Author Spotlight
Preston Hooker
“The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.”
Marcus Aurelius — an ancient Roman emperor and philosopher — is frequently cited in Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis,” an enthralling cinematic experience merging nearly every genre into one. Yet the film has been receiving large amounts of undeserved hate from critics and audiences alike.
The Roman emperor’s words are able to simplify the emotional message that the fictional city of “New Rome” integrates to open-minded viewers. In the city, architect and scientist Cesar Catilina attempts to implement the philosophical ideal of a utopia — a perfect world or destination with no flaws. Catilina is opposed by Mayor Franklyn Cicero, who deems Catilina’s methods unsafe.
The ideas proposed by Aurelius and other philosophers of the time are mirrored in New Rome — with identical architecture and political figures. The film follows the historical events of the Roman Empire’s rise, signifying a false rebirth of old Rome. New Rome is attempting to be as great as the original, yet to no avail.
Catilina uses Megalon, a MacGuffin — an item with no other purpose but to move the plot forward — that has no clear visual form. Megalon allows the architect to break the laws of physics, stopping time at his will and defying gravity for the benefit of construction.
Where most see a cheap plot device of limitless power, I see an opportunity for limitless imagination from Coppola. The plot and visuals are unbound, and they’re exposed to their full extent of depthful meaning, only if the viewer is willing to see them. The seemingly impossible skyscrapers with painting-like grace constantly kept my eyes glued to the screen.
Coppola dedicates the film to his beloved wife, Eleanor, making all of the intellectual and in-depth meditations more meaningful and personal for the viewer — something I also think is lost on many viewers when looking for the “purpose” of the film. The movie is a love-letter, not just a cinematic masterpiece.
I found it was best to view Megalopolis without knowing much about the plot, only knowing about Catilina and Cicero’s dynamic, provided by the purposefully vague trailers. The lack of knowledge adds emphasis to the experience itself, leaving the viewer to constantly wonder, “What’s next?” throughout the film.
The eccentric style of Megalopolis has thrown off many viewers, with a cluster of ideas being expressed in single shots, yet I didn’t feel this was overwhelming whatsoever. If anything, these jam-packed shots made me want to view the film for a second and third time just to dissect it more.
I believe the movie is what the viewer’s thoughts make it, and that all of the negative reviews are expecting the movie to do the work for them and tell them how to think and feel. This is an unconventional film and should be analyzed as such.
After giving the film a zero out of five stars, Johnny Oleksinski from the New York Post continued to ridicule the entire idea of the film.
“[Megalopolis] is impossible to like,” Oleksinski said. “To even politely admire this cacophony of concepts takes the willpower of an army.”
But Oleksinski is being too technical with his analysis of Megalopolis. The viewer isn’t meant to appreciate every single aspect and underlying metaphor made in this film — there are just too many to keep track of. What the film is meant to do is provoke something within the viewer, to enable thought and reflection on our society and the disparities within it.
Don’t try to understand the film. Just feel it.
The performances are all provocative and lifelike — we’re living in a world of billionaires with personality, for better or for worse, so when Adam Driver portrays his own interpretation of such a character, I can’t help but find it hilariously accurate while still connecting with him.
This is a movie everyone has seen before, but never in theaters or on a screen. It’s seen every day — when you’re crossing the street and look up at a tall building or when a politician promises voters something they can’t guarantee. We’re living in New Rome, and the thought of a Megalopolis is lost on our society completely.
Utopia is an impossible concept that is brought to life by Coppola.
Though the film has a rather long runtime of 138 minutes, I felt like I was on the edge of my seat, immersed in a golden hue of stunning visuals and thought-provoking ideas that I will never forget.
Though I understand why some viewers may not prefer the metaphoric style of Megalopolis, I don’t think that that makes it’s “bad” by any means. The film is still beautiful and entertaining. There’s nothing objectively “bad” about this movie; there may be things that are “strange” or “uncanny,” but not bad at all.
I can easily say that I’ve never seen anything like Megalopolis before, and that gives me hope. Innovation isn’t lost even after 136 years of cinema, and someone with as much experience as Francis Ford Coppola can contribute to that innovation using money from his own pockets and passion from his own mind.
I saw this film twice and it was the most magical experience I’ve ever had. I absolutely loved this film and think it’s brilliant. I agree with your statement that you need to “feel” this film to understand it.
All of the hate is politically driven. But the proof is in the pudding. It’s an instant classic.
THIS MOVIE IS A TYPICAL HOLLYWOOD SLOP FEST OF SELF EGOMANIACS. IT LITERALLY SUKS
In your case ; illitrallee
I haven’t seen it yet. I meant to but after all the reviews, I hesitated, and it left the theater. I don’t see this as pretentious at all, you’re just making a point that doesn’t sound unreasonable.
It’s ok to have an opinion about the way people view media in this particular era. I suspect there’s some truth to it.
You don’t have to come up with some massive pretentious article to like the film Preston. You can just like the film. Simmer down
“Don’t try to understand the film. Just feel it.” My eyes rolled so far in the back of my head I got motion sickness and threw up in my mouth.
Such a hyperbolic little baby
😂 same
that might explain your breath
Re: The headline. You sure about that?
This review honestly makes me not want to see the film. The pretentiousness of the author is staggering. “If only you were as smart and eccentric as me you would understand”. I’m not one to bag on a film because I don’t like it, but to presume to represent some elite slice of society that is the only people who could grasp the concept of the film makes me ill.
I appreciate your review. I enjoyed the movie very much.
So did I !
This is the first review of this film that I have read that makes sense to me. I dived into to the infinitely deep images.
My only regret is I can’t watch it again, it is gone…
The New York Post is not where you want to go to get an intelligent review of a film.
Instead of using FFC imagination, why can’t I use my own? Everything is so cookie cutter you have to pick a side: The Esthetic this film the annilhalism The Substance,
Deadpool or don’t care at all Inside Out 2.
I don’t want a film to make me feel or think I WANT BOTH!
More Truman show Annie hall midnight cowboy Moonlight I want the ending to be open not happy or sad I want to go to the movies and experience everything! Watch movies like the Great Dictator or Marty! Do a research…
Straight out of the psychadelic sixties; makes you think, pay attention. The problem for many viewers and reviewers is mental laziness; it’s not fair, it challenges me, there’s no car chase. I’ll watch it again, and again, Coppola is an artist, a master.
Yes. I saw it and felt the reviews were way off base.
It was like a Wish.com version of a Kubrick movie, but without a sense of humor (except for the death of Wow Platinum, which was hilarious.). It was comically pretentious. Quoting Marcus Aurelius like a first semester philosophy undergraduate, but offering no actual insights into stoicism. It was advising for how nutty is was. I got a good laugh out of how bad the overreacting was. Aubrey Plaza was the only actor that seemed to understand what was going on. But, whatever, if you like it, I’m glad you find something you like.
Movies deserve whatever reputation they get. If people don’t like the movie then they deserve that reputation.
Nice one Preston Hooker, we don’t all have to think the same.
This was the worst movie my husband and I have seen in a veeeery long time! So bad that we got up and left half way through the movie. I can’t believe we even got it to the half!!!
Wow.
Then by your own admission, you didn’t see it.
Marvel themes might be more in tune with your limited capabilities
One has to be eccentrically-minded/an overthinker just to watch this movie. During Roman times, for people to stay quiet/disciplined…provide them food, work & entertainment. Fast forward, same goes with today’s era, controlled by a few (ILLUMINATI). Trying to change the power momentum of commerce is death.
These comments are extremely telling. Megalopolis is, indeed, art. Otherwise it would not be inspiring so much interpretation and such heated debate.
Your last name being hooker makes sense, you got paid for this blow job piece.
Had Coppola shelved the film until his death then his estate waited until interest rose to a fever pitch before releasing it….the movie would be heralded as a work of genius.
Preston writes like a child who thinks the rest of the world hasn’t “discovered” that films can have meaning beyond the surface, and the rest of us are just so sheerly draconian and slow that we could never understand “tHe aRt”, as opposed to simply not enjoying this over indulgent rip.
Copppla, perhaps, should also consider not molesting women on the set of films “dedicated to his wife”, as maybe that taints our ability to embrace this “great lOvE sToRy”.
Coppola deserves to rot in hell for supporting Victor Salva
The reviewer suggests the movie’s dedication to Eleanor Coppola should influence our opinion of the movie. Perhaps Eleanor should be mad he spent all his money on this piece of crap.
👍🤣👍
Hmmm. Well, my friends who went and saw it thought it deserved all of the criticism it got, and told me I dodged a bullet by not seeing it. Horses for courses, I guess.
“Artiste”-splaining is worse than mansplaining. The eye test is the simple truth. This train wreck was a mish mash of good and bad move parts. There was some good acting in this movie although it was lost in a rather meandering and pointless plot. My girlfriend’s respect for my need to see things through to the end was the only thing that kept her in the theater. She hates it when I dissect movies and plays after we see them but she was all too willing to jump into the deep end of the pool on this one. I’m not a religious person nor am I squeamish or easily offended, but I found the sex scenes to be obnoxious, obscene, gratuitous and generally in bad taste. I went to see this movie without reading reviews because it was supposed to be Francis Ford Coppolla’s magnum opus. In fact, it was a meandering and unfulfilling. My dog expressed my feelings for this film on our morning walk. This may become a cult classic, but then again, most people in cults are mindless idiots looking for fellowship.
I think the reason why most people don’t like it is because they all have tik-tok and YouTube mush brain and are, subconsciously, mad at the fact they can’t understand something which holds more allegorical, metaphorical, and philosophical meaning than the marvel films and reboots and remakes they’re used to watching and love to lap for like monkeys when a superhero dies and comes back to life. No hand holding in this film. If Ulysses was released in this time, people would say the same thing about it. Ironically, all these negative reviews kind of prove the point of the a decadent society — you all are just pawns in this and contribute to the greatness of the film.
I like art. I like Ulysses. This film is neither.
I love Coppola, but I had to fight the urge to walk out of this movie, and the only movie I ever walked out of was “Made”. This movie was so bad that I didn’t watch Joker 2 because of it. I would have given it a watch despite the negative reviews, but Megalopolis was so disappointing that I couldn’t bring myself to go through that again so soon after.
No you just have bad taste and feel a pathetic need to justify it
Robert Deniro running his nasty mouth about our former president turned off at least half the audience. Who does this at a movie premiere?
He is still pissed because Trump turned down millions of dollars in aid to his restaurant and hotel in the Caribbean after a storm years ago.
Someone named Preston Hooker (lol) enjoyed this garbage fire. That is hilarious on its face.
I just want to point out that the Thomas The Tank Engine movie with Alec Baldwin as the not very Fat Controller is the Worst Movie Ever Made, and I will fight to the death anyone who says otherwise. I still don’t talk to the selfish, entitled 5 year old who made me take him to see it.
At least that one was an hour shorter than this dumpster fire.
I’ve been watching this train wreck develop for two years: script rewrites, financing, no one to distribute it, I expected it to be a confusing, jumbled story but wow, just collosally bad, but in an awesome way. Loved the cinematography, loved the over-dramtic performances, especially Adam Driver’s Shakespeare. That said, what was the Utopia about, besides gold buildings and a moving sidewalk? I get the ‘asking questions’ part, but ‘5 minutes from a park’ was the only concrete component of the Utopia neighborhood I heard. That’s going to stop the rioting? Also what era is the film? There were elements of the 20’s and 30’s, the 60’s, but also cell phones. Just a big cinematic mishmash. I love/hate it, and I want to see it again, but it’s out of the theaters already. Oh, and Shia LaBeouf should be the next Joker.
I agree with two points, the Hamlet soliloquy was the highlight of the movie, and Shia would definitely make an awesome Joker.
I think we pay to much attention to this movie. Maybe we should stop and wait.
“Godfathers” you can watch again and again. Time will show if “Megalopolis” will be so watchable.
It may not be the worst film ever (think Heavens Gate-205 minutes) but it is certainly in the top 5 worst! You, Preston, sound pompous and elitist, lecturing to others about how we don’t understand this drivel of a movie. We do understand it and it is beyond terrible. Perhaps, for you, with age will come wisdom.
I think Coppola’s point is a tad more simple. Cinema can be, and at its best always is, ART. Yet we are continually fed a mass of regurgitated dross by the main stream movie system, which tells us little about life and the wonder it can be. Art, should always be challenging, and is often rarely perfect because it needs to take risks. It needs to have vision. Crass though it may sound, it can illuminate a better world. Coppola at least tries to offer this. If only our politicians were so brave and could escape their diet of hate filled sound bites.
Loved it. It’s not perfect, but it offered more to think about than any new American film I’ve seen in years.
Quite the movie! To me it was an adult fable that truly reflects our present day reality perfectly.
I only hope that we will survive also and that it’s not too late!!
I went to see the movie and was unpleasantly surprised. I very, very rarely walk out of a movie, but this one was as if my senses were being waterboarded. I watched most of it but it was so incredibly ludicrously torturous, I just could not take it anymore. The story was so convoluted, it became uninteresting. The acting was preposterous and laughable. Maybe Francis has dementia and it was a private look into a damaged mind….
I love weird, eccentric, and different, but this movie just sucks. Period.
This review was almost as pretentious and devoid of content as the movie. Well done!
Just like your opinion
Does your mother know you’re up past your bedtime writing rude things on the internet?
Overwhelming Detail in this movie made me to see this twice. Architecture createted by a magical material would be able to blast away a century of banality urban design WOW to me Woe to Corporate Overlords. All the old Architects that know latin are in for a real treat . Blonde Sirens on swings playing Ukuleles. Great actors camping it up in gorgeous outfits. Great movie.
I liked this movie a lot. It is Art in motion. What’s the phrase? Tempus fugit? This movie is like a train you watch passing wondering where it’s going and what it means. The problem is that the film kind of trusts you to be the conductor.
Life is what you make of it, and so is this movie. This is how I see it: If Ray Bradbury were alive today, I think he would champion this film. It felt like the kind of film that goes well with Fahrenheit 451; a parable, a tale. Of a world unlike ours, yet exactly the same as ours. Like Snowpiercer, the world is a train, but it’s up to you to see the whole map and journey. If all you can conceive is your individual boxcar, then you’re along for the ride. But for those who can see the train and the path, there is a challenge waiting. This train is humanity, and no one is driving. The movie is a message calling for the preservation of the human race and to not fear what is unknown to us now.
Having not yet seen the film myself, I have already been getting the impression that this is one of those films that is ahead of its time. It will just take a while to sink in. And some will never accept it.
Hey Anonymous. It’s spelled “your.” No apostrophe.
It’s weird & over the top & I loved every second of it. I agree, you don’t have to understand every single reference or metaphor to like this film. It’s creative & had me entertained the entire time. People rejecting something unusual? What else is new.
There’s a REASON this film was “Self Financed”…. It’s the same reason you don’t step in dog crap while at the park.
Possible Directors dementia?
So everyone else is wrong except you, they simply just “don’t get it,” right?
You don’t get it, try a marvel movie, that’s easier to understand. Good guys beat bad guys.
Yeah ok…. you sound like one of those elitist snobs. I know you’re type…. you hate everything that is popular and love everything that sucks….then talk down to everyone like you’re better than them. Face it….the movie was seriously the worst movie ever made in the history of cinema…..pretending to like it doesn’t make you cool and only makes you look mentally challenged for even trying to fake it!
I think I’ll check it out. I like being challenged by a film. Not challenged to like or not like it, but challenged to determine what the filmmaker was going for. I think the only thing wrong with your assessment, or anyone else who takes a similar position, is the conclusion that this (or any other film) was the worst film ever made. I’ve seen many films, and I mean many, but I know I haven’t seen enough films to say a film I saw was the worst ever made. I’m certain there are films worse than Megalopolis. Man, I’ve seen some horrible films and they all boiled down to not having an idea at its core, no discernible theme. It sounds like Megalopolis has a ton of ideas, multiple themes at play. So, at the most it sounds like it may be overwhelming. I could never say a movie is absolutely bad if it has an idea(s) at its core. Now, whether or not they executed the idea clearly and concisely is a different story
It won’t challenge you. The ideas and metaphors are so obvious that the movie is just boring. People like the author appreciate it because it makes them feel like they are smart for figuring it out… But the film just blatantly states the metaphors outright. “Wow, Architecture stops time. So unique. So profound.”
There’s bad movies out there, but even The Room’s and Troll 2’s have redeeming qualities. You can enjoy them for how bad they are. This movie doesn’t even have that. It’s just AI generated art slop. You’ll just be annoyed you spent your time and money on nothing.
Haha I actually quite enjoy marvel movies so that debunks your theory. And I absolutely don’t like everything that sucks. I went in with an open mind, not knowing anything about it & was pleasantly surprised. It was engaging & quite comical. Really don’t understand the extreme negative feedback. This is a passion project from a great director (the godfather, apocalypse now, bram stokers Dracula). Yeah, it’s wild but it’s unique & I’m happy I gave it a chance. And an amazing cast. Try to have an open mind 🤷
cliff notes dimwits are all over the comments today
So the overwhelming majority of people are just too dumb to get the movie isn’t awful, it’s actually great? Nah. You’re just a tool insulting others in an incredibly pretentious way.
At least Marvel delivers on what they promise. The utopia at the end of this movie was a giant ugly AI art looking sphere building with a population density of zero and a glorified airport moving walkway.
it hasn’t been that long since everybody thought the sun revolved around the earth and the world was flat.
Bingo. The guy is being contrarian just to get hits.