COMING ATTRACTIONS, SEPT 30, MEGALOPOLIS (.)
Please fasten your seat belts.
MON SEPT 30, MEGALOPOLIS @ 3:45 & 6:30
TUE OCT 1, MEGALOPOLIS @ 3:45 & 6:30 (OCAP)
WED OCT 2, MEGALOPOLIS @ 3:45 & 6:30
THU OCT 3, MEGALOPOLIS @ 3:45 & 6:30
FRI OCT 4, ????????? TBD
Risking ridicule and retribution, that is as far as we will go this week, because it is as far as we need to go. Why? Because if ever there was a title deserving of analysis and commentary, this is it. We need to have a discussion on what I consider to be the most phenomenal cinematic achievement of the last century. So please open up that package of Red Vines and let’s get started.
Francis Ford Coppola, I do not need to tell you, has earned his inclusion on the short-list of GOAT directors. You can argue about the others, several of whom we will mention shortly but FFC is always among them regardless of the list’s author. Born in Detroit at the Ford Hospital in 1939 to Carmine and Italia Coppola, whose father was born in Bernalda, Italy, in the ‘Boot”, roughly between Amalfi and Aprila, Francis has a brother, August and a sister Rose. You might know August as Nicholas Cage’s father and Rose as Talia Shire. Francis and wife Elanor, have three kids, Sophie, Gian Carlo and Roman. Gian Carlo died in a tragic accident at 22 while Sophia and Roman have followed in the giant footsteps of their celebrated Padre. Talia Shire, ADRIAN in Rocky and of course, Connie Corleone, is Mother of Jason Schwartzman, he of Wes Anderson fame. Quite the Family Tree and I’m sure the cast for substantial merriment at family reunions. But before I run out of the allotted word count, let’s dig into M. With (another) word of warning. CAUTION.
Stunningly majestic with an overload of sensual imagery, much like a Greek tragedy or a mash up of classical Italian, German and Lynchian epic art films, MEGALOPOLIS reminds me of licorice. As once noted by Jerry Garcia about Deadheads, ‘not everyone likes licorice, but those who do REALLY LIKE IT.’ It’s a wild E-Ticket ride into the expanse of our collective subconscious that rattles like a golden saber, glinting light, dripping with pathos and screaming for Fellini, Pasolini and De Sica. It is a cautionary tale, a dark comedy, cerebral absurdism, abstract noir and high art, with Adam Driver at the wheel of a bus to Never Never Land. Misbehaving in the back of the bus Giancarlo Esposito, Natalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza, Shia Lebouf, Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman deftly move the Schwartzman-Fishborne tag-team into check as Bladerunner plays at 2001 levels of operatic neo-realism. At the signpost up ahead, Driver, now morphed as Cassidy and Caesar, eyes ablaze with the dream logic vision of Utopian bliss, raps on Herzog, Visconti, Rossini, Robbins and Electric Sheep. Somewhere near the Neo Roman decadence of high-concept atmospheric avant-garde, time stops. Nothing moves. Is this the end - or a new beginning? Will this overly politicized, commercial, poetic and sublime amalgamation of Aronofsky, Van Zant and Gaga define the day? What does it all mean? Does that matter? I didn’t ask who gave the order. This is the life we have created. Music, art, color, harmony, bread and wine. How deep is my love? Under what conditions will I quit? The artist’s only need is for the freedom to create. Otherwise humanity stagnates in the banality of the status-quo. Chances must be taken, risks accepted. This is the Hero’s Quest. The Hero as Artist. The artist as auteur. The story. The Greatest Story Ever Told - and the ONE thing we need is a left-hand monkey wrench. A National discourse on one Nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Roll the fucking credits and let’s talk about this.
Over a ceramic bowl of black licorice.
Kevin
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