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Speaker 2: Oh g is, folks, it's showtime. People say, good money
Speaker 2: to see this movie.
Speaker 3: When they go out to a theater, they want clothed sodas,
Speaker 3: pop popcorn in.
Speaker 2: No monsters in the Projection Booth. Everyone pretend podcasting isn't boring.
Speaker 4: Got it off? Don't let them now destroy this forever.
Speaker 3: One filmmaker has always been ahead of his time.
Speaker 5: Go now.
Speaker 3: From visionary writer and director Francis Ford Coppola comes an
Speaker 3: event nothing can prepare you for.
Speaker 6: Imagine today's society has a branch of civilization about to
Speaker 6: reach it. Dead end.
Speaker 7: Is this way we're living.
Speaker 6: The only one that's available to us. My plan is
Speaker 6: I say that people can dream about made uppers.
Speaker 8: What about those standing in your way?
Speaker 2: You like it the way it is? People don't need dreams.
Speaker 2: People need help now. Don't let them now destroy the forever.
Speaker 9: We're in need of a great to take about the usure.
Speaker 2: Enjoy the show one, two three, hippie.
Speaker 6: There's still so much to accomplish, but it's ther time, my.
Speaker 10: Sco Francis Ford Coppola's.
Speaker 7: Meg, Welcome to the Projection booth.
Speaker 1: I'm your host. Mike White joined me once again as
Speaker 1: mister Rob Saint Mary.
Speaker 7: Don't let the now destroy the forever.
Speaker 1: Also back in the booth is mister Mike Thompson.
Speaker 2: Time stop. It didn't work, Oh well, next time.
Speaker 1: In September of twenty twenty three, the New York Times
Speaker 1: positive that men think about the Roman Empire at least
Speaker 1: once a week, if not once a day. I don't,
Speaker 1: but since September of twenty twenty four, I have thought
Speaker 1: about Francis Ford Coppolis Megalopolis at least once a week,
Speaker 1: if not once a day. But can you blame me?
Speaker 1: Megalopolis is Francis Ford Copalis self financed passion project that
Speaker 1: was one over forty years in the making. It's the
Speaker 1: story of Caesar Catalina, a man named after not one,
Speaker 1: but two kinds of salad dressings. He's a troubled genius
Speaker 1: who no one appreciates. Write what you know, Francis. He's
Speaker 1: the creator of a substance called Megalon, which is named
Speaker 1: after the creature that battled and lost against Godzilla. What
Speaker 1: does Megalon do? Is it a building material? Is it
Speaker 1: a medical miracle? Is it a floor wax? Is it
Speaker 1: a dessert topping?
Speaker 11: Shut up? It does what I say it? Stop asking questions?
Speaker 11: If anything, I think we need to really talk about
Speaker 11: what the heck this movie is about and see if
Speaker 11: we can make some sense of it. I can warn you,
Speaker 11: dear listener, that there are no spoilers for this movie.
Speaker 11: It cannot be spoiled. It can only be pondered. So, Rob,
Speaker 11: when was the first time you saw Megalopolis and what
Speaker 11: did you think?
Speaker 10: Well, as soon as I heard that it would be
Speaker 10: in the theater, I got there as quick as I
Speaker 10: could because I knew it would not last long, and
Speaker 10: so I think it only played locally here where I'm
Speaker 10: at for about a week. My initial reaction is, I
Speaker 10: hope Francis had fun. I hope he had a lot
Speaker 10: of fun, because that's a lot of money. I hope
Speaker 10: it does exactly what he wanted it to do, because
Speaker 10: at times I don't know exactly what he wanted to do.
Speaker 10: You know, it's fifty pounds of ideas and a five
Speaker 10: pounds so sit casing, so it's there's a lot spilling
Speaker 10: out all over the place. I'm glad I'm here with
Speaker 10: y'all because it's gonna be fun to talk about it.
Speaker 1: And mister Toompson, I know where you were because we
Speaker 1: saw this movie together. You want to give your initial impressions.
Speaker 2: I just remember when it was over, the first thing
Speaker 2: I said was wow, and you just said yeah.
Speaker 5: Oh.
Speaker 1: I didn't say platinum.
Speaker 2: I was reacting to the song they were playing at
Speaker 2: the end, because I was very excited that they that
Speaker 2: the was there. I don't get to hear them at
Speaker 2: the movies very often. But then your reaction immediately to me,
Speaker 2: oh wait, wait, let's think about the movie for a
Speaker 2: second instead of this song, which is now washing away
Speaker 2: this experience, at least for the moment. I've seen many
Speaker 2: many movies where things don't feel connected. This one, though,
Speaker 2: really like seemed to strive for that. It was almost
Speaker 2: like trying to be stream of consciousness in some respects,
Speaker 2: but also not clearly not wanting to do that. It's
Speaker 2: it's just even watching it again, it just feels very
Speaker 2: much like just like Rob was saying, there are a
Speaker 2: zillion ideas in here, Hardly any of them are fully explored.
Speaker 2: Hardly any of them are even fully addressed. They just
Speaker 2: he throws something in and it's like, Okay, I've got
Speaker 2: to get back to the story, you know. But but
Speaker 2: yeah that I just remember walking out and standing in
Speaker 2: that hallway like we usually do after the movie. Just
Speaker 2: it's sort of in shock, I think, and yet not surprised.
Speaker 1: No, not surprised at all. I mean, we saw the trailers,
Speaker 1: we saw that teaser that was out there of Adam
Speaker 1: and Drivers standing on the edge of the Chrysler building
Speaker 1: feeling very much like Men and Black three but not
Speaker 1: nearly as good, and saying time stop and apparently he
Speaker 1: can also stop gravity because he's pretty much falling off
Speaker 1: of it, and also thinking, wow, it's a tribute to
Speaker 1: the Hudsucker Proxy. I can't wait. This will be great
Speaker 1: if somebody shows up as an angel as he's falling down,
Speaker 1: or to go back to the and in Black three
Speaker 1: of it, he suddenly transports and starts to battle against
Speaker 1: Jermaine Clement. One of those options would have been so
Speaker 1: much better than what we got with this, which is Essentially,
Speaker 1: it's a film made for blind people because every time
Speaker 1: there's text on screen, Larry Fishburne or a bunch of
Speaker 1: children will read it to us. So thank you for that.
Speaker 1: This is one of the most sensory friendly movies that
Speaker 1: you can possibly imagine, because you don't have to think
Speaker 1: while you're watching it. Larry fishburn will tell you what's
Speaker 1: going on, or the characters will tell you everything that's
Speaker 1: on their mind, no matter what it is.
Speaker 10: On my most recent watch for this show, my note
Speaker 10: here is feels like a pot smoking college kid who
Speaker 10: had some philosophy and history courses and Shakespeare and decided
Speaker 10: to write a movie to fit in all of his ideas.
Speaker 2: I feel like that that's accurate and yet also generous.
Speaker 2: At the same time.
Speaker 1: There's a YouTuber that I watched, Steve Schives, and his
Speaker 1: opening to his little review question mark was this feels
Speaker 1: like an Iron Rand novel directed by Edwood, and I
Speaker 1: felt that that was kind of unfair to Edwood.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I mean I would have enjoyed it if it
Speaker 10: had Edwards, not special effects, but symbolic effects. There's another
Speaker 10: movie we'll talk about later that came out the same year,
Speaker 10: and I'm like, I can't believe that they only spent
Speaker 10: ten percent, like the catering budget probably of this movie
Speaker 10: to make a film that dealt with an architect in
Speaker 10: a really interesting way.
Speaker 2: Not to jump into the documentary already, but yeah, when
Speaker 2: watching that and just those little things they would show
Speaker 2: of like this is how much they're spending on this,
Speaker 2: and this is how much they're spending on that, and like, oh,
Speaker 2: he's gonna buy this hotel and convert it into it. Like,
Speaker 2: just like the movie itself, these are all bad decisions,
Speaker 2: Like you're just you're just pouring money away. Yes, you're
Speaker 2: spending all this time to create this atmosphere, and you're
Speaker 2: spending all this time in the movie to do the
Speaker 2: same thing, but it doesn't amount to anything. It doesn't
Speaker 2: come together in any way. One of the things I
Speaker 2: was thinking about when I was rereading the two hundred
Speaker 2: and twelve page script was and I mentioned this to
Speaker 2: you earlier, Mike, was that the script is actually, I
Speaker 2: hate to say this even but it's like this isn't terrible,
Speaker 2: like or not as terrible as the movie. At least
Speaker 2: this is trying to flesh out these ideas. And then
Speaker 2: read after reading that and then watching the movie, it's
Speaker 2: like this movie feels like the cliff Notes version of
Speaker 2: the script, Like you had things completely like maybe too
Speaker 2: drawn out in the script, but it's you know, it's
Speaker 2: it's like, Okay, here's how Claudio takes control of the
Speaker 2: immigrant population. We're gonna spend a lot of time with
Speaker 2: that in the movie. You know, he's in charge. Now,
Speaker 2: that's just what's happening. And if you have any questions,
Speaker 2: like he said, Laurence Fishburne brought that you know, has
Speaker 2: has told you or Claudio did. So much of this
Speaker 2: felt to me like, in a strange way, I'm watching
Speaker 2: somebody who's like, I'm spending one hundred and twenty million
Speaker 2: dollars to not compromise my vision, while I completely compromise
Speaker 2: my vision. You know, like instead of making this full movie,
Speaker 2: I'll just make some of it.
Speaker 7: To start with the beginning.
Speaker 10: It's noted as a fable, and that to me feels
Speaker 10: like Coppola is letting himself off the hook that he's saying,
Speaker 10: you know, it doesn't all come together. It's a fable.
Speaker 10: It plays in its own heightened sense, so therefore it's okay.
Speaker 2: It's a fable. So my intentions will be on the
Speaker 2: screen and that will be good enough.
Speaker 1: I mean, we talked so long ago about the persistence
Speaker 1: of plot, but this doesn't even have the persistence of plot.
Speaker 1: You can't carry through from one scene to another what
Speaker 1: is supposed to be happening. It's like so many times
Speaker 1: we get shorthand when it comes to like well, it's
Speaker 1: like the coolest shof effect right where you get this image,
Speaker 1: you get this image, and you're to make a connection
Speaker 1: between the two. It feels like there's no connection between
Speaker 1: these scenes. And sometimes with these images where I'm just
Speaker 1: like what did that have to do with this? And
Speaker 1: I will say the second time watching this, I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: some of this makes a little bit more sense, but
Speaker 1: it still feels like it's being taken in shorthand. And
Speaker 1: there's just so many things where I'm like, well, wait,
Speaker 1: how does that play into this? And more than anything,
Speaker 1: it's like why should I care? We can talk about
Speaker 1: Max Landis's cinematic masterpiece Bright as much as we want to,
Speaker 1: and think about how can there be a world of
Speaker 1: Orcs where Shrek is still a movie kind of thing?
Speaker 1: This is like we're in New Rome, but everything's exactly
Speaker 1: the same, other than people wear different clothes and they
Speaker 1: have cell phones because Claudio's passing out one hundred dollars
Speaker 1: bills with a cell phone number on it, but nobody
Speaker 1: actually uses a cell phone. I think one time in
Speaker 1: this entire movie, it's just really it's strange. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to focus on the cell phone thing, but it's
Speaker 1: just like, Okay, so this is Rome, but it looks
Speaker 1: exactly the same as New York City. And yes, I
Speaker 1: mean you're talking about the symbolic effects of Edwood. It
Speaker 1: feels like there's so many times where it's just like, well,
Speaker 1: this is a metaphor. The whole thing of him stopping
Speaker 1: time has absolutely nothing to do with any fucking thing
Speaker 1: in this entire movie. It happens what two three times
Speaker 1: happens at the end of the movie, happens to the beginning.
Speaker 1: He loses his power at one point manages to get
Speaker 1: it back because of love. But stopping time has nothing
Speaker 1: to do with this film. And there's so many things
Speaker 1: where it's like that has nothing to do with the
Speaker 1: actual movie itself.
Speaker 10: The big theme that I get is the one Great
Speaker 10: Man narrative. So he has this whole thing with and
Speaker 10: we can get into the history of New York with
Speaker 10: the whole you know, Jane Jacobs Robert Moses, because he's
Speaker 10: kind of a Robert Moses character. He's he's doing this
Speaker 10: like urban renewal, Right, He's gonna tear down this slum
Speaker 10: and build this beautiful thing, and that's going to revitalize
Speaker 10: New York New Rome. And this was the battle that
Speaker 10: you know, Robert Moses did in the sixties where he
Speaker 10: did this to the city and Jane Jacobs was his
Speaker 10: you know nemesis, who was like, no, like you think
Speaker 10: of the people in the community and everything you're destroying.
Speaker 10: He has this push pull tension with the One Great
Speaker 10: Man narrative where it's like he won't embrace it enough,
Speaker 10: like like he wants to embrace it, but at the
Speaker 10: same time he's like it's anti democratic and you know,
Speaker 10: this isn't for the people, and so it seems like
Speaker 10: he wants to embrace it while saying, yes, give me
Speaker 10: the power. I'm the artist, I'm sensitive. I can lead
Speaker 10: you to the future. But those people who want to
Speaker 10: do the same thing over there and this, you know this,
Speaker 10: I'm the one Great Man banner. No, like like they're bad,
Speaker 10: like just follow me as the one great man narrative.
Speaker 10: So he has this push pull tension with that, and
Speaker 10: so it's just muddled. Like I say, it's this philosophical
Speaker 10: muddling that you know, if he could have found a
Speaker 10: way to do that, but then again, he couldn't focus
Speaker 10: on a character that basically is a stand in for him.
Speaker 1: Our main character is such a shithead throughout the entire
Speaker 1: thing that I don't empathize with Caesar Ketalina ever, and
Speaker 1: I don't think I empathize with anyone in this film.
Speaker 1: This whole thing that you're talking about, Robert Moses, is
Speaker 1: that kind of the thread of Motherless Brooklyn Because I
Speaker 1: finally watched that one recently, where it's this whole like
Speaker 1: it felt very Chinatown as far as we have these
Speaker 1: buildings that are going up, nobody knows who's approving these things,
Speaker 1: and it felt like there were all these machinations at
Speaker 1: city Hall kind of stuff.
Speaker 10: I can't say that I know all the particulars of
Speaker 10: that history, but I know that it was this part
Speaker 10: of this whole thing. I mean, it even happened to
Speaker 10: try to a certain extent, you know where we're from
Speaker 10: that there was this whole you know, urban renewal, and
Speaker 10: it's like, we got to clear the slums and we
Speaker 10: put the freeways through, and this will be the great
Speaker 10: you know, future city that we want, you know, Delta City,
Speaker 10: Proble Cup. So it's all, it's just all of this
Speaker 10: aspect of well, I know better than you. I'm the
Speaker 10: great artist, I'm the visionary, and because I'm the visionary,
Speaker 10: I should get to do this.
Speaker 1: Is that you saying that that's Caesar Catalina or is
Speaker 1: that you saying that's Francis for a Coppola or is
Speaker 1: that yes to both?
Speaker 10: I think it's I think it's a combo, you know,
Speaker 10: because when you look at the documentary later, he talks
Speaker 10: about the value of art and the artist and the
Speaker 10: strong artist and.
Speaker 2: All of this.
Speaker 10: And I do see that in the in the Adam
Speaker 10: Driver character, and that he's like I have this vision
Speaker 10: and I have this you know, people don't trust him,
Speaker 10: you know. It's like he's got this mysterious goop that
Speaker 10: he can do things with and he killed his wife
Speaker 10: and there's all of this background on who he is
Speaker 10: and why he's sinister, and people don't appreciate him.
Speaker 2: And it's this stuff he's got send stuff.
Speaker 6: I don't know what it is, I don't know where
Speaker 6: it comes from, but it will.
Speaker 2: Give you one hair of a headache. I definitely see
Speaker 2: it as both, and it's like Copola wants to have
Speaker 2: it both ways too, where it's like Caesar's a great man,
Speaker 2: but he's also flawed, you know, because he's he's he
Speaker 2: does all these terror he does all these terrible things.
Speaker 2: But it's okay he does the terrible things because that's
Speaker 2: when people how he gets people to listen to him,
Speaker 2: because because if you're good all the time, then nobody cares.
Speaker 2: In one sense. I'm like, you know, there, there's probably
Speaker 2: something there there, There probably is some there probably is
Speaker 2: a story there. It's not in this movie, but you know,
Speaker 2: I see. But again, it's there's just this overwhelming feeling
Speaker 2: of intention, intention, intention, with no execution, no payoff, nothing.
Speaker 1: The story is a little labyrinthine when it comes to
Speaker 1: Caesar versus Cicero, and Cicero is the mayor of New York,
Speaker 1: Cicero is Gihn Carlo Esposito. We should say that there
Speaker 1: are many versions of Megalopolis. There's the script that might
Speaker 1: refer to there's the comic book version of this. There's
Speaker 1: what we see in Megadoc, which we'll talk about after
Speaker 1: the jump, and then there's the movie itself. And there's
Speaker 1: even you know, rumors and things of stuff that you
Speaker 1: can kind of see throughout the forty something year history
Speaker 1: of this. I mean, there was a period of time,
Speaker 1: what was it like ninety nine when he was going
Speaker 1: to make this a Chinichita and call it something other
Speaker 1: than Megalapolis. It was like the return of Caesar Catalina
Speaker 1: or something like that. I can't remember, but it was
Speaker 1: like he's been making this and remaking it. I mean
Speaker 1: there's talk of like, oh, he had five volumes worth
Speaker 1: of notes and wrote four hundred pages within you know,
Speaker 1: the first year of really working on this back in
Speaker 1: eighty three. He'd been thinking of it since the late seventies. Anyway,
Speaker 1: when it comes to this, it's like I mix up
Speaker 1: some of these versions. So when it comes to the
Speaker 1: John Void character Crassus, right, is he the uncle of everybody?
Speaker 1: Because I think like Claudio who's played by Shia la
Speaker 1: buff and Caesar Katalina are both cousins, okay, all right?
Speaker 1: And then again and then the Mayor's kind of in
Speaker 1: a separate thing as Cicero and he's got his daughter.
Speaker 1: And then while Platinum, that Aubrey Plaza character, she's sleeping
Speaker 1: with Adam Driver, whose wife, like you said, is dead
Speaker 1: ish maybe.
Speaker 2: Depends on which version we're talking about.
Speaker 1: And she's sleeping with him. He's not into her that
Speaker 1: much anymore, I guess, and so she plots and starts
Speaker 1: sleeping with John Void and becomes his new bride.
Speaker 2: That all of the things that you just said happened
Speaker 2: in this movie.
Speaker 1: All of those exists, but it took a long time
Speaker 1: to sort that stuff out because it feels like at
Speaker 1: times there are ten twelve main characters on screen at
Speaker 1: one time.
Speaker 2: The original script was even worse. There are multiple characters
Speaker 2: who got you know, combined into a single character. But yeah,
Speaker 2: it's just the way you just described it in terms
Speaker 2: of all the different versions and how long he's been
Speaker 2: working on it just makes me think like, this is
Speaker 2: what happens when you have an idea for too long
Speaker 2: and you just grind it into well this.
Speaker 1: Well, we talked about that on the fifth Element episode
Speaker 1: where I was just like, you can tell that Luke
Speaker 1: Wassan had this idea when he was a kid. And
Speaker 1: he probably worked on it so long that the first
Speaker 1: time I watched it, I was like, it feels like
Speaker 1: there's such a rich tapestry here, but it's completely opaque,
Speaker 1: Like it's too taking me a long time to ever
Speaker 1: get into the fifth element, just because it was so
Speaker 1: dense with lore that was all behind the scenes. And
Speaker 1: it feels like this movie is just one hundred percent
Speaker 1: behind the scenes lore, and it feels like Francis is
Speaker 1: the only one who can connect this stuff, and he's
Speaker 1: not telling a story. It feels like he's shirking the
Speaker 1: responsibilities of a director by not telling a story to us.
Speaker 10: One of the things that I thought when you mentioned
Speaker 10: that there were all these ancillary pieces, you know, I mean,
Speaker 10: the doc is its own thing. I don't include that
Speaker 10: as part of this, but the fact that there is
Speaker 10: a graphic novel that reminds me of when we did
Speaker 10: Southlane tails.
Speaker 1: Fuck, yes, you're gonna hear that a lot of this episode.
Speaker 10: Yes, And there's part of me and I said that
Speaker 10: on that episode. If the film itself is its own thing,
Speaker 10: doesn't stand on its own And I got to go
Speaker 10: read a bunch of comic books or watch a bunch
Speaker 10: of short films or all this other stuff in order
Speaker 10: to make everything make sense. Then it doesn't work as
Speaker 10: its own item. Like I appreciate the extras if you
Speaker 10: want to build out an entire universe past that two
Speaker 10: hours that you want me to spend with it, But
Speaker 10: I shouldn't have to spend days rappling with all of
Speaker 10: this in order for it to come together.
Speaker 7: It should come.
Speaker 10: Together in this version in two hours, and all the
Speaker 10: the other stuff is ancillary and it adds it in riches.
Speaker 10: It does not need all of this filigree in order
Speaker 10: for it to make sense.
Speaker 2: This is not to be an apologist or anything, but
Speaker 2: the graphic novel of Megalopolis is just a Marvel super
Speaker 2: special movie tie in kind of thing. There's nothing extra
Speaker 2: there except I was saying to earlier at Mike, like,
Speaker 2: there's except one scene that's not in the movie that
Speaker 2: was shown in the documentary is in the comic book.
Speaker 2: But even the comic book is sort of for me.
Speaker 2: It was sort of a perfect finishing experience for this, because,
Speaker 2: like I said, the cliff notes thing like this was
Speaker 2: like the cliff notes to the movie, which is a
Speaker 2: cliff notes to a script. I don't think I would
Speaker 2: have understood that. If I just read the comic without
Speaker 2: having seen any of this stuff, I would not have
Speaker 2: understood what was happening in it. And I think that again,
Speaker 2: is like you're saying, Mike, so much of this exists
Speaker 2: and has existed in Copla's head for so long that
Speaker 2: for him it's like no, no, no, it's all there.
Speaker 2: It's no, it's only there for you. It's not there
Speaker 2: for anyone else.
Speaker 1: When we get so many of these characters together for
Speaker 1: the first time, because we're introducing so many of these
Speaker 1: folks individually, I think Julia is introduced around the same
Speaker 1: time that Claudio is, and but then we get Mayor
Speaker 1: Ciso on his own, and then we get that scene,
Speaker 1: and it's one of two scenes that take place like
Speaker 1: on an elevated thing, because we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: the girders later on that are all elevated. Here it's
Speaker 1: an elevation above a model of the city, and it's
Speaker 1: Mayor Cisro unveiling like, oh, here's my plan to revitalize
Speaker 1: the city. It's this new casino and it looks completely gaudy,
Speaker 1: looks like, you know, Biff Hannan's casino that he had
Speaker 1: back to the future too, maybe like a certain casino
Speaker 1: that was in Atlantic City, something like that. Incomes Adam
Speaker 1: Driver and he just starts doing the to be or
Speaker 1: not to be speech from Hamlet. And from what I understand,
Speaker 1: they would have actors do and we see this in
Speaker 1: Mega doc and we'll talk about that more later, but
Speaker 1: they would have actors do all of these exercises, and
Speaker 1: him doing Shakespeare was an acting exercise. It is not
Speaker 1: what he says in the script. He eventually kind of
Speaker 1: gets to the point. But doing the entire to be
Speaker 1: or not to be? Why is that even in this movie?
Speaker 1: What is that doing here? Really does nothing other than
Speaker 1: show me how many phrases we actually take from Shakespeare,
Speaker 1: which is kind of amazing. And when I'm listening to
Speaker 1: him going oh, yeah, oh that's a phrase, Oh this
Speaker 1: mortal quot Okay, all right, that's oh slings and arrows. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's good. But it's like, what the fuck. It's so
Speaker 1: this movie's so self indulgent, and it's like, you're spending
Speaker 1: all this time and money to shoot this, why don't
Speaker 1: you actually just stick to the story. If the story
Speaker 1: is the thing that we should be paying attention to.
Speaker 10: And that's staging on the I'm basically this elevated walkway.
Speaker 10: It feels very theatrical. And that's the thing that I wrote,
Speaker 10: is I go, you know, couple to me wants this
Speaker 10: to be oporetic, Like it almost feels like with the
Speaker 10: Shakespeare stuff with the big scale, that he just wants
Speaker 10: this to be so overwhelmingly huge. And maybe this is
Speaker 10: just in my head because it didn't that one didn't work,
Speaker 10: but I think I have a more of a fondness
Speaker 10: for it was I saw one from the Heart maybe
Speaker 10: like a year ago when they reissued it at the theater,
Speaker 10: and I can understand why audiences didn't want that in
Speaker 10: nineteen eighty two or three whenever.
Speaker 2: That was done.
Speaker 10: But at least that one kind of had more of
Speaker 10: a you know, it was operatic and big, and that
Speaker 10: one seemed to have more of a held together a
Speaker 10: little bit better. For me here, I'm trying to figure
Speaker 10: out why why would you stage this like that? Like
Speaker 10: is it just because you think it looks cool as
Speaker 10: opposed to is that the best way to bring out
Speaker 10: the ideas of the scene and the characters, Like I
Speaker 10: don't understand why this is like staged at like a
Speaker 10: height and it's obviously over you know, it's up in
Speaker 10: the air somewhere. I'm just and yeah, like like in
Speaker 10: a big beer house. I'm like, huh, you're right.
Speaker 1: It's like in Jesus Christ Superstar when they're all on
Speaker 1: like the building platforms and stuff. Yeah, this does feel
Speaker 1: very much like something I would go to the Fisher
Speaker 1: Theater and see, like, Ooh, isn't the stage and cool?
Speaker 1: They're all above this model of the city and they
Speaker 1: all have these very particular ways that they're moving around
Speaker 1: and stuff. And then we're going to iris in on things,
Speaker 1: which seems to be the thing that he keeps loving
Speaker 1: to do on this is irising in for close ups.
Speaker 2: All I could think is like, Okay, are they supposed
Speaker 2: to be like the gods looking down in this city
Speaker 2: and all the things that they're going to, you know,
Speaker 2: and here they are fighting and all that. But to
Speaker 2: both of your points, like, there's nothing there to say.
Speaker 2: Even if that is the idea, here's like it doesn't
Speaker 2: it's not conveying anything. And one of the things you
Speaker 2: just said, Mike, that I was thinking about when you're
Speaker 2: talking about, oh, he introduces this person to this person
Speaker 2: like you know, thinking about it, I don't know if
Speaker 2: he introduced anybody. He just drops right into this, to
Speaker 2: this whole thing. It's like, Okay, this is so and
Speaker 2: so like wild Plattinum, I feel it's the only person
Speaker 2: who announces herself. Keep going back to the same place
Speaker 2: of just feeling like, Okay, where is the other half
Speaker 2: of this movie? Or where is the rest of this movie?
Speaker 2: Not that I necessarily want to see it, but I
Speaker 2: just feel like it has to be somewhere.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, I mean at some place. There's all this
Speaker 1: footage of Harvey kai tell as this being character.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to hold off about everything I want to
Speaker 2: say about the documentary and the earlier footage. Man, Like, I.
Speaker 1: Kept wondering if Adam Driver is the best actor for
Speaker 1: this role.
Speaker 2: He wasn't the first choice for this iteration. He wanted
Speaker 2: what did Oscar Isaac? And he passed wisely, Because I
Speaker 2: was thinking about that while I was reward watching it yesterday,
Speaker 2: like well, what would it have been better? No? I
Speaker 2: just would have felt bad for him too.
Speaker 1: With the ultra performance that he's giving. At times, I'm like,
Speaker 1: couldn't you call up your nephew Nick Cage? And get
Speaker 1: him in here. I know he's way too old for
Speaker 1: the role, which is sad to say, but I'm not
Speaker 1: expecting Adam Driver to go off the deep end. I
Speaker 1: mean some of the dialogue while you're just like, what
Speaker 1: are they even saying? Like is this English? Like when
Speaker 1: he has his first confrontation with Wild Platinum, I'm just like,
Speaker 1: what are they even talking about? And even knowing their relationship, afterwards,
Speaker 1: I was like, I still don't get it. They just
Speaker 1: seem to be talking around each.
Speaker 6: Other conversation that it isn't enough. It's the questions that
Speaker 6: lead it to the next step. But initially you have
Speaker 6: to have a conversation. The city itself is immaterial, but
Speaker 6: they're talking about it for the first time.
Speaker 1: And it's not just about us talking about it.
Speaker 6: It's the need to talk about it.
Speaker 5: It's his urgent to us as water.
Speaker 6: Is it getting messier?
Speaker 4: In you mess? What mess?
Speaker 10: Not only that, but go into that scene. Go into
Speaker 10: that scene where they're in I think it's in her apartment.
Speaker 1: Her very messy apartment.
Speaker 10: Yes, it's the place in which I think she's laying
Speaker 10: on the bed and he's kind of standing over her talking.
Speaker 10: If you listen to his rhythm and intonation he's doing Coppola,
Speaker 10: it sounds exactly like how Francis speaks. If you have
Speaker 10: ever heard Francis for a Copola in an interview, that's
Speaker 10: what he sounds like. And there was part of me
Speaker 10: that just went, wow, we're not even trying to hide this,
Speaker 10: are we?
Speaker 2: And that, to me is one of the reasons I
Speaker 2: got thinking when I was watching it again, like, so,
Speaker 2: this is why you change the ending from the script then, right,
Speaker 2: because now you know, when you were younger, you could
Speaker 2: go ahead and have this more tragic ending, but now
Speaker 2: that it's just become this very as you're saying, transparent
Speaker 2: metaphor for you and making this movie and your aspirations,
Speaker 2: the ending needs to be upbeat because you want this
Speaker 2: to be, you know, this great moment. And it's just like, no,
Speaker 2: and it just I'm not saying the original ending in
Speaker 2: that script was was better, but it in a strange way,
Speaker 2: it rang truer to me than what happens here.
Speaker 10: Consider that over the last ten years we've been dealing
Speaker 10: with a real estate moguls from New York who has
Speaker 10: become the great man authoritarian, And there's part of me
Speaker 10: that feels like he's trying to push back on that
Speaker 10: while embracing aspects of the Great Man narrative. It's he's
Speaker 10: kind of stuck where he's like, well, I love the
Speaker 10: great Man narrative, like you know that the hero's journey,
Speaker 10: who's gonna lead all of us, you know, forward, But
Speaker 10: at the same time, we got to deal with this guy.
Speaker 10: And he yeah, that's not good.
Speaker 2: The great Man is fine as long as it's me, right.
Speaker 5: I'm the one.
Speaker 1: I'm the one who knows everything.
Speaker 7: It's not Cicero.
Speaker 1: Cicero doesn't know anything. Cicero is a jerk who apparently
Speaker 1: prosecuted the case of my wife. Who let's talk about
Speaker 1: the wife. What the hell happens with the wife? I mean,
Speaker 1: we have Julia becomes kind of fascinated by Caesar Catalina
Speaker 1: and follows him, and we get well, first, the first
Speaker 1: mention of the wife is that scene where they're all
Speaker 1: on those not girders but above the city and Cicero
Speaker 1: steps up to him. That's the first well, no, actually
Speaker 1: not the first use. There's an earlier use of the
Speaker 1: iris end kind of effect, but there is a shot
Speaker 1: of Cicero in driver's ear in Caesar Catalina's ear and
Speaker 1: he starts talking about, you know, whatever happened with your wife?
Speaker 1: And very cliff Booth of this movie to continuously talk
Speaker 1: about this wife and not really give us an answer
Speaker 1: about it. So he's in his ear and she's like,
Speaker 1: whatever happened with your wife? And nada da da, And
Speaker 1: we get this little shot of this woman who looks
Speaker 1: a lot like Till the Swinton, but it's not till
Speaker 1: the Swinton. It's like, okay, yeah, so what happened with this?
Speaker 1: And I don't think we ever really find out? Like
Speaker 1: she follows him to this kind of grungy apartment building
Speaker 1: or something. He goes up and his wife is there
Speaker 1: on this bed and he's comforting her and talking with
Speaker 1: her and stuff, and I'm just like, Okay, he sees this,
Speaker 1: but she doesn't Julia. But Julia seems to be on
Speaker 1: his wavelength because she can see him stop time. She
Speaker 1: seems to be the only person that sees him stop time.
Speaker 1: So I'm like, Okay, well, is he hallucinating this? Is
Speaker 1: this really real? Is she on like a different wavelength
Speaker 1: now that is beyond human comprehension and only the great
Speaker 1: man Caesar Kendlina can see it. Later on, we get
Speaker 1: some shots and we hear about her driving off of
Speaker 1: a bridge and it sounds like she was pregnant at
Speaker 1: the time.
Speaker 2: That's one of the.
Speaker 1: Few moments of this film that I like, all of
Speaker 1: the body painting that makes this form of a woman
Speaker 1: with a fetus inside of her, and then they break
Speaker 1: apart and you realize that it's people with body art
Speaker 1: on and it's all like, you know, kind of like
Speaker 1: ultraviolet kind of stuff. I was like, Oh, that's actually
Speaker 1: a cool thing France. This way to go. But I
Speaker 1: don't know what the fuck ever happened with this woman,
Speaker 1: and I guess that's the blocker for him and Julie
Speaker 1: to get together. And by the way, one other thing,
Speaker 1: real quick, Julia. We first time we see her, she's
Speaker 1: at this club and she's with Claudio and the Claudett's
Speaker 1: his three other cousins who I guess he's sleeping with.
Speaker 1: They keep talking about him sleeping with these girls. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's what romans do anyway, And that she's also leaning
Speaker 1: that way. She's bisexual, if not lesbian, and that's really
Speaker 1: big in the script is about like, oh God, you're
Speaker 1: sleeping with women, And I guess this whole movie is
Speaker 1: about her like being you know, now reformed into a heterosexual.
Speaker 1: That was like the weird like underlying theme that I
Speaker 1: was getting watching this movie is like her now suddenly
Speaker 1: like you have to be normalized, You're gonna have a baby,
Speaker 1: You're gonna marry this guy, You're gonna settle down, no
Speaker 1: more running around, no more being bisexual.
Speaker 7: Oh, it's totally in there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and just completely appreciating Oh he is the great man,
Speaker 2: like of course, yeah.
Speaker 1: He probably has a horse cock, right, Yeah.
Speaker 10: And and the whole thing with Shilah buff being in
Speaker 10: drag and he's queer as hell in here in his stylization,
Speaker 10: and just just this whole thing about you know, which
Speaker 10: of course goes to you know, we love Caligula on
Speaker 10: this on this sh I guess we guess we've done
Speaker 10: Caligula what three times now?
Speaker 1: Three times now?
Speaker 10: Yeah, sexuality and especially bisexuality or you know kind of
Speaker 10: you can go anyway as as a sign of decadence.
Speaker 10: This whole thing about family and traditional heteronormative family, is
Speaker 10: it not. It's not a stretch for anyone who knows
Speaker 10: anything about Francis because Francis, they always say, is very
Speaker 10: family oriented, Like if you've seen Heart's Darkness, it's like
Speaker 10: he brought his family to the jungle to make a movie.
Speaker 10: Like he wants to work with his family. He loves
Speaker 10: his family. He's a family guy. And so of course
Speaker 10: that's going to be the best thing, that's going to
Speaker 10: be the most you know.
Speaker 7: The great thing.
Speaker 10: And so to me it falls into that trap of
Speaker 10: using queerness as as decadence, which is to me kind
Speaker 10: of outdated a little bit too.
Speaker 2: Revenge tastes best when wearing a dress.
Speaker 1: That's true. Yeah I think that was an old Klingon proverb. Yes, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 10: But the other thing in here, and this goes back
Speaker 10: to you know, the great man, is that he even
Speaker 10: says Driver's character even says at one point, my Emersonian mind.
Speaker 10: So I decided to go and look up what Emersonian means.
Speaker 10: So individualism, self reliance, the condition of the nature in
Speaker 10: nature and the soul together, critical thinking, and rising your
Speaker 10: instincts over social conformity. So again he's just layering on this.
Speaker 10: I'm a great man because I live by my instincts.
Speaker 2: But isn't there even a lie though in there where
Speaker 2: he literally says, instincts are overrated.
Speaker 7: Everyone else's, everyone else's.
Speaker 1: The fact that she's also a woman of color doesn't
Speaker 1: really feel very good to me either, And that Cicero,
Speaker 1: our enemy, is also a person of color. I mean
Speaker 1: John Carlo Esposito, He's got a very interesting background, but
Speaker 1: he definitely seems to be coded as black in this
Speaker 1: as well as her, as well as of course Laurence Fishburne,
Speaker 1: who is his manservant. And I'm just like, wow, that
Speaker 1: really leaves a bad taste in my mouth as well.
Speaker 1: And like you said, yeah, Claudio being very queer coded.
Speaker 1: And I'll be completely honest, when Mike and I saw
Speaker 1: this at the theater, I had no idea that was
Speaker 1: Shilah buff because of the whole thing with the lack
Speaker 1: of eyebrows. I could not place him for the longest time.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't until he starts to grow his eyebrows
Speaker 1: back then I think I was like, oh, okay. And
Speaker 1: then like dB, Cooper is also in this movie looking
Speaker 1: a lot.
Speaker 2: Like no, no, no, dB, sweety sweetey. Yeah, he's in
Speaker 2: another place.
Speaker 1: He's the guy that sole all that money and jumped
Speaker 1: out of the airplane. Yeah, so dbe Sweeney's in this
Speaker 1: movie and he's an ice hockey player and he's teaching
Speaker 1: this girl how to figure scot Wait no.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, no, you're confusing. He's he's the best
Speaker 2: friend of this guy who died but made a deal
Speaker 2: with the devil and has now come back as a superhero.
Speaker 1: Dad, That's what it was. Yeah, But he's also rocking
Speaker 1: the no eyebrow look. And when he's got the no
Speaker 1: eyebrow thing, I'm like, he looks like, oh, and I'm
Speaker 1: going to fuck up. Another person's saying Frederick Forrest, who
Speaker 1: I don't why he was even alive at this point
Speaker 1: when they made this movie. And I know, like I
Speaker 1: think the Hoffman character was originally supposed to be James Kahn, right,
Speaker 1: and Hoffman's character, what the fuck's going on with this character?
Speaker 1: He just shows up a couple times in that and
Speaker 1: then he has the weirdest and we'll talk about his death.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about the Weirdest not off screen, but it
Speaker 1: might as well be off screen death.
Speaker 7: And I want to talk more about that.
Speaker 10: But like Mike was saying, there's so much about the Duck,
Speaker 10: Like I can't wait to get to the duck.
Speaker 1: But yeah, this whole thing of like we have to
Speaker 1: form a family and be normal in all these things.
Speaker 1: It just it's it's a weird hill to die on
Speaker 1: for this, and even like that kind of to me,
Speaker 1: it's kind of racist when Adam Driver does that whole
Speaker 1: go back to the club thing, which is one of
Speaker 1: the things that makes me laugh the most in this movie,
Speaker 1: and I feel like I shouldn't be laughing.
Speaker 6: Well, I want to learn, and you think one year
Speaker 6: of medical school entitles you to plow for the riches
Speaker 6: of my Amerzonian mind.
Speaker 8: Titles me yes, Entitles me.
Speaker 4: Yes, Entitles me yes.
Speaker 8: Entitles me yes, Entitles.
Speaker 4: Me yes, Entitles me yes.
Speaker 8: Entitles me yes, entitles.
Speaker 4: Me yes, entitles me yes.
Speaker 8: You have no idea about me. You think I am nothing,
Speaker 8: just a socialite.
Speaker 6: No, not nothing, But I reserve my time for people
Speaker 6: who can think about science and literature and architecture and art.
Speaker 6: You find me cruel, selfish, and unfeeling. I am. I
Speaker 6: work without caring what happens to.
Speaker 5: Either of us.
Speaker 6: So go back to the club, bear it all and
Speaker 6: stock the kind of people that you enjoy.
Speaker 10: Fine, I will Laurence Fishburne like let's talk about great
Speaker 10: actor his time rap like slam poetry piece in here,
Speaker 10: like with the uh huh again. I feel like that
Speaker 10: was another one of those hey just do this, and
Speaker 10: he did it, and I think, oh, we're putting that
Speaker 10: in him.
Speaker 1: It feels very Gremlins to Key and Peel.
Speaker 5: Skits in the movie Doe.
Speaker 1: Oh you want to do the taber.
Speaker 2: Not to be speech?
Speaker 5: It's in the movie Doe.
Speaker 1: Oh, you want to do slam poetry about time?
Speaker 5: It's in the movie, Doe.
Speaker 2: I feel like some of the actors there were probably like, no,
Speaker 2: can we not put that in the movie, Like, oh no, no, no,
Speaker 2: it's in there.
Speaker 5: It's in the movie, Doe.
Speaker 1: There is a fan editor of this movie, and I
Speaker 1: made several requests of the fan editor to send it
Speaker 1: to me, but he never got back to me. A
Speaker 1: lot of the stuff that we're complaining about, like the
Speaker 1: taber not to be stuff all cut out. I was like,
Speaker 1: is there a good movie inside of this movie. I
Speaker 1: don't know if that's true, or is there a movie
Speaker 1: that just is not as much because this movie is
Speaker 1: very much movie. There's very much movie to this movie.
Speaker 1: More is less and yeah, the whole thing of Southland tails.
Speaker 1: It is very appropriate, this whole idea of like I
Speaker 1: get it, why don't you get it? And this is
Speaker 1: my magnum opus.
Speaker 2: No one gets it.
Speaker 10: At the same time, there's also visually beautiful things in here.
Speaker 10: I am not going to deny that it doesn't look good.
Speaker 10: There's one thing that I like as a visual that
Speaker 10: feels like it would be okay in a music video,
Speaker 10: which is the Crumbling Justice.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah. The drive through the city is actually
Speaker 2: like when the trailer came out, and that was in
Speaker 2: the trailer, my wife was like, oh, I think I
Speaker 2: want to watch this, and I'm like, you need to
Speaker 2: understand that scene there is you've seen it all, like
Speaker 2: that's not gonna like there's not going to be any
Speaker 2: more of that. But yeah, I completely agree like that
Speaker 2: those moments, and that's that's also what makes some of
Speaker 2: this like heartbreaking, right, is that you're watching this and
Speaker 2: it's like, well, it's not like he doesn't still have
Speaker 2: something but it but at the same time, like so
Speaker 2: much is not coming to get there, so much is
Speaker 2: just not there, and it just it hurts.
Speaker 10: And what hurts, you know, for me as a fan
Speaker 10: of his work, is that he can do things.
Speaker 7: He can tell.
Speaker 10: Great stories with next to nothing. And one of my
Speaker 10: favorites of his that I have ever since I was
Speaker 10: on this show, and even before I was on this show,
Speaker 10: I used to just hammer it, and we did it
Speaker 10: on this show is the conversation I'm like. The conversation
Speaker 10: I'm like that is a like one of the cheapest movies,
Speaker 10: and it's all put together by the edit. It's all
Speaker 10: put together by the use of the sound. It's very simple,
Speaker 10: and it tells a great story. Now it's my understanding
Speaker 10: that that did come together in the edit, because I
Speaker 10: had an opportunity to talk to one of the editors
Speaker 10: once and he said, oh, yeah, like this thing was
Speaker 10: narrative and it didn't work, and we tore it apart
Speaker 10: and put it all back together. Fantastic. You guys did
Speaker 10: an amazing job.
Speaker 2: That only just speaks more to his genius, the very
Speaker 2: idea that you could make something it's not what you thought,
Speaker 2: but then make something else out of it, Like that's like,
Speaker 2: that's it. That's incredible.
Speaker 10: So when I see that he can do something like this,
Speaker 10: like I wrote about the Crumbling Justice, I go. I
Speaker 10: go at times it's just so beautiful to look at,
Speaker 10: but sometimes it's so on the nose that it takes
Speaker 10: away from the power of the story.
Speaker 1: Production design of this movie is beautiful. Caesar Catalina's office
Speaker 1: is absolutely gorgeous. I love the use of the lines,
Speaker 1: the maps, all of these things. It looks so good.
Speaker 1: Somebody called that recently, like how specious it is to
Speaker 1: just say like the cinematography is great. But I have
Speaker 1: to say, the cinematography in this movie is great, and
Speaker 1: it plays so well with the production design, and everything
Speaker 1: looks so wonderful and just so scrumptious, and you feel like, Okay,
Speaker 1: maybe there is a world here, you know, outside of
Speaker 1: these sets. It's New York City with a couple things
Speaker 1: tacked on to it, but inside of the world other
Speaker 1: than maybe the colosseums, which the special effects in that
Speaker 1: really draw bad attention to themselves, especially the tumblers. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff where I'm just like, what are
Speaker 1: you doing here? Like are you supposed to be making
Speaker 1: this looks horrible on purpose? And that's what I feel
Speaker 1: like I keep coming back to, is like is this
Speaker 1: a metaphor? Like are these tumblers a metaphor for something
Speaker 1: like of course, like the guy running and breaking through
Speaker 1: brick walls and things. I'm like, okay, well that, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a metaphor. But there's so many other things where
Speaker 1: I'm just like, what is this? Why are you doing
Speaker 1: this particular thing titles me yes, and titles me yes.
Speaker 1: It titles me her going through the another model of
Speaker 1: the city. But this model is put together with like
Speaker 1: cardboard and tires and water bottles and soccer balls and things,
Speaker 1: and suddenly she gets transported into this and to go
Speaker 1: back to the special effects, this really awful looking special
Speaker 1: effects sequence with like that thing coming out protecting her
Speaker 1: from the rain and stuff. I'm like, again, is this
Speaker 1: supposed to look bad on purpose? Or is this supposed
Speaker 1: to be this magical, mystical world that I'm impressed by?
Speaker 1: Because the way that the City of the Future actually
Speaker 1: starts to look whenever we get these glimpses of it,
Speaker 1: it looks terrible. It just looks really nasty and nothing
Speaker 1: I would want to live in.
Speaker 2: It makes me feel terrible when I think this is
Speaker 2: because it feels so like it's ageist, but it's just
Speaker 2: sort of like I like think of going to the documentary. Also,
Speaker 2: when he talks about, you know, only wanting like practical
Speaker 2: effects and stuff like that, where he just seems like
Speaker 2: these are the moments where he feels out of touch
Speaker 2: with modern filmmaking to a certain extent of just like, oh,
Speaker 2: it looks fine, and it's like no, no, no, it doesn't.
Speaker 2: Like have you not seen a movie in the last
Speaker 2: ten years, Like, and I know they're not the kind
Speaker 2: of movies that you like. I feel like again jumping
Speaker 2: to the documentary, like every it just feels to me
Speaker 2: every and it's only happened like twice. But whenever he
Speaker 2: mentioned this Guardians of the Galaxy, you can just feel
Speaker 2: like the bile coming up out of his mouth, like
Speaker 2: he's just angry that this all these movies exist, and
Speaker 2: it's like, yeah, but but there's stuff to take from
Speaker 2: that that you can use you could have used here.
Speaker 2: And the other thing that you know, you were just
Speaker 2: saying that I had been thinking of before, is like,
Speaker 2: is this the case of had you given this to
Speaker 2: somebody else who could have taken the step back? Said
Speaker 2: you know, read you know, read through the script, changed
Speaker 2: it up, you know, and pulled out the themes and
Speaker 2: gotten rid of what doesn't need to be there, and
Speaker 2: then when we have had something, it feels like, maybe
Speaker 2: I want.
Speaker 1: To talk real quick about the kid in the uniform,
Speaker 1: the tuba player who just is in this parade, wanders
Speaker 1: away from the parade, hooks up with Clodeo, and then
Speaker 1: becomes this like master of evil throughout the rest of
Speaker 1: this film. And it's like, who the fuck is this kid?
Speaker 1: And why do the other people hate him so much
Speaker 1: that they're just like, oh, is so and so here? No, okay,
Speaker 1: let's go on, Let's just let's go the other way
Speaker 1: kind of thing, is what the commandant says. It's just
Speaker 1: like another weird thing in that character. Going back to
Speaker 1: the script, he's in there from the beginning, this whole
Speaker 1: introduction of him as the stuba player. Instead, it's supposed
Speaker 1: to be like he's some sort of West Point cadet
Speaker 1: and had got kicked out of West Point. Like, okay,
Speaker 1: that seems like a much better backstory than he was
Speaker 1: a random musician in a parade and Clodio just is like, hey,
Speaker 1: come on over here, and then becomes like a second
Speaker 1: in command.
Speaker 7: I'm like, what how did this happen?
Speaker 2: It seems to line up with the story that Colpla
Speaker 2: tells in the documentary about how he left military school
Speaker 2: and sold his uniform and and and so it's like
Speaker 2: and even in the documentary, if I'm remembering all this correctly,
Speaker 2: I feel like Shilah Buff is like, that's just something
Speaker 2: you're hung up on, man like, and they get into
Speaker 2: like this argument about it, and it's and I think
Speaker 2: I said, like, so this is my wife. I'm just
Speaker 2: like I never thought i'd say that. But Shilah Buff
Speaker 2: is right, like, this is you know what what like?
Speaker 2: And and You're like everything you just said just makes
Speaker 2: me feel like he was like Copo is like, no,
Speaker 2: I have to have that in there because this speaks
Speaker 2: to me. It's like, all right, but what who else
Speaker 2: is it speaking to? What else are you really saying
Speaker 2: with it.
Speaker 1: There's an interview I saw with Shilah Buff and it
Speaker 1: was some podcast, but it was a video podcast, which
Speaker 1: I guess is a podcast these days, and it was him,
Speaker 1: Shia and David Mammett and they're being interviewed and the
Speaker 1: Boof goes off. Of course, the name of the video
Speaker 1: is something like Shilah Boof comes clean about working on Megalopolis.
Speaker 1: He talks about it for like thirty seconds in a
Speaker 1: ten minute video, and he just goes.
Speaker 12: And we fought all through the thing because it wasn't
Speaker 12: my dream, and I was trying to learn his dream,
Speaker 12: which he always trying to do. When you're on a movie,
Speaker 12: you try to learn your guy's dream. Sometimes those dreams
Speaker 12: aren't easily accessible. Sometimes you feel like you're not old
Speaker 12: enough to get to the dream. With me and him,
Speaker 12: it felt like that. It felt like, oh, you know,
Speaker 12: I don't know about you know, because I'm a baby
Speaker 12: and you don't live to life, you know, so I
Speaker 12: would acquiesce to him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, That's what it feels like as an audience member,
Speaker 1: is that I'm being kept from his vision at all times,
Speaker 1: that I'm not being allowed to know what the hell
Speaker 1: is happening, Like I don't know what the significance of
Speaker 1: the Soviet said, Like cruising overhead that we get little
Speaker 1: shots of here and there.
Speaker 10: That's cult war leftover from an earlier draft.
Speaker 1: If I keep in mind that one of the early
Speaker 1: drafts of this was nineteen eighty three, I can see
Speaker 1: star wars and Soviet relations and all of this kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. I can see Skylab coming out of the sky.
Speaker 1: I see all of these things, but in a post
Speaker 1: nine to eleven world, it's a whole different story.
Speaker 2: When I was rereading the script, I was like, Okay,
Speaker 2: the satellite crashing to Earth is clearly a metaphor for
Speaker 2: alluding to to nine to eleven. But then in the script,
Speaker 2: nine to eleven happens, and the satellite is still comes
Speaker 2: down later, and so I'm like, what are we doing here?
Speaker 2: And even in the script, to me, it felt like
Speaker 2: when nine to eleven happened, it almost felt like he
Speaker 2: was doing the rewrite, and then that event happened, He's like, oh,
Speaker 2: I have to put it in the movie, and he
Speaker 2: just stopped writing and then added that in, and then
Speaker 2: it like jumps forward like six years, and it's like
Speaker 2: you can't fit everything in. Man.
Speaker 1: Time is such an important piece of this movie, and
Speaker 1: time passes in this movie, but you wouldn't necessarily know
Speaker 1: it very well, even her being pregnant and then suddenly
Speaker 1: they're getting married and then suddenly there's a baby, And
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, how much time has passed? Like how
Speaker 1: much time passes between the beginning of this movie and
Speaker 1: the end of this movie? Not to mention the stuff
Speaker 1: that takes place before this movie starts, Like, I would
Speaker 1: almost like to see a timeline of the movie itself
Speaker 1: just to know where am I at when it comes
Speaker 1: to these things. How long does it take for Clodio
Speaker 1: to suddenly go from playboy ne'er do well? How often
Speaker 1: does he do well? Ne'er he does well? Him suddenly
Speaker 1: becoming this political figure and the way he joins up
Speaker 1: with the crowd and yeah, kind of activates the immigrant
Speaker 1: community like you were talking about before, Rob, It's just like, okay,
Speaker 1: how long does it take for him to now suddenly
Speaker 1: become more of a political figure. It's to the point
Speaker 1: where his uncle's like, you got to get out of politics.
Speaker 10: To me, he is the Trump stand in. I mean,
Speaker 10: I feel very maga. There's a lot of symbology that
Speaker 10: feels exactly maga. I would say, if there's a timeline
Speaker 10: on this, I'd say maybe a year and a half
Speaker 10: from where it starts to the end, because I mean,
Speaker 10: obviously we're hemmed in by nature nine months a woman
Speaker 10: having a baby, so that gives us that timeline off
Speaker 10: the back end. But I'm not seeing too much further
Speaker 10: before that, you know, maybe your naf.
Speaker 2: I feel like there's only one sequence where you see
Speaker 2: like the calendar pages lying by, But even that wasn't
Speaker 2: as much time. Now, I do think that we need
Speaker 2: to understand that. I think it takes about six months
Speaker 2: for a megalon to fully heal a headwont So that
Speaker 2: should explain at least some of it.
Speaker 1: You have that information on good authority that it's suggested.
Speaker 2: Okay, I got it from one five to one seven nine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how long does it take to heal a dog leg?
Speaker 1: Because suddenly we're talking about megalon can heal dogs? And
Speaker 1: we get that little shot and then yeah, later on
Speaker 1: he there's an assassination attempt and he gets shot in
Speaker 1: the fucking face, and yeah, they use some Megalon on him.
Speaker 1: And that leads to my other big, big laugh scene
Speaker 1: is him just doing that whole no no no thing.
Speaker 1: And I told you this as soon as we left
Speaker 1: the theater, Mike, I was laughing because it's so reminded
Speaker 1: me of the Internet cat that says no.
Speaker 4: No no no no no no no no no no no.
Speaker 13: Crosses, someone froze our accounts, someone's messing up.
Speaker 4: Oh no no no, I'll be in the car if
Speaker 4: you need me.
Speaker 13: Okay, no, no, no no no no no no no
Speaker 13: no no no no no no no no no no
Speaker 13: no no no.
Speaker 4: No no no no no no no no no.
Speaker 1: Like they reused that, they loop that a few times.
Speaker 2: That helped me enjoy the script more because none of
Speaker 2: that's there. There's no assassination attempt. He and Julia don't
Speaker 2: get married, they don't have a kid, and then you
Speaker 2: know they ultimately, you know, have the very tragic ending
Speaker 2: that adds to the whole thing you guys were talking
Speaker 2: about in terms of the whole you know, bringing the
Speaker 2: family together and how important that is to Coppla where
Speaker 2: it's like in these earlier drafts, it's like he wanted
Speaker 2: to do that, but it was the world that was
Speaker 2: preventing them from doing it right. It was his enemy's
Speaker 2: determination to destroy him that ultimately unraveled everything. And it's
Speaker 2: sort of like, well, where's that guy, you know, like
Speaker 2: where's that artist at because because you know that that
Speaker 2: was a little more interesting, but now instead we get
Speaker 2: we get this ridiculous think of yesterday when I was
Speaker 2: watching It's like, man, I don't know why, he just
Speaker 2: really reminded I'm just keep thinking of dark Man with
Speaker 2: his bandage on his head.
Speaker 1: The calendar stuff is while Platinum's substory of her and
Speaker 1: Crassus Hamilton Crassis, the John Voight character. And it's interesting
Speaker 1: that we talk about kind of maga in this movie
Speaker 1: and it's not John Voyce Wow Platinum, who in the
Speaker 1: script was what w Wow Baltimore and she had a
Speaker 1: first name. She was like Lydia wal Baltimore or something,
Speaker 1: and Wow is just her nickname, whereas in here it
Speaker 1: feels like it's her real name. It very much feels
Speaker 1: like that, which is fine. And I know a lot
Speaker 1: of people made a lot of like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: they have a character named while Platinum. In here it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I've heard weirder names in twenty twenty five. It's really okay.
Speaker 10: I mean the actress name is Aubrey Plaza, which the
Speaker 10: first time I heard Aubrey Plaza, I go, it sounds
Speaker 10: like a hotel. Oh I stayed at the Aubrey Plaza.
Speaker 7: It was lovely, you know.
Speaker 10: I mean, so there's part of me. It's just one
Speaker 10: of those things with that character. And I got this
Speaker 10: like like he was watching way too much, like before
Speaker 10: she went to Fox. I think probably the Maria Bartaromo
Speaker 10: money Bunny Wall Street business, cutesy gal who tells everybody
Speaker 10: about the stocks and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: So that's where the calendar flipping happens. Is her now
Speaker 1: machinations of I'm going to marry this banker and I'm
Speaker 1: going to take all of his money somehow, And rather
Speaker 1: than it being a celebration of their wedding, which is
Speaker 1: what I think is happening in the script, it's more
Speaker 1: of a celebration of their a nuptial announcement, which is
Speaker 1: what leads us to the whole scene at the coliseum,
Speaker 1: the bread and Circus sequence. And don't worry, folks, they
Speaker 1: will announce that with a title card. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: if Larry Fishburn reads all these title cards, but I
Speaker 1: would not be surprised.
Speaker 3: Where stands the Colosseum so stands wrong. When the Colosseum falls,
Speaker 3: and Rolling falls too, and when Rolling falls, the world
Speaker 3: falls with it.
Speaker 1: That scene goes on for fucking ever. It is just
Speaker 1: like the longest sequence in the movie. At least that's
Speaker 1: how it feels to me. In a movie of things
Speaker 1: that feel like they go on for a long time,
Speaker 1: this feels like it goes on the longest because it's
Speaker 1: got this whole thing of Caesar Catalina getting drunk and
Speaker 1: now suddenly Julia is his representative, right and like taking
Speaker 1: him through and he's like shuffling through the press line
Speaker 1: doing like the running Man dance and stuff. And this
Speaker 1: whole thing with the virgin, the vestal virgin, which that
Speaker 1: for me, was the only thing that actually came out
Speaker 1: of the real story of the real guy Serge Catalina,
Speaker 1: who was part of this rebellion in Rome, or proposed rebellion,
Speaker 1: and he had slept with the vessel virgin, That's the
Speaker 1: only thing. And this whole thing of her suddenly being
Speaker 1: able to like morphed into seven different versions and harmonize
Speaker 1: with herself. I'm like, well, who are you Ophelia from
Speaker 1: the Adams family? This is so strange.
Speaker 10: Well, this is also a thing too where you'd need
Speaker 10: to know a little bit of Roman history to understand
Speaker 10: why he's represent vestal virgins, because vestal virgins are the
Speaker 10: keepers of the fire, and that the idea being that
Speaker 10: they had to be virgins, and if they weren't, then
Speaker 10: the fire went out, then Rome wouldn't be safe and
Speaker 10: the whole thing would collapse. So you have to understand again,
Speaker 10: men think about Rome, as you said, every day, so
Speaker 10: of course we would know this already.
Speaker 2: I just learned it right now because the movie certainly
Speaker 2: didn't explain it to me, even though it had ample
Speaker 2: opportunity to do so. With Laurence Fishburne, you know, one
Speaker 2: more voice over everybody. That all felt gross. It's just like,
Speaker 2: this is just this is all very and it was.
Speaker 2: It was worse I think in the script too, because
Speaker 2: like in the movie, it's it sort of alludes to, oh, no,
Speaker 2: this was all doctored and it wasn't real. In the
Speaker 2: movie it was like that. In the script it was
Speaker 2: much more like no, no, no. He definitely slept with her,
Speaker 2: and he talks about how you know, oh, I'm such
Speaker 2: a weak man about it. And there's even a line
Speaker 2: from like from Julius like even if it is true,
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter. It's like I think it's relevant though,
Speaker 2: Like I think if it's true, it's definitely relevant. That's
Speaker 2: the other thing about her character, going back to what
Speaker 2: we were talking about a little bit before, it's like
Speaker 2: it feels like her only job is to just be
Speaker 2: in love with him and then be this frustration for
Speaker 2: her father and that to me is also just annoying.
Speaker 2: We could let this person be like, you know, a
Speaker 2: person like you know and somebody who actually has some
Speaker 2: kind of agency or anything at all. But now it's
Speaker 2: all just there to serve him.
Speaker 10: There's part of me that wonders, and I don't know
Speaker 10: anything about you know, I know very little about her background.
Speaker 10: But is he writing their love story eleanor did he
Speaker 10: upset her dad?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 10: Was he like, you're not marrying an Italian? Not back
Speaker 10: then in the early sixties, you know, So I don't know.
Speaker 2: I wondered about the same thing at the beginning of
Speaker 2: this this as you were saying, Mike forever a scene,
Speaker 2: because yeah, I almost fell asleep watching it the second
Speaker 2: time when he goes off on his drug tangent. But
Speaker 2: we also get this weird introduction to his mother. Yes,
Speaker 2: what is.
Speaker 1: Going on with this Talia Shier relationship and.
Speaker 2: They're bizarre relationship, yeah, and her just talking about how like,
Speaker 2: you know, what would she say, is it alligators or
Speaker 2: crocodiles have it right because they eat their young And
Speaker 2: it's like, what is this about? And then it comes
Speaker 2: it comes back later that that actually is one of
Speaker 2: the lines I enjoyed the moments was when she when
Speaker 2: he's introducing her to Julia and she says that I
Speaker 2: always wanted a girl. He goes, Julia is a girl. Mom.
Speaker 2: But again it's like, what is what's happening here? Like,
Speaker 2: what is this? What is this supposed to be alluding to?
Speaker 2: Or what is this a reference to that? I also
Speaker 2: don't understand. There's just more and more of that throughout
Speaker 2: the movie. And like you were saying before, Rob, when
Speaker 2: you're talking about south Land Tails, it's like, I don't
Speaker 2: want to have to do a ton of homework before
Speaker 2: or after this movie or any movie to be able
Speaker 2: to understand and appreciate what it is that you're saying.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying I don't want to think think about it.
Speaker 2: I want to think about it, and of course I
Speaker 2: want to think about it, But when you're making me
Speaker 2: rely on a whole bunch of other things, it feels
Speaker 2: to me like you're just not You're not doing the work.
Speaker 1: The Wild Platinum character is basically Sarah Michelle Gellar character
Speaker 1: from Southland Tails. You know, I was waiting for that
Speaker 1: to say not as interesting. No, I was waiting for
Speaker 1: to say that in the future things will be much
Speaker 1: more futuristic, but as opposed to this, where in the
Speaker 1: future things will be much more Roman. And it's like
Speaker 1: they're so uneven even when it comes to because the
Speaker 1: other thing that this Colosseum scene brings up is this
Speaker 1: idea of the kind of Times Square like scrolling thing
Speaker 1: that they have going around the Colosseum floor, which is
Speaker 1: all in Latin, and they speak Latin. I think there's
Speaker 1: one part where John Carlo Esposito and the actress who's
Speaker 1: named The Killer from John Wu's new version of The
Speaker 1: Killer where they're talking in Latin to each other. Okay,
Speaker 1: this kind of reminds me of France is probably speaking
Speaker 1: Italian to his relatives or something. But they're so uneven
Speaker 1: with is this new Rome or not. I mean, it's like, okay, yeah, again,
Speaker 1: they've got all these QR codes and they're doing all
Speaker 1: this bidding through QR codes, And at first I thought
Speaker 1: they were bidding on the festival Virgin's virginity, and then
Speaker 1: I realized, no, this is some sort of and again
Speaker 1: I get this better. In the script, they're trying to
Speaker 1: make money and they're like basically trying to come up
Speaker 1: with a campaign. So they're using this event, their bridal party,
Speaker 1: to raise funds and I'm like, okay, first off, he's Crassus,
Speaker 1: the most well healed man in New Rome. Why does
Speaker 1: he need money? But yeah, this is their thing that
Speaker 1: they're trying to get cash, and that's why they have
Speaker 1: all these QR codes and they keep raising money. But
Speaker 1: I was just like, yeah, they're selling off for virginity.
Speaker 1: But whoops, it's already been taken by Caesar Catalina. I
Speaker 1: think my versions a lot more interesting, let more.
Speaker 10: Coherent, but in the end it actually wasn't because I
Speaker 10: guess it was a deep fake or something.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, and then it changes her her way of
Speaker 1: performing to suddenly now she's more like a sex bomb.
Speaker 1: And maybe it's a Britney Spears reference or something.
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 7: Madonna, it's Madonna.
Speaker 2: It's the eighties Madonna.
Speaker 5: Madonna.
Speaker 2: My first thought was it was like, oh, this is
Speaker 2: the this is like the whole Miley Cyrus thing when
Speaker 2: she made that pledge to her dad all those years ago.
Speaker 2: But then it's like, now, this script existed before that,
Speaker 2: and but it's just yeah, it was, but it's either way,
Speaker 2: it's still like I what are we what are we
Speaker 2: doing here? And that also in the script was so
Speaker 2: much more drawn out and explained right in terms of of, oh,
Speaker 2: Julie is going to do all this research and actually
Speaker 2: find out no, no, no, she's it was her younger sister
Speaker 2: that died, and they changed changed things, changed things up,
Speaker 2: and all this different detective works in the movie. It's
Speaker 2: like they're in this, They're in the catacomb somewhere here.
Speaker 2: I got it here, it's in this box that we
Speaker 2: found in this in the middle of nowhere. It's it's
Speaker 2: almost as bad as the as the dust and Hoffman like,
Speaker 2: oh if something fell on him, oh Jesus, yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's talk about that, because it's like just such
Speaker 1: a throwaway where it's just like, oh, yeah, don't worry,
Speaker 1: I took care of the Dustin Hoffmann character cut to
Speaker 1: him walking in all of these fucking pillars falling on him.
Speaker 1: I'm just like, that's it.
Speaker 2: I think in the script and in the comic they
Speaker 2: explained that one a little bit better because I gets
Speaker 2: it's Claudia on his people cave in the place that
Speaker 2: they had lured him to, and you know, he gets
Speaker 2: buried under the rubble I had forgotten that, and I
Speaker 2: was like, oh, I think in the movie it must
Speaker 2: be that the satellite hit him. But then when it
Speaker 2: happens to like no, it's that's not what happened, Like
Speaker 2: I mean, and it's so weird. It's like it said
Speaker 2: the whole show don't tell a thing. It's like you
Speaker 2: managed to do the opposite of both of those at
Speaker 2: the same time. Somehow. Think you told us and then
Speaker 2: showed us in a way that just told us. It
Speaker 2: can show us anything.
Speaker 10: If there's one great line reading in this movie, Oh.
Speaker 1: I know exactly where you're gonna go. Please tell me
Speaker 1: the best line reading in this movie.
Speaker 7: What do you think of this? Boner? I've got what
Speaker 7: do you think of this boner?
Speaker 2: I was thrilled to find a surprise that that that
Speaker 2: line was in the script, but he's that he kept
Speaker 2: it for all these years, Like no, no, no, this line
Speaker 2: is not going anywhere.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's probably the best moment of this entire movie.
Speaker 7: Joe Buck comes back around.
Speaker 1: Had he and Coppola worked together before John Voyt and Coppola,
Speaker 1: I don't think so?
Speaker 2: Okay, So either I was I was thinking about that,
Speaker 2: you know, you know, going to the documentary where they
Speaker 2: where they they It felt like they'd had a relationship
Speaker 2: or knew each other before, but I couldn't think of
Speaker 2: an example of where they'd actually, you know, made a
Speaker 2: movie together.
Speaker 1: Yes, so much of Caesar Catalina's process feels like Coppola process.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I was talking about the model of the city with
Speaker 1: all the garbage and everything. There's a moment when we're
Speaker 1: in his office and there's all of these people with
Speaker 1: the Design Authority jumpsuits and they're forming human pyramids and stuff,
Speaker 1: and I'm just like, a, is this inspiring you, Caesar
Speaker 1: for like new organic design ideas? Because like I said,
Speaker 1: we'll talk about Mega doc more, but there's so much
Speaker 1: of like acting exercises in there, and all of this
Speaker 1: feels like exercises, Like we're going to do some weird
Speaker 1: shit in here just to inspire you, Caesar, because you
Speaker 1: are the great man and you need all of this
Speaker 1: different inspiration, and you also need a lot of booze.
Speaker 1: Apparently it's okay that he is such a whino when
Speaker 1: it comes to this. And then yeah, also can do magic,
Speaker 1: which Julia can do as well.
Speaker 2: It seems going to the ending, right, So You're going
Speaker 2: to freeze this moment in time for all of you
Speaker 2: because this is your triumph. But I guess what we're
Speaker 2: saying here is that, you know, the baby the next
Speaker 2: generation is like, you can be stuck in this moment
Speaker 2: in time, you can hold on to this moment in
Speaker 2: the past, but the next generation it doesn't mean the
Speaker 2: same for them, and they're gonna keep moving forward. You know.
Speaker 2: Maybe that's what it means, but mostly it just feels
Speaker 2: like weird. It's like it's like the thing in the
Speaker 2: pitch meeting where it's like, I hope that baby's gonna
Speaker 2: be okay. Everybody else's throat and the baby's just we're
Speaker 2: s watered around, Like yeah.
Speaker 1: That's what it feels like. It almost feels like to
Speaker 1: commit suicide at the end of this movie by freezing themselves.
Speaker 1: Because every other time that Caesar says time stop, he
Speaker 1: and Julia apparently are okay to move around. But now
Speaker 1: when he says time stop, or she might even stop time,
Speaker 1: I don't remember, but when they.
Speaker 2: Stop, yeah, he tells her, Julia stop time.
Speaker 1: Okay, so she stops the time, and time stops for
Speaker 1: everyone apparently in the entire world except for that baby. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: does that baby does it just die sitting there on
Speaker 1: that magic carpet because no one's there to feed it.
Speaker 7: You know, it's got megalon. Okay, that's true.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can eat it.
Speaker 7: You know. It's a bit of desert topping. It's a floorway.
Speaker 2: Oh no, no, that's I was thinking like now that
Speaker 2: it's right. That's right. He got shot after she got pregnant,
Speaker 2: because I was wondering if maybe the baby was part Megalon.
Speaker 1: We talked about the whole gimmick of the stopping of time.
Speaker 1: The other gimmick in this movie, which was actually more
Speaker 1: of a gimmick for the movie, was this whole thing
Speaker 1: that happened. Now this is did this happen in con
Speaker 1: and did it happen anyplace else? This whole idea of
Speaker 1: people asking the screen questions.
Speaker 10: It happened in con and then kind of like when
Speaker 10: they did not with this movie, but you know, with
Speaker 10: like certain movies were like, oh you can go see
Speaker 10: it in seventy millimeter film print. You know, it was
Speaker 10: only in certain theaters. But to me, I don't even
Speaker 10: know where that takes place. So there's a part of
Speaker 10: me that's like I don't even know where the guy
Speaker 10: would stand up and say, hey, you know what the hell?
Speaker 1: Well, that takes place at exactly one hour, in like
Speaker 1: twenty three minutes. It takes place right after the satellite
Speaker 1: finally crashes to Earth. It seems kind of harmlessly, but
Speaker 1: you get those shots of the people's shadows on the
Speaker 1: building where I'm like, Okay, that's actually kind of cool,
Speaker 1: like showing the destruction.
Speaker 2: You know, yeah, that was a great shot.
Speaker 1: Okay, for instance, you still have it like you still
Speaker 1: have an incertain part. So at like one hour twenty
Speaker 1: two minutes, they cut to this black room and this
Speaker 1: white spotlight comes up, and then suddenly we're in what
Speaker 1: looks like a theater, and there's a person that stands
Speaker 1: up in front of us who's completely blurry and asks
Speaker 1: the question of a screen. And that's where Caesar is there,
Speaker 1: answering the one question.
Speaker 9: What remains is the movie's wow moment, which stunned audiences
Speaker 9: and can at its first public screening. In a news
Speaker 9: conference scene, someone physically stands next to the screen and
Speaker 9: asks Caesar a question. Adam Drive actually suggested this to
Speaker 9: replace Copela's original idea after the Alexa ordeal forced him
Speaker 9: to cut the gimmick as it.
Speaker 1: Is in this movie. It doesn't fit whatsoever. Maybe in
Speaker 1: the real experience that we're talking about, that might have worked,
Speaker 1: but here in this film it doesn't work at all.
Speaker 1: And they should not have had even this framing, like
Speaker 1: literal framing of a person in a movie theater talking
Speaker 1: to a screen their own shadow cast. You know, pretty
Speaker 1: soon they start throwing rice and spoons. It's the whole thing.
Speaker 2: I think. I found a clip of one of those
Speaker 2: screenings on YouTube and it was awkward, more awkward than
Speaker 2: the actual movie.
Speaker 14: You said that as we jump into the future, we
Speaker 14: should do so un aFrame, but what if they do
Speaker 14: jump into the future if there is something, well, there's
Speaker 14: nothing to be afraid of.
Speaker 12: If you love.
Speaker 2: Or have loved The timing was was odd because it's
Speaker 2: not like Copla hasn't done weird stuff like that with
Speaker 2: some other movies, not any that I've seen, but I've
Speaker 2: read about or heard about. But it just feels to
Speaker 2: a certain extent like is this just experimentation for experimentation's sake? Right?
Speaker 2: I don't I don't know what this is supposed to have,
Speaker 2: how this was supposed to have enhanced if your intention
Speaker 2: was to feel like you were bringing us into the movie.
Speaker 2: Even though Copa is very clear in the documentary he
Speaker 2: does not believe those images of those aren't real, even
Speaker 2: though shy I believes they're real, it's still like it.
Speaker 2: If anything, it took me even further out of the
Speaker 2: movie because, like you're saying, it doesn't it doesn't fit.
Speaker 2: It's a weird moment even within this odd story anyway
Speaker 2: of just like okay, this, you know, this thing crashes
Speaker 2: down and we're gonna have a press conference with Caesar.
Speaker 2: But it doesn't seem to have crashed into any buildings.
Speaker 2: It didn't kill anyone, it didn't destroy his you know,
Speaker 2: construction site. So I don't know what. Obviously this is
Speaker 2: supposed to be a nine to eleven metaphor.
Speaker 1: You even see what looks like ground zero after that,
Speaker 1: But again it's like, we didn't see any buildings get destroyed.
Speaker 1: We just saw a metaphor of people reacting as shadows.
Speaker 7: I see.
Speaker 10: I thought it was going to be towards the end
Speaker 10: because there's a whole speechifying piece and here it's also like,
Speaker 10: oh God, like if you have to do this, then
Speaker 10: you've really lost the narrative. That's like, you really have
Speaker 10: to hammer us on the head in terms.
Speaker 7: Of this is what the theme is, and the.
Speaker 10: Theme is we need a great debate about the future.
Speaker 7: Pull yourself up.
Speaker 6: Let it not be said that we reduced ourselves to
Speaker 6: be brutes.
Speaker 5: And mindless beasts.
Speaker 6: A third, the human being shall rightly be called a.
Speaker 2: Great miracle and a living creature. For all two in mind,
Speaker 2: we are such stuff as dreams.
Speaker 4: Are made up.
Speaker 1: There's a few moments in here where I was reminded
Speaker 1: of how the West was won and the way that
Speaker 1: that was shown when it was in road show, the
Speaker 1: whole thing of the three screens, because after that press conference,
Speaker 1: then suddenly we're in a triptich for like the longest
Speaker 1: time of Caesar in the middle, like working on his
Speaker 1: stuff and things on either side, and that we've got
Speaker 1: all these architectural drawings that basically looks like you know,
Speaker 1: production design drawings, just kind of reusing it for that,
Speaker 1: and we go through that for a while. I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: that might have been an interesting effect too, had you
Speaker 1: know a Franstis is going to do this up as
Speaker 1: a road show type of thing and have this cheapy
Speaker 1: gimmick of the you know, like talking with the screen
Speaker 1: and everything. Why not do it up even more? And
Speaker 1: then we end that sequence with the film literally burning up,
Speaker 1: and I was like, okay, I've seen two lane Blacktop.
Speaker 1: I saw that done a lot better.
Speaker 10: I think that was Coppola also trying to be Avlganz
Speaker 10: because he was behind restoration on Napoleon and at one
Speaker 10: and it goes into triptych at one point.
Speaker 1: So right, you're absolutely right. And the whole thing with
Speaker 1: like him constantly working with the I guess megalon these
Speaker 1: crystals and things, and he just keeps seeing images of
Speaker 1: his dead wife. I just kept thinking of a Minority
Speaker 1: Report and how much more I like Minority Report and
Speaker 1: the whole idea of like the guy who's haunted by
Speaker 1: his past and stuff, and it's just like, at least
Speaker 1: with that you kind of get an idea of what happened.
Speaker 1: I still don't know what the hell happened with Caesar's wife.
Speaker 2: Minority Report that also informs the character, and in this
Speaker 2: I don't know what it does. Like I mean, yep,
Speaker 2: he's yep, he's damaged and he and he still loves
Speaker 2: his wife because Julia told me that when she somehow
Speaker 2: or other saw the thing that he could see but
Speaker 2: didn't see it. My assumption is, you know, the little
Speaker 2: bit that we get sounds like she came to tell
Speaker 2: him that she was pregnant and saw something that offended her.
Speaker 2: So I'm assuming that he was, you know, messing around
Speaker 2: with somebody and and then was just and then drove herself,
Speaker 2: you know, drove herself over, you know, into the river,
Speaker 2: because of course, now that the great man is cheating
Speaker 2: on her, like, how could she say? Why would you
Speaker 2: want to stay alive?
Speaker 10: I was also thinking another theme that comes up here,
Speaker 10: and this is after the assassination of getting shot in
Speaker 10: the head. There's a line that says that will not
Speaker 10: let time have dominion over my thoughts, which to me
Speaker 10: is the whole uh. You know, Vita Brevist artists lung,
Speaker 10: you know idea that you know, art and great things
Speaker 10: live on beyond us and the importance of creation as
Speaker 10: an artist, because if you know enough about Coppola, he
Speaker 10: champions the idea of that. And I understand, dude, you're
Speaker 10: in your early eighties, okay. I remember in college I
Speaker 10: had a death class. It was about cultures and death.
Speaker 10: And dying, and there's a thing called terror management theory,
Speaker 10: and this, to me starts to become like you talk
Speaker 10: about Einstein trying to find a universal theory of everything. Like,
Speaker 10: to me, terror management theory is the universal theory of everything,
Speaker 10: like for humans is how I've come to it. It's like,
Speaker 10: that's why you have kids, and why people in big
Speaker 10: countries and put names on buildings and build statues and
Speaker 10: all of this stuff. It's like, I need to prove
Speaker 10: that I existed beyond my time, because otherwise I'm going
Speaker 10: to be forgotten and swept away into eternity. I really
Speaker 10: get that he's dealing with that in here too. It's
Speaker 10: kind of, you know, a little bit more subtextual, except
Speaker 10: in that point, but there is this feeling of I'm
Speaker 10: trying to create great art to live beyond me, and
Speaker 10: that is that is a worthy cause.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's how this movie is introduced in the Sam
Speaker 1: Lawson book. I believe it's called The Path to Paradise,
Speaker 1: where it's a him, it's Copola talking with it sounds
Speaker 1: like Wasson saying, you know, and I can't remember what
Speaker 1: the Italian is, but basically it's I'm close to death.
Speaker 1: You know, Vincente Muerte or something. I'm in the Vicinity
Speaker 1: of Death and so it's like, Okay, this is Copola
Speaker 1: like pulling out all the stops. I'm going to make
Speaker 1: this movie. This is going to be fantastic. But he's
Speaker 1: also dealing with such the piddling things and just like
Speaker 1: it feels like he's got such an axe to grind,
Speaker 1: Like so much of this movie in the back half
Speaker 1: of it is Platinum and Clodio plotting against Crassus Hamilton,
Speaker 1: but also that they're plotting against Caesar Catalina and they
Speaker 1: freeze his accounts so he has no more money so
Speaker 1: he can't do this, and I'm just like, Okay, this
Speaker 1: is you Francis, Like and to the point where they're
Speaker 1: talking about like, oh, when we have this baby, it's
Speaker 1: either going to be Sunny Hope or Francis, And I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: like Francis is Francis is running through this movie. If anything,
Speaker 1: Francis is megalon. Yeah, like those weird things that they do,
Speaker 1: like when he comes and visits Platinum and Clodio after
Speaker 1: he's been shot in the head and he pulls off
Speaker 1: that the dark Man mask, like you're talking about and
Speaker 1: how his image repeats all those times and just like
Speaker 1: has that magic like bring noise to it. I'm like,
Speaker 1: what are we even doing here? What what is this
Speaker 1: supposed to represent? Because so much of this movie doesn't
Speaker 1: feel like it's real things happening, that it's just metaphorical
Speaker 1: things happening, but.
Speaker 2: Either mixed metaphors or you know, or poor metaphors. Right.
Speaker 2: I took some of that to be that you know,
Speaker 2: this is this is also how Wow looks at him,
Speaker 2: you know, how Wow sees him? Is this, which which
Speaker 2: again is one of those just annoying things where it's
Speaker 2: just like, here's what to me looks like a self
Speaker 2: made woman. But no, no, no, no, no, what she
Speaker 2: really wants is this guy. And the tragedy of her
Speaker 2: life is that she just can't you know, she can't
Speaker 2: have him, or she can't understand, you know, who he
Speaker 2: really is, or any of this other stuff. It again
Speaker 2: makes me think of the documentary when he's talking to
Speaker 2: like the art team or whatever is before he decides
Speaker 2: to fire them and stuff like that, and it's just
Speaker 2: like these people like there's all these toys that you
Speaker 2: and all these things that you have at your disposal,
Speaker 2: but it doesn't feel like you understand how to effectively
Speaker 2: use any of them, and then when you do, it
Speaker 2: just doesn't seem it just seems misplaced, you know, like
Speaker 2: even the weird look of his face just didn't you know.
Speaker 2: It was like what he says, I got seventy percent
Speaker 2: of what I want. And I'm like, really, because I
Speaker 2: think what was the end product? Because it doesn't feel
Speaker 2: like seventy percent.
Speaker 1: Were almost two hours into this movie and it becomes
Speaker 1: while platinums movie for a little bit, with all of
Speaker 1: her plotting and her machinations, and suddenly she becomes associated
Speaker 1: with scissors because she starts cutting Clodio's hair when she's
Speaker 1: letting him fuck her. And then we have this scene
Speaker 1: that really reminded me of Orson Wells's Othello that takes
Speaker 1: place inside of a steam bath. It's so reminded me
Speaker 1: of like that scene from Othello. And we have her
Speaker 1: in front casting shadows and doing like shadow puppetry almost
Speaker 1: and using her fingers like scissors, and you hear like
Speaker 1: the scissor noise and everything. I'm like, what are we
Speaker 1: doing here? It's almost interesting, it's almost interesting, but it
Speaker 1: just does not land and that's the thing is, I
Speaker 1: don't know if anything in this movie ever sticks the landing.
Speaker 2: No, nothing sticks to landing. That's it. That's it.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about the end of the movie
Speaker 1: because I not make it all the way to the finale. So, Mike,
Speaker 1: can you talk a little bit about how the script
Speaker 1: of this ends as opposed to the film.
Speaker 2: In the script, Cicero contrives a way to finally get
Speaker 2: what's his name in the script, Surge, not Caesar. He's
Speaker 2: gonna have him killed, and so he's he says to
Speaker 2: him like, look, you're you're right, I'm terrible. Come meet
Speaker 2: me here, and you know, I will do whatever. And
Speaker 2: so he goes. Julia and Caesar go to the to
Speaker 2: the meeting place. You know, he gets out and Julia realizes,
Speaker 2: wait a minute, this is the setup. So she runs
Speaker 2: to go stop him, and the I can't remember which
Speaker 2: character it is that shoots Caesar, but he shoots Julia
Speaker 2: also as they're both dying. Well, then then word gets
Speaker 2: back to Frank that his that is you know, basically
Speaker 2: he's you know, created a situation that killed his daughter.
Speaker 2: So the very end of the movie is he goes
Speaker 2: into his limousine, I think, and slits his wrists, and
Speaker 2: just like the end of The Killer, Caesar and Juliet
Speaker 2: are calling towards each other and he says and he says,
Speaker 2: time stop, and that's where that's where it freezes, and
Speaker 2: that's the end. I'm sorry, it's just I just think
Speaker 2: that's better, Like, I mean, is it good. That's a
Speaker 2: separate question. It just felt truer to everything, like the
Speaker 2: whole idea of yes, you know, the great artist is
Speaker 2: trying and trying and trying, but ultimately he's you know,
Speaker 2: he is defeated by this other person's jealousies, but those
Speaker 2: jealousies defeated him too. But yeah, instead it's like, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: we're going to leave this baby on its own while
Speaker 2: the rest of humanity is frozen.
Speaker 10: My note about the ending in my letterbox was, it's
Speaker 10: ultimately a tale of a great man. The world will
Speaker 10: be perfect if everyone just realizes what a genius Caesar
Speaker 10: Catalina is, shuts up, give him the money, and files along. Meanwhile,
Speaker 10: it talks about the value of democratic values, but ending
Speaker 10: with an almost socialist pledge of allegiance.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that pledge of allegiance. I mean you're already
Speaker 1: cringing through this movie, and to end on cringe at
Speaker 1: the end.
Speaker 2: We have to contrive this way for Gopolo. Let you
Speaker 2: know how it is.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's always been, I don't want to say
Speaker 1: anti American. He's always been a very much critique critique
Speaker 1: care of America. I mean, The Godfather is such a
Speaker 1: critique of America. Apocalypse Now is a critique of America.
Speaker 1: And this film could have been a critique of America,
Speaker 1: but it just it doesn't seem to know what the
Speaker 1: fuck's trying to say. All right, guys, let's go ahead
Speaker 1: and take a break and we'll be back right after
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Speaker 4: You know why I'm doing this movie.
Speaker 2: I have money, I already have fame, I already have
Speaker 2: asked yours.
Speaker 4: What do I get that I want so fun?
Speaker 2: I want to have fun. You have been working on
Speaker 2: this project for a while, thirty years.
Speaker 1: How did someone spend one hundred and twenty million dollars
Speaker 1: off their money on Phoon?
Speaker 5: Say your prayer action.
Speaker 1: I read the script twenty five years ago.
Speaker 2: I'm John Carlo Esposito.
Speaker 6: People may look back in thirty years and say, God,
Speaker 6: you gotta go back and watch Mechaaloblis.
Speaker 11: Know what I'm working with, realizes how weird a movie
Speaker 11: this really is.
Speaker 8: I read it and then I email I'm back, and
Speaker 8: I said, this is a nightmare.
Speaker 2: What is going on right now? That guy knows.
Speaker 6: He has structured to trust his cast to come up
Speaker 6: with something that he hasn't thought of.
Speaker 5: I want you to be able to do anything you
Speaker 5: want to do.
Speaker 2: You seem to tried on chaos.
Speaker 4: No, I am confronting chaos. Everyone sit down and don't
Speaker 4: do anything.
Speaker 2: I've done this for fifty years.
Speaker 8: He works from here passion.
Speaker 5: Give mean what I want. I don't know what you want.
Speaker 8: He's a romantic, he's very repressed.
Speaker 4: He's very worth.
Speaker 6: What was the last France?
Speaker 3: I was so young when I started working with him.
Speaker 2: He is my godfather.
Speaker 10: It's Francis.
Speaker 7: I know where I am and I know it's.
Speaker 2: The super Bowl. He's got a big dream. He feels
Speaker 2: that it's visceral.
Speaker 4: Or in need of a great debate about the future.
Speaker 2: God good. That's what's extraordinary about Francis.
Speaker 15: He's the opposite of me. I'm a planet out lodding
Speaker 15: along and he's a jump off the cliff guy.
Speaker 1: Jack that team for his last sell, put all his
Speaker 1: money in and lost it, died broke.
Speaker 6: But who shares if you die broke if he made
Speaker 6: something that you say, isspute.
Speaker 5: With the.
Speaker 1: All right, we are back and we were talking about Megalopolis.
Speaker 1: And a few months after Megalopolis came out, there was
Speaker 1: a film released called Megadoc, which has nothing to do
Speaker 1: with the Meg I was really hoping that it was
Speaker 1: a whole thing about the making of the Meg series,
Speaker 1: maybe talking about the third one, which I'm desperately waiting
Speaker 1: to come out. But instead it's a documentary directed by
Speaker 1: Mike Figus, all about kinda the making of this movie.
Speaker 1: I'll just say this right out loud. I don't like
Speaker 1: this documentary. I love Hearts of Darkness. Thought It was
Speaker 1: a beautiful, beautiful documentary really went into Francis's process, how
Speaker 1: it affected him, how it affected his family, the making
Speaker 1: of Apocalypse Now with so many other things. I just
Speaker 1: mentioned Orson Wells before the jump, the whole thing of like,
Speaker 1: here's how this project started. There was supposed to be
Speaker 1: this adaptation by Orson Wells, and they talk you through this,
Speaker 1: and we occasionally come back to well, this is a
Speaker 1: voiceover artist. Those are sign posts, and there are no
Speaker 1: sign posts in this movie. This movie mega doc gives
Speaker 1: you absolutely nothing to go off of. You are thrown
Speaker 1: out into the middle of the sea. Try to swim.
Speaker 1: Good luck.
Speaker 7: I wrote that.
Speaker 10: I said Figus did a good job giving us a
Speaker 10: view of what was a foot in the creation. I go,
Speaker 10: but he doesn't sense any larger theme, and even at
Speaker 10: one point he even says as much. He's like, I
Speaker 10: don't know what I'm doing here. I feel like I've
Speaker 10: gotten sucked into the vortex along with this production.
Speaker 2: The one part in the documentary where it says this
Speaker 2: is his video diary. That's the only entry we get
Speaker 2: from his video diary, and it's like, well, wait a minute,
Speaker 2: like you know clearly you've been doing this for a
Speaker 2: couple for a while, like why are you not talking
Speaker 2: more about these kind of things? In many ways, similar
Speaker 2: to the movie, it's sort of like all over the place,
Speaker 2: and there'll be these moments where it's like, oh, I
Speaker 2: want to know a lot more about that, and then Nope,
Speaker 2: just go somewhere else. And like like I've already mentioned
Speaker 2: probably more than once, like any time, especially like in
Speaker 2: the second half when they would show the old footage
Speaker 2: from the first time that he was trying to you know,
Speaker 2: that he was doing a test footage with like you know,
Speaker 2: Ryan Gosling and Uma Thurman and Virginia Madison. I'm like,
Speaker 2: where is all of that? You should be making a
Speaker 2: documentary just about that? And then for this movie that's
Speaker 2: the It is very I think it's very difficult not
Speaker 2: to compare it to Hearts of Darkness Darkness right because
Speaker 2: of who the subject is, and Hearts of Darkness is probably,
Speaker 2: you know, one of the greatest movie documentary's ever made,
Speaker 2: but it also came out, you know, years after the movie,
Speaker 2: and like this is coming out right afterward. There's nothing
Speaker 2: in there really about what really did happen. There's not
Speaker 2: enough reflection on what the movie was trying to be
Speaker 2: or what it turned out to be, and yeah, it's
Speaker 2: it feels like Figures had a lot of behind the
Speaker 2: scenes stuff that he cobbled together and then it's just
Speaker 2: suddenly over.
Speaker 1: Any use of on screen titles would have been very welcome,
Speaker 1: the idea of here's Uma Thurman reading this stuff, here's
Speaker 1: Ryan Gosling actually in front of these green screens, and
Speaker 1: this stuff is obviously edited together, you have multiple takes
Speaker 1: anything of Yeah, that very brief thing of Virginia Madson,
Speaker 1: and thank you for confirming that that was Virginia Madsen,
Speaker 1: because there's no on screen title that says that it's her.
Speaker 1: There's no on screen title in regard to what year
Speaker 1: these are taking place, because I have a feeling that
Speaker 1: the Ryan Gosling stuff took place at a different time
Speaker 1: than all of the stuff with the table read, where
Speaker 1: you see that gian Carlo Esposito was part of that
Speaker 1: early and de Niro and DeNiro, and there's no on
Speaker 1: screen titles to even say who these people are, much
Speaker 1: less like any sort of voice of God narrator to say,
Speaker 1: like in nineteen ninety seven, blah blah blah blah blah,
Speaker 1: like there's nothing, there's no base of he was working
Speaker 1: on this project for so long, and here are the
Speaker 1: moments where that almost came together. Here's some of the
Speaker 1: stuff about what happened with nine to eleven, here's some
Speaker 1: of the you know, I think they do show some
Speaker 1: of that footage of what he was shooting, but it's like, God,
Speaker 1: you are not telling me anything about this stuff. And
Speaker 1: I don't know is Mike Figus known for being a documentarian,
Speaker 1: because it really doesn't feel like it whatsoever.
Speaker 10: If I can pull out one thing that I think
Speaker 10: is a thematic that I found funny later, is like
Speaker 10: one of the first lines that Copola has is who
Speaker 10: cares if you die broke as long as you make
Speaker 10: something beautiful. Then I feel so bad for the effects
Speaker 10: team in here when they all get fired because he
Speaker 10: starts penny pinching. So there's part of me that's like, dude,
Speaker 10: I thought you were the fuck it. I'll go live
Speaker 10: in a cardboard box in my retirement as long as
Speaker 10: I can make exact, factly what I want to make,
Speaker 10: make the exact vision that I have. And then now
Speaker 10: you're like, ah, you guys just spending too much. I'm
Speaker 10: gonna have to let go of y'all. That was this
Speaker 10: real kind of pushbule tension in there in terms of
Speaker 10: a theme. But the one line that I absolutely love
Speaker 10: in here, which seems like it should be the poster,
Speaker 10: is when he lands on his head, I'm not surprised.
Speaker 10: And that's that's George Lucas. Now they give a little
Speaker 10: background on the you know, background between Francis and George,
Speaker 10: and anyone who's a film nerd knows that Francis was
Speaker 10: a mentor and helped him and he's has been his
Speaker 10: friend for you know, decades since you know, the late sixties.
Speaker 10: You know, George Lucas and Frances four Coppola were friends,
Speaker 10: and Coppola helped him out, got him started, pushed him on.
Speaker 7: Kh X and all the other stuff that he did.
Speaker 10: So for me to hear someone who knows him that
Speaker 10: intimately in that well and has respect for his friend
Speaker 10: and that to say, you know, he's.
Speaker 15: The opposite of me, which I was like, that's why
Speaker 15: we've got along so well. I'm a plodding along, careful
Speaker 15: what I'm doing, plant it out, and he's a jump
Speaker 15: off the cliff guy. He had the feeling that he
Speaker 15: was sort of invincible.
Speaker 1: It's ironic because George Lucas met him because he was
Speaker 1: doing a behind the scenes look at the Rain people, right,
Speaker 1: like that's how they came together, and it's like, who's
Speaker 1: this kid kind of thing, and yeah, like I watch
Speaker 1: I rewatched Hearts of Darkness for this podcast, and it's
Speaker 1: so funny to see here's George Lucas, young George Lucas
Speaker 1: talking about like, oh, yeah, originally I was going to
Speaker 1: be directing this with this Millias script and YadA, YadA, YadA,
Speaker 1: and then like I watched this and here he is
Speaker 1: kind of showing like, yeah, here's my involvement, which is
Speaker 1: no involvement at all with this stuff. And I'm just like, yeah,
Speaker 1: even even you shooting the prequels all in a computer
Speaker 1: generated set, like maybe that's saying something more than this
Speaker 1: thing is like the stuff where they used the volume
Speaker 1: and created these beautiful scenes of that look great. I
Speaker 1: thought that was wonderful. But then other times where they're
Speaker 1: just like, well, we're casturing this, capturing this effect in camera,
Speaker 1: like yeah, this kind of looks assy, Like what do
Speaker 1: you do? These are very assy effects? And yeah, we're
Speaker 1: gonna start Penny pinching where you're going to fire the
Speaker 1: production designer or she quits, We're going to fire the
Speaker 1: production people, we're going to fire the special effects people.
Speaker 1: And yeah, it just does feel like it's coming from poverty,
Speaker 1: whereas like, well, dude, maybe if you didn't buy a
Speaker 1: fucking hotel and tear down all these walls and make
Speaker 1: a screening room inside of there. And that's the exact
Speaker 1: same shit he was doing and has done for so
Speaker 1: many of these films where it's like, oh, yeah, I
Speaker 1: bought this thing and then I turned it into a
Speaker 1: screening room. We're gonna do all the editing here, like
Speaker 1: we're gonna buy an RV and do all of these things.
Speaker 1: And here like he had that whole idea of I
Speaker 1: want to shoot one from the heart as like live
Speaker 1: television kind of thing, cut from camera to camera, and
Speaker 1: we're gonna have a van outside where you do all
Speaker 1: of the mixing and everything. It's like, Okay, you've got
Speaker 1: these ideas, but you just never, like I said before,
Speaker 1: he never sticks to landing. Like occasionally he seems to
Speaker 1: be successful despite of himself.
Speaker 2: That's exactly what I was thinking. You look at like
Speaker 2: his method quote unquote.
Speaker 3: I don't see any listen.
Speaker 5: At all.
Speaker 2: Like you're saying, has not changed. I kept thinking watching
Speaker 2: this like Chilah Boff is coming across as like the
Speaker 2: Corey Feldman of this situation, where he's trying to make
Speaker 2: it all about him, but at the same time he's
Speaker 2: not one hundred percent wrong, Like some of these things
Speaker 2: that he's complaining about are legit issues, you know, And
Speaker 2: Copla's reaction most of the time seems to be like,
Speaker 2: you don't know anything. I've done this for all my
Speaker 2: life and you know I'm I'm And it's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: but let's talk about the track record then, like if
Speaker 2: you know, just if it's worth fifty percent of the time,
Speaker 2: that doesn't mean it's bulletproof.
Speaker 5: Sixty percent of the time it works every time.
Speaker 2: It does very much feel like he's still living in
Speaker 2: this other place, like like going back to the Hearts
Speaker 2: of Darkness when he talks about like you know, if
Speaker 2: you if you take this much money and treat it
Speaker 2: like it's way more than it just makes and it's like,
Speaker 2: you can't treat one hundred and twenty million dollars the
Speaker 2: way that you're you know, you can't spend it this way.
Speaker 10: Figus is up against the fact that Adam Driver, the
Speaker 10: actress who plays Julia, there's a lot of people who
Speaker 10: either will give him a little bit of time or
Speaker 10: like none at all.
Speaker 2: She isn't like when people film her eating.
Speaker 10: When I think about this documentary, it almost feels like
Speaker 10: like you were talking about, let's see if we can
Speaker 10: re edit Megapolis and see if there's a better film
Speaker 10: in there. There's part of me that it's like, let's
Speaker 10: re edit this and make it a documentary about Shila
Speaker 10: buff because he actually is the most interesting and engaged
Speaker 10: person here. It's like him and Aubrey Plaza are the
Speaker 10: two most interesting people I find in this entire documentary.
Speaker 2: Because they're the only participants.
Speaker 1: Like Aubrey Plaza, both in the movie and outside of
Speaker 1: the movie, feels like she is so disconnected from everything
Speaker 1: and she's just like, yeah, I'm having a good time.
Speaker 1: Yeah this is good. I'm gonna drink this champagne. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna just you know, enjoy myself on set do these
Speaker 1: acting exercises, and like it feels like half of this
Speaker 1: movie is that I'm doing acting exercises and I'm just like,
Speaker 1: you are wasting so much time and money. Francis, what
Speaker 1: the fuck are you doing well?
Speaker 2: And that whole weird thing between with her and Dustin
Speaker 2: Hoffman where they're doing the arm wrestling thing, which he
Speaker 2: just ended it like it was like, okay, forget it.
Speaker 2: I'm like, I know everything I need to know about
Speaker 2: you now.
Speaker 1: And he just comes off as a total creep in
Speaker 1: oh yeah thementary, Yeah, yeah, very much so. And yeah,
Speaker 1: your main character, Adam Driver does not really want to
Speaker 1: talk to you at all, And I'm like, Okay, that
Speaker 1: makes for a great documentary. This feels like a DVD
Speaker 1: extra that I would complain about on the DVD for Megalopolips,
Speaker 1: which has never really been released in the United States.
Speaker 2: You know, he's doing that road show. This is how
Speaker 2: movies make money. This is how Apocalypse Now made money.
Speaker 2: You just keep you just keep it in theaters for
Speaker 2: one hundred years, even though it's not in any theaters
Speaker 2: right now.
Speaker 1: She's doing acting exercises, even when she's auditioning for the part.
Speaker 1: He's asking her to do these things, and I'm just like, Francis,
Speaker 1: you are so fucking annoying. I know that Hearts of
Speaker 1: Darkness did not paint him a good light in any way,
Speaker 1: but at least I kind of empathized with him at
Speaker 1: times because it felt like his whole world was crashing down.
Speaker 1: In this one, it feels like he's there pulling it down,
Speaker 1: you know, he's trying to be Dustin Hoffman and his
Speaker 1: death scene just pulling down the columns on himself.
Speaker 10: The great thing about Hearts of Darkness is that he
Speaker 10: can always point to Brando and go, see, I've got
Speaker 10: a deal with the Diva. The Diva is doing this
Speaker 10: to me, And in this he's.
Speaker 7: Got no by himself.
Speaker 1: This is his own diva.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 10: And the thing about Dustin Hoffman, I love the honesty
Speaker 10: of Dustin Hoffman in here, where he's like, I don't,
Speaker 10: I don't know what any.
Speaker 2: Of this means.
Speaker 7: I don't have a clue. I still don't.
Speaker 10: He's like, I shot it, and I shot it and
Speaker 10: I still don't. Just to be that honest and that
Speaker 10: willing to be that honest, I mean, that's great. I
Speaker 10: think it's partly to do with the fact that he's
Speaker 10: about the same age as Copla and he doesn't care
Speaker 10: anymore since eighties, what you find is Shia Labuffo in
Speaker 10: the other way and trying to push back and go hey, man,
Speaker 10: like help me with this, and he's like, yay, you
Speaker 10: know that's not real.
Speaker 7: That's not real. Like you said, Mike, that's not real.
Speaker 7: That's real.
Speaker 2: Going back to what your earlier question about, in something
Speaker 2: like Shilah buff should have directed this, then we would
Speaker 2: have Then we would have had something. He'd still be
Speaker 2: shooting it but still or.
Speaker 1: He'd be watching it in a movie theater. I would
Speaker 1: like to see his reaction to watching Megalopolis now, like,
Speaker 1: let's re rent out that theater, Shia and just sit
Speaker 1: there and watch the movies that you've made since you
Speaker 1: did that kind of art installation thing that he was.
Speaker 12: Doing yesterday, you said tomorrow, So just do it.
Speaker 4: Make your dreams come true. Just do it.
Speaker 2: Don't let your dreams be dreamed.
Speaker 1: He is responsible for some of the best things in
Speaker 1: the Internet, and his whole thing where he's talking about
Speaker 1: how he has to make amends with John Voight and
Speaker 1: because I was like, oh, yeah, they were in holes together.
Speaker 1: I think they've been in a few things and the
Speaker 1: first Transformers that's right, yes, of course, who can forget
Speaker 1: Sam with wiki Yeah, and John Voight as the president
Speaker 1: the loss of sam wit Wiki from those Transformers films
Speaker 1: really made the last five, ten, fifteen of those just
Speaker 1: feel very lacking.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree, but at least.
Speaker 1: We really are clear on what's staff statory rapez.
Speaker 2: Yes, that yeah, that was. That was very helpful in
Speaker 2: U in the in the fourth one, like a critical
Speaker 2: plot point to to that entire story.
Speaker 10: But to your reference to Michael Bay, since you invoked him, uh,
Speaker 10: do we agree that a bad Francis Ford Coppola film
Speaker 10: is better than a good Michael Bay film?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: No, I think Pain and Game is way better than
Speaker 1: a lot of the movies that Francis has done.
Speaker 2: I don't want to say say but like the film
Speaker 2: nerded me wants to be able to say no, no, no,
Speaker 2: no the worst. But but I have to agree with
Speaker 2: Mike and I haven't even seen Pain and Game. I
Speaker 2: feel like there are other Michael Bay movies. I'm like, like, uh,
Speaker 2: I think that that might have been better.
Speaker 1: Armageddon way better than some of the things I've seen.
Speaker 2: I mean, it was better than this movie.
Speaker 10: Armageddon got a criterion, will Megalopolis?
Speaker 1: Ever, I don't know who is he ever going to
Speaker 1: release it? Ever?
Speaker 2: I feel like that conversation was happening right up until
Speaker 2: the movie was released, and then it was like, no,
Speaker 2: we're good.
Speaker 1: I will say, Peanut Butter falcon way better movie than
Speaker 1: this one.
Speaker 2: That's almost enough to get me to see it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was actually pretty good. Yeah, it's so weird,
Speaker 1: Like even when Sam Wasawson shows up in this movie,
Speaker 1: like my wife was just like who is that? I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, it's Sam Watson. He wrote a couple
Speaker 1: of books and I forgot that he wrote about Francis.
Speaker 1: And then I was like, why was he in that movie?
Speaker 1: Why am I asking this question? You know, mister Figus,
Speaker 1: Like why aren't you presenting me with a little bit
Speaker 1: more information about this stuff.
Speaker 2: It also does make me wonder, though, if, now that
Speaker 2: we're talking about it, if this was the best they
Speaker 2: guess could make out of what he was allowed to do.
Speaker 1: Well, you can at least put on some on screen
Speaker 1: fucking titles. Man, I don't need to see the stuff
Speaker 1: with the hats done twelve times. If I could like
Speaker 1: save a little bit of money and eliminate some hat
Speaker 1: throwing sequences and spend some money for on screen titles,
Speaker 1: you know, like let's fire up the Chiron machine and
Speaker 1: actually do that, and he has those occasionally where he'll
Speaker 1: show an actor and say what their name is and
Speaker 1: what their role is and they actually say Sam Watson author,
Speaker 1: But I'm like author of what, you know, like say
Speaker 1: like what he's done. You know, I would really think
Speaker 1: that would be great. And yeah, I just feel so
Speaker 1: bad for the other cast people that are on here,
Speaker 1: except for the costume designer who just seems like a
Speaker 1: real pain in the ass.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true. That feel very much like she is.
Speaker 2: This is my moment, and you know I am. You
Speaker 2: are all very very fortunate to be in my presence
Speaker 2: and seeing all these things happen right now. It's like, Okay,
Speaker 2: the costumes were fun to look at in that display
Speaker 2: case that they had for them at Greenfield Village or
Speaker 2: Heavy Forward when we were there.
Speaker 1: They made so many good decisions and then they were
Speaker 1: just followed by bad decisions.
Speaker 2: That in Aubrey Plais, this crazy outfit at the end, well,
Speaker 2: you need to make sure that there's enough enough space
Speaker 2: there so that the so that the arrow can get
Speaker 2: right in there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do like the I can't remember who it is,
Speaker 1: it says, last time I saw you, you were getting
Speaker 1: an arrow pulled out of your ass.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, No, I think it was the biggest saying
Speaker 2: that too to him in the h in the in
Speaker 2: the No, maybe you're right, maybe I'm wrong, but yeah, I.
Speaker 1: Think he might be right. I think I might have
Speaker 1: been figures.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and before you get Mussolini and.
Speaker 1: I don't know, do we want to talk at all
Speaker 1: about the controversy when it comes to how friendly Francis
Speaker 1: was with some of the extras in the movie, because
Speaker 1: they sure skirt that issue big time in the stock.
Speaker 10: At least they put some passing reference to it in there.
Speaker 10: So I guess if you want to know more, go
Speaker 10: find out.
Speaker 2: I mean, it just it to me. It just adds
Speaker 2: on to like the there's just a creepiness to so
Speaker 2: much of this, especially the script when Caesar is just
Speaker 2: going on and on and on about women, and it's
Speaker 2: just like and how weak he is and how much
Speaker 2: he wants this, and it's just like, man, this is
Speaker 2: all gross. And it was like, because I was reading
Speaker 2: that before I watched it again and I'm like, was
Speaker 2: this in the movie? I really hope not, because I
Speaker 2: really hope Adam Driving didn't have to say any of
Speaker 2: this stuff, because it's just terrible.
Speaker 1: And then Rob you brought up another movie that happened
Speaker 1: to come out the exact same year, made for a
Speaker 1: fraction of the cost, also about an architect.
Speaker 10: Yeah, just thinking about doing this movie got me thinking
Speaker 10: about architecture film and the fact that you have two
Speaker 10: movies that came out This kind of felt like to me,
Speaker 10: you know, in its own little way, that one year
Speaker 10: where you had the two World War two movies, you
Speaker 10: had Saving Drivate Ryan and you had Thin Redline, two
Speaker 10: very different filmmakers, different styles, you know, both doing World
Speaker 10: War two movies. So The Brutalist was made for probably
Speaker 10: the catering budget or maybe the hotel budgets that they
Speaker 10: bought and rehab that hotel about ten million dollars. To me,
Speaker 10: it feels like it deals with a lot of the
Speaker 10: same issues, which got me thinking about how architects are
Speaker 10: often perceived in other films. And I think, you know,
Speaker 10: you referenced it up the top about iin Rand, and
Speaker 10: I think we owe a lot to ein Rand for
Speaker 10: the fountain Head, for maybe setting us down this path
Speaker 10: of the idea that the architect is this megalamaniacal artist
Speaker 10: who has a vision and damn the torpedoes and screw
Speaker 10: everyone else around me.
Speaker 7: You're fucking idiots. I'm the one who who knows.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I thought the Brulis was great, and and to
Speaker 2: your point, in many ways, the antithesis of this, right,
Speaker 2: the brutaliss is is the less is way more, whereas
Speaker 2: this is more is so so much less, like I've
Speaker 2: been staying earlier, where in the Bruless is like, Okay,
Speaker 2: we're gonna go ahead and follow this one character and
Speaker 2: we're gonna stay with them, and we're not gonna go
Speaker 2: off on a whole bunch of different tangents. There will
Speaker 2: be other people in his life, and they will be very,
Speaker 2: very impactful, but they will also be fully realized. We're
Speaker 2: going to see this person's journey through trying to create,
Speaker 2: you know, as an artist, being impacted by all these
Speaker 2: different things, and how he ultimately perseveres, what that's worth,
Speaker 2: what the cost is, and and and and where his
Speaker 2: art ends up. And there's no there's no trapped baby
Speaker 2: at the end of it either. You're absolutely right. There
Speaker 2: are so many similar themes because it's it's it's also
Speaker 2: I remember a letterboxed review for Megalopolis, which was calling
Speaker 2: out the whole it was it was I think it
Speaker 2: was it was Megan Abbott who had said, like like
Speaker 2: a pox on all the great Man movies, and she said,
Speaker 2: and any of them that are being made. I think
Speaker 2: she said, something made without irony, and she goes, I'm
Speaker 2: looking at you, the brutalist, because it hadn't come out yet,
Speaker 2: you know, and then it comes out and then she
Speaker 2: you know, she I'm pretty sure she did like that,
Speaker 2: because yeah, like this, this is how you approach this
Speaker 2: subject in a way that fulfills the themes that you're attempting, right,
Speaker 2: And it isn't just the lack of megalon.
Speaker 10: Well, the other piece I was thinking about, Mike, and
Speaker 10: you had mentioned this about Coppola commenting on America, and
Speaker 10: the Brutalist does that in such a way that it says,
Speaker 10: you love me here, you don't love me here. The
Speaker 10: whole question of the immigrant experience as the son of
Speaker 10: an immigrant, you know, all of it to me is
Speaker 10: that if Copola could have weeded this down and got
Speaker 10: it to a place and made this back during his
Speaker 10: golden age in the seventies, that would have been in there,
Speaker 10: that would have been that story.
Speaker 1: It's a little much with the Guy Pierce character doing
Speaker 1: what he does later in the movie. That's a little
Speaker 1: on the nose, But otherwise I was pretty pretty happy
Speaker 1: with The Brutalist from Stem to Stern, especially all the
Speaker 1: hand jobs that are given to the Brutalist by his wife. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was fantastic. It was such a stronger story. I
Speaker 1: thought that the music was a lot better. The music
Speaker 1: in Megalopolis is so discordant at times, and I know
Speaker 1: that it's on purpose, but at the same time, it
Speaker 1: feels just very childish, just like, Okay, things are stressed out,
Speaker 1: so we're going to play very discordant music here. Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I get it, Like give me something, give me something stronger,
Speaker 1: give me something better, give me something that kind of
Speaker 1: feels more like a hole. And Megalopolis feels like a
Speaker 1: series of scenes. And even though The Brutalist is literally
Speaker 1: a movie in two parts with an intermission in it,
Speaker 1: it feels very much like a hole and it feels
Speaker 1: like this one person's entire life story. I just appreciate
Speaker 1: how cohesive it is, and Megalopolis is anything but Cohie
Speaker 1: and architects and movies. I mean, there was a period there,
Speaker 1: especially in the late eighties early nineties where I was
Speaker 1: really picking up on how many architects were in movies.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a silly example, but the Peter
Speaker 1: Greenaway film Belly of the Architect of Sorry, Belly of
Speaker 1: an Architect comes out the same year as Three Men
Speaker 1: and a Baby, where the Tom Selleck character is an architect,
Speaker 1: which comes out just a few years before. I think
Speaker 1: it was Jungle Fever, where the Wesley Snipe's character is
Speaker 1: an architect, and it just felt like there was so
Speaker 1: many freaking architects in movies. I think even Indecent Proposal
Speaker 1: had an architect in it, and it's just like so
Speaker 1: many and it was like kind of a trope for
Speaker 1: a long time where these architects, and where even without architects,
Speaker 1: I mean, the first movie that pops to my mind
Speaker 1: is Ransom with Mel Gibson, or even Lethal Weapon, where
Speaker 1: if your house is being repaired or your house is
Speaker 1: under construction, that means that there's a problem with the family,
Speaker 1: and it feels like that was kind of playing right
Speaker 1: into this whole architect thing of like, here are these
Speaker 1: people that are supposed to be in control and supposed
Speaker 1: to be, you know, creating all this stuff, but they're
Speaker 1: mired in chaos. You know, you're mired in the chaos
Speaker 1: of introducing a little baby into this bachelor apartment with
Speaker 1: these three wacky guys. Which I still haven't seen the
Speaker 1: original French film. I'm always curious how that compares. But yeah,
Speaker 1: architects were freaking everywhere back then.
Speaker 2: In the In the French one, the baby ends up
Speaker 2: trapped and the guys are all frozen in time. It's
Speaker 2: it's crazy, man.
Speaker 10: When I brought this up, my girlfriend said, Sleepless in.
Speaker 7: Seattle, Oh right, yeah.
Speaker 10: And then and then as I went into Wikipedia and
Speaker 10: pulled up movies about architects, it gave me click which
Speaker 10: I've never seen, the Adam Sandler, which he's an architect.
Speaker 1: I don't really want Adam Sandler designing anything. I would
Speaker 1: much rather have Mike Brady and his brood of children
Speaker 1: around rather than Adam Sandler, like, oh, bebety pop. I'm
Speaker 1: going to make the house.
Speaker 10: A lot of these tropes of the architect I mean,
Speaker 10: for lack of a better it seems like everyone's playing
Speaker 10: a riff off of Iin Rand. The character has to
Speaker 10: be a control freak, the character has to be better
Speaker 10: than you, I know, you don't you know? And then
Speaker 10: they get to come up and I guess it's all
Speaker 10: the individualism, the Emersonian mind.
Speaker 6: And you think one year of medical school entitles you
Speaker 6: to plow for the riches of my Emersonian mind.
Speaker 8: Entitles me yes, entitles me yes, entitles me yes.
Speaker 1: Iin Rant's her whole other ball of wax where it's
Speaker 1: just I know better than everybody else. Everyone is a
Speaker 1: leech on the state. But yet I take SSI. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's snap benefits all over again.
Speaker 10: I mean, if anyone who's listening has any take on architects,
Speaker 10: feel free go to the Projection Booth podcast website and
Speaker 10: tell us other architect movies. And why does this trope exist?
Speaker 10: Why isn't he a painter? Why is he a sculptor?
Speaker 10: Why isn't he doing some other kind of art? Why
Speaker 10: is it going to be an architect?
Speaker 2: I just keep thinking about how it culminated with Seinfeld, right,
Speaker 2: like with George always talking about wanting to be an architect.
Speaker 13: I don't see architecture coming from you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well you know Megalon is very much like Latex
Speaker 1: and Latex accessories Vandale industries could create Megalon if they
Speaker 1: just worked a little harder at it. It could be
Speaker 1: like transparent aluminum. Who's to say that he didn't invent
Speaker 1: it in the first place, all right, guys, I don't
Speaker 1: know if I've learned anything more about Megalopolis today from
Speaker 1: our discussion than not, but I'm hoping that I can
Speaker 1: stop thinking about it on a daily basis now. I
Speaker 1: feel like I've exercised some demons with this.
Speaker 2: Can only think about it less now, That's what I'm
Speaker 2: taking from this. More is going to still be less.
Speaker 10: Nothing six feeds or maybe it doesn't.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much, guys for being on the
Speaker 1: show today, Robin, Mike. So, Mike, what's been keeping you busy?
Speaker 2: Sir? Now that Megalon is out there, I'm really focused
Speaker 2: on I think it's called fluid karma or is it liquid?
Speaker 2: I think it's fluid karma. So once I'm done developing that,
Speaker 2: and you know, then I'm going to stop time and
Speaker 2: let my kids live their lives.
Speaker 1: As you're stuck in a time loop forever.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, but I'll just be by myself and.
Speaker 1: Rob, how about yourself?
Speaker 10: Well, I'm continuing on the path of being the great man,
Speaker 10: So you know, just give me your money and follow
Speaker 10: what I say. Beyond that, just continue to do the
Speaker 10: writing I said, I've written a couple of books over
Speaker 10: the past year or so. I'm working on editing them
Speaker 10: so that they may be presentable to someone who may
Speaker 10: be interested.
Speaker 7: So that's been.
Speaker 10: About it, watching movies and glad to be since we're
Speaker 10: coming into early twenty sixteen. By the time this comes out,
Speaker 10: probb me sixteen you are controlling. Yeah, I have drilling
Speaker 10: time twenty six I will be on the show more often.
Speaker 10: I think I'm on maybe once a month in the
Speaker 10: coming year, so that's nice and I always enjoy coming
Speaker 10: on talking with you, so it'll be fun.
Speaker 1: Thanks again, guys for being on the show. Thanks to
Speaker 1: everybody for listening. Do you want to support physical media
Speaker 1: and get great movies in the mail, head over to
Speaker 1: scarecrow dot com and try. Scarecrow Video is incredible rent
Speaker 1: by mail service, the largest publicly available collection in the world.
Speaker 1: You'll find films there entirely unavailable elsewhere. Get what you want,
Speaker 1: when you want it without the scrolling. And yes they
Speaker 1: have Megalopolis. If you want to hear more of me
Speaker 1: shooting off my mouth check out some of the other
Speaker 1: shows that I work on. They are all available at
Speaker 1: Weirdingwaymedia dot com. Thanks especially to our Patreon community. If
Speaker 1: you want to join the community, visit patreon dot com
Speaker 1: slash Projection booth. Like you said, Rob, We're all great
Speaker 1: man here, just give us money.
Speaker 16: So I don't wide up bobus not down a fraize
Speaker 16: far out bad, said mom. I get said it is
Speaker 16: a fell lot sounds far out of bad.
Speaker 2: Go.
Speaker 16: Down.
Speaker 2: I don't rather show off my dog like far out bad, go.
Speaker 16: Strivest my doll right far bad, got lost it said
Speaker 16: s side. Oh why not on.
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 2: Because not find a way.
Speaker 8: Entitles me yes, Entitles me yes. She entitles me yes,
Speaker 8: Entitles me yes, Entitles me yes, Entitles me yes, Entitles
Speaker 8: me yes, Entitles me yes, titles me yes, entitles me yes,
Speaker 8: entitles me yes. She entitles me yes, Entitles me yes,
Speaker 8: Entitles me yes. She entitles me yes, entitles me yes,
Speaker 8: entitles me yes.
Speaker 4: She entitles me yes.