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.

       

A teenager meets her older self

 

     If you could go meet an older version of yourself, what would you want to ask? If the question intrigues you, you may find amusement in My Old Ass, a fantasy movie in which an 18-year-old (Maisy Stella) meets herself when she's on the brink of turning 40.

     Aubrey Plaza plays the older version of Stella's Elliott. The older Elliott appears when the younger Elliott drinks hallucinatory tea made from mushrooms. 

    Stella and Plaza don't look alike, but director Megan Park dodges the issue, focusing more on emotional dynamics than appearance. 

     For me, the main attraction here is Plaza, who has evolved into an interesting actress. But Plaza's presence in the story is limited by a plot that focuses mostly on young Elliott.

       Teenage Elliott identifies as gay, but develops an increasingly affectionate relationship with Chad (Percy Hynes White), a young man who's spending the summer on a nearby farm. The relationship occurs after the older Elliott warns her younger self not to fall for anyone named Chad. 

     As Maisy discovers the world of gender fluidity, she wonders what her attraction to Chad means; the movie suggests that people don't always know who they are or who they might become.

    Stella portrays Maisy as a young woman trying to find her footing as she prepares to leave her Canadian home, a cranberry farm where she lives with her mother (Maria Dizzia), father (Alain Goulem), and two brothers (Seth Isaac Johnson and (Carter Trozzolo). 

   The film includes a big reveal, and Park easily shifts to sentiment without allowing the film to become cloying. Ultimately, My Old Ass overcomes Elliott's more annoying tendencies and delivers a message about gathering rosebuds before reality creates its inevitable ambush. 

   Deep? Not really, but the message nicely fits a  slender piece of work.

   A footnote: For many, the idea of viewing a 39-year-old ass as "old" might seem a stretch mark too far. 

All dressed up with nowhere new to go

 

   In Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre, Jason Statham joins director Guy Ritchie for a spy/caper movie that feels as if a lot of ingredients were thrown into a blender in the hope that a movie would emerge. It didn’t. Not really.

  Adopting the seriousness of a man who might have just lost his best friend, Stratham plays Orson Fortune, a mercenary who operates outside official channels. You know the drill. Orson fights the good fight but remains his own man. 

  Ritchie has been creating visual razzle-dazzle ever since his breakthrough with Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, some 24 years ago. This time, he offers a less frenzied movie. We’re talking comparatively, of course.

   The story kicks off when (Cary Elwes), as a suave fellow who recruits espionage crews, enlists Orson to locate a weapon that has found its way onto the market.

   British intelligence -- represented by a character played by Eddie Marsan -- doesn't know what the object is. That's the job: Find out what's for sale and make sure it doesn't fall into the wrong hands. 

   Joining Fortune are Aubrey Plaza (as a sexy tech whiz) and Bugzy Malone (as a sharpshooter).  Both are underutilized.

    It doesn't take long for Fortune to encounter Greg Simmonds (Hugh Grant), a sleazy arms dealer with tons of money. Sounding as if he's channeling Michael Caine's accent, Grant seems to be having more fun than anyone else in the movie. 

   Josh Hartnett joins in as Danny, a movie star who's supposed to help infiltrate the operation run by the star-struck Simmonds. That could happen, right?

    If you see Operation Fortune, it's probably best to give up on coherence and enjoy Grant's happy scenery chewing in a movie that sometimes plays like an off-the-rack helping of Bond. 

     Ritchie's too skilled totally to hit bottom, even with a movie that slides over what feels like old ground. Ritchie makes good use of luxe locations and (thank goodness) doesn't seem to be taking himself seriously.

     Most of the characters, by the way, are very well dressed.

     Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not recommending Operation Fortune; I’m talking about how to approach the movie if you happen to give it a try — now or in its non-theatrical afterlife.

Genres collide in ‘Spin Me Round’

 

As the manager of an Italian restaurant that's part of a ubiquitous chain, Alison Brie's Amber thinks she's had a stroke of luck. Dutiful and loyal, Amber learns that she's been selected to attend a corporate retreat in Tuscany. Amber is supposed to stay at a villa owned by the head of the Tuscan Grove chain (Alessandro Nivola) that employs her. As it turns out, Amber and a variety of other managers are housed in a bare-bones hotel near the boss's extravagant villa. Their supposed immersion in Italian culture proves superficial and it soon becomes clear that Spin Me Round wants to shade its comedy with thriller elements. Hidden "romantic" agendas arise, particularly after Nivola's Nick invites Amber to join him on his beautiful yacht. Among the cast. Molly Shannon stands out as a woman with anger-management problems. Aubrey Plaza, always intriguing, plays Nick's no-nonsense assistant, a woman with a libidinous plan of her own. Zach Woods portrays Dana, a guy who buys into the chain's propaganda, at least for a while. Director Jeff Baena, who wrote the screenplay with Brie, tries to blend rom-com and thriller flavors, but the story's mystery seems clear to everyone except the folks in the movie. After generating a few laughs and threatening to ride a pleasant Tuscan vibe, Spin Me Around sounds vaguely ominous notes that don't swell into anything rich or exciting. And, oh yeah, the comedy doesn't always spark, either.

Aubrey Plaza excels as a budding criminal

       

 It's time that we saw women as capable of playing characters facing stark moral challenges as they're pushed into illegal activity by financial strain, an unforgiving employment market, and no small amount of personal rage. Aubrey Plaza hits the target with just such a character in Emily the Criminal, a drama about an aspiring artist whose felony record locks her out of the job market. To keep herself afloat, Emily delivers food for a caterer, a gig-economy job that barely helps reduce her lingering student debt load. Director John Patton Ford, who also wrote the screenplay, engineers a crime story that makes Emily part of a credit-card fraud scheme. She works for Youcef (a fine Theo Rossi), a guy who plans to use his ill-gotten gains to buy his way into the legit  economy. Plaza gives Emily the kind of furious strength that keeps her from being pushed around. Ford captures Los Angeles's low-rent side while carefully detailing Emily's criminal activity. Plaza's performance burns through some late-picture improbabilities, not to mention the fact that she gives Emily -- an East Coast transplant to Los Angeles --a great Jersey accent. Always an achievement. (Yes, I grew up in New Jersey).

A ribald sex farce set in a nunnery

Inspired by Boccaccio's The Decameron, The Little Hours is an unapologetic sex farce built around a 14th Century nunnery where the sisters are anything but pious. In the hands of director Jeff Baena, Little Hours attempts to banish the shame that often surrounds repressed desire, particularly in a convent to which many of the women have been sent because their families don't know what else to do with them. Three nuns (Alison Brie, Aubrey Plaza and Kate Micucci) connive under the supervision of a mother superior (Molly Shannon), who's no saint, either. The plot kicks into a higher gear when the resident priest (John C. Reilly) introduces a hunky runaway (Dave Franco) into the mix. Franco's Massetto has taken flight because a nobleman (Nick Offerman) caught him dallying with the lady of the household (Lauren Weedman). Reilly's father Tommasso deceives the nuns, telling them that Massetto is deaf and mute, a complication that adds to the movie's cleverly calculated misunderstandings. Fred Armisen plays a bishop who shows up late in the proceedings to condemn everyone's behavior. Baena makes his intentions clear from the outset with ample use of the "F" word as he pushes (perhaps too hard) toward irreverence. Avoiding period language, the movie genially embraces the all-too-human pursuit of pleasure. Put another way, Little Hours seems to be saying that, despite admonitions to the contrary, bawdy isn't necessarily bad. Amusing when it's working, which (alas) isn't all of the time.

She wants to lose her virginity

The To Do List reflects a young woman's point of view, but winds up as one more overly crude teen comedy.

Director Maggie Carey's comedy, The To Do List, offers little by way of big revelations as it joins an already long line of sexually obsessed teen comedies.

The movie features an abundance of gross-out humor, including a bit that one supposes was meant to qualify as a hilarious highpoint.

In it, the movie's main character -- played by Aubrey Plaza -- takes a bite out of a turd she finds floating in a swimming pool. Plaza's Brandy thinks she's eating a candy bar placed in the pool as a prank.

It's all part of the hazing that Plaza's Brandy receives as the newest employee at the town pool, where she's landed a job for the summer. It's 1993, and Brandy just has graduated as valedictorian of her Boise high school. We know she's brainy because she gives a graduation speech which her fellow grads greet with vocal derision.

The movie's main ploy revolves around the fact that Brandy remains a virgin. To remedy the situation before the start of her freshman year at college, Brandy composes a check list of sexual experiences that she must complete en route to her deflowering.

Brandy approaches her task with the same kind of single-minded drive one might expect from a gifted student who's intent on learning how to pad a resume.

Although she's forced into a bit of a one-note role, Plaza is good at playing a carnally challenged teen-ager who's making a first visit to Planet Sex.

Brandy's summer project -- more an expression of ambition than desire -- is supposed to culminate in intercourse with a blonde hunk of a college student(Scott Porter), who also works as a lifeguard at the town pool. A loosey-goosey, semi-adult (Bill Hader) presides over the pool, one more big-screen grown-up mired in a swamp of perpetual immaturity.

Carey over-estimates the comic mileage she'll obtain by putting Plaza -- best known for her work on TV's Parks and Recreation -- at the center of a comedy that basically offers variations on formula tropes, but which -- at least for my money -- doesn't turn things upside down. Carey may have missed a great opportunity for some much-needed genre subversion.

The movie's supporting cast adds to the feeling of familiarity. Brandy has two down-to-earth pals (Alia Shawkat and Sarah Steele) who seem to have outpaced her when it comes to worldly knowledge. Brandy's snooty but sexually advanced sister (Rachel Bilson) has pinned her hopes on marriage. Brandy also has a clueless father (Clark Gregg), a standard feature in this sort of comedy.

Brandy's socially progressively mother (Connie Britton) isn't much help, either. Late in the movie, Mom provides Brandy with a tube of lubricant to make her first sexual experience less of an ordeal, a kind of family rite-of-passage.

Johnny Simmons plays Cameron, a friend who really likes Brandy and who becomes a major guinea pig in her on-going sexual experiment.

I found The To Do List alternately gross, charmless and only mildly funny, a movie committed almost entirely to the notion that when it comes to sex, young women can be just as crude and insensitive as young men.

The fact that the movie was directed by a woman and features a woman as its main character may be viewed as something of a breakthrough, but derivative teen comedies remain derivative teen comedies, regardless of which gender provides the movie's dominant perspective.

Love, time travel and a shabby motel

If American independent movies get any smaller, they may disappear entirely. I thought about this cinematic vanishing act, a mini-epidemic among the indie crowd, while watching Safety Not Guaranteed, a deadpan charmer that serves up an offbeat romance in a style so unadorned it appears to be no style at all.

The movie's central conceit involves time travel. Mark Duplass, a mumble core veteran who also served as one of the movie's producers, plays a Washington state recluse who claims to have invented a time machine.

Sci-fi mavens need not apply: Safety Not Guaranteed isn't really about traveling through time; it's about lives that seem to be marking time.

Duplass's Kenneth comes to the fore when a writer for a Seattle city magazine (Jake Johnson) notices a classified ad in which Kenneth seeks a partner for his time-travel adventures. Johnson's Jeff rounds up two interns (Aubrey Plaza and Karan Soni) and sets out to find the would-be time traveler.

Safety Not Guaranteed is another film about characters who appear to be damaged goods, and -- as befits the movie's taste for dreary locales -- our traveling trio checks into a shabby motel in rural Washington, cramming into one room in order to save per diem money for other pursuits.

Adrift in grief over her mother's death, Plaza's Darius also seems to be grappling with a non-existent love life and an ingrown tendency toward cynicism. Darius gradually begins to take over the story. She makes contact with Kenneth, pursues the time-travel story and begins to fall for her subject.

For his part, Soni's Arnau buries his head in his computer, and Johnson's Jeff pursues an old flame (Jenica Bergere).

The story creates a bit of uncertainty about whether Kenneth is crazy or whether he may actually have stumbled onto something momentous. He tells Darius he wants to return to 2001 to prevent the death of a former girlfriend. And, no, Sept. 11th isn't on the movie's agenda.

Director Colin Trevorrow tends toward comedy with a dour flavor, but Safety Not Guaranteed isn't always as funny as it probably wants to be. Within its narrow parameters, tough, the movie hits more than a few winning notes.

It's not physical safety that's at risk here, but emotional safety -- and although the world offers little protection in that area, Safety Not Guaranteed reminds us that people still sometimes take big leaps toward one another, and that such leaps always are a bit of a gamble.