100% agree! It probably really helped that 1) The setting grounded it somewhat (in Megalopolis, I was constantly thinking "Where are we? What are the rules of this world?"), and 2) It was ABOUT the descent into madness. So ever bit of batshit insanity made sense, thematically.
I completely agree. Jeff Maurer is a creative genius. He should sell his house and spend the next ten years expanding this review into a 1000-page novel.
Went in wondering if the criticisms were overwrought and walked out after 25 minutes I hated it so much. Didn’t even try to get my money back, I was worried if I stayed there any longer I would try to burn the theater down.
I was wondering if the criticisms were overwrought too. 15 years ago I would have seen this movie on purpose; today I feel like there must be a local snail population that might be more in need of my dollars
Bingo. Puzo had some early note as a talented writer. Unfortunately this did not translate into enough money. He decided to write a novel with broad appeal and wrote “The Godfather.”
He had graduated from City College when it was still a beacon of learning for smart, poor, ambitious kids without legacy enrollment. He had strong grounding in literature. He quoted St. Honoré Balzac in an epigraph.
No joke I think that people have essentially wrote Puzo out of the Godfather’s success story, every time I hear the novels brought it it’s to call them pulp crap that Coppola strung into gold. Maybe there’s more to it than that
I read the book and I thought it was really good. That was a few decades ago, so I'm not sure what I'd think now. Incidentally, the young woman Sonny is fucking at his brother's wedding near the beginning of the first movie is actually a major character in the book.
So brave of you to have written this yourself instead of delegating it to one of your junior critics. I guess having to view it would have been torture for even the auteurs on your staff.
So the real question: does it have so-bad-it's-good-potential if seen with friends with full awareness of what we're getting into? Or is it just bad-bad?
I have a hard time believing that Megalopolis is “the worst movie ever made.”
Last night I watched the film Terrifier, because Terrifier 3 is doing good business in theaters now and I wanted to see what all the commotion is about. I would call the film artless, if the psychotic killer clown in the movie wasn’t named “Art.”
Great review. This puddle of piping hot puke has me reconsidering my friendship with someone who says, "It doesn't have to make sense! It's like a David Lynch movie!" Even though I bemoan the Orson Wellesian stories of auteurs getting screwed over by the studios, I agree that everyone needs some creative constraints. It became clear to me when streaming platforms were handing cartoonishly large bags of money to directors with seemingly zero oversight. There are so many movies from Netflix, and others, that are decent stories hiding within bloated, disjointed productions that make me wish someone had given the slightest pushback to the creators.
One nuance I'd add for this article is that it doesn't seem like Coppola was necessarily a "dictator" when it came to the actual shooting. Stories from Aubrey Plaza and others indicate that he had an "anything goes" attitude, where cast members were making up scenes as they went along, and a fogged out Francis was like "fuck it, shoot it!" To me this just highlights what a failure his effort was as a filmmaker. But then clearly the "genius" piece is where no one on the set or off it pushed back at all. And if they did, clearly no advice was taken.
Megalopolis is Exhibit A for what can happen when powerful people have no one (not even a 26 year-old studio exec who majored in sports marketing) in their life to tell them "no." Fortunately for Coppola, who thankfully prefers weed, the missing "no" went to bad movie-making instead of, say, doctor shopping and prescription drug abuse.
Say, maybe making shitty movies could be a new aversion therapy for drug addiction.
A slam like that means this flick is a must-see, for me.
But Francis Coppola's follies are his own. You don’t get to smear The Weed that way. It’s the inspiration for much of the best music of the last 100 years: Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Willie Nelson, Paul McCartney, Merle Haggard, Jimmy Webb, Kris Kristofferson, Bob Marley, Lee Perry, Chrissie Hynde, Del the Funkee Homosapien, Crank Lucas. Although someone with crap taste in music won’t realize that. Not that I’m up on yours.
Even someone whose critical wheelhouse is exclusively film has to admit: Robert Altman. Spike Lee. Orson Welles.
I think The Godfather Part II might be the best movie I've ever seen. THAT SAME YEAR, he made The Conversation, which is another masterpiece. Maybe the best year by a director in the history of film. So this is sad to hear. And of course now I have to see the train wreck; Coppola will probably get a bit of my money out of sheer curiosity.
Every single thing you wrote here could be applied to Tommy Wiseau . . . if he had an extra 110 million and access to A-listers. In other words, I absolutely have to see it!!!
I’d be interested to know if you’ve seen One From The Heart, another FFC “dream project” from 1982 that bombed and effectively bankrupted him for like 10 years. I watched it recently and enjoyed it. It was critically panned on release but has been somewhat rehabilitated since. Set entirely in a fake Las Vegas built on a sound stage, hence the huge expense.
I really enjoyed how you expressed your frustrations into a tightly written piece about creative hubris. I too wanted to appreciate the creative process of a creative genius that I saw Megalopolis twice just to appreciate what Coppola was doing and to understand better what happened or at least understand the "genius" behind the movie. Your piece cracked me up. Well said.
I have to say that Apocalypse Now was also a drug fueled meandering rant. But that one worked
100% agree! It probably really helped that 1) The setting grounded it somewhat (in Megalopolis, I was constantly thinking "Where are we? What are the rules of this world?"), and 2) It was ABOUT the descent into madness. So ever bit of batshit insanity made sense, thematically.
I highly recommend "Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse", Eleanor Coppola's making-of documentary.
Yeah, that’s why I knew it was drug-fueled. I mean, it’s easy to infer, but the documentary is straight up proof
I also highly recommend the parody "Porklips Now", which can be found on YouTube
Yes be he was doing serious drugs, and he was edited. Redux was plodding and a bit if a mess.
Exactly. Edited, great. Director’s Cut? Why does it make less sense when you’ve got more time to tell the whole story?
Best. Movie. Review. Ever. I saw Megalopolis, and this captures it perfectly, and draws the right moral. Thank you, Jeff!
I completely agree. Jeff Maurer is a creative genius. He should sell his house and spend the next ten years expanding this review into a 1000-page novel.
Went in wondering if the criticisms were overwrought and walked out after 25 minutes I hated it so much. Didn’t even try to get my money back, I was worried if I stayed there any longer I would try to burn the theater down.
I was wondering if the criticisms were overwrought too. 15 years ago I would have seen this movie on purpose; today I feel like there must be a local snail population that might be more in need of my dollars
This film effectively convinced me that Coppola didnt make the first two Godfather movies. I dont know who did, but I dont think he did it
I was thinking that maybe we should give more credit to Mario Puzo.
Bingo. Puzo had some early note as a talented writer. Unfortunately this did not translate into enough money. He decided to write a novel with broad appeal and wrote “The Godfather.”
He had graduated from City College when it was still a beacon of learning for smart, poor, ambitious kids without legacy enrollment. He had strong grounding in literature. He quoted St. Honoré Balzac in an epigraph.
No joke I think that people have essentially wrote Puzo out of the Godfather’s success story, every time I hear the novels brought it it’s to call them pulp crap that Coppola strung into gold. Maybe there’s more to it than that
The writer always deserve the credit. Oh, and the money, too. Not that I'm biased.
TBF he at least got his name all over the adaptions, so people at least know there is a book
I read the book and I thought it was really good. That was a few decades ago, so I'm not sure what I'd think now. Incidentally, the young woman Sonny is fucking at his brother's wedding near the beginning of the first movie is actually a major character in the book.
I haven't seen this movie, but I have seen this clip from it. Holy shit it's hilariously bad.
"So go back to the cluuuuub..."
https://youtu.be/tNybhMsO5ew?si=Bhw-bd-pBWARdKOo
So brave of you to have written this yourself instead of delegating it to one of your junior critics. I guess having to view it would have been torture for even the auteurs on your staff.
So the real question: does it have so-bad-it's-good-potential if seen with friends with full awareness of what we're getting into? Or is it just bad-bad?
It's bad-bad. It violates the cardinal sin of bad movies, which is "at least don't be boring."
I wasn’t bored, not for a second. 🤷♂️
If this review was written solo, you're still ok for awhile.
I have a hard time believing that Megalopolis is “the worst movie ever made.”
Last night I watched the film Terrifier, because Terrifier 3 is doing good business in theaters now and I wanted to see what all the commotion is about. I would call the film artless, if the psychotic killer clown in the movie wasn’t named “Art.”
Great review. This puddle of piping hot puke has me reconsidering my friendship with someone who says, "It doesn't have to make sense! It's like a David Lynch movie!" Even though I bemoan the Orson Wellesian stories of auteurs getting screwed over by the studios, I agree that everyone needs some creative constraints. It became clear to me when streaming platforms were handing cartoonishly large bags of money to directors with seemingly zero oversight. There are so many movies from Netflix, and others, that are decent stories hiding within bloated, disjointed productions that make me wish someone had given the slightest pushback to the creators.
One nuance I'd add for this article is that it doesn't seem like Coppola was necessarily a "dictator" when it came to the actual shooting. Stories from Aubrey Plaza and others indicate that he had an "anything goes" attitude, where cast members were making up scenes as they went along, and a fogged out Francis was like "fuck it, shoot it!" To me this just highlights what a failure his effort was as a filmmaker. But then clearly the "genius" piece is where no one on the set or off it pushed back at all. And if they did, clearly no advice was taken.
Megalopolis is Exhibit A for what can happen when powerful people have no one (not even a 26 year-old studio exec who majored in sports marketing) in their life to tell them "no." Fortunately for Coppola, who thankfully prefers weed, the missing "no" went to bad movie-making instead of, say, doctor shopping and prescription drug abuse.
Say, maybe making shitty movies could be a new aversion therapy for drug addiction.
A slam like that means this flick is a must-see, for me.
But Francis Coppola's follies are his own. You don’t get to smear The Weed that way. It’s the inspiration for much of the best music of the last 100 years: Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Willie Nelson, Paul McCartney, Merle Haggard, Jimmy Webb, Kris Kristofferson, Bob Marley, Lee Perry, Chrissie Hynde, Del the Funkee Homosapien, Crank Lucas. Although someone with crap taste in music won’t realize that. Not that I’m up on yours.
Even someone whose critical wheelhouse is exclusively film has to admit: Robert Altman. Spike Lee. Orson Welles.
Here’s a Del song you might not have heard, that I love.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SbcaZYXDqhQ&pp=ygUOQ3JhenkgZGVsIHNvbmc%3D
Thank you, so much, for being a fellow Del The Funky Homosapien fan. Cheers!
Here’s a Del song you might not have heard, that I love.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SbcaZYXDqhQ&pp=ygUOQ3JhenkgZGVsIHNvbmc%3D
I think The Godfather Part II might be the best movie I've ever seen. THAT SAME YEAR, he made The Conversation, which is another masterpiece. Maybe the best year by a director in the history of film. So this is sad to hear. And of course now I have to see the train wreck; Coppola will probably get a bit of my money out of sheer curiosity.
Every single thing you wrote here could be applied to Tommy Wiseau . . . if he had an extra 110 million and access to A-listers. In other words, I absolutely have to see it!!!
I’d be interested to know if you’ve seen One From The Heart, another FFC “dream project” from 1982 that bombed and effectively bankrupted him for like 10 years. I watched it recently and enjoyed it. It was critically panned on release but has been somewhat rehabilitated since. Set entirely in a fake Las Vegas built on a sound stage, hence the huge expense.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hI12Srv8a4
I haven't seen One From The Heart, but this experience made me think that I really should.
I really enjoyed how you expressed your frustrations into a tightly written piece about creative hubris. I too wanted to appreciate the creative process of a creative genius that I saw Megalopolis twice just to appreciate what Coppola was doing and to understand better what happened or at least understand the "genius" behind the movie. Your piece cracked me up. Well said.