re-evangelizing places like England, France, and the mountains of Italy and Switzerland.
The Roman embrace of Christianity helped to permanently center its political structure in Rome (The Vatican) but the faith flowered even without attachment to the Eternal City.
It persisted after does not contradict the idea that the initial spread to Europe was greatly due to the fact that it was the state religion of the empire. The wikipedia article on the spread of christianity makes it clear that many of the pagan conversions were at partly due to the prestige of Rome. Christianity had a lot of appealing characteristics and from a game theory point of view certainly adapted to win.
Reading the whole back story of the creation of megalopolis, I expected the passion to come through in the final product, even if it was flawed and uneven. Yet even with the incredible cast and weirdness of the film, it managed to have the one unforgivable trait for a film: it was boring as hell. Seriously, it was a tight 2 hour run time and felt like it was about twice that. The dialogue was atrocious (“you’re being anal… I’m feeling more oral”), the plot made no sense. I’m a fan of David Lynch and other directors who leave a lot of ambiguity and incoherence in their plots, but this was just all over the place. It was trying to tell a story and did so poorly. There were so many aspects of the world that just made absolutely no sense as well, for example it was pretty comical that in the futuristic hi tech super city, the method of transportation was a people mover that moved roughly the same speed as walking.
As a professional movie reviewer, what are your thoughts on the late Roger Ebert? I find his writing so compelling that I will go back and read his past works just for the fun of it, even though he has been gone for over a decade now and his cancer limited his ability to perform on television way before that.
Seems like Ebert was the touchstone daily newspaper movie reviewer and Pauline Kael was the top magazine film critic: they are somewhat different jobs.
"So, is Megalopolis a miraculous comeback to Coppola’s 1970s quality?
No.
Of course not.
It’s absolutely as horrible as everybody says it is."
A total budget of 120 million. Could've attempted to make the definitive filmed version of Atlas Shrugged for about one-third less.
Can't wait to see your review of Joker: Folie a Deux.
I thought he directed The Black Stallion, but he was just executive producer. We can't all be Clint Eastwood.
Oh, what a shame...I’m a fan
That's a bummer. I saw some bad reviews of it, but then Ross Barkan had a review in Compact where he said that yes it's not great, but still worth seeing because of the expansiveness of the vision and ability to think big. But sounds like you don't agree. I still might watch it at some point when it comes to streaming. It was only in my local theater for a short time, I figured longer because of who it involved.
So not even "flawed," just incoherent suckage, like the superflous, floundering scenes that Coppola spiked his sensible editors' cut of Apocalypse Now with. Too bad, because the culture really needs a good Megalopolis movie. Curtis Yarvin and us can't be the only people noticing that leadership vacuum forming at the top of Our Democracy.
There's something to be said for the old auteur style of movie-making: film every idea that pops in your head with your lavish budget, and let the editors sort it out later. I guess Coppola is too old and proud for editing at this point. Millions of dollars, a cast of major heavy hitters, and can't even make a "flawed but brilliant" movie. Like you I'll probably see it anyway.
I've always wanted to see the Editor's Cut of later Peter Jackson movies like King-Kong and The Hobbit.
"So, his many films since Apocalypse Now hadn’t made much of a mark, although the biggest problem with Godfather III was probably out of Coppola’s control: As Michael Corleone, Al Pacino’s preferred acting style had evolved from ominously taciturn to shouty."
LOL, great observation; I'm thinking of Pacino in "Heat" and "Scent of Woman". It seems someone in his circle got to him 'bout 1990 and said, "Al, the "taciturn cool" thing is de classe; people want to see over-the-top emoting, man!"
Had a chance to visit the Coppola Winery last fall. The main entrance has that Tucker car on a big rotating platform; fully functional and (according to the concierge) once a month they open the doors, run a hose into the exhaust pipe, and fire it up. There are also several displays with paraphernalia from his more well known movies (wardrobes, props, pictures, notes, etc.) including The Godfather series, Apocalypse Now, Dracula (the one with Gary Oldman, Keanu Reeves and Winina Ryder), Tucker, and some others I am forgetting. Also on display are his Oscars (real or replicas I don't know).
The wine is ok, but I prefer Caymus or Duckhorn. The Negronis at Coppola are superb; the food was delicious as well (this Scots-Irish redneck LOVES Italian cooking...); supposedly some recipes inspired by his grandmother.
> I'm thinking of Pacino in "Heat" and "Scent of Woman"
Also ...And Justice for All (Jewison, 1979). I will say that I disagree with Steve if only because FFC was also the director of Godfather III, so in theory he could have directed Pacino to be more taciturn. Perhaps he felt he couldn't do that at that point.
LOL. Any Given Sunday was peak Pacino shoutiness.
Dracula was bad and painfully not-shot-on-location, though that may have been intended as a tribute. Unless I missed something it had a major continuity error with suave young Gary Oldman Dracula inexplicably becoming old caked-with-makeup Lizard King Dracula at some point.
I thought Pacino did a good job as Hoffa in The Irishman, in which he was intense but not over the top, so credit to Scorcese there.
Recently watched Heat with my teenage son and Pacino's performance is probably the worst of all the major characters, just absurdly aggressive.
Scarface, another example. So over-the-top stereotyped even I was offended.
I loved Pacino in "The Irishman." It should have been a movie about Jimmy Hoffa, with De Niro and Pesci in supporting roles.
Definitely agree!
I hadn't much liked Pacino in decades, but then I hugely enjoyed him in "The Irishman."
Yeah, he was basically this caricature of Pacino playing Pacino. He was definitely the best character/performance in The Irishman for me, and as you noted it really could have just been a film about Hoffa rather than centered on the mob story.
You failed to mention Nicholas Cage's most expensive hobby. Getting divorced.
Man, I miss 2Blowhards
More movie reviews!!
Interesting.
I wonder if you've considered reviewing the Chinese WWII film "The 800".
> more distant relations
Not that your list was meant to be exhaustive, but I would add former brother-in-law David Shire, who won an Academy Award for composing "It Goes Like It Goes" for Norma Rae in 1979. He also scored The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974). He was also nominated for two Tonys for scoring Baby (1983) and Big (1996).
The mention of Nicolas Cage reminded me of that great tribute to Italian opera, Moonstruck, and the contrasting performances of Cage and Danny Aiello. Cage of course is a more actorly, Coppolanian actor versus the smooth, unforced delivery of Danny Aiello. The penultimate scene at the family breakfast is hilarious.
And speaking of Jewison, he seems to have a good empathetic eye, as a Canadian Anglo, for non-Anglo culture, obviously directing the most Jewishy Jewish film ever with Fiddler on the Roof. Conversely, the Jewish Coens seem to have the same empathetic fascination with Anglo-America, and often look critically at their own Jewish culture.
Adam Sandler is an obvious Jewish partisan who revels in being Jewish for the good and the ill, e.g. Uncut Gems, which Steve just could not get into for some reason.
Moonstruck is a reminder that of all the female singers with a large gay male fanbase, Cher is perhaps the most successful at turning it into overall praise and success as an actress. I remember being dumbfounded as a child that all of Cher's movies ---Moonstruck, Witches of Eastwick, Mask--- seemed to get rave reviews, almost all listed as 4 out 4 stars in any critic guide I read. It wasn't till much later I realized that Cher's Lavender Mafia fanbois were in control of mainstream movie reviews/publications and were selling out to their diva.
(I'm only considering women who's main career was singing and then branched off into acting, e.g. second place might be Liza Minnelli, but she was always more a musical performer than a straight singer. Dolly Parton might be third.)
But most torch song singing/gay-baiting female singers seem to fall apart when they try to act, especially on the big screen. Madonna has always been a joke on screen after her brief good turn in Desperately Seeking Susan (e.g. Madonna's appearance in the Bond film Die Another Day solidified it as one of the worst in the series; in the theater, the audience laughed when she showed up). Bette Midler enjoyed some screen success doing her schtick for housewives in comedies but the Divine Miss M. failed to ever get a movie where straight males enjoyed watching her. Barbara Streisand got some love for her movie work from the homos but also a lot of hate and a lot of laughter from people with testosterone, especially when she tried to make her banana-nosed self into some kind of Jane Fonda sex symbol. And now Lady Gaga has learned in Joker 2 that despite paying off every nancy boy in Hollywood to laud her in everything and get her Oscar nods for A Star is Born that her ugliness and giant schnozz and bad acting won't cut it for straight males.
Someday, someone will have to parse out the historical divide between music industry queers and movie industry queers.
Just about every star starts out appealing to the opposite sex (e.g., Clint Eastwood in 1962). But if you want a long career, you need to appeal to your own sex.
Might explain Cher's success. Cher was a hottie back in the late 60s/early 70s, and she definitely played down/hid the fact that gays were supporting her post-Sunny music career until the 90s came and she embraced her status as Gay Icon. So many straight older men probably remembered her hotness from their youth and her plastic-surgery-retained looks and therefore gave her movies a chance.
Unlike most of the others I mention ---Bette Midler, Lada Gaga, Barbara Streisand, Liza Minnelli -- who are ugly women.
"Script doctors are relatively cheap. But Megalopolis seems to be a movie conceived by an octogenarian watching History Channel specials on the Roman Empire while mainlining Viagra."
Steve continues his war against the conclusion paragraph; I think he's convincing me (along with there being no good reason not to introduce every example with "for example". Turns out it's like using "said" for a dialog tag. It doesn't matter if it reads repetitious. Using alternatives makes the reader conscious you are trying to avoid repetition.)
I'd like to see more movies in universes in which Christianity never displaced classical Roman culture. I assume that's what's going on in this movie. If we were a polytheistic society, would there have been no psychological need for wokeness to develop? If the worship of Zeus went out of style, people could just switch to Apollo when arguing with those damned Bacchus fools.
The Netflix production KAOS explored that theme. I very much enjoyed it but the beancounters canceled after one season. This seems to be happening a lot.
The book on how a splinter Judaic sect-trying to explain the end of their history after realizing the rest of the world could just march into Zion anytime they wanted-went on to found Western civilization, is waiting to be written.
OTOH, I can see how the founding of the modern state of Israel in 1948 would be quite validating. Somewhere in the bosom of Abraham the Pharisees are congratulating each other on how right they were all along.
I prefer it when a season of TV tells a complete story. Cliff hangers to try to get a second season don't make sense anymore. "Bad Monkey" on AppleTV deserves credit for this. Season one, complete storyline with satisfying conclusion and a promise of a different story next season if it returns.
Isn't Christianity the dominant religion of the world (in power if not number) because it became the state religion of late Roman Empire and it became that because Constantine had a dream of a cross before some big battle that he won? Obviously there are more details to be filled in, but absent that, wouldn't middle ages European religion have been a mashup between Roman and Pagan gods?
It was presumably inevitable that the Greco-Roman pantheon would fall at some point after it's obvious you can just hike up Mount Olympus and not see anything. There's also the theological problem of "only room for one sheriff." (A God, having unfettered free will, could not logically coexist with another God with unfettered free will). You can explain Jesus as the God-Man part of the Godhead, but not multiple Gods all fighting and f****** each other.
There had to have been other monotheistic, meta-God sects out there. It's never been clear to me why Christianity prevailed, or maybe it really was the only game in town. For about two centuries after Jesus Christ's crucifixion, Christianity was mostly ascetic hermits living in the desert. Then it took off and became the religion of the Empire. That's the part I'm curious about.
With the mount Olympus thing you are giving people too much credit for rationality and too little credit for their ability to rationalize. I don't see why you think people couldn't accept multiple gods when they did for so long. Even Judaism and Christianity kind of have multiple gods with angels.
Why Christianity? I've read a few attempts to explain it. Might be evolutionary. Christianity is both monotheistic and proselytizing. So it demanded every other religion was not real. The Romans didn't like that the Jews didn't believe the Roman gods were real but at least the Jews didn't have the inclination or power to do anything about it. The Christians actively sought new converts and once they had the whip hand they wiped out any competitors like the cult of Mithra.
It probably helped to get enough converts in the Emperor's court, and some far-sighted Romans realize this universalist, metaphysical religion is a good fit for Empire.
it's an interesting discussion. If only I had the deep historical knowledge to engage in it
Because it is Truth.
Seems unlikely but to each his own
There were "philosophic monotheism" movements, but they tended to be too abstract to appeal to anyone but philosophers.
If you read ancient greek stuff like the Iliad, and I think Roman (the Aeneid) they often refer to god (Deus) in the singular. It's difficult to grok how people felt about things in the past but I've wondered how literally they took the multiple gods back then and if some of them had this more abstract idea in mind
Unlikely. The crash of the Western Roman Empire cut off much of Europe from Rome, and yet Christianity persisted, and in some places (Ireland) got so strong they started re-evangelizing places like England, France, and the mountains of Italy and Switzerland.
The Roman embrace of Christianity helped to permanently center its political structure in Rome (The Vatican) but the faith flowered even without attachment to the Eternal City.
It persisted after does not contradict the idea that the initial spread to Europe was greatly due to the fact that it was the state religion of the empire. The wikipedia article on the spread of christianity makes it clear that many of the pagan conversions were at partly due to the prestige of Rome. Christianity had a lot of appealing characteristics and from a game theory point of view certainly adapted to win.
Reading the whole back story of the creation of megalopolis, I expected the passion to come through in the final product, even if it was flawed and uneven. Yet even with the incredible cast and weirdness of the film, it managed to have the one unforgivable trait for a film: it was boring as hell. Seriously, it was a tight 2 hour run time and felt like it was about twice that. The dialogue was atrocious (“you’re being anal… I’m feeling more oral”), the plot made no sense. I’m a fan of David Lynch and other directors who leave a lot of ambiguity and incoherence in their plots, but this was just all over the place. It was trying to tell a story and did so poorly. There were so many aspects of the world that just made absolutely no sense as well, for example it was pretty comical that in the futuristic hi tech super city, the method of transportation was a people mover that moved roughly the same speed as walking.
Wish I could read the whole thing. Your cultural commentary is actually my favorite part of your writing.
Archived link:
https://archive.is/jctf8
O/T
As a professional movie reviewer, what are your thoughts on the late Roger Ebert? I find his writing so compelling that I will go back and read his past works just for the fun of it, even though he has been gone for over a decade now and his cancer limited his ability to perform on television way before that.
Seems like Ebert was the touchstone daily newspaper movie reviewer and Pauline Kael was the top magazine film critic: they are somewhat different jobs.
What led Coppola to choose the Lost Colony for his California wine brands?
Cesar sounds like his Mario Susy.
Coppola sounds like he's into the history of the English colonization of America.