Oddball Masterpiece or Enjoyable Schlock? | A Review of Megalopolis
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- Опубліковано 30 вер 2024
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#moviereview #megalopolis
An Ayn Rand & Ed Wood collaboration? That right there scares me. It's a horror movie, right?
Depends on if it's Glen or Glenda/Jail Bait/Plan 9 Ed Wood or late-stage porno Ed Wood...
Have I seen this movie? No. Am I going to sit through a review of it? Hell yeah
I keep hearing the same thing from people about this movie: "What the F#$% did I just watch?"
Only I can fix it. Says the narcissist. We deny you! For some other random person who is the only one who can fix it. Seems like its going from one Narcissist to another. Denying that we as a common group can come up with better solutions than any one person.
The posters gave me atlas shrugged vibes. Disappointed in everyone involved for that alone.
I'm kinda gutted that Aubnrey Plaza and Adam Driver are in this movie with the other MFs involved.
@@MantasticHams Aubrey Plaza has such an amazing DGAF energy, she could show up in anything, have fun doing it, have fun laughing at it afterwards if it's bad, and move on to her next project.
Just judging from the promo material , it feels like an adaption of a lost Ayn Rand novel.
Seeing the main character hold up a T Square in a heroic fashion, had me thinking what in the Howard Roark foolishness is this ?!
You say "half-remembered clichés" but I honestly think Coppola thought he was doing something innovative here. I think he's written off so much of cinema of the last 30 years due to disillusionment with the industry and ended up accidentally repeating things they did many years ago
When I first heard about this movie, it made me think of the first time I saw "Gangs of New York", a good 20 years after it originally came out. A kind of movie that isn't made anymore - the splashy, three hour auteur-driven revisionist historical epics. R-rated re-tellings of America's history told for the first time after the Hays Code was lifted, allowing artists and audiences to experience and question a narrative they were denied due to years of censorship and propaganda. Raw, fresh, bold takes made by ambitious and talented young men with so much to say and so much to speak up for and just as much to speak up against.
Only...it didn't come out in the 70s. And it no longer feels like a challenge to a cinematic or historical status quo. It's just...basically like any other story. Told longer, by a man free to be indulgent based on the clout he earned long ago. By an old man whose mind is stuck more on the world of his youth than the world he's speaking to*. And that, however unintentionally, it felt not revolutionary, but reactionary. A good idea whose time has gone. A basic idea for a story that should have been passed on to someone younger. Someone still capable of looking at the world through fresh eyes, to question the world they live in more than even a well-meaning old man could, to speak to the youth of today that must be the target audiences for any film that dares to question the state of the world. Not that old men can't make great movies (George Miller's Fury Road comes immediately to mind), but they're not the ones to lead revolutions. Try as they might, they're going to be raging against a system that isn't the status quo anymore, if not unintentionally raging against themselves.
* - Coppola, not Scorsese. Marty has made good movies since.
I feel like with something as big as a movie, it is a team effort. While there is merit in making your own passion project, having some outside opinions can help round off some of the rough edges. At the very least, outside opinions can say, "Hey this doesn't make any sense." Or "I don't get it." Which is invaluable, not to curb your vision, but to help you build it up.
Firstly, I have never heard of this movie. I must be doing something right.
Your description gives me troubling Fountainhead vibes, though the time stop thing makes it sound like "The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand f/Kurt Vonnegut".
And All-Star cast.
And Jon Voight.
"In terms of its script, it's as if an Ayn Rand novel was adapted by Ed Wood."
At this point I don't care if your review is positive or negative, I'm just happy you're at least partially agreeing with my, "The Fountainhead by way of Karl Marx," analogy of describing the film. I think I like your description better.
For everyone else: I *hated* this movie. Saw it Saturday.
Please go see either or both of Transformers One or The Wild Robot instead. Much better use of your time and money.
If only we got The Fountainhead as done by Groucho Marx
Literally the same. LITERALLY THE SAME!!! AHHHHHHHHH!
@@ajkandy
That would have been glorious!
You mean to tell me there's a good Transformers movie? I'd pay for that just to make a statement.
@@air1fire
Yup.
Note that it's animated and not tied to the Bay films.
I'll also say that I do like three of the other movies, although this tops the list. In order:
Transformers One
Bumblebee
Rise of the Beasts (needed more beasts)
1984 animated (although nostalgia does a lot of work)
I can't call it all that original in that if you've seen origin movies in general you'll see the twists coming, but it is an example of how to do that formula well.
It's made me interested in where this particular series goes.
I just assumed that Megalopolis was inspired by Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.
I've been made aware, through online acquaintances, of the dangers of strobe effects for people with epilepsy and other disabilities. And this movie earned my resentment by its official trailer opening with strobe effects (that are inescapable when it pops up as a UA-cam ad).
Yeah. Cheap gimmick effect.
I haven't seen the movie, but Adam Driver's character The Architect sounds more like some of these Tech Bros * cough elon cough * who think they are visionaries & want to remake society to fit their image of utopia. The problem is that in reality these guys aren't opposing guys like Trump & they are all ridiculously wealthy & powerful. So yeah, mixing in Fall of the Roman Republic allegories doesn't really work? Not sure a Visionary Architect & a Visual Artist are quite the same thing? I draw, paint & design but I'm not trying to force my drawings/paintings onto a city as actual city planning. Idk, it does sound very cliche' with a Great Man archetype as protagonist. And that film has already been made iirc & starred Gary Cooper 😅
I bought a Chrysler LeBaron that was owned by John Voight.
is this the plot of an episode of seinfeld? i was young in the 90s its hard to remmember?
Was it one of the cool models, one of the later ones?
Yeah. Incoherent. That sure is consistent with Ayn Rand's nonesense.
Somebody said this is like if Neil Breen had 120 million film is an a-list cast but he still produced and directed it.
That's savage 😄😄😄👍
"Ayn Rand adapted by Ed Wood" ... Hilarious! I was earlier thinking perhaps this was an accidental / subconscious sequel or reiteration of The Fountainhead LOL
"of an Ayn Rand novel had been adapted by Ed Wood. Adam Driver."
Well that part checks out.
Has Coppola had a point beyond "movies are cool; Hollywood sucks balls"?
That shot of Driver all back-lit holding up the T-square is a bit much.
It's got plenty of company.
Adam Driver still looks 25 at most.
Honestly, if he had just somehow gotten the rights to, say, The Fountainhead or something similarly simultaneously grand and stultifyingly simple, I bet he could have produced something that was at least interesting. This is the intended magnum opus and perhaps final film of his career, one for which he leveraged 8 figures of his own net worth and during the production of which he lost his wife of 60 years, and it would almost be a mercy if this is left off of future compilations of his work
In my own Facebook review of the movie, I called it The Fountainhead by way of Karl Marx.
I stand by that, as the main difference seems to be that Rand's book was freedom of the individual, while this was about freeing all people for the good of the future.
Note: I rather hated it... and I'm no Randian either. I just found it to be a mess.
Go back in time to the 1980s and tell people that in 2024, an animated Transformers movie is doing better critically and commercially than a Francis Ford Coppola epic, and nobody would believe you.
Haven't seen it yet, but it's sounding more and more like the ABED movie from Community.
How can you not love Jack? The graduation speech alone makes it worth watching.
If it is as or less coherent than a novel written by Ayn Rand. But visually "shocking" as an Ed Wood film of the same novel... I'd probably still watch it while high on weed or shrooms. Because at least that way, it wouldn't be a total waste of time. And who knows, at least while high, the movie might actually make some sort of sense. ...at least until I become sober. And then I'd still likely as myself, "What in the hell did I just watch?"
edit: One more time... at least. LOL
Without having seen it, it sounds a bit like the Wachowskis' 'Cloud Atlas' movie adaptation but channeled through Coppola who is still a fantastic director when he has a clear vision for his film.
I just realized why "Wow Platinum" sounds so familiar lol, wow is a brand of hair bleach, they have a platinum blonde kit my mom always used to use XD XD XD XD
This actually does sound a lot like the quite bad Atlas Shrugged trilogy. The first one was okay I guess.
Why the hell would anyone cast Jon Voigt nowadays?? There are a ton of other actors would do a 1000% better job than him
a movie I do not have to worry I missed
So.. based on your description.. I’m atill a little confused, is it a direct sequel to Cloud Atlas or a soft reboot? :)
This is a great review Steve, thank you.
I think you were fair and balanced in your take on it.
I haven't see it myself, and I don't think I'll bother, 'cause you and many other critics I respect are echoing your sentiments here.
But just like you, I too am glad it exists. If nothing else, it shows that you can commit to a passion project and put it all on the line, your wealth and reputation included....and that takes balls.
My description of this is what one of my film major classmates at Wesleyan would have made if they took the same course I did about the last days of the Roman Republic.
Nice review, no real spoilers, which will be great if someone handcuffs me and makes me watch it.
I think this movie will be the subject of so many film and writing students graduate thesis for years to come.
both my friends fell asleep and i had no clue what i was watching, we ended up leaving about half way through.
And Hollywood says it's got no money to increase pay for its workers 😮😅
The last time an "artist" told his people "I alone can fix it" it did not end well for that people or the world.
Ironic that it's messages don't trust this "great man" trust this other "great man" instead
It's definitely something.
So to answer the title to this review.... neither?
Does the architect blow up the city?
Yes he does. At least parts of it. He leaves the rest to a russian nuclear satellite.
I loved Jack. Not sure why it’d be considered one of his bad movies. It wasn’t The Godfather but few movies are.
Godfather was a great novel well presented on screen.
But it's "cinema"! 😂😊
To boldly go, where 'go boldly' has never gone before?
And know not where?
The Academy Awards, milord and Saviour?
Bonasera. You never call me, Godfather. You never invite me to
your home for a cup of coffee, or a bowl of cornflakes. And now,
you stand here, lookin' at what they did to my boy, and thas' all
you gotta to say?
I hate the smell of New York in the morning. But I love the smell
of Megalopolis?
You see Sal over there. And Carlo...You know Carlo. You love to do what
you love to do. And, I have to do what I have to do. Am I gettin' through
the London fog of that pea brain of yours, Bonasera?
You megalopolin me an offer I cannot refuse?
China Miéville without the good writing and out there fantasy elements?
How to describe Megalopolis? Doomed? Is it a doomed Megalopolis?
Regarding this film, I guess that it didn’t really “cost” anything. Coppola sold ONE of his vineyards as a going concern (so it didn't cost him anything and left the workers with jobs), a bunch of actors and crew working on the film got a pay check, and Coppola got this off his chest; that sounds like a win-win-win. Fuck the creepy on-set behaviour though 😫
That’s exactly how I felt about leo DiCaprio’s film inception too much explaining because the movie made no sense
I have a severe allergy to pseudo-philosophical sophistry, Great Men, and pretty much all precursors and comorbidities of fascist-friendly self-important bloviation. So... would someone who has suffered through this movie kindly tell me (in a reply, so it's hidden from the spoiler-averse) what happens in that scene Steve found unintentionally funny?
Every generation eventually gets it's _Southland Tales._
Too ambitious for its own good. If he'd just made the movie around the obvious inspiration he pulled from The Republic by Plato, it could have worked. There were just too many other artistic ambitions shoe-horned in.
Weirdly enough i just saw Metropolis a few days ago, and I just saw Megalopolis, yet this movie feels like it didn’t really even take that much inspiration from it, if it had it might’ve actually focused more on the grandiosity of scale and spectacle rather than weird melodrama; awful dialogue and indulgent experimental sequences.
Idk I kinda liked the old 1927 version so I'll probably wait till its at the library as usual and check it out. Still havent seen the new Dunes, I didn't like the original as much as the books but someday I might watch them.
I recently re-watched Godfather 3. It works a little better now, I think. Bram Stoker's Dracula is overrated and not as novel based as some think. I was totally disappointed with it.
The only glowing review I've seen is from Damien Walter (ua-cam.com/video/PWZwHqVOuiw/v-deo.html) who seems to think it's the bees knees. I haven't seen the film so, I don't know. Walter made the point that it was a scathing criticism of the bourgeoisie delivered in TikTok styling, but given most people are proles aspiring to the bourgeoisie, perhaps it doesn't land as intended among audiences. But if so many thoughtful intelligent critics say it's a mess, I'm thinking it's most like an incoherent mess. Coppola might have just gotten too in his head about this one ('kill your darlings' and all that) and it will remain an interesting curiosity of a man unable to reach his ambition.
Your final summation of this movie and the finale for Coppola’s directorial career, sounds a lot like Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes wide shut. While visually interesting, I found it extremely self indulgent, with a meandering plot, and I personally did not enjoy it. An anti-climactic final movie from a great Director.
I have never seen or read The Fountainhead, I enjoyed this movie, I had read and listened to ppl talk about it a lot leading up to it, knowing its the sort of so bad its good movie, has laugh out loud moments of weirdness, that ppl found it extremely dull and stupid and nonsensical. And with those low expectations i had a jolly old time not taking the movie serious and laughing at the ridiculousness and just kind of soaking up the interesting themes and ideas that had awful execution. It was fun
Does the baby know how to start time back up? Are we doomed be stuck in that moment forever? That’s the only thing I can take away from the movie and yeah about 6 people in the audience for my viewing. An audacious mess was all I could come up with.
I have no intention on spending money at a theatre to see this. I do however await its availability on streaming, just so I can see how absurd it is for myself.
I was looking forward to this one because of the talent involved and effort put into it that if it was gonna be bad it could at least be spectacularly bad. I am probably never gonna see this movie until Francis Ford Coppola dies because I do not want to support a film that subjected its workers to sexual assault.
I think the response to this film (which I have not seen yet, but plan to) is a perfect illustration of a line of dialogue in the film All the President's Men, where Deep Throat says "If you shoot too high and miss, everyone feels more secure." The last thing the industry in particular and western culture in general wants is something that will raise the bar and alter the status quo.
“Put your trust in the great man” is the very heart and soul of Trumpism.
Don't think twice.. It's just crap💯
Tough to see that old dad's keys weren't taken away when there should have been trope play out at this scale.
The movie has a lot of cool stuff going on but I left the theater unsatisfied and confused
It seems to me that since Sophia started making films, Francis has been the portrait of a man aging in the attic.
Amazing film, it is a masterpiece.
Where does it score on the Gore Grind Scale?
It's Megalopolis Time
Megalopin' Time?
I have no desire to see this film.
Jon Voight is enough for me not to watch
So its like any other Coppola movie.
Ugh, cant stand that John Voit guy
Megalopolis is the Pinterest of movies. Something interesting to look at. Something you might talk about with a friend. But you will not be enriched by it. Its like the scene in Hook where they imagine colorful food to eat. Except there was no food. There was never any food. So, you go hungry... so if you want to watch a movie beautifully captured and acted that signifies nothing. This is your movie. I did not enjoy it BTW. It makes me dislike everyone who took part in it just the little bit more for it.
Wait…. Godfather 3 was really good. It’s been said before, but it’s just misunderstood. And a very poignant ending.
@@jonathangoldsmith7832 at this point, everyone should just admit that, if they can mentally AI some other actress in place of Sofia Coppola, it's a worthy entrant in the series.
Isn’t Voigt a Trumper? If so I’d think any anti Trump messaging he’d at least find it offensive. Unless he didn’t see it or it was sold to him that Trump was represented by the lead character…. Maybe he needed money however😜
Coppola has said Voit is the one that urged him to make the film after he shared the script.
Huh? A movie with John Voight has an anti trump theme in it? I guess nobody told him....
Angelina must be laughing her ass off...
Lol! I get it. Still want to see it.
Just downloaded Atlas Shrugged. Interested to see what I feel after 35 years.
I'm split on Coppola's filmography. Didn't care for Godfather 2 or 3, but love movies like The Outsiders and Peggy Sue Got Married. He's inconsistent but has fully earned his bonafides. I liked Megalopolis but it's a limited series parading around like a feature film. I suspect I'll love it if/when we get an extended cut or watch it a couple of more times. I just downloaded an early draft of the script and bet that fills in gaps left either by the wring or editing. But as much as I agree with some of your critiques, I wholeheartedly disagree the film lacks any imagery that doesn't stay with you. Maybe because I purposefully avoided the trailer/spoilers but Caesar stepping off the roof, the exhausted statues of justice falling apart, the golden flower shop glowing in the middle of the urban decay and so on took my breath away. I suspect in about 5 to 10 years the movie will begin being reassessed and start developing its cult classic status. All this reminds me of the reaction to Cloud Atlas and I walked out of that movie thinking it was a masterpiece. Megalopolis isn't that good or profound, but it wants to be and I applaud and admire that ambition, even if it turns out to be truly misguided.
All I know is the person who made it is a creep and a horrible person and therefore I have no desire to watch it
Loved this movie :)
I am looking forward to watching this movue, scathing reviews notwithstanding. judfing b the stunning trailers, I stongly believe that Coppola was channeling the Federico Fellini of 8 1/2, Juliet of the Spirits and Fellini Satyticon, all rolled up in one. the audacity and intermittent incoherence coupled with minutely orchestrated, stunning scenes Steve mentioned tracks with Fellini. Add to that the grotesquerie of Fellini's Casanova/Satyricon and La Dolce Vita. As a Fellini fan, myself, I am looking forward to this film! Like evry Fellini film, this seems to be an obsessive labor of love.
After watching this review the only thing that I could think of was one hard headed man 8 hours and a fire 🔥 cause the world 🌎 to lose the only copy of the nine hour version of a true masterpiece the movie Greed. That's the kind of movie that sadly will never be made again. To Coppola , if this movie is a hit or not he got to make it and anyone who wants to will have the opportunity to see it. And I say to him and then enjoy yourself.