Francis Ford Coppola

My Old Ass

26/11/24

Amazon Prime

Maybe because it’s lumbered with what must rank as one of the most unprepossessing titles in cinematic history, this charming film failed to make it into UK multiplexes and can only be found lurking amidst the ‘recently added’ section on Amazon Prime. Written and directed by Megan Park, it’s an engaging story, anchored by a tremendously appealing central performance by Maisy Stella.

She plays Elliott, a teenage girl living in the wilds of Canada. She’s recently finished school and is preparing to head off to university in Toronto. Meanwhile, she’s intent on enjoying her remaining days at home: making out with an attractive female assistant at her local coffee shop (an ambition that’s quickly ticked off the ‘to do’ list), and then heading off with her two pals, Ruthie (Maggie Ziegler) and Ro (Kerrice Brooks), for an unconventional birthday celebration. The trio have laid their hands on some hallucinogenic mushrooms and plan to spend the night in the local woods, getting utterly wasted. (With typical teenage insensitivity, Elliott is blissfully unaware that her family are waiting at home for her with a birthday cake).

The resulting trip has some unexpected consequences. Elliott encounters a version of herself from the future. Older Elliott (Aubrey Plaza) is thirty-nine, still in college and, judging by the scant information she gives away, living in a dark and unpredictable world. She has only one bit of advice for her younger self. Stay away from somebody called ‘Chad.’ (She refuses to say any more on the subject.)

The following morning, older Elliott has disappeared but she has left her phone number and, it turns out, the two of them can talk to each other across the decades, even exchange text messages. And then young Elliott bumps into a handsome and charming stranger (played by Percy Hynes White) and, despite her previous aversion to boys, she begins to feel powerfully attracted to him.

His name? You guessed it. Chad.

My Old Ass is a charming, bitter-sweet story that celebrates the freedom of youth and, at the same time, points out the futility of trying to deny your inner longings and the inevitability of change. As I said, Stella is tremendous in this and I expect to see her in more movies in the not too distant future. Elliot’s relationship with her mother, Kathy (Maria Dizzla), and her two brothers, Max (Seth Isaac Johnson) and Spencer (Carter Trozzolo), are effectively drawn – I particularly enjoy Spencer’s obsessive preoccupation with the actor, Saoirse Ronan – and the picturesque Canadian settings are beautifully utilised.

Aubrey Plaza makes a welcome addition to any film (she was the best thing about Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis) and my only complaint is that here she’s somewhat underused, popping up only twice in person. But it doesn’t prevent the story from keeping me intrigued and hooked to its charming – and sometimes quirky – worldview.

So, the next time you’re stuck for something new to watch, head to Amazon Prime and give this a whirl. It’s a delight.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

Megalopolis

03/10/24

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Well, I can’t say I wasn’t warned. Francis Ford Coppola’s long-nurtured passion project, Megalopolis, arrives garlanded with the kind of vitriolic advance reviews that instantly sank its chances of making any money at the box office. But why all the furore? What has the man done that’s so unspeakable? You’d think he’d murdered somebody. Instead, at the age of eighty-six, he’s made a vanity project, self-financing the hundred million dollar film by selling one of his vineyards. (We’ve all been there.) He hasn’t bankrupted a movie studio, which makes a refreshing change.

Lest we forget, Coppola has made some underwhelming films before. Yes, he gave us The Conversation, The Godfathers (One and Two) and of course, Apocalypse Now, but there was also One From the Heart and er… Jack, both of which were less than perfect.

It’s important to note that right from the opening credits, Megalopolis is described as ‘A Fable,’ so those who describe it as ‘unrealistic’ may be missing the point.

Somewhere in an imagined future, New York has become New Rome, and those that run the city have taken on the aspects of senators and emperors, strutting around in toga-like garments and looking very pleased with themselves. Cesar Catalina (Adam Driver) is a sort of genius / town-planner, who has discovered a mysterious and indestructible building substance called Megalon. He has also found a way to stop time by clicking his fingers (as you do) and has a penchant for lapsing into Shakespeare soliloquies for no apparent reason.

Cesar is currently intent on building the titular inner city area, which he believes will be the first step in creating a bright new future, but his main adversary in this project is Mayor Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), who seems to be opposed to any kind of progress. Cicero’s daughter, Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel), on the other hand, finds herself increasingly drawn to Catalina and it’s not long before sparks begin to fly between them. It’s clearly going to cause trouble.

There are other powers at work in the city. TV presenter, Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza), is suffering from failing audience figures and is keen to take a step up in the world by marrying Cesar’s rich uncle, Hamilton Crassus III (Jon Voight). She uses her nephew, Clodio (Shia LaBeouf), to help her to get there, by any foul means he can devise. (The odious Clodio is clearly inspired by Donald Trump, right down to the bloody insurrection he foments and is perhaps the one place in the ‘fable’ that does relate to real life.)

Overall, Megalopolis doesn’t work and it’s not that it’s short of ideas. On the contrary, it is virtually struggling to contain them all and it doesn’t help that there are too many big names in cameo roles here, most of them improvising their lines. The likes of Dustin Hoffman and Talia Shire flit briefly across the screen and it feels as though Coppola, having secured their services, is unsure of exactly what to do with them. Sometimes, when you work too hard on a project, you stop seeing it objectively.

On the plus side, the film looks magnificent in IMAX, a succulent, shimmering wonder to behold (Coppola did his own cinematography) and, in the film’s latter stages, there are sequences that might best be described as psychedelic, the massive screen appearing to erupt at regular intervals in a blaze of light and colour. If you’re going to see this, do try to catch it in the cinema, because its going to lose all of its majesty on streaming. The running time of two hours and eighteen minutes soon elapses and, after everything that Coppola has given us over the years, surely it’s not too much to ask that movie buffs make the effort to actually go out to see it.

3 stars

Philip Caveney

Apocalypse Now: The Final Cut

04/09/19

Some film directors have an unfortunate habit of revisiting their earlier successes and producing new versions of them. But is it always the wisest move?

Apocalypse Now is a good case in point. It’s rightfully acclaimed as one of the greatest war (and anti-war) movies ever made, but Francis Ford Coppola will keep returning to the well and tinkering with his masterpiece. Now here we are on the 40th anniversary of its release and he’s gone and done it again, assembling a version that weighs in at a hefty three hours and two minutes.

I first saw the original in 1979, when it was a mere at two hours and twenty-seven minutes. It had been a weird kind of day. Cycling through Manchester, I was kicked off my bike by a football supporter through the open window of a passing car. Understandably shaken, I found a young policeman, helpfully hiding in a shop doorway, who told me that a visiting football team was running riot in the city centre. He advised me to ‘lie low’ for a while.

A bit further along Deansgate, the ABC Cinema was showing Apocalypse Now, and a war movie felt somehow appropriate. So in I duly trooped and was promptly blown away by what I saw. Coppola’s transposition of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness to the jungles of war-torn Vietnam felt masterful. Indeed, I watched it again only a few weeks later at the infamous Aaben cinema, where it was given added mystique by the fact that pretty much everybody at the screening was smoking dope. Er… far out.

But then in 2001 along came Redux and, with it, an extra forty-nine minutes of footage that had been excised from the theatrical release, including the French Plantation Sequence – three words that still strike horror into my heart. This seemingly interminable section where Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) eats a meal and is given a long lecture on Vietnam’s troubled history by the plantation owner has the unfortunate effect of stopping the film dead in its tracks. Was I the only movie fan who, on seeing the words ‘The Final Cut,’ fervently hoped that Coppola had actually shortened the running time by taking a large pair of scissors to this bit?

No such luck. There’s even more of it now. And it fatally wounds the film.

The problem is, it’s followed by the (already glacially slow) final set piece and any goodwill that the previous two thirds has earned itself evaporates all too quickly, as we watch Marlon Brando sitting in the darkness and mumbling incoherently.  Also, it must be said, that the ending – based on Conrad’s colonial-era novel with its white saviour storyline – looks a little dodgy when examined in the cold light of the present day.

A pity then, because – as ever – the film looks absolutely gorgeous, especially on the huge Imax screen. Many of the scenes have passed into movie legend, together with quotes from John Milius’s script (‘I love the smell of napalm in the morning’ – ‘Charlie don’t surf!’ – ‘Terminate with extreme prejudice,’ to name but three). The helicopter battle scenes are unparalleled and the film expertly portrays the complete insanity of war, depicting Willard’s upriver journey as a dark descent into his own battle-damaged psyche. Oh, and there’s also fun to be had watching out for early performances by Harrison Ford and Laurence Fishburne in supporting roles.

The original Apocalypse Now is undoubtedly a brilliant and unforgettable piece of cinema. This version (and it almost hurts me to say it) squanders its own strengths by giving its director free reign to put back things that were, for very sound reasons, removed in the first place. Those with weak bladders take note: time your toilet break to coincide with Willard’s arrival at the French plantation.

And take your time. Trust me, you won’t miss anything.

4 stars

Philip Caveney