SYNOPSIS: “Megalopolis,” a new fable from legendary director Francis Ford Coppola, now playing in theatres, is a mix of Ancient Roman politics, sci fi, and even a little bit of mime.
Visionary artist Cesar (Adam Driver) has plans to build a utopian city to inspire hope within the rotting framework of New Rome. “When we leap into the unknown,” he says, “we prove that we are free.” He’s up against the corrupt Mayor Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), agent of chaos Clodio Pulcher (Shia LaBeouf) and the threat of partisan warfare.
CAST: Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Jon Voight, Laurence Fishburne, Talia Shire, Jason Schwartzman, Kathryn Hunter, Grace VanderWaal, Chloe Fineman, James Remar, D. B. Sweeney, and Dustin Hoffman. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola.
REVIEW: As idiosyncratic a movie as we’re likely to see this year, “Megalopolis,” the forty-years-in-the-making passion project from Francis Ford Coppola, is equal parts hammy and hopeful, dense and dazzling. It’s the work of a filmmaker with nothing left to prove, and brims with imagination, ambition and, unfortunately, self-indulgence.
Coppola, who says he rewrote the script for “Megalopolis” at least 300 times, empties out the idea drawer, producing a script that overflows with his thoughts on legacy, survival and hope for the future. Using lessons learned from the intrigue of Roman history, he throws in a dollop of sci- fi—Cesar Catalina (Driver) can stop time with a flourish of his hands—to tell a story of utopian values pitted against city hall.
It’s a mix of Ayn Rand and Marcus Aurelius, and not unfamiliar ground for the director. He has essayed the effects of power, political paranoia and the bloom of love in previous films like “The Godfather,” “The Conversation” and “One from the Heart.” The difference is, those movies, while often epic in scope, didn’t take a kitchen sink approach to the storytelling.
“Metropolis” is overstuffed to the point of bursting. The grand vision of warring billionaires and politicians is rendered almost incomprehensible by scenes that never lift off or, worse, feel randomly inserted into the narrative.
Coppola sets his story against a city in a fall of the Roman Empire decline, which should bring along with it very high stakes, but there is never a sense of danger or tension.
Instead, head-scratching line readings, spontaneous Shakespearean monologuing, and unintentionally funny, heightened performances distract from the actual story. “Megalopolis” is operatic in its ambition, experimental in its execution and rather baffling in its intentions.
Perhaps the film’s most telling line is a quote from Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius: “The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority.”
And so it goes with “Metropolis.” Despite the presence of big-name talent like Adam Driver and Aubrey Plaza, this is a deliberating non-commercial film. Coppola’s vision is experimental, difficult to penetrate, impossible to pigeonhole, and occasionally thrilling, but mostly a slog.
SYNOPSIS: Narrated by former KGB agent Viktor Ivanov, “Reagan,” a new biopic starring Dennis Quaid as the 40th President of the United States, follows Ronald Reagan from childhood to Hollywood fame to his time in the oval office and an assassination attempt.
CAST: Dennis Quaid, Penelope Ann Miller, Robert Davi, Lesley-Anne Down and Jon Voight. Directed by Sean McNamara (who, at age 18 worked as a sound engineer during filming of Reagan’s 1981 inauguration ceremony).
REVIEW: Into our current unpredictable partisan era comes an old-fashioned movie that harkens back to, if not a simpler time, then at least a time when there was some nuance left in political debate.
Not that “Reagan” is a movie of great nuance.
A cradle-to-almost-grave look at one of the most popular presidents of the Twentieth Century, it covers a lot of ground and does so respectfully—it sometimes feels like director Sean McNamara must have been standing at attention while shooting—but at a gallop that doesn’t allow for deep exploration.
Instead, it plays like a greatest hits of Reagan’s life. I was left wondering if a more focused look, concentrating on only his Hollywood activism, or his time in the Oval Office, or his escalation of the Cold War, may have provided opportunities for greater insight.
In an unexpected twist, the film is narrated by Jon Voight as former KGB officer Viktor Ivanov. Providing details gleaned from years of Russian surveillance, it’s an interesting idea to allow one of Reagan’s enemies to act as tour guide, but the narration doesn’t add much. It’s intrusive and overbearing, an exposition dump, that acts only as a page turner to the next chapter of the story without providing substance.
Quaid, who plays the character in all the iterations of its adult life, nails Reagan’s distinctive voice and physicality. He brings a theatrical flair to the performance, playing Reagan as a larger-than-life character who always beat the odds.
There is no doubt that Reagan led a remarkable life, but “Reagan” is not a remarkable movie. The spotty history—there’s no mention, for instance, of his position on gay marriage or inaction during the AIDS epidemic—and cinematic glow applied to every frame suggests hagiography more than a simple biography, but Quaid does good work even if “Reagan” feels like a movie a substitute teacher would run in history class.
Five years since Harry Potter last displayed his wizarding ways on the big screen his creator, J.K. Rowling, is back with another adventure. The new film is a Potter prequel following the adventures of Newt Scamander, author of the textbook Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (which also happens to be the name of this movie).
Starring Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne, it takes place seventy years before Harry studied the text at Hogwarts, it focuses on Scamander’s adventures in 1920s New York City.
I spoke with the cast of Fantastic Beasts recently, asking them how Rowling and the Potter phenomenon touched them personally.
Alison Sudol plays free-spirited witch Queenie Goldstein: “I loved the wizarding world so much, from the get go, from the first page of the first book. I already loved The Chronicles of Narnia and Lewis Carroll and here was this world where there was an entirely parallel universe going on along side ours where all these insanely imaginative things were happening. It felt tangible and possible and real. It was such a beautiful place to inhabit in my imagination.”
Dan Fogler plays non-magical (or No-Maj) factory worker Jacob Kowalski: “I was a fan of Star Wars, the hero cycle, Joseph Campbell, fantasy, Dungeons and Dragons and all that. When I saw the [Potter] movies I thought, these really contain all of that and they also have that amazing coming of age feeling like you’re watching a John Hughes movie. All the incredibly personal stuff like when they did stuff like the Sorting Hats struck a chord for me. It reminded me of sleep-a-way camp when everyone found their own cliques.”
Ezra Miller is plays Credence Barebone, a mysterious member of the New Salem Philanthropic Society, a No-Maj anti-witchcraft group: “It’s hard for me to extricate JK Rowling and her work from any aspect of my life from the time I was seven. I think she gave to those of us who partook of her work as young people; those who have these natural gifts, a sense of justice and morality, of wonder and of imagination. A lot of us lose these gifts as we grow old and you look around and adults are boring, tired, jaded and disillusioned but I personally feel JK Rowling gave us a means by which to portage those inherent gifts of childhood over the wilderness and into our adult lives.”
Katherine Waterston plays Porpentina Goldstein, witch and former Auror for the Magical Congress of the United States of America: “I really identified with [Rowling’s] passion and commitment when I was in my twenties and was a struggling actor. You think of those people and have them in your mind as a mantra to keep you going. Not that one day you may have their success but that it is valid to pursue your creative impulses regardless of the outcome.”
Eddie Redmayne plays Newt” Scamander, Magizoologist and author of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: “I started watching the films when they came out and for me it was this incredibly warm, wondrous place to go back to every year or two and it felt familiar and new and I got to see some of my favourite actors doing extraordinary work. It became a consistent comfort.”
Five years since Harry Potter last displayed his wizarding ways on the big screen his creator, J.K. Rowling, is back with another adventure. The new film is a Potter prequel following the adventures of Newt Scamander, author of the textbook “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” (which also happens to be the name of this movie).
Taking place seventy years before Harry studied the text at Hogwarts, it hits on many of the things that made the Potter movies special—loyalty, courage, Good v. Evil—there are wands aplenty and yet it feels new and fresh.
Rowling fans will recognize the name Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne). An employee at the British Ministry of Magic, at the start of the film he’s just arrived in New York City with a briefcase full of wild, wonderful and fantastic beasts. The year is 1926 and NYC is under attack by a mysterious, destructive paranormal force, dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald has gone missing and the zealous New Salem Philanthropic Society run by anti-magic fanatic Mary Lou Barebone (Samantha Morton) is threatening to expose the seedy underbelly of wizardry in the city.
Not exactly the best time for a wizard to land in America with a case of magic beasts.
A simple mix-up with Newt’s suitcase—he inadvertently switches his with non-magical (or No-Maj) factory worker Jacob Kowalski’s (Dan Fogler) case—unleashes the beasts, finds Newt “arrested” by Magical Congress of the United States of America worker Tina Goldstein (Katherine Waterston) and uncovers a far reaching conspiracy that endangers wizards and No-Majs alike.
“Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” feels like a Harry Potter film in spirit but looks nothing like the movies that came before it. Director David Yates, working from a script by Rowling, have reimagined the familiar wizarding world, adding period details ripe with richness. Rowling’s eye for story, quirky minutiae and veiled social comment—“I understand you have rather backward views about relations with non-magic people,” says Newt.—are all on display and should please her fanbase.
Also pleasing are the performances. Redmayne and Company, and this is very much an ensemble piece, find the humanity in the characters, even if they aren’t completely human. The performances feel somehow old fashioned, as if the actors stripped away any sense of method acting or other tricks, instead embracing the theatrical nature of the material. The actors occasionally get lost in the film’s reliance on CGI spectacle but always re-emerge to bring the story’s basic themes of loyalty, courage, Good v. Evil back to the fore.
When Newt says, “I was hoping to wait until we got to Arizona…” during one climatic moment he hints at adventures yet to come which feels like a set-up to a sequel. Those are the kind of words that usually fill me with dread—Just what we need, another franchise!—but “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” with its message that magic is all around us if we know where to look, is a handsome, entertaining and ultimately sequel worthy piece of work.
SYNOPSIS: “Megalopolis,” a new fable from legendary director Francis Ford Coppola, now playing in theatres, is a mix of Ancient Roman politics, sci fi, and even a little bit of mime.
