We also meet Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza), Crassus’ deeply cynical financial reporter-girlfriend, who has her sights set on reuniting with Cesar, while Crassus’ son Clodio (Shia LaBeouf) spends his time partying, inciting civil unrest, and posing in front of American flags. The mayor’s daughter, Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel), casually falls in love with Cesar after witnessing his ability to stop time. Yes, you read that correctly. When art is good, he explains, it resembles time stopping. 

Whether you find yourself capable of embracing the movie or not, you have to admire the 85-year-old Coppola’s go-for-it mentality here. Between the convoluted plot and the opulent visuals, you can recognize the influence of Fritz Lang (Metropolis), Stanley Kubrick (Dr. Strangelove), The Wachowskis (The Matrix and Cloud Atlas), George Lucas (Star Wars), Lars von Trier (Melancholia) and Fellini (Roma and Satyricon). Male characters wear toga-like garments; the women often wear flowing gowns. Cesar’s departed wife, Sunny Hope, haunts and inspires him. A Britney Spears-like character named Vesta Sweetwater appears, only to be undone by a deep-fake sex tape. American society descends into monochrome filth, as a Soviet era spacecraft hurtles toward the Earth. So many potential ideas. So many tangents. So many meaningless subplots. So little cohesion.

The actors’ line readings are just as undisciplined as the storytelling. Sometimes they speak in lofty tones, quoting Marcus Aurelius and William Shakespeare (including Hamlet’s most famous soliloquy). At other points, they speak in modern, derisive slang or in inflection-free outbursts. The eminent Dustin Hoffman, who plays Nush “The Fixer” Berman, fares very badly in that regard. Coppola veteran Laurence Fishburne, as Cesar’s driver and the film’s narrator, hardly registers. 

Mind you, Coppola does demonstrate vision here–vision, as in the opulent look of the film, with its rich color palette, architectural shapes, and wide array of special and stylistic effects. Cinematographer Mihai Malaimare, Jr. (The Master, Jojo Rabbit) bravely tries to match the director’s intentions. Unfortunately, his strong work often emphasizes the lack of rhythm and unfocused script, with many scenes choppily edited and almost discarded. 

As for the music, high marks go to Argentinian composer Osvaldo Golijov, one of the classical music world’s biggest stars of the past three decades. His orchestration is highly detailed, and his borrowings (Beethoven, Franz Liszt, Julius Fucik, Giacomo Puccini) are carefully chosen for effect. His Grammy Award-winning opera, Ainadamar, receives a new production at the Met in New York this fall.

Megalopolis has arrived on the scene with a wealth of negative advance publicity. An initial trailer with phony quotes from critics. A lawsuit filed by an extra. Production delays. All of those rewrites. Coppola himself has conceded that his movie may fail in the short term–it largely will–but he hopes that time will enhance its stature. 

If all of the above suggests a real dense, disorienting experience, you’re right. It will not leave you unmoved, one way or the other. Coppola passionately hopes to address several big-ticket issues in Megalopolis: the ills of technology, climate change, corporate takeovers, political apathy, cancel culture, his own relationship to art. Just like the creatively challenged Guido in Fellini’s masterpiece, 8½, Coppola wants to include “everything” in what’s probably his valedictory film. If only everything made more sense. 

A still from ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ 

There is an aura of Shakespeare emanating from Joker: Folie à Deux, the sequel to Todd Phillips’ award winning Joker (2019). Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), the party clown and aspiring stand-up comic, institutionalised at Arkham State Hospital, awaiting trial for his five murders — including one of talk show host Murray Franklin (Robert De Niro) on national television — gives off a rather distinct Hamlet vibe.

Like the procrastinating Prince of Denmark, he is let down by his mum, which leads to him cutting a swathe of death and destruction. Though not dressed in inky clothes and stalking the ramparts of Elsinore, looking for the ghost of his father, Arthur in his motley colours and carmine smile, is good for plenty of soliloquies with different versions of himself in the multiverse of his mind.

It is two years since the events that put Arthur in Arkham, while his Joker persona incited the marginalised whom society had erased from the public consciousness to take to the streets demanding justice. The newly elected Assistant District Attorney, Harvey Dent, (Harry Lawtey) though determined to get Arthur to stand trial for his crimes, is not completely altruistic. As ambitious as they come, he knows the live telecast of the trial of the century, will definitely up his profile.

Arthur seems to be in his own worlds, being a model inmate playing along with guard Jackie Sullivan’s (Brendan Gleeson) jibes as well as the other inmates including one young man (Jacob Lofland), who is more than a little obsessed with Arkham’s most famous patient. On the way to meet his beleaguered lawyer Maryanne Stewart (Catherine Keener), Arthur walks past the music therapy class and as his eyes light upon Lee (Lady Gaga), an instant connection is made.

When Lee tells Arthur she grew up in Arthur’s neighbourhood and her mother treated her abominably committing her to Arkham  (for setting fire to the family home), Arthur feels she is a kindred spirit. As the trial gets underway, Lee escapes from Arkham and orchestrates a groundswell of support for Arthur. Over the course of the trial, Arthur meets ghosts from his past including his neighbour Sophie Dumond (Zazie Beetz), who he believed he had a relationship with, Gary (Leigh Gill), a clown co-worker Arthur was kind to, and his social worker (Sharon Washington).

Though director Phillips had originally conceived Joker as a one-and-done deal, turning the sequel into a musical (on Phoenix’s suggestion apparently) is a masterstroke. As is the wonderful animation sequence in the beginning of the film; it is a whole new direction while keeping the disassociation, isolation and social commentary from Joker intact, and those lush jazzy musical numbers are a delicious aural treat. For those of us brought up on rich diet of song-and-dance numbers at the movies, it does not take a big leap to immerse oneself in eye-popping, gorgeously mounted reimagined jukebox favourites from composer Hildur Guðnadóttir (who won an Oscar for Joker).

While Phoenix’ skeletal appearance (the protuberant spine and jutting shoulder bones that look like wings) continues to be distressing, he is riveting as Arthur Fleck/Joker. Even as you want to look away from his wasted body, your eyes are dragged back to the ravaged face, the glittering eyes, one step away from chaos or kindness, and the trembling, exaggerated mouth. In contrast Lady Gaga is strangely subdued even if you do not line her performance against Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn.

While not as tightly plotted or layered as Joker, (Folie à Deux could definitely have done with some tightening especially in the second half and the plot is rather thin), there is a special joy in watching an actor at the top of his craft through cinematographer Lawrence Sher’s languorous takes.

Joker: Folie à Deux is currently running in theatres

MONSTER SUMMER is a teenage horror movie in the tradition of GOONIES. Noah is a young teenager living on Martha’s Vineyard with his mother, who runs a boarding house. Noah’s father was a journalist, but died. So, Noah wants to be a journalist. Noah’s friend, Ben, goes swimming with a teenager girl and gets attacked by someone under the water and turns into a zombie. Noah recruits two of his friends to investigate what’s happening. He eventually finds out that Old Man Carruthers, played by Mel Gibson, is a former police detective who left the force to search for the man who kidnapped his young son. With his help, Noah and his friends search for the perpetrator whom Noah thinks us a witch.

In many ways, MONSTER SUMMER is very clean with no overt sex and almost no foul language. There are also Christian symbols and allusions. However, the movie reveals frightening things about witches, especially their ability to appear as normal next-door neighbors. Also, the final showdown with the witch is extremely scary. Therefore, MOVIEGUIDE® recommends caution for younger teenagers.

(Pa, BB, CC, OO, L, V, M):

Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:

Mixed worldview with a moral ending as well as Christian symbols throughout with lots of focus on witches, who seem incredibly versatile and strong, but the good guys eventually win;

Foul Language:

Two obscenities;

Violence:

Lots of scary violence though not bloody where an offscreen witch sucks the souls out of young people, sometimes in the water, sometimes in the woods and sometimes beside an old station wagon, which leaves the people as zombies, eventually a showdown with the witch concludes with strong violence where the witch attacks a man and three teenagers, and a character is shot several times;

Sex:

No sex (some light kissing);

Nudity:

No nudity;

Alcohol Use:

No alcohol use;

Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:

No smoking or drugs; and,

Miscellaneous Immorality:

Man cracks frightening jokes, trespassing, lying, but all rebuked.

MONSTER SUMMER is a teenage horror movie in the tradition of GOONIES. The movie, which stars, Mel Gibson commends the search for truth and has good triumphs over evil, but the witch is very scary for many reasons, including its ability to appear as an ordinary person. So, the witch causes the viewer to be scared of everybody.

Noah is a young teenager living on Martha’s Vineyard with his mother, who runs a boarding house. Noah’s father was a journalist, but died, so Noah wants to be a journalist.

The movie opens with Noah being suspicious of Old Man Carruthers, whose son disappeared. Noah has written several articles about disappearing children, but the local editor doesn’t want bad news about Martha’s Vineyard. Noah’s friend, Ben, goes swimming with a teenager girl and gets attacked by someone under the water and turns into a zombie. Noah recruits two of his friends to investigate what’s happening. He eventually finds out that Gene Carruthers, played by Mel Gibson, is former police detective who left the force to search for the man who kidnapped his young son.

With Gene’s help, Noah and his friends search for the perpetrator whom Noah thinks us a witch. In fact, he thinks the witch is a woman who’s come to room in his mother’s house for the summer, but in an embarrassing reveal, this turns out to be false.

Eventually, other kids get taken and turned into zombies. Gene has mapped New England towns where other kids turned into zombies, and now only Noah can find out whodunnit. However, the witch is hot on Noah and his friends’ trail. The showdown between them is very scary. Who will survive?

In many ways, MONSTER SUMMER is very clean with no overt sex and almost no foul language. There are also Christian symbols and allusions. However, the movie reveals frightening things about witches, especially their ability to appear as normal next-door neighbors. Also, the final showdown is extremely scary.

This problem could have been alleviated with a little more humor and some judicious editing of the violent showdown. The jeopardy was strong enough that it didn’t need the prolonged showdown to hold the viewer’s attention. Furthermore, it would have been nice if there was more Christianity in the final showdown like the movie THE CONJURING.

Therefore, MOVIEGUIDE® advises caution for younger teenagers.