Megalopolis will find its way back in theaters periodically going forward, including the tradition of the film screening at multiple theaters every New Year’s Day. This fulfills a wish from Coppola to have the film be shown on this day as a symbol of coming together and discussing ideas for improvement as a society.
Good luck with that. Strange Days and Hudsucker Proxy will always be my fave new year’s movies.
You know… for kids!
Neat. I enjoyed this movie. I think it’s worth owning, I suppose an annual tradition is a cool thing to do too. For some reason I want to pair this with the Hudsucker Proxy
I did not see it, but the reviews I saw were entirely negative. Would you be interested in sharing your thoughts on it and what you liked?
Not who you asked but in case they don’t return I also loved it. I’ve seen it twice in theaters.
It is a flawed movie no doubt. Just putting that up front. It’s not perfect. It is however a fun commentary on the modern world through a very ambitious project. I think a lot of the negative reviews come from people not engaging with what it was trying to do, but rather just as a movie.
Coppola wanted this to be something people thought about. Something people came back to. Scenes in it can be weird and slow and very visual which a lot of people dunked on without actually engaging with what they were seeing. Coppola didn’t just want people to watch it like the latest Avengers, he wanted people to watch it and then go get involved in the arts and politics and think about the future we’re heading towards vs what we really want.
I think people went expecting the next godfather but future fantasy and didn’t actually consider the movie outside of that. Which, yeah, you’ll hate it then.
The actors are fantastic, everyone plays their part well. Even my wife who hates Aubrey Plaza admitted she was fantastic in the role. I know there was criticism thrown at them for some of their cliche dialogue, but I think that’s kind of the point. Like they’re quoting Shakespeare and discussing Rome and all these cliches for a reason. Again if you go expecting Godfather but get Shakespeare, yeah, you’re gonna review it poorly.
I think this movie is a classic case of someone wanting to make something big and grand and he shot for the stars and everyone expected perfection, and instead he landed on the moon and gave us a good attempt, and people rate it so poorly because it wasn’t perfect, but still good.
Really appreciate the write up. Sometimes a genuine fan reaction is so much more convincing than whole articles glazing something. From the little I know it seemed like people’s biggest issue was the acting/direction, hence the infamous back to the club clip, but I can appreciate taking big swings. I might try to catch it some time based solely on your comment. It originally came off sounding like it was just self important navel gazing when I’ve heard others talk about it, but sometimes taking a project seriously and having it not hit just comes off that way.
The problem is it absolutely is self important navel gazing. It just also tries to ask us to think and be so much more at the same time. It absolutely knows it’s the grand work of one guy, but he dared to dream.
But yeah, if people were calling the “go back to the club” bad acting then all I can say is I wouldn’t listen to them personally. I mean, I don’t know Coppola’s intent but that entire scene struck me as perfect as his character was intentionally mocking someone there. He was supposed to sound silly and dumb.
Also enjoyed it, and didn’t know anything other than he wanted to make something big and it failed in theaters. I immediately figured out the marketing wasn’t done right, because it wasn’t at all what I expected, but I really liked it. It was surreal, and plain weird, but thought provoking. Perfect casting. I was actually putting it on while I painted and I had something else to do that evening and it made me pay attention and when I was done with my errands I came back home and finished the second half. Very fun watch.
