MEGALOPOLIS -or- APHRONOPOLIS AKA Francis Ford Coppola's Batshit Bullshit Bacchanalia - A F#uckery
Release Date 27Sep2024
This isn't a movie you watch. It's a movie that happens to you.
MEGALOPOLIS or Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis: A Fable, is a fever dream nearly 50 years in the making. Coppola initially conceived of the idea in 1977 (near the end of principal photography for APOCALYPSE NOW) after reading William Bolitho Ryall's TWELVE AGAINST THE GODS, about the Catilinarian conspiracy - some Roman f#ckery that went down in 63 BC.
In 1983, Coppola started what would be 40 years of development, diversion, rewrites, and emotional/ physical ups and downs. Finally, he - having had success with his winery and other business interests, sold a portion of his holdings to finance this movie. HIS movie, HIS way.
Holy jumped-up, bald-headed, Jesus palomino... what a mess.
I have a saying: If you are going to despise your audience, make it worth their while.
NO SPOILERS
In New Rome, an alternate NYC mixed with the Roman empire and the greatest city in the American Republic, two titans - one of innovation, the other of politics, clash over the future of their city. Cesar Catilina, an architect who can stop time because (blows raspberry) has invented a new adaptive wonder material called Megalon that he wants to use to build a utopia in between random sex, gyrations, and drug use. New Rome city mayor Franklyn Cicero wants business as usual in town, and actively seeks to bring Cesar down with a smear campaign. There are other characters doing other things including one called Wow Platinum (don't ask, it doesn't matter) who do f#ckery because Coppola wanted f#ckery to happen.
Look, I by no means am espousing the traditional narrative framework of movies as the end all, there are plenty of movies with unconventional narratives that are astounding. THIS is not one of them. This is 4 decades of ideas that have been drunkenly cobbled together, written over in places with glitter markers, partially burnt and snorted, bukkake'd, and finally filmed as some experimental theater frippery. I kept checking my watch even knowing it was at home.
This is no misunderstood work of genius. There is nothing revelatory here. This is one man's monument to his own vanity. This is a celebrated filmmaker's last massive, self-indulgent, masturbatory hurrah, and he's mooning us while farting against the wind... after jumping the shark on the way out. Bless him.
THE GOOD:
Not gonna lie, this took ball-balls to make. There are some times where the nuttiness threatens to become interesting, and some of the presentation is striking. The actors are really throwing themselves into this movie's weirdness - I mean right on the spikes (I still don't know if that is a good thing). If you see this as more a movie about Coppola himself - rather than any tiresome philosophical or socio-political ruminations on art and ass, you might just get a little something from this... whatever.
THE BAD:
EVERYTHING. ELSE. I said that this was a movie that happens to you. This is true, it is more experience than movie. Car wrecks are experiences too... The title says that this story is a fable... Fables are usually short, and have something to say. This is saying several things that have little relation to each other, and certainly did not need a movie made about them. There are no people in this movie, there are thinly drawn, human-shaped, talking set-pieces that spout asininities like a leaky jimmy. There are VFX scenes that look like PS2 cut-scenes, or a hallmark fantasy flick. There is zero chemistry between the romantic leads (imagine two fancied-up pieces of cardboard rubbing against each other. Mmmmm... romance) They manage to waste Aubrey Plaza, and you honestly just need to let her loose in your movie. Yay, yet another story about rich people fucking up - GTFOH. There's more, but I've had quite enough.
SEE IT:
Pfft... If you must - STREAM HO! I mean, if you really must.
DON'T SEE IT:
If you like your brain, believe that your dollar isn't owed, and have better uses of your time such as:
1. Start a full contact golf league (I'm already on top of battle-golf)
2. Befriend someone's elbow.
3. Fall in love with a Prius.
4. Teach ASL to a grouper.
5. Fry your own hands.
YAY.
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