John and Yoko go daytime

In 1972, I was living in New York City. I had a job and a family, and I didn’t have much time for daytime TV. If I ever knew, I’d forgotten that in February of that same year, John Lennon and Yoko Ono spent a week as the principal guests and co-hosts of the Mike Douglas Show, a popular daytime program that originated in Philadelphia. The documentary Daytime Revolution chronicles that week, highlighting how John and Yoko used the show to cast light on what then was dubbed  “the counterculture.” Guests, selected by John and Yoko, included Jerry Rubin, Bobby Seale, and Ralph Nader. At times, the documentary plays like a greatest hits version of the early 70s counterculture that includes segments in which Chuck Berry — the show’s highlight guest — not only performs Memphis, Tennessee with John but provides unlikely help with a bit on macrobiotic cooking. Hey, seeing is believing. Directed by Erik Nelson, the one-hour and 48-minute documentary can feel oddly dated, which is another way of saying it reflects the odd juxtapositions that sometimes cropped up during the 1970s. Douglas, who sang with an easy-listening voice and who conducted his show with non-confrontational ease, still feels like a strange pairing with John and Yoko. Contemporary interviews offer perspective as Daytime Revolution cements its status as a cultural curio. And, yes, it's moving to watch John, who was 31 at the time, sing Imagination.

A non-linear look at a romance

   Some filmmakers delight in fragmenting time, disrupting its normal flow for non-linear storytelling. The technique can be illuminating if it serves as a structural prism that heightens understanding and deepens involvement with the tale that's being told. Then there's the other kind, a drama in which time shifts seem designed to elevate a story that otherwise might seem overly familiar.

   The romance We Live in Time tends toward the latter category, a love story that dices a familiar arc into chunks, some agreeable, some cliched, and others that might produce heavy eyerolls.

   Director John Crowley (Brooklyn, The Goldfinch) builds his film around the evolving relationship between Almut (Florence Pugh) and Tobias (Andrew Garfield), a couple whose contrived meet-cute strains for novelty. Almut and Tobias fall in love, struggle to become parents, eventually have a daughter, and are ultimately jolted by news that Almut has an incurable cancer, a fate announced in an early scene.

    The doom-struck romance should (here's a shock) leave audiences reaching for tissues.  Garfield's ability to project the wounded soul serves a similar purpose, and for those who see real chemistry as opposed to a strained romance, the movie may strike a chord. 

    It's arguable that romance should carry playwright John Payne's screenplay, providing Pugh and Garfield conquer the way scenes are dealt out in what can feel like a near-random shuffle. 

    We Live in Time wears its editing like a costume that diverts attention from its characters, Tobias's job, whatever it is, seems suited to anonymity. Almut works as a well-known chef, an occupation that allows the movie to introduce a cooking competition into a cancer drama, which struck me as an example of trendy dramatic overcooking.

     And, yes, Almut and Tobias's daughter (Grace Delaney) is cute, a product of an over-amped childbirth scene that arrives before the couple can reach a hospital.  

     The story includes an assertive statement from Almut who doesn't want her daughter to remember her only as a mom, a thematic point that feels like an afterthought rather than one that's fully developed.

     The movie's title reminds us that changing times and circumstances can make a difference in relationships and how we perceive them. Fair enough, but a juggled timeline can't keep these characters from seeming to love, hurt, and grieve on cue.

      

     

Strong dominates ‘The Apprentice’

 

    It's difficult to imagine a world full of people who have yet to form an opinion about Donald Trump. Few public figures have so rampantly flaunted themselves as the Queens, N.Y.-born 45th president.

    In The Apprentice, director Ali Abbasi tries to explain how Trump became what the filmmaker has called an icon of American culture. Abbasi returns to  the 1970s and 80s, focusing on what the movie regards as Trump's formative relationship with attorney Roy Cohn. 

   The Apprentice moves quickly through a bold-faced telling of its tale, playing like a highlight reel. I wouldn't call The Apprentice essential viewing, something you might expect from a movie about a man now running for president. 

    To use the lingo currently applied to comic-book movies, The Apprentice qualifies as an origins story -- albeit one with the involving kick of a New York tabloid.

     Known for his unflinching brutality, Cohn, played by Jeremy Strong, took Trump under wing when the future president was beginning to spread his ambitious wings By the time Trump met him, Cohn already had gained notoriety for arguing in favor of the death penalty for Ethel and Julius Rosenberg and serving as Chief Counsel during the Army-McCarthy hearings.

     In a key scene, Cohn, who has been portrayed as a closeted gay man, shares three rules for life with Trump: 1. Attack. Attack. Attack. 2. Admit nothing. Deny everything. 3. No matter what happens, claim victory. Never admit defeat.

       Strong's bold performance captures Cohn's unrelenting aggression, which he carried under the shielding umbrella of extreme patriotism. It's easy to imagine that Logan Roy, the media magnate of Succession, would have been pleased if -- apart from sexuality -- his son Kendall (also played by Strong) had become more like Cohn, a flaming comet of ambition aimed at reducing foes to ashes.

     Sebastian Stan's portrayal of Trump may present a challenge for audiences. Stan gives Trump a familiar lumbering walk. He brings a tone of faux confidentiality to Trump’s speech, the illusion of an insider sharing the “real” story. He gradually enlarges the bravado of a man who believes he was blessed with winner genes.

      Stan creates a real character; he's not doing an impression. Still, I found myself asking whether I was buying Stan's portrayal, an uncertainty that speaks to the difficulty of playing a person who's inescapable to anyone who owns a TV.

       The supporting cast adds credibility. Martin Donovan convinces as Fred Trump, Donald's authoritarian father, a man who made his mark in New York real estate. Trump wanted to make his own impression. To illustrate the point, Abbasi concentrates on Trump's plan to renovate the Commodore Hotel, located near Grand Central Station. Cohn abetted Trump's efforts.

       Charlie Carrick plays Freddy, Trump's sad older brother, an airline pilot whose job embarrassed Fred Trump. "A flying bus driver,'' the elder Trump calls him. Freddy's alcoholism and suicide sound a somber note.

        Maria Bakalova comes on strong as Ivana Zelnickova, the model who'll become Ivana Trump. Trump eventually grows bored with the Czech-born Ivana, who's too eager to share the limelight with her husband.

        Abbasi doesn't skimp when showing Trump's vanity: As part of the movie's finale, Trump undergoes liposuction and hair transplants. It's a bit much; we've already seen Trump's ego at work.

         If you're searching for psychological subtext, you won't have to dig deeply. Trump sought to please and then surpass his harshly judgmental dad. 

          The Apprentice isn't exactly revelatory. Much of what's depicted has been written about elsewhere, and how audiences view the movie probably depends on how they feel about Trump and to a lesser degree Cohn, whose AIDS-related demise arrives after Trump moves on from his declining tutor.

        Those who regard Trump as a narcissistic blimp floating ominously over the American landscape will find what they want. Those who think otherwise may not bother with the film, or they may view Trump's emerging killer instinct as an asset in a kill-or-be-killed world.

        However you see it, it's difficult not to view the movie with curiosity in an election year.  I generally try not to pay too much attention to box office numbers, but I'm curious to see how many people are eager to see more of a Trump story than is already available on the nation's airways. 

       

         

            

An uneven look at SNL’s first show

 

  Who among us doesn't know what the letters SNL stand for? OK, it's Saturday Night Live, the show that recently celebrated its 50th anniversary. That's half a century of sketches, new comic faces, weekend updates, and cold opens. The show has hooked successive generations of younger viewers and created long-time loyalists.

    Perhaps understanding the place SNL has earned in American culture, director Jason Reitman, working from a script he co-wrote with Gil Kenan, has made Saturday Night, an energized look at the 90 minutes preceding the first time Chevy Chase uttered the keynote words, "Live from New York. It's Saturday Night."

    If you're a committed SNL fan, you may find amusement in Reitman's brisk examination of how producer Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle) survived turmoil that included the use of drugs on set, personality clashes, and what sometimes looks like a show-threatening helping of amateurism.

   Difficulties seem to compound as air time approaches: John Belushi (Matt Wood) hadn't yet signed his contract, and an NBC executive (Willem Dafoe) threatened to pull the plug in favor of a Johnny Carson Tonight Show rerun.

     If there's a larger point to any of this, it involves Reitman's recognition of a cultural shift. Gone were the days of the jokey brashness of Milton Berle, played here by J.K. Simmons, once known as Mr. Television. SNL pulled off a neat trick: It turned a parodic mindset against the mainstream while becoming part of it.

      The cast is mostly game with a variety of standouts, notably Cory Michael Smith as a self-impressed Chevy Chase. Dylan O'Brian scores as the comically intense Dan Aykroyd; and Tommy Dewey proves mordantly funny as writer Michael O'Donoghue. 

      Kim Matula portrays Jane Curtin with come-what-may ease, and Lamorne Morris appears as Garrett Morris, SNL's first Black cast member. Morris spends most of his time wondering what he's doing on a show no one seems to have a handle on.

       So, is Saturday Night anything more than a big-screen reconstruction of some fabled and some fictionalized moments? Not really.

          For some, the movie will provide a healthy dose of nostalgic pleasure. For me, Saturday Night didn’t generate enough laughs. I didn't buy Wood's scowling John Belushi, and in the end, the movie became a mixed bag: a blur of dizzying camera work and hit-and-miss portrayals of the original SNL cast. 

       Saturday Night aside, my idea of SNL nostalgia has less to do with the show than with watching Belushi in Animal House, Aykroyd in Doctor Detroit, and Chevy Chase in Caddyshack. Those were the days.

        

'Joker: Folie a Deux' -- dread with music

 

   Director Todd Phillips' Joker (2019) plunged into the heart of the rot-infested Gotham, where Arthur Fleck became the Joker, a maniacal misfit whose life had turned into an agonized scream, sometimes disguised as hysterical laughter. The result was scary, haunting, and grim.

   To deliver a sequel, Phillips has made a bold choice.   Joker: Folie a Deux adds musical numbers as part of the soundtrack and as performances. The story also  brings Joker (Joaquin Phoenix) into contact with Lee (Lady Gaga), the character who, in other movies, will evolve into Harley Quinn. 

   If you want an alternate title for Folie a Deux, try Psychopath, the Musical.

   Phillips opens the movie in Arkham, a fortress-like prison for the criminally insane. Amid a population of bereft inmates, a skeletal Arthur awaits trial for murder -- six of them.

   In the film's early going, Arthur seems weirdly withdrawn, a canny strategy on Phoenix's part. Arthur's eerie detachment fits the dark mood established by Hildur Gudnadottir's pounding, ominous score, reprised from the first movie.

    The screenplay lays the groundwork for Arthur's trial. Arthur's lawyer (Catherine Keener) wants to employ an insanity defense. She'll argue that the vicious Joker lives inside poor Arthur's tormented psyche. Arthur doesn't connect to this alternate self and hardly remembers his murderous outbursts. Abused as a child, Arthur's a wimp who can't accept his fiendishness -- or so his lawyer says.

      Gotham's district attorney (Harry Lawtey) argues otherwise; he dismisses talk of Arthur's alternate personality as hooey.

    As a Joker fan, I was predisposed to appreciate the inventiveness Phillips might bring to this sequel, which punctuates the movie's encompassing bleakness with musical numbers that evoke memories of a bygone Hollywood era.

   Phillips pays homage to musicals when Arthur watches a scene from 1953's The Band Wagon featuring the song, That's Entertainment; a number that's later performed by Gaga to highlight a theme found in both movies: the exploitative tendency to bestow celebrity status on notorious criminals.

   Lee and Arthur meet in Arkham, where she's serving time for arson. Lee belongs to a musical club that's supposed to help broken inmates heal. A prison guard (Brendan Gleeson) arranges for Arthur to join the group. Not only is Lee a fan of the Joker, but she's a kindred spirit, a lover of chaos.

    The match may not be as fortuitous as it seems. Arthur thinks he's finally met a woman who can pierce the thick walls of his loneliness, the prison he lives in whether he's behind bars or not. The poor sap wants love; Lee craves thrills.

    Phoenix adds sorrowful undertones to Arthur's edgy unpredictability. Gaga, who delivers lovely vocals, turns Lee into a thrill-seeker looking for a playmate. 

    Phoenix sings in a reedy yet effective style that's applied to songs such as When You're Smiling, an anthem for the Joker whose face is plastered with a lipstick smeared rictus. At one point, he fantasizes about appearing on TV with Lee, giving Phoenix and Gaga an opportunity to perform a duet.

    A movie that opens with a mock Looney Tunes cartoon has no interest in settling for formula. Whatever you think of Folie a Deux, it's impossible to accuse Phillips of taking the easy way out.

     He also tries to give the movie some moral weight. Leigh Gill delivers a brief but affecting performance as Gary Puddles, a witness in Arthur's trial. Puddles testifies about the harrowing consequences faced by those who come into Arthur's orbit.

    Familiar themes -- turning violence into entertainment and the twisted narcissism that craves celebrity -- remain, but Phillips, who wrote the screenplay with Joker co-author Scott Silver, doesn't generate enough story to keep the movie from losing steam.

    Folie a Deux begins to peter out about three-quarters of the way through its two-hour and 18-minute running time. Courtroom scenes undercut the dread that festers during Arthur's imprisonment, and the film's ending ... well ... let's just say, the movie ends.

    Reservations aside, I want to conclude with an addendum. This edition of Joker may not entirely work, but it's daring, ambitious, and ungainly in crazy  ways. Phillips' bold choices don't all pay off, but they beat the fan-serving rehash that might have been.

     

Diving into one woman's alcoholism

 

    Saoirse Ronan's deeply realized portrayal of a 29-year-old alcoholic struggling to conquer her addiction might be reason enough to see The Outrun, a movie based on a 2017 memoir by Amy Liptrot. 

   In the hands of German director Nora Fingscheidt, the movie can feel bleary-eyed, almost inebriated. Shifting back and forth in time, The Outrun brims with rue and regret, unfolding in piecemeal fashion on the Orkney archipelago off Scotland's northern shore. 

   Forget notions of island idyls; the island we see become studies in desolation. Waves crash against forbidding cliffs, powerful reminders of the devastations that follow alcohol-fueled trajectories . Dizzying heights smash their way toward self-destructive lows.

   Ronan's Rona gives the movie its twisted spine; Rona equates alcohol with happiness. Her drunkenness mixes barroom bonhomie with embarrassing, fall-down stumbles.  Her good times usually turn sour.

   The story provides telling glimpses of Rona's island upbringing with a bipolar father (Stephen Dillane) and a devoutly religious mother (Saskia Reeves). The movie doesn't blame Rona's upbringing for her alcoholism; her mother may be a staunch believer, but she's also kind and caring.

   During Rona's childhood, her father's mental illness added to the domestic turmoil; in yoyo fashion, he dropped in and out of institutions.

   Paapa Essiedu portrays Rona's boyfriend, a young man she pushes away when she becomes abusive. He's forgiving -- until he reaches his breaking point.

   Living a bare-bones existence, Rona is tasked with monitoring the movements of the corncrake, a threatened species of bird. Flingsheidt seems interested in watching Rona try to synch her internal life with the surrounding natural world.

    Not everything about The Outrun leaves a mark. At times, the movie climbs the 12-step ladder. We may have seen too many confessional scenes to find much that feels fresh about Rona's participation in meetings.

   The movie's time shifts require constant  adjustment, and The Outrun can't quite reach the poetic heights Fingscheidt strives for, particularly with references to Selkies, mythological creatures that can morph from seals into humans. 

   Still, Ronan’s brave, uncompromising performance carries the movie through the raging journey of a damaged soul seeking repair. 

Bob's Cinema Diary: Oct. 1, 2024 -- 'The Wild Robot' and 'Wolfs'

Here are two quick, catch-up reviews of two movies that I couldn't review on their opening days. Blame scheduling conflicts and movie overload. The Wild Robot, which has won favor with both critics and audiences, has the potential to become an animated classic. Wolfs, on the other hand, a disposable feel of familiarity, a comic thriller in which Brad Pitt and George Clooney break little new ground.

 

The Wild Robot. Can a robot develop emotions? Can that same robot bond with an orphaned gosling and become its surrogate mother? Can the robot, an automaton that lives apart from other robots on a wooded island, be accepted by the island's natural denizens?  Based on 2020 bestseller by Peter Brown, The Wild Robot provides a stylish and often poignant response to these questions. Rozzum Unit 7134, voiced by Lupita  Nyong'o, becomes the movie's centerpiece as the robot develops relationships with Fink, a sly fox voiced by Pedro Pascal. Kit Connor does the voice work for Brightbill, the gosling. Director Chris Sanders (Lilo & Stich, How to Train Your Dragon) offers a mixture of cartoonish action, layered meaning, and appealing characters as both Roz and Brightbill struggle with issues of belonging and connection. Eventually, Roz's maker sends a more strident robot (Stephanie Hsu) to retrieve the wayward bot and wipe its memory. Skillfully animated by Brown's team, The Wild Robot stands as family entertainment that avoids the worst pitfalls of such fare, notably unearned sentiment. Although it leans heavily toward children, adults may appreciate the way the movie balances the predatory instincts of animals with their need to achieve common goals.

Wolfs

Brad Pitt and George Clooney team for a comic thriller about two men with unusual jobs. For handsome fees, they dispose of bodies that otherwise might lead to murder indictments. As loners who've never met before, Pitt and Clooney's bickering fixers are pushed into an uneasy alliance; they must get rid of the body of a young man (Austin Abrams) who had been taken to a high-end New York hotel by a politician (Amy Ryan) looking for a fling. Nothing like a body on the floor to ruin a reputation. Pitt and Clooney deliver the expected banter, but the story, which unfolds during the course of a single night, doesn't feel nearly as offbeat as might have been intended. Undeniable star power boosts director Jon Watts's (Spider-Man: Homecoming) effort, but Pitt and Clooney can't make this stale vehicle shine. 

To see or not to see? A critic's dilemma and two reviews: 'Ibelin' and "Lee'

 In the market where I work, two advance screenings sometimes happen simultaneously. This week's viewing dilemma arose when screenings The Wild Robot and Megalopolis were scheduled for the same evening. I chose Megalopolis because a Francis Ford Coppola opus seems a must for anyone who has been reviewing movies for nearly 40 years. Coppola invested $120 million of his own money in the movie and had been talking about it for decades. Never shy about out-sized ambition, Coppola's movie (reviewed on this blog) took precedence for me. Don't take that as any reflection on Wild Robot. As of this writing, Wild Robot boasted a 98 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I'll have to catch up with it.

  Now for the rest of the week: 

 

Ibelin, a documentary from director Benjamin Ree, surprised me. Generally, when cultural critics discuss gaming, they emphasize the way gaming can isolate young people and discourage personal communication. Ree presents an alternative view, telling the story of Mats Steen, a young Norwegian man who died of Duchenne muscular dystrophy at the age of 25.  Lonely in reality and increasingly debilitated, Steen sought refuge in the World of Warcraft, where he assumed the identity of Lord Ibelin Redmore. Steen's body may have betrayed him, but online, he became a muscular character with a well-developed sense of compassion. Ree ably depicts the gap between role-playing and reality. Better, though, he shows how the gulf can be bridged, how two worlds ("the virtual" and "the real," for want of better terms) can nourish each other. Using animation to depict Steen's Warcraft journey, bits from Steen's blog, and interviews, Ree creates a moving story about a young man who couldn't beat the odds, but who did something meaningful with the hand he was dealt: He affected the lives of others.

   

Then there's Lee, a movie about the great World War II photographer Lee Miller, played by Kate Winslet. Directed by Ellen Kuras, Lee tells the story of a woman who began her career as a model and fashion photographer for Vogue before convincing the editor of the magazine's British edition to turn her into a war correspondent. You'd think that by now, filmmakers would have tired of structuring films around interviews. Lee doesn't help itself by tying a chronologically presented story to an interview in which Lee answers questions from a character played by Josh O'Connor. The movie begins with Lee's pre-war days in France, where she spent time as part of an avant-garde circle that included the editor of Vogue Paris (Marion Cotillard). In France, she also met English painter Roland Penrose (Alexander Skarsgard) with whom she developed a long-term relationship. The heart of the movie involves Lee's struggle to gain access to the fighting and later, to German death camps, where she took a career-defining series of photographs. It wasn't easy for a woman to break into the war correspondent ranks. When the Brits refused to give Lee combat credentials, she used her American citizenship to access the fighting. On the French and German fronts, Lee traveled with another American photographer Andy Stamberg's David E. Scherman, who worked for Life magazine. Difficult either to pan or praise,  Lee sheds light on an important career, but a cumbersome structure weighs it down. Winslet goes all in on playing a tough, sexually uninhibited woman who refuses to be deterred, but the movie underlines its themes and feels stuck in a biopic ghetto where its story too often feels locked in the past.

Coppola's long-awaited opus arrives

 

  

An Elvis impersonator. A chariot race. A man who sometimes wears bright red lipstick and dresses. Hamlet's "To Be or Not to Be" soliloquy. Quotes from Marcus Aurelius and Petrarch. The Statue of Liberty, and The Chrysler Building. 

  OK, take a breath.

  I've only mentioned a few of the sights and sounds found in Francis Ford Coppola's extravagant WFT opus, Megalopolis, a movie that makes its themes clear but remains jumbled in other ways.

   I begin this way because Coppola has made an amusing, risible, sometimes exhilarating mess of a movie that either can be accepted as a bold display of cinematic ambition or as a $120 million misfire. 

   Which choice you make or whether you find yourself somewhere in the middle, mostly depends on how you regard Coppola's career and Coppola himself. You never forget there's someone with a vision behind the camera.

   The director of two great American movies (The Godfather and The Godfather Part II) always gets the benefit of my doubt -- up to a point. 

   I reached that point many times during Megalopolis as I wondered what had compelled Coppola, who's now 85, to spend 40 years hoping to make this movie, ultimately financing it with his own money.

   I wish I could say that the answer becomes obvious upon seeing the movie; I'm not sure it does. 

   So what's Megalopolis about? Here's a laundry list of themes: time, creativity, power, hubris, Roman history, urban planning, the role of artists in society,  the fate of the United States, and possibly all of humanity. I'm sure I've omitted something important, but I'll note that in an interview shown before a preview screening, Coppola said that the United States is Rome.

     You can pick that apart while I try to condense a tangled plot. Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver) serves as the movie's main character, an ambitious architect with megalomaniacal tendencies and a belief that his high level of intelligence entitles him to disparage others.

     In a commanding prologue, Catilina tentatively steps onto the rooftop of the Chrysler Building. A vertiginous sequence follows and we learn that Catalina has the power to stop time, a sci-fi element explained by Catalina's invention of the substance Megalon.

    No need to memorize, it won't be on the quiz.

    Cesar's ability to freeze time reflects his power as an architect and artist. Artists can stop time -- or at least to freeze it with images, stories, etc.

    Presented in the broadest of strokes, the story centers on the conflict between Catilina and Frank Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), the mayor of New Rome, an imaginary city that resembles New York.  Deeply skeptical about those who want to create utopias, Cicero speaks the language of pragmatic politics.

     Megalopolis, by the way, is the utopia Cesar wants to build within the borders of New Rome, a "futuristic" city  in which the police cars look like they came directly from 2024, print editions of tabloid newspapers can be seen, and cigarette smoking hasn't vanished.

      Among New Rome's residents, we also meet Cicero's daughter Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel). Early on, Julia seems more interested in partying than artistic vision, but she's drawn to Cesar, and they eventually fall in love. 

     Dad objects. So does Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza), a character who enters the movie as a well-known TV reporter and Cesar's mistress.

     A striver of the first order, Wow eventually marries Crassus (Jon Voight), perhaps the richest man in New Rome. Shia LaBeouf plays Clodio, Crassus' treacherous grandson. Late in the movie, he seals a conspiratorial pact with Wow by having sex with her. He calls her Auntie Wow, suggesting a bit of incestuous creepiness.

     A large cast weaves its way through a visual showcase that mixes dreams, special effects, and diaphanous dissolves in which one image peeks through another. If there were such a thing as visual indigestion, Megalopolis could give it to you.

     I can't single out any of the performances but will note that Driver works his way through an arc that includes Cesar's arrogance, moral collapse, and rebirth as, let's say, a true artist or, in the movie's terms, a man who finally can love.

     Plaza seems totally committed to her role, as does LaBeouf, who delivers a major helping of craziness.

     Laurence Fishburne portrays Cesar's driver, a loyalist who also provides occasional narration.

     It's difficult to discuss acting when the characters function as archetypes that represent the story's conflicting values. Crassus stands for capitalist greed, for example.

     Coppola's screenplay, by the way, draws on a real bit of history, the Catilinarian conspiracy of 63 BC. You can look it up. But characters' names are linked to Roman history, and Coppola presumably sees parallels between the Roman Republic on the cusp decline and ... well ... I don't need to spell it out for you.

     Coppola does that with dialogue -- often presented in form of bromides, aphorisms, and quotations from philosophers. Many lines have on-the-nose clarity, and the film's ending borders on agitprop as Coppola invites the audience to engage in a conversation about what kind of future it wants, topping it off with a greeting card flourish: We owe it to the children.

     Megalopolis can be as baffling as it is engaging; it may serve as a kind of exclamation point to Coppola's long-standing commitment to cinematic daring, as well as an expression of hope for a chaotic world.

      Whatever it is, it left my head spinning.