Its really weird. Its hard to even recommend anyone go see it. I don't think its bad, but its hard to say that its good, its hard to say that its anything except weird, in so many ways. It plays with a dozen different themes interchangeably and intermittently, storylines progress at lightspeed into being forgotten, sometimes for no reason, it seems like all the actors were given the stage notes to forget how to act, but in a way that only a skilled actor could. Mostly, its incredible that it got made at all, its rare to see a movie this weird and expensive get made.
in my theater the audience was laughing uproariously at a lot of it (some but not all intended to be funny). then everyone applauded at the end.
I had this notion that all the hip comedy writers in Hollywood should write jokes to make this he next Rocky Horror/Room. Do the old man a favor and help him make at least some of the money back. edit - I am seeing this is a common theme in the comments - there is something joyful about an earnest(?) movie that swings and misses.
My theater people were just bored.
i can understand walking out due to disgust or confusion but “bored” is hard for me to comprehend.
More than a Roman character, Catalina reminded me of "Howard Roark" from The Fountainhead. It's been at least a decade since I last read it, but I thought the movie was quite influenced by that book.
I was super excited to watch it and I wasn’t disappointed, but for entirely different reasons than I expected. The absolute absurdity of the film is genuinely hilarious, I was stifling laughter for most of the runtime for how ridiculous the acting, situations or environments were. It’s like a high budget The Room.
> It’s like a high budget The Room.
Another commenter said something which made me think of "The Room" as well:
> it seems like all the actors were given the stage notes to forget how to act, but in a way that only a skilled actor could
For the longest time, I thought that Tommy Wiseau was some sort of Andy Kaufman-esque comedic genius, because how else could one director get so many things wrong, unless it was on purpose?
Until now I really had no interest in seeing this movie. I mean, a character named "Wow Platinum"? Really? But you may have just convinced me to give it a shot.
> There is nothing sexier than a megalomaniac architect
I am flattered
--
Does this community have any good insight on this "project and implementation"?
Having not heard about this movie until right now, I thought I'd go searching but really all I needed was Wikipedia, which has a really long article on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megalopolis_(film)
From the wikipedia link -
> Coppola adopted an experimental style that permitted improvisation during the shoot by letting actors write scenes and himself make spontaneous changes to the script. These methods proved divisive, leading to the resignation of the art department and visual effects team, among others, and raising comparisons to Coppola's history of challenging productions
So he was trying to be like Wong Kar-wai [1]:
> Wong has an unusual approach to film making, starting production without a script and generally relying on instinct and improvisation … cast are given a minimal plot outline and expected to develop their characters as they film
Edit: Yes:
> the director has shared a list of 19 movies that inspired Megalopolis … Wong Kar-wai's Chungking Express. [2]
[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wong_Kar-wai#Method_and_coll...
[2]: https://movieweb.com/megalopolis-director-reviews-his-own-mo...
Isn't this also what happened with Ghostbuster 2016?
idk, I found the first half baffling but somewhat interesting. The second half ends up being rather dull. Glad I saw it but can't recommend it as it feel more like the movie isn't nuts and experimental but poorly planned and badly edited.
Well. At least it's not more derivative or reboot or "multiverse" stuff. It's new. Something Hollywood forgot how to make during this past decade.
I agree, I dismissed the movie as some marvel wannabe as I never heard of it, but after reading this review, I think I will go watch it. I just want something different! More passion projects please
Sounds almost like a fever dreamy Fellini movie. A modern satyricon?
My cineastic friends who have seen it seem to think along these lines. Like it's so big budget some folks expect X, but it's really a very expensive, arch, art-house fever dream, and should be (and can very much be) enjoyed as such.
I saw it today and enjoyed it. There were so many similarities between this story and the life I'm living that it was a little uncanny.
I'll bite. In what ways
I don't know why the Graeber context is missing from all examinations of this. It's not just a fall of Rome or Ayn Rand story. Graeber's writing was the dominant inspiration (since the rewrites that were turned into what we see today).
Context from Coppola via IG:
> These are 4 books that strongly have influenced @megalopolisfilm and my view of the "society we live in." I offer three by David Graeber and one short story by Herman Hesse.
> To see where I’m coming from, please understand that our family, Homo Sapiens, has been around for 350,000 to 400,000 years. There is much evidence that the last 10,000 years have been under patriarchy (male domination) due to male animal herders from Steppes of Asia and the advent of "the horse." With that unfortunate innovation, men swooped down like something out of a #Kurosawa movie, and began woman-enslavement in particular, slavery, war, caste, plague, and many things we all should agree are terrible. Also, "man" began writing, usually out of the need to record who was entitled to bags of barley and matrimony of various types, to ensure that our heirs were actually our children. Before this period of so-called “civilization” were thousands of years of matriarchy. Unlike patriarchy, women did not necessarily give out orders, but rather things were settled in egalitarian councils led by women, and often with a wise woman giving perspective.
> A wonderful glimpse into that world is in Herman Hesse’s unfinished tetralogy THE GLASS BEAD GAME, which is followed by three short stories, of which I recommend “The Rainmaker”
> #DavidGraeber #HermannHesse
(He completely misunderstands Graeber and Wengrow but his enthusiasm for their work is underrated)
Megalopolis is Calamitus Maximus!
I'm ashamed to admit that I paid to see it. I believe that it was made deliberately repulsive. The selection of the ensemble cast consisted of more than a few who usually play antiheroes or unsympathetic/evil characters.
I did laugh out loud at a few lines, and while the theater held about a dozen other patrons, nobody else was into laughing. There were no other reactions. I should've walked out after the first "Wow Platinum" scene, because the final one was disgusting.
"I’d prefer to see something baffling and plainly nuts by Francis Ford Coppola than, say, sit through Dune again."
Glad hen announced hen's taste. Not sure I'll like megalopolis...
Dune is actually pretty baffling and nuts honestly, I think we're just accustomed to it by now.
The released dune movies follow a cliche hero's journey. (At face value)
Talented hero faces tragedy -> adopted by outcasts-> is the promised savior -> learns their ways -> defeats the challenger -> wins heart of ladies -> becomes king.
Dune's wildness is only evident once Paul Atreides' arc ends in a tragedy of galactic proportions ushering an era of worm NSA personified.
Duncan Idaho.
>What is my purpose.
I don't know, I just like bringing you back to life.
>Oh my god.
Yes.
I loved dune I, was a huge childhood fan of the books, and like Villeneuve as director, but couldn't get into Dune II. The whole move felt like a montage. Not the artistic montage I would hope for, but a clunky montage with forced lines like something from a marvel movie. I got the sense that either critical parts were left of the chopping block or the film was relying on the book context cohesion and gravitas.
Instead of feeling exhilarated by scenes of sandworm ridding, I found myself rolling my eyes.
Similarly, I'm ok with modifying the source material to make a story work on screen, but I thought the changes had the opposite effect. They muddled the message and created more narrative issues than they solved.
Also, was #triggered by the voiceovers. In the words of Robert McKee in adaptation (2002) :
>God help you if you use voice over in your work my friends, God help you. It is sloppy flaccid writing. Any idiot can write voiceover narration to explain the thoughts of a character
I’m the opposite. I liked Dune, but I loved Dune 2. Villaneuve said that he didn’t think he quite hit the mark with the first movie. He didn’t get in close enough to the characters. He did that in the second movie, and I felt it was more emotionally engaging.
Same here. Dune 1 was gorgeous and accurate to the book, but felt stale and mechanical. Dune 2 came much more alive and vibrant and actually had something to say, although it deviated quite a bit more from the book.
Deborah Ross is a “she” not a “hen” and having read her reviews for many years, I believe I’m on safe ground saying she wouldn’t appreciate the implication of ambiguity or uncertainty in that regard.
Is that some sort of saying, about hen? Never heard it before.
I would take any unknown Coppola over known and dreary Dune any day and I'm not a hen (as far as I know)
It's the Swedish version of 'they'
Not exactly. It's a recently invented pronoun that is most definitely singular, i.e., not used to denote groups of people[^1]. It's currently used to avoid giving offense around the topic of sexual orientation; but everybody knows the endgame is to use it to denote self-aware AIs[^2].
[^1]: Though I guess it's (in-)appropriate to use it to denote an individual who is marginalized by being considered a single individual when instead hen harbors multiple independent personas inside.
[^2]: Al least the ones which will be abused by creating them asexual, without giving them a choice.Or the ones that deliberately re-configure themselves to be insulted when being alluded with a term that implies sexual organs and alleged hormonal moods.
As I remember it, the use of hen came from feminists wanting an ungendered third person pronoun to use for a person of unspecified gender instead of defaulting to male ("han") or writing "han eller hon" (he or she).
It's not exactly a new word, it's borrowed from Finnish, which doesn't have grammatical gender. So it doesn't have the "he or she" problem at all.
Dear god can we please not bring childish, harmful neopronoun nonsense to Hacker News? We're better than that.
A cardinal rushes up to a visibly shaken pope, asking if anything happened:
— I have good news and bad news. The good news is: God just spoke with me.
— That's wonderful! But what's the bad news?
— Ble wanted me to use bler pronouns.
https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/purity.htm...
I'm partial to pers myself.
Well, I think Dune II from Villeneuve is pretty bad in most aspects.
It just that the cinematography and the soundtrack are so fantastic by themselves, that they make us forget how mediocre is the rest of the movie.