MEGALOPOLIS : Tuesday 15th October 2024

I finally got around to seeing the M Rated 'MEGALOPOLIS' this week, which was released here in Australia on 26th September. This American epic Sci-Fi film is Written, Co-Produced and Directed by Francis Ford Coppola, whose previous film making credits take in the classic 'The Godfather Parts I, II and III' in 1972, 1974 and 1990, 'The Conversation' in 1974, 'Apocalypse Now' in 1979, 'The Cotton Club' in 1984, 'Peggy Sue Got Married' in 1986, 'Gardens of Stone' in 1987, 'Bram Stoker's Dracula' in 1992, 'The Rainmaker' in 1997 with 'Twixt' in 2011 his most recent film before this one. Coppola spent US$120M off his own money to fund the production of this passion project which he first began considering in 1977 and for which he began script ideas in 1983. Production of the film has been on-again off-again over the years with him returning to the film in earnest in 2019. The film was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at this years Cannes Film Festival, where it Premiered in mid-May, and has proven divisive amongst critics with mixed or average reviews. Costing in the region of US$130M to produce, the film has so far grossed just over US$11M.

Set in an alternate USA, New Rome is dominated by an elite group of aristocratic families. Although the Roman elite professes to live by a strict moral code, these aristocrats decadently enjoy forbidden pleasures including wild parties, a lavish lifestyle and all the trappings of their wealth and social standing, while ordinary Romans live on the poverty line. Among this elite group is idealist and forward thinking architect Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver) who wins the Nobel Prize for inventing the revolutionary building material Megalon. In addition, he secretly has the ability to stop time. He treats his superpower as a metaphor for his artistic workings - when Cesar stops time and space, everyone and everything else remains frozen.

Despite Cesar's success, he has fallen into bouts of alcoholism. Years earlier, his wife mysteriously disappeared, and District Attorney Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito) prosecuted him for murdering her. Although Cesar was exonerated, he remains wracked by guilt, believing that his wife committed suicide because he was too wrapped up in his work. Cesar still longs for his wife, prompting his jealous mistress, TV presenter Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza), to leave him. 

Later at a live broadcast event, Cesar and Mayor Cicero offer different visions for the city's future. Cesar proposes using Megalon to build 'Megalopolis' - a utopian urbanist community, while Cicero argues that a casino will provide immediate tax revenue and jobs. During the event, Cesar meets Cicero's well educated, but directionless, daughter Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel). They initially have a disliking for each other, but after showing her his vision for Megalopolis, Julia intrigues Cesar by showing that she is the only person who can still move when Cesar stops time. They become lovers.

Wow marries Cesar's uncle Hamilton Crassus III (Jon Voight) the world's richest man and the CEO and owner of the Crassus Bank. Although Crassus likes his nephew, his mind and health are in decline, and he is easily manipulated by individuals like his other nephew, Clodio Pulcher (Shia LaBeouf) who has his own designs on inheriting the Crassus Bank. At the lavish wedding reception of the happy couple, the headline musical act is pop star Vesta Sweetwater (Grace VanderWaal). 

In an attempt to discredit Cesar, Pulcher leaks a paparazzi video of Cesar having sex with the alleged sixteen year old Vesta, prompting Cicero to condemn Cesar publicly. Although Cicero arrests Cesar for statutory rape, Julia vindicates Cesar by discovering that Vesta faked her age and is actually twenty-three years of age. 

After a redundant Russian satellite crashes to Earth and destroys large swathes of New Rome, Cesar begins construction of Megalopolis from the ruins, financing the project with his family fortune. However, the high cost of building Megalopolis contrasts with the level of poverty on the streets. Pulcher becomes a populist politician, encouraging ordinary Romans to oppose Megalopolis as an expensive folly. The draw of power leads Pulcher from populism to fascist agitator.

Julia, now pregnant, tries to broker a peace accord between Cesar and her father by taking her father to see the Megalopolis construction site. However, Cicero is unimpressed with Cesar's utopianism, although his wife Teresa (Kathryn Hunter) feels the opposite. Cicero begs Cesar to leave Julia - in exchange for which, he offers Cesar valuable blackmail material - a written confession that Cicero knew Cesar's wife committed suicide and maliciously prosecuted Cesar anyway. Cicero gives Cesar three days to decide, but needless to say Cesar declines.

Wow tries to force Cesar to leave Julia and marry her instead by saying that when she has inherited the vast Crassus fortune, she would give it all to him. When Cesar outright rejects her, she freezes his account at the Crassus Bank. She enlists Pulcher to manipulate Crassus into handing over control of the bank. When Crassus learns of Pulcher's duplicity, he has a stroke and collapses. Pulcher hires an assassin in the form of a nine year old boy to kill Cesar, who shoots Cesar in the head at point blank range, while he is signing an autograph for the seemingly innocent young lad. Cesar's doctors use Megalon to rebuild his skull, and repair his severely damaged tissue. 

Cesar and Cicero become allies after rioting Pulcher supporters attempt to storm Megalopolis and City Hall. Pulcher and Wow taunt the seemingly bedridden Crassus, but Crassus kills Wow and injures Pulcher with a hidden bow and arrow shooting a arrow directly into Wow's chest and firing off two arrows into Pulcher's arse. Cesar confronts the rioters, pleading with them to believe in his vision of a better future. His speech wins over the crowd, whose followers hang Pulcher and his right hand man Aram Kazanjian (Balthazar Getty) upside down from a scaffold.

With renewed financial support from Crassus, Cesar finally completes Megalopolis. Cicero, holding Julia and Cesar's baby daughter, Sunny Hope, promises to help Cesar build a better future. On New Year's Eve, as the clock counts down the seconds to midnight, Cesar turns to Julia and asks that she stop time. She does so, freezing them both and all around them leaving only Sunny Hope unaffected by the time stop . . . and she's way too young to click her fingers to resume normal service like her dad would have done!

The film also stars Laurence Fishburne, Talia Shire, Jason Schwatrzman, James Remar, D.B.Sweeney and Dustin Hoffman.  

The film opens up with the words 'Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis : A Fable' etched in stone. In other words it is a short story that tells a general truth or is only partly based on fact, and so it is here with references aplenty to real characters and their goings on from ancient Rome transplanted into a future world where those characters play out much as their ancestors might of done in the days of the Roman Empire. And in that respect I guess the film delivers showcasing the wild parties, the sex, the back stabbing, the murders and the political intrigue all wrapped up in a utopian vision of a future city where everyone lives in harmony and happily ever after. Visually the film is rewarding enough but that's just about where the positives end, as the cast of top notch A-list talent appear almost bewildered by what the Director is asking of them except for Shia LaBoeuf who chews up the scenery and his dialogue with reckless abandon, while others - Hoffman, Schwartzman, Shire and Fishburne are underutilised. As for the story - it goes around in circles and never seems to go anywhere leaving you with the feeling that after almost two-and-a-half hours of viewing it is seriously undercooked. It's a real shame because from Coppola I would have expected a whole lot more, but then perhaps his long gestating opus is his last hurrah, he ploughed his own hard earned cash into it, and he finally got to realise his passion project on the big screen, and all the naysayers be damned!

'Megalopolis' merits two claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

What's new at Odeon's this week : Thursday 26th September 2024

The 32nd edition of the FilmFest Hamburg takes place this year from Thursday 26th September through until Saturday 5th October. Every year the festival attracts over 50,000 cinema fans. Over ten days, 124 national and international feature and documentary films from fifty-five countries are shown on fourteen screens as world, European or German Premieres. The programme in ten sections ranges from cinematically sophisticated arthouse films to innovative mainstream cinema. It is the third-largest film festival of its kind in Germany after Berlin and Munich.

This years Opening Gala film presentation is 'Holy Cow' from France and is Co-Written and Directed by Louise Courvoisier in her feature film debut, with the Closing Night film being 'The Room Next Door' from Pedro Almodovar in his English language full length feature debut and stars Tilda Swinton, Julianne Moore, John Turturro and Alessandro Nivola. 

There are a number of competitive film and television strands, with this years Hamburg Production Award for International Cinema Co-Productions centering on six films with an award of €25K as follows :-

* 'Armand' - from Norway, Netherlands, Sweden and Germany and Written and Directed by Halfdan Ullmann Tondel in his feature Directorial debut. After an alleged fight between two 6-year-old boys, the parents and school staff are called in to clarify the incident.

* 'Happy Holidays' - from Palestine, Germany, France, Italy and Qatar this family drama film is Written and Directed by Scandar Copti, and won the Award for Best Screenplay at this years recent Venice International Film Festival.

* 'Spirit in the Blood' - from Germany and Canada and Written and Directed by Carly May Borgstrom. This thriller tells the story of how after a young girl is found dead in a secluded religious mountain community, a pack of teenage girls decide to fight against the evil spirits they believe killed her by embracing their own dark nature.

* 'The Assessment' - from Germany, the USA and the UK and Directed by Fleur Fortune in her feature length debut and starring Elisabeth Olsen, Alicia Vikander, Minnie Driver and Himesh Patel. In the near future where parenthood is strictly controlled, a couple's seven-day assessment for the right to have a child unravels into a psychological nightmare.

* 'The Vanishing' - from France, Germany and Tunisia and Directed by Karim Moussaoui. Reda seemingly has a life of privilege in Algiers, in his late twenties still living at the family home, with a father who has arranged a job and a fiancee. Reda is eager to please, yet the more he tries the more he veers off course

* 'Transamazonia' - from Brazil, Germany, France, Switzerland and Taiwan and Directed by Pia Marais. As a young child, Rebecca is rescued from a plane crash in the Amazon rainforest by a member of a nearby Indigenous tribe. Now a teenager, she is well known in the area as her father, an American missionary, claims that she is a faith healer. Rebecca's misgivings about her situation are compounded by the arrival of illegal loggers poised to disrupt the local way of life.

In addition the Douglas Sirk Award will go to British Director Andrea Arnold and French Director Jacques Audiard. The award ceremonies will take place on the occasion of the German Premieres of their current films 'Bird' and 'Emilia Perez' respectively, and is presented to those personalities who have made a special contribution to film culture and the film industry.

For the full details and the line up of the other competitive film and TV strands being showcased including The Hamburg Production Award for German Cinema Productions, The Arthouse Cinema Award, The Young Talent Award, The Critics Choice Award, and a whole lot more other good stuff worthy of your attention, you can go to the official website at : https://www.filmfesthamburg.de/en/

Turning the focus back to this weeks five new movies coming to a big screen Odeon near you, we launch with an epic Sci-Fi set in the city of New Rome where the main conflict is between a brilliant artist and architect in favour of a utopian future, and a greedy Mayor, and between them is the Mayor's daughter whose loyalty is divided between her father and her beloved architect. Then we have a horror thriller in which a family that has been haunted by an evil spirit for years, but their safety and their surroundings come into question when one of the children questions if the evil is real. Next up is a French comedy offering about two swindlers, who deep in debt, infiltrate a group of climate activists when they are attracted to the free food and drinks they are offered. This is followed by an American drama about a failing father who attempts to salvage some semblance of paternal standing while being rapidly exposed for the fraud he is; before closing out the week with a Vietnamese film about a man who becomes a 'God of Gamblers' suddenly with the help of a female Ghost.

Whatever your taste in big screen film entertainment is this week - be it any of the five latest release new films as Previewed below, or those doing the rounds currently on general release or as Reviewed and Previewed in previous Blog Posts here at Odeon Online, you are most welcome to share your movie going thoughts, opinions and observations by leaving your relevant, succinct and appropriate views in the Comments section below this or any other Post. We'd love to hear from you, and in the meantime, enjoy your big screen Odeon outing during the week ahead.

'MEGALOPOLIS' (Rated M) - is an American epic Sci-Fi fil Written, Co-Produced and Directed by Francis Ford Coppola, whose previous film making credits take in the classic 'The Godfather Parts I, II and III' in 1972, 1974 and 1990, 'The Conversation' in 1974, 'Apocalypse Now' in 1979, 'The Cotton Club' in 1984, 'Peggy Sue Got Married' in 1986, 'Gardens of Stone' in 1987, 'Bram Stoker's Dracula' in 1992, 'The Rainmaker' in 1997 with 'Twixt' in 2011 his most recent film before this one. Coppola spent US$120M off his own money to fund the production of this passion project which he first began considering in 1977 and for which he began script ideas in 1983. Production of the film has been on-again off-again over the years with him returning to the film in earnest in 2019. The film was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at this years Cannes Film Festival, where it Premiered in mid-May this year,  and has proven divisive amongst critics with mixed or average reviews. It is released in the US this week too.

In a decaying metropolis called New Rome, idealist architect Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver) is granted a license by the federal government to demolish and rebuild the city as a sustainable utopia using Megalon, a material that can give him the power to control space and time. His nemesis, Mayor Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), remains committed to a regressive status quo. Torn between them is Franklyn's socialite daughter and Cesar's love interest Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel), who, tired of the influence she inherited, searches for her life's meaning. Also starring Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Jon Voight, Laurence Fishburne, Talia Shire, Jason Schwatrzman, Kathryn Hunter, James Remar, D.B.Sweeney and Dustin Hoffman. 

'NEVER LET GO' (Rated MA15+) - this American survival horror film is Directed by the French filmmaker Alexandre Aja who made his English language Directorial debut in 2006 with 'The Hills Have Eyes' and which he would follow up with 'Mirrors' in 2008, 'Piranha 3D' in 2010, 'Horns' in 2013, 'The 9th Life of Louis Drax' in 2016, 'Crawl' in 2019 and 'Oxygen' in 2021. Here then, after an unspeakable evil has taken over the world, the only protection for a mother (Halle Berry) and her twin sons Samuel (Anthony B. Jenkins) and Nolan (Percy Daggs IV) is their house and strong bond. Needing to stay connected at all times, to the extent that they even tether themselves with ropes, they must cling to one another and never let go. However, when one of the boys questions if the evil is real, the ties that bind them together are severed, triggering a terrifying fight for survival. The film was released last week in the US, has so far grossed US$4.5M from a production budget of US$20M and has generated mixed or average reviews. 

'A DIFFICULT YEAR' (Rated M) - is a French comedy film Written and Directed by Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache. This story centres on Albert (Pio Marmai) and Bruno (Jonathan Cohen) who are both heavily in debt and so have turned to a community worker (Mathieu Amalric) to try and help get a grip on their lives. However, at one of their group sessions they instead stumble into an adjoining meeting room hosting a gathering of young social activists, led by a vivacious organiser Cactus (Noemie Merlant). Attracted more by the free beer and chips than the group's struggle against consumerism and protection of the environment, Albert and Bruno join the movement without any particular conviction, but soon sense an opportunity . . . if they don't get arrested first. The film was released in its native France in mid-October last year having screened initially at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. It has received mixed critical acclaim and has so far grossed US$7M. 

'NOTICE TO QUIT' (Rated CTC) - this American drama offering is Written, Co-Produced and Directed by Simon Hacker in his feature film Writing and Directing debut. Here, Andy Singer (Michael Zegan), an out-of-work Actor now struggling as a New York City Real Estate Agent, finds his world crashing down around him when his estranged ten-year-old daughter, Anna (Kasey Bella Suarez), shows up unannounced on his doorstep just as he's to be evicted from his apartment. The film is released Stateside also this week.

'BETTING WITH GHOST' (Rated M) - is a Vietnamese comedy horror film Directed by Nguyen Nhat Trung in his screen debut and tells the story of Lanh (Tuan Tran), the son of a funeral director (Hoai Linh), who finds himself trapped in a downward spiral due to his gambling addiction. On the verge of losing everything, fate leads him to encounter a mysterious female ghost (Diep Bao Ngoc). United by their mutual desperation, they strike an unconventional deal, using each other to fulfil their hidden desires. The film was released in its native Vietnam earlier this month and has so far grossed US$4.7M at the Box Office. 

With five new release movie offerings this week to tempt you out to your local Odeon, remember to share your movie going thoughts with your other like minded cinephile friends afterwards here at Odeon Online. In the meantime, I'll see you sometime somewhere at your local Odeon in the coming week.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-