@@crazyman8472 As a paean to base selfishness? I suppose. The writing is wooden and there are no new concepts of interest on display. "I got mine!" is hardly a novel idea.
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.
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 RUclips ad).
I have epilepsy and the movie itself didn't bother me... well, at least not in the way that I felt in danger of a seizure. A brain screwing by Aubrey plaza, maybe, and I certainly don't recommend that anyone watch it, just that it didn't cause me problems in that way.
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 ?!
Imagine if Howard Roark were kind of interested in the collective good instead of individualistic selfishness, but in all other aspects its incredibly randian in his "lone genius guiding humanity forward".
I think the Ayn Rand comparison is misjudged. Cesar Catilina in this film has no self-aggrandizing purpose, and is a humanist who believes he's bringing out the potential of all people. It's not a "Great Man of History" story. Caesar is rather a strange genius recluse like Da Vinci. In an interview Coppola stated that the film is about the genius of ALL humanity (not just special persons), which is the theme of Caesar's public address at the film's climax. I think Coppola's vision is more positive and social than Rand's.
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.
@@FelisImpurrator If I were to be reductive, I would say it's an old man still thinking he can view the world through the eyes of a young man, and still communicate with an audience like he could, and did, in his youth. But that was fifty years ago.
@@FelisImpurrator I don't have anything against FFC. Like Lucas, he spent most of his career raging against a system that originally gave him a huge boost (the advantage of being a white d00d in the 70s), then just as quickly tried to take it away. The man has talent. And he has talented kids, which, contrary to popular fiction, I attribute to his teaching, not genetics. But he seems to lack perspective, almost certainly due to his age and inability to keep up with changing times. He means well, he tries, but he doesn't understand the world he's now in, and he doesn't know how to speak to it. Godfather 1&2 The Conversation Apocalypse Now (Theatrical Cut) The Outsiders The Cotton Club (Director's Cut) Peggy Sue Got Married Tucker: The Man and His Dream Bram Stoker's Dracula The Rainmaker That, plus his children's work, is an amazing legacy.
Steve, you nailed it. Francis Ford Coppola had to make his long term dream into a real movie - "better to try, and fail, then take a dream to your grave". It's strange how ideas that seem random and unconnected when you try to talk about them, are seamless and flowing inside your imagination. How does anyone take an idea in their mind and display it on a movie screen? Whatever it is, Megalopolis will be the cause of endless conversations about life, the universe, and Everything! Thank you Steve for your excellent movie review and commentary.
@@magenta1000 Sounds about right. I believe Ayn Rand was mentioned a few times. I guess I'll wait until it's free on streaming services to watch and rate myself. Sorry, FFC!
@@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.
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.
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.
Seems like. That’s the key. There. Listen to Caesar’s vision. It’s for all. It is beyond what we can currently see. We must have trust, if we believe it we’ll see it. Anyone saying ‘he needs to be more practical’ is the mayor. You need to watch this movie as the daughter. She falls in love with the vision. And it grows. Only see has eyes to see it. Can we?
"Ayn Rand adapted by Ed Wood" ... Hilarious! I was earlier thinking perhaps this was an accidental / subconscious sequel or reiteration of The Fountainhead LOL
I agree with what you were discussing with how good it is that there are wacky movies like this. I had a conversation with people while going out the door and it was fun talking about what an abysmal movie we just saw
Please tell me it was the LeBaron used in Freddy Got Fingered! I get a lot of flack for defending that movie, but if you view it through a dadaist lens, everything in it starts to make some sense.
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 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 😅
Seems like some sort of The Fountainhead meets Steve Jobs' vision of himself when he made the 1984 commercial. That dude had these kinda Messianic Creator Artist Counterculture Capitalist vibes as your description of Driver's character. I can't imagine Francis Ford Coppola having listened to too much Rush as a teenager, but man that's what this sounds like. This is not to say that listening to too much Rush as a teenager isn't awesome because that would be astoundingly hypocritical, but it will have consequences
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
Just think about how much student or medical debt for struggling Americans could have been completely erased with the amount of money that was spent making this complete throwaway vanity project....
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.
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.
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.
"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.
@@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 remember a piece in a 90s movie magazine (Empire I think) about Copella struggling to get this made after backers pulled out. He invested 40 years of his life to trying to get it made. And I'm glad he managed it. In the same way that we all deserve to see our passion projects made real. Even if not all of them will be high art.
I interpreted the time stop gimmick as a statement about who we'd stop time for. In the beginning of the Movie, Driver's character stopped time for himself, as he starts falling in love, he loses the power, then realizes he can stop it when he's doing so for his love interest, the closing shot they stop time for their child. To me, it was a growth of character, selfish, then shared, then looking towards the future. It was very much a movie in Coppola's mad-hack style.
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 😫
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.
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.
I'm glad I thought to read through the entire text of that coffee mug because I didn't think you'd have just the generic mug that it's based on and immediately figured it we be a comedic easter egg.
This is exactly what I was thinking. Sad. They both should have stopped making movies before this garbage was released. It took me 2 days to recover after watching the last Kubrick "movie" on the big screen. Stunned that I had just watched a bad late night cable movie directed by one of the greatest filmmakers ever.
Billionaires and corporations pay good money to make sure that only their own lackeys ever get to be in power. Just in case anyone was still wondering why humane, empathetic people have no power under Capitalism.
love your review. I think the stop time aspect of what FFC was doing here was mainly for the connection between Adam Driver character and the Mayor’s daughter and how they connected compared to what Nolan would’ve done with this concept(if that makes sense). I truly feel like this film was him giving us what the film industry today has been delivering so far but with a BIT of his own taste which I feel like will be appreciated over time.
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.
But it essentially is a remake, as it's all be done before, but never this absurdly or boringly. While the material is "original", the themes and scenes are terrible "reboots". Half of the characters are delivering a monologue to the camera like they are on a shakespearian stage play adaptation of Julius Caesar. The other half feel like they walked off the set of Baz Luhrmann's Romeo & Juliet with their faux modernity and "Roman Republic" affects. There's almost nothing original about it, despite it not being a direct remake of anything. Not having a previously existing IP attached to the project isn't some badge of honor if it's meaningless, boring garbage.
More and more I'm finding that good cinema resides in indie projects these days, much like with video games. The budget restraints really encourage (and allow) artists to make...you know, art. And not a product to be consumed. Sometimes throwing more money at a project is not the answer, it's making better use of what you have.
So many times I wish my seat was more comfortable so I could sleep. Easily could cut out large swathes of this film. Seemed as if Coppola thought he was writing Shakespeare.
If only Coppola's creative energy was spent adapting Greg Bear's "Strength of Stones" for the big screen; in my mind that's the coolest (and weirdest) 'future cities' story ever written....
Nailed it there 12:16 this doesn’t fit into those ‘Old Rome’/‘New Rome’ categories. Transcendent art is hard. It take time (or time stopping) and an auteur/genius/visionary to see it!
$140MM movie budget. Marketing budgets usually double the overall budget… sooooo let’s go with ~$250MM against a ~$4MM opening weekend take home. This movie will likely go down in infamy…
I saw it this morning. I don't really know what some of it was supposed to mean. I liked the style, but couldn't always figure out what kind of world it lived in. I don't remember Ceasar taking to the audience, so i think i may have missed more things. I really enjoyed watching it, and it was better than afrAId. Tuesday is my day off, so i go to the movies early when it's $6, and I've seen lots of good and bad movies this year
The moral here seems to be: when a powerful director wants to make The Grandiose Project I've Wanted To Do All My Life, he/she should PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE get a good script writer to help write t the screenplay, if not write it entirely!
It's a metaphor for itself: a movie about a great artist whose ideas would fix the world, but the corrupt & short sighted establishment won't let him. It's really not a great argument against those studio execs that wouldn't fund it.
Haven't seen this yet, will do when it hits theaters here in Japan, but it sounds a little like a right-wing version of Cold Lazarus, an over-the-top swan song of creative technique finger-painted onto a sci-fi whiteboard.
I saw it as society reaching a crossroads. The first, Caesar's is sacrifice to lead to a more sustainable and fulfilling future, the Mayor, the status quo, and Claudio the demagogue. I saw both the Mayor and Caesar compromising, Caesar perhaps gets some empathy, the mayor becomes more aspirational and is willing to venture into the future. It was better than I expected, but I heard it was a beautifully shot train wreck, so I was not expecting much. A lot of people in my audience really liked it. So it will get a cult following. I think films like this are why Quentin Tarantino wants to make sure he ends on a high note. I did get a kick out of Vesta arriving in a '48 Tucker Torpedo as a nod to his Preston Tucker bio pic.
The issue is people just don’t get the central question, which in turn is the point of the movie. Asking the hard questions can be dangerous. Asking what is the meaning depends on your point of view. I see it as the futility of societal constructs. A few great people made a great society, but they couldn’t control it and instead of letting go and changing, they held on. Even Cesar Catilina will fall under this spell, for his desire of perfection will most likely turn him jealous, incapable of sharing the decision making in regards to his creation. But one guy saw it as a celebration of the so called Techno-fascists like Elon Musk, that we could have Catilina’s world if we just gave into the intellect of such people. It’s dizzying how this film can be interpreted, and I love it for that. It’s nowhere near Coppola’s best, but I too agree we need these kinda of films rather than just threadbare franchises. It’s the same reason why A24, Neon, Focus Features and occasionally Shudder are really the only studios I can depend on for satisfying story telling
Idk I kinda liked the old 1927 version so I'll probably wait till its at the library as usual and check it out. I'd go see it in theaters but last time I went people around me needed their phones and to talk the whole time. Still havent seen the new Dunes, I didn't like the original as much as the books but someday I might watch them.
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?
Attention Steve Shives ; after watching your review of the movie Megalopolis, I can't help but feel that you should have concluded your review by quoting Vinnie Barbarino from Welcome Back Kotter when he said : " I'm so confused" . 😀
I haven’t seen the film but based on the advertising I assumed that it was set in a distopia and a sub plot was going to be about how a utopia that was built became the distopia through the nature of man. I thought Adam Drivers character was going to be relegated flash backs. I wanted the moral to be that a utopia can exist but it is requires constant maintenance, rebuilding and redesign over time. Like when it is first built by Adam Driver character Megalopolis is the perfect city, no crime, good standard of living, great infrastructure etc. the architect is rightfully praised for his achievement. But over time as population increases the city starts to become overcrowded, public transportation becomes overwhelmed, trash starts building up too quickly for services to deal with, homes become smaller and more expensive as they have to be continuously sub divided to accommodate more people, etc. and the people in charge don’t want to expand the city or tear down and replace the existing buildings with new and better ones because this city is already the best it can be and it is not what the founding architect wanted. So the city is just maintained as it is and slowly, inexorably the city that was once the greatest place breaks down having long exceeded the maximum population load and requirements the original architect planned for and nobody updates the city to account for that. The end is that either the city literally collapses in a chain reaction when some critical part finally gives out everything falling like dominoes leaving everyone fighting in the rubble, or for a new architect to come along and start remodelling the city. The film could be about that new architect fighting to save the city by replacing the old buildings and we have flash backs to the first architect and we can see that they basically had to fight the same institutional problems.
I assume you spoke words during this video. But honestly my entire brain was busy dealing with the cognitive dissonance of that picture of Adam Driver (and NOT Ezra Miller, as I initially thought), followed by several minutes of piecing my sanity back together, after I foolishly tried to picture Ezra Miller’s face above Kylo Ren’s shirtless chest. Or Adam Driver being cast as the Flash in a hypothetical world where the DCEU wasn’t being shit-canned.
Sounds like experimental movies of the '70s and '80s. We still get a lot of good indie films... But not quite on this scale of budget. I highly recommend Netflix's KAOS (Jeff goldblum plays Zeus in modern times alternate Earth). And of course... Everything Everywhere at Once is a masterpiece.
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?
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...
"A Look Back in Angora That My Father Farmed"
I think that was a thing.
Speaking of Ayn Rand, everyone goes crazy over “Atlas Shrugged”, but what about “Anthem”? It’s 10 times shorter and 100 times more interesting! 😎
@@crazyman8472 As a paean to base selfishness? I suppose. The writing is wooden and there are no new concepts of interest on display. "I got mine!" is hardly a novel idea.
@@theITGuy-no3nt I focused on the theme of the individual fighting the “system”, with the inevitable over-correction at the end. 😁
An All-Star cast.
And Jon Voight.
🤣
Have I seen this movie? No. Am I going to sit through a review of it? Hell yeah
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.
80's kids would
@@hectoraccented5312i came to say this 😂😂
Anyone who saw 'One From the Heart' would also believe you.
"What's he in 2024: 84, 85 years old? Yeah, by then I imagine that his movies aren't great."
I'm looking forward to the sequel, Megalopolis Vs MechaMegalopolis.
The last time an "artist" told his people "I alone can fix it" it did not end well for that people or the world.
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 RUclips ad).
Yeah. Cheap gimmick effect.
I have epilepsy and the movie itself didn't bother me... well, at least not in the way that I felt in danger of a seizure. A brain screwing by Aubrey plaza, maybe, and I certainly don't recommend that anyone watch it, just that it didn't cause me problems in that way.
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 ?!
Imagine if Howard Roark were kind of interested in the collective good instead of individualistic selfishness, but in all other aspects its incredibly randian in his "lone genius guiding humanity forward".
And he has the Rearden Metal. ... And is Dio Brando.
I think the Ayn Rand comparison is misjudged. Cesar Catilina in this film has no self-aggrandizing purpose, and is a humanist who believes he's bringing out the potential of all people. It's not a "Great Man of History" story. Caesar is rather a strange genius recluse like Da Vinci. In an interview Coppola stated that the film is about the genius of ALL humanity (not just special persons), which is the theme of Caesar's public address at the film's climax. I think Coppola's vision is more positive and social than Rand's.
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.
@@andrewklang809You could say it's a load of cope-ola.
@@FelisImpurrator If I were to be reductive, I would say it's an old man still thinking he can view the world through the eyes of a young man, and still communicate with an audience like he could, and did, in his youth. But that was fifty years ago.
@@andrewklang809 It was a joke. Because old guy trying to pretend to be relevant is copium.
@@FelisImpurrator I don't have anything against FFC. Like Lucas, he spent most of his career raging against a system that originally gave him a huge boost (the advantage of being a white d00d in the 70s), then just as quickly tried to take it away. The man has talent. And he has talented kids, which, contrary to popular fiction, I attribute to his teaching, not genetics. But he seems to lack perspective, almost certainly due to his age and inability to keep up with changing times. He means well, he tries, but he doesn't understand the world he's now in, and he doesn't know how to speak to it.
Godfather 1&2
The Conversation
Apocalypse Now (Theatrical Cut)
The Outsiders
The Cotton Club (Director's Cut)
Peggy Sue Got Married
Tucker: The Man and His Dream
Bram Stoker's Dracula
The Rainmaker
That, plus his children's work, is an amazing legacy.
Steve, you nailed it. Francis Ford Coppola had to make his long term dream into a real movie - "better to try, and fail, then take a dream to your grave". It's strange how ideas that seem random and unconnected when you try to talk about them, are seamless and flowing inside your imagination. How does anyone take an idea in their mind and display it on a movie screen? Whatever it is, Megalopolis will be the cause of endless conversations about life, the universe, and Everything! Thank you Steve for your excellent movie review and commentary.
I just assumed that Megalopolis was inspired by Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.
Metropolis? That's socialism.
@@raingulfdrengot195 Understandable. But not his style. Not exactly.
Some weird fusion of Metropolis and The Fountainhead
@@magenta1000 Sounds about right. I believe Ayn Rand was mentioned a few times. I guess I'll wait until it's free on streaming services to watch and rate myself. Sorry, FFC!
I keep hearing the same thing from people about this movie: "What the F#$% did I just watch?"
That sounds like a pornhub user comment. Those are half the fun... Sometimes more so
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.
FFC isn't a right winger
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.
" NOW you tell me....?"- Kevin Costner
Has Coppola had a point beyond "movies are cool; Hollywood sucks balls"?
Not that I've ever noticed. :D
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.
Seems like. That’s the key. There. Listen to Caesar’s vision. It’s for all. It is beyond what we can currently see. We must have trust, if we believe it we’ll see it. Anyone saying ‘he needs to be more practical’ is the mayor. You need to watch this movie as the daughter. She falls in love with the vision. And it grows. Only see has eyes to see it. Can we?
15:45 "The problems of Megalopolis could only ever be solved by making Megalopolis."
I think that they said the same thing about Idocracy.
"Ayn Rand adapted by Ed Wood" ... Hilarious! I was earlier thinking perhaps this was an accidental / subconscious sequel or reiteration of The Fountainhead LOL
Yes! I saw the trailer & thought it looked just like a CGI Fellini Fountainhead. 😂😂😂
Your description gives me troubling Fountainhead vibes, though the time stop thing makes it sound like "The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand f/Kurt Vonnegut".
That shot of Driver all back-lit holding up the T-square is a bit much.
It's got plenty of company.
I thought it was a lamp shade on a lightsaber.
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 😄😄😄👍
That's so rude to Neil Breen.
How can you not love Jack? The graduation speech alone makes it worth watching.
Does this mean that Zach Snyder is even less likely to get funding for his The Fountainhead dream project?
"of an Ayn Rand novel had been adapted by Ed Wood. Adam Driver."
Well that part checks out.
Ayn Rand and Ed Wood.
Most succinct movie critique ever made.
MEGALOPOLIS: "It is a movie that exists."
- Steve Shives, 2024
I agree with what you were discussing with how good it is that there are wacky movies like this. I had a conversation with people while going out the door and it was fun talking about what an abysmal movie we just saw
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?
The periodontist?
Please tell me it was the LeBaron used in Freddy Got Fingered!
I get a lot of flack for defending that movie, but if you view it through a dadaist lens, everything in it starts to make some sense.
Do you also wear a short skirt and a long jacket? 🤭
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 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 have seen it, and you are correct.
Seems like some sort of The Fountainhead meets Steve Jobs' vision of himself when he made the 1984 commercial. That dude had these kinda Messianic Creator Artist Counterculture Capitalist vibes as your description of Driver's character.
I can't imagine Francis Ford Coppola having listened to too much Rush as a teenager, but man that's what this sounds like.
This is not to say that listening to too much Rush as a teenager isn't awesome because that would be astoundingly hypocritical, but it will have consequences
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
Just think about how much student or medical debt for struggling Americans could have been completely erased with the amount of money that was spent making this complete throwaway vanity project....
120 million is pennies compared to xelon musk 120+ billion. Still not sure why he's worth that much.
None of his companies are when combined.
Did Jon Voight go into this project knowing it had anti Trump allegory in it?
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.
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.
both my friends fell asleep and i had no clue what i was watching, we ended up leaving about half way through.
This should be the framework for every movie review. *Rating* 2 naps and a mid screening exit!
a movie I do not have to worry I missed
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.
"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 remember a piece in a 90s movie magazine (Empire I think) about Copella struggling to get this made after backers pulled out.
He invested 40 years of his life to trying to get it made. And I'm glad he managed it. In the same way that we all deserve to see our passion projects made real. Even if not all of them will be high art.
sounds a bit more like The Fountainhead than Atlas Shrugged
Remember the last line in Tim Burtons' Ed Wood "This is the movie I will be remember for"
This looks like it's going to be an epic bomb. A legendary bomb that will be spoken of in hushed tones for years to come.
Megalopolis is a depiction of a society in demise that is supposed to be a reflection of society in demise (ours).
I interpreted the time stop gimmick as a statement about who we'd stop time for. In the beginning of the Movie, Driver's character stopped time for himself, as he starts falling in love, he loses the power, then realizes he can stop it when he's doing so for his love interest, the closing shot they stop time for their child. To me, it was a growth of character, selfish, then shared, then looking towards the future.
It was very much a movie in Coppola's mad-hack style.
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 😫
I will only ever remember Bram Stoker's Dracula for one thing: "I know whearrr the barhstard sleeps. I brought him theaarrr. To Carfax Abbeh".
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.
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.
I'm glad I thought to read through the entire text of that coffee mug because I didn't think you'd have just the generic mug that it's based on and immediately figured it we be a comedic easter egg.
This movie will go down in Hollywood history along with Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut.
This is exactly what I was thinking. Sad. They both should have stopped making movies before this garbage was released. It took me 2 days to recover after watching the last Kubrick "movie" on the big screen. Stunned that I had just watched a bad late night cable movie directed by one of the greatest filmmakers ever.
Any experience that leaves one wondering why politicians are in power instead of educated, humane, empathetic individuals makes me smile.
Billionaires and corporations pay good money to make sure that only their own lackeys ever get to be in power.
Just in case anyone was still wondering why humane, empathetic people have no power under Capitalism.
love your review.
I think the stop time aspect of what FFC was doing here was mainly for the connection between Adam Driver character and the Mayor’s daughter and how they connected compared to what Nolan would’ve done with this concept(if that makes sense). I truly feel like this film was him giving us what the film industry today has been delivering so far but with a BIT of his own taste which I feel like will be appreciated over time.
I think this movie will be the subject of so many film and writing students graduate thesis for years to come.
I remember seeing the trailer last week and thinking to myself, "hey chatgpt, craft me a script in the style of Francis Ford Copela"
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.
Firstly, I have never heard of this movie. I must be doing something right.
Look on the bright side. At least it's not another remake!
But it essentially is a remake, as it's all be done before, but never this absurdly or boringly. While the material is "original", the themes and scenes are terrible "reboots". Half of the characters are delivering a monologue to the camera like they are on a shakespearian stage play adaptation of Julius Caesar. The other half feel like they walked off the set of Baz Luhrmann's Romeo & Juliet with their faux modernity and "Roman Republic" affects. There's almost nothing original about it, despite it not being a direct remake of anything. Not having a previously existing IP attached to the project isn't some badge of honor if it's meaningless, boring garbage.
Yeah. Incoherent. That sure is consistent with Ayn Rand's nonesense.
More and more I'm finding that good cinema resides in indie projects these days, much like with video games. The budget restraints really encourage (and allow) artists to make...you know, art. And not a product to be consumed. Sometimes throwing more money at a project is not the answer, it's making better use of what you have.
Stopping Time IS there. Through and through. It’s a statement about what artists can do.
Nice review, no real spoilers, which will be great if someone handcuffs me and makes me watch it.
Every generation eventually gets it's _Southland Tales._
So many times I wish my seat was more comfortable so I could sleep. Easily could cut out large swathes of this film. Seemed as if Coppola thought he was writing Shakespeare.
To Coppola himself, it's money well spent. To the family he will inevitably leave behind one day, it is an enormous money pit.
Lionsgate should have sold it as a meme movie. "Do you think about Rome every day? Here's your movie!"
As it ended, my main thought was "I bet Frank's buddy George LOVED this."
If only Coppola's creative energy was spent adapting Greg Bear's "Strength of Stones" for the big screen; in my mind that's the coolest (and weirdest) 'future cities' story ever written....
Nailed it there 12:16 this doesn’t fit into those ‘Old Rome’/‘New Rome’ categories. Transcendent art is hard. It take time (or time stopping) and an auteur/genius/visionary to see it!
Aubrey Plaza was great in this film.
This guy hits it right on.
That’s exactly how I felt about leo DiCaprio’s film inception too much explaining because the movie made no sense
Your description just makes me think, "Fountainhead, but leaning left"
Pretty much.
Wow. A $140M movie that took in $4M in its first weekend. That hurts!
$140MM movie budget. Marketing budgets usually double the overall budget… sooooo let’s go with ~$250MM against a ~$4MM opening weekend take home. This movie will likely go down in infamy…
I saw it this morning. I don't really know what some of it was supposed to mean. I liked the style, but couldn't always figure out what kind of world it lived in. I don't remember Ceasar taking to the audience, so i think i may have missed more things. I really enjoyed watching it, and it was better than afrAId. Tuesday is my day off, so i go to the movies early when it's $6, and I've seen lots of good and bad movies this year
The moral here seems to be: when a powerful director wants to make The Grandiose Project I've Wanted To Do All My Life, he/she should PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE get a good script writer to help write t the screenplay, if not write it entirely!
I'm so glad that I watched the original Fritz Lang’s Metropolis instead!
It's a metaphor for itself: a movie about a great artist whose ideas would fix the world, but the corrupt & short sighted establishment won't let him. It's really not a great argument against those studio execs that wouldn't fund it.
Haven't seen this yet, will do when it hits theaters here in Japan, but it sounds a little like a right-wing version of Cold Lazarus, an over-the-top swan song of creative technique finger-painted onto a sci-fi whiteboard.
It's definitely something.
Perhaps he was thinking about Kubrick and 2001. A movie that leaves you scratching your head at the ending.
I saw it as society reaching a crossroads. The first, Caesar's is sacrifice to lead to a more sustainable and fulfilling future, the Mayor, the status quo, and Claudio the demagogue. I saw both the Mayor and Caesar compromising, Caesar perhaps gets some empathy, the mayor becomes more aspirational and is willing to venture into the future. It was better than I expected, but I heard it was a beautifully shot train wreck, so I was not expecting much. A lot of people in my audience really liked it. So it will get a cult following.
I think films like this are why Quentin Tarantino wants to make sure he ends on a high note.
I did get a kick out of Vesta arriving in a '48 Tucker Torpedo as a nod to his Preston Tucker bio pic.
Sounds fantastic.
Coppola = Ceaser + Wife died during the filming. That's basically the movie.
The issue is people just don’t get the central question, which in turn is the point of the movie. Asking the hard questions can be dangerous. Asking what is the meaning depends on your point of view. I see it as the futility of societal constructs. A few great people made a great society, but they couldn’t control it and instead of letting go and changing, they held on. Even Cesar Catilina will fall under this spell, for his desire of perfection will most likely turn him jealous, incapable of sharing the decision making in regards to his creation. But one guy saw it as a celebration of the so called Techno-fascists like Elon Musk, that we could have Catilina’s world if we just gave into the intellect of such people. It’s dizzying how this film can be interpreted, and I love it for that. It’s nowhere near Coppola’s best, but I too agree we need these kinda of films rather than just threadbare franchises. It’s the same reason why A24, Neon, Focus Features and occasionally Shudder are really the only studios I can depend on for satisfying story telling
Haven't seen it yet, but it's sounding more and more like the ABED movie from Community.
Idk I kinda liked the old 1927 version so I'll probably wait till its at the library as usual and check it out. I'd go see it in theaters but last time I went people around me needed their phones and to talk the whole time. Still havent seen the new Dunes, I didn't like the original as much as the books but someday I might watch them.
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?
Attention Steve Shives ; after watching your review of the movie Megalopolis, I can't help but feel that you should have concluded your review by quoting Vinnie Barbarino from Welcome Back Kotter when he said : " I'm so confused" . 😀
Tough to see that old dad's keys weren't taken away when there should have been trope play out at this scale.
I haven’t seen the film but based on the advertising I assumed that it was set in a distopia and a sub plot was going to be about how a utopia that was built became the distopia through the nature of man. I thought Adam Drivers character was going to be relegated flash backs.
I wanted the moral to be that a utopia can exist but it is requires constant maintenance, rebuilding and redesign over time.
Like when it is first built by Adam Driver character Megalopolis is the perfect city, no crime, good standard of living, great infrastructure etc. the architect is rightfully praised for his achievement. But over time as population increases the city starts to become overcrowded, public transportation becomes overwhelmed, trash starts building up too quickly for services to deal with, homes become smaller and more expensive as they have to be continuously sub divided to accommodate more people, etc. and the people in charge don’t want to expand the city or tear down and replace the existing buildings with new and better ones because this city is already the best it can be and it is not what the founding architect wanted. So the city is just maintained as it is and slowly, inexorably the city that was once the greatest place breaks down having long exceeded the maximum population load and requirements the original architect planned for and nobody updates the city to account for that.
The end is that either the city literally collapses in a chain reaction when some critical part finally gives out everything falling like dominoes leaving everyone fighting in the rubble, or for a new architect to come along and start remodelling the city. The film could be about that new architect fighting to save the city by replacing the old buildings and we have flash backs to the first architect and we can see that they basically had to fight the same institutional problems.
Glad I saw it but I don’t need to rewatch.
I've seen more than one person describe the movie as "if Neal Breen has a budget."
"...many good performances but no good characters..."
Dang. Good description.
I assume you spoke words during this video. But honestly my entire brain was busy dealing with the cognitive dissonance of that picture of Adam Driver (and NOT Ezra Miller, as I initially thought), followed by several minutes of piecing my sanity back together, after I foolishly tried to picture Ezra Miller’s face above Kylo Ren’s shirtless chest. Or Adam Driver being cast as the Flash in a hypothetical world where the DCEU wasn’t being shit-canned.
Sounds like experimental movies of the '70s and '80s. We still get a lot of good indie films... But not quite on this scale of budget.
I highly recommend Netflix's KAOS (Jeff goldblum plays Zeus in modern times alternate Earth). And of course... Everything Everywhere at Once is a masterpiece.
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?
I feel like I saw this ages ago in black & white.. not sure what I could be remembering tho.
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...