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.

A still from ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ 

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).

A still from ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ 

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

Diego Luna is thinking about time a lot lately. How it’s passing. And how it’s spent.

His latest project, “La Máquina,” which premieres Oct. 9 on Hulu and is the streamer’s first Spanish-language series, was first dreamed up by Luna and his longtime friend and collaborator, Gael García Bernal, as a feature film project more than a decade ago. But as the years wore on, the chance to turn this boxing story into a thrilling episodic series felt both obvious and exciting.

“I’m glad it took us time,” Luna tells The Times on a sunny afternoon in September at the Chateau Marmont. “Because I think the opportunity to talk about the career of a boxer and the relationship between him and his manager at the end of his career is really strong. It serves, in many ways, to reflect and establish parallels between that and what we go through as actors. In our careers. In our journey in this business.”

Esteban (García Bernal) knows his days as a professional boxer — as “La Máquina” — are numbered. He can’t continue chasing the glory of years past. His body can’t keep up. Neither can his mind.

For his manager, Andy (Luna), that’s clearly a problem. And so, after Esteban loses a key fight against a famed newcomer, Andy insists on launching a comeback. The decision proves dangerous as both men end up at the mercy of unseen forces intent on getting payment for a debt incurred years before that helped make “La Máquina” into the celebrated and lucrative fighter he is. Or was.

Written by Marco Ramirez, who serves as showrunner, and directed by Gabriel Ripstein, the series lays out a world of sporting corruption in Mexico. But at its heart “La Máquina” is a show about learning how to let go, about how to stop fighting the passing of time and embrace instead the changes you can still make in your life.

“I’m capable of doing this because now I can talk about aging,” Luna explains. “Because I’m there. I have kids. My son is 16. My daughter is 14. When I look at them, I realize it’s been a while since I’ve been here. When I talk about my career, I’m talking about stuff I did more than 25 years ago. It’s a long time.”

Gazing backward, while focused on the possibilities of a future at hand, fuels Luna. The “Y Tu Mamá También” and “Andor” actor has long understood his role as an artist to be rooted in conscientiously mirroring the world around him and the many colorful characters that inhabit it.

Andy is a man as tragic as he is absurd. He’s an insecure mama’s boy who desperately works to make himself into the type of guy who’ll be wanted and respected.

“I think this character is gonna make you laugh till you go, ‘Oh, wait a second. What’s going on here?’” Luna says.

That’s nowhere clearer than in the first episode where we witness Andy’s early-morning routine: We watch him put on his hair piece and apply spray tan. We watch him psych himself up in front of the mirror and even do his own lip injections — all while rocking out to Christian Castro’s “No podrás.”

The montage is one of Luna’s favorite moments on the show, “because we’re establishing that there was a moment where he was there, but then he hid behind this mask. This is his process. I think it serves as a great metaphor of how wrong it is to try to let that machinery of popularity define your success. Today we make a business of our privacy. And this guy is performing 24/7.”

Diego Luna says one of his favorite scenes in the series is in Episode 1, when we see Andy putting on his hair piece and applying spray tan.

(Alexandro Bolanos Escamilla / Hulu)

Luna is nearly unrecognizable in the part. For an actor who has long leveraged his baby-faced looks to play everything from lustful teenagers and rabble rousers to narcos and soccer players, his portrayal of Andy marks a departure for the actor.

“If we were gonna have the opportunity to be in control of the next project we were doing together, I was gonna ask myself to do something very different,” he says about conceiving the project with García Bernal. “I was going to take a risk. I wanted to put myself in a very uncomfortable situation.”

Only he couldn’t have anticipated just how uncomfortable playing Andy would be.

“Every day was painful,” he says, in between laughter. “It was hours in the chair. These prosthetics don’t let your skin breathe. Basically you’re suffocating yourself and your skin. I couldn’t eat. And because of the lips, I had to use a straw. So I was having shakes all day long.”

What helped was having a close friend as a scene partner. “That the person in front of you actually gets it doesn’t happen often,” Luna says.

Calling from London, García Bernal agrees. “At the beginning when we started working [together], we thought this was something that happened with everybody. And then we realized, no, it’s actually quite unique,” he says.

The two have known each other since they were kids. Their mothers were friends and colleagues who raised both boys in the theater world, which encourages play and make-believe. “It’s very special because we are family first,” Luna adds.

But what they have remains ineffable. “I don’t know what it is, and it’s better maybe not to know, better to maybe surprise ourselves every time,” García Bernal says. “We both understand what we do as an act of freedom. As an act of getting to know oneself, of trying to appeal to some sort of transcendence. And what is nice is to see how that is shaped with another — the same meaning, but with a different poetic than mine.”

Diego Luna says about taking on “La Máquina”: “I was going to take a risk. I wanted to put myself in a very uncomfortable situation.”

(Carlos Gonzalez / For The Times)

“La Máquina” continues Luna’s commitment to producing work that makes audiences sit up and pay attention. A subplot of the series centers on Esteban’s ex-wife, Irasema (Eiza González). She’s a reporter intent on uncovering the truth behind the many rigged matches that have come to dominate the sport, a quest that puts her and her family in harm’s way.

“I’ve always been worried about what happens and what’s going on,” Luna says. “I’ve always tried to find out how to be useful, how to belong to something I could feel proud of.”

Such convictions bear out in the many projects Luna has produced throughout his career and lately, that’s under the banner of his and García Bernal’s production company, La Corriente del Golfo. That includes their most recent project, Santiago Maza’s documentary “State of Silence,” which premiered at Tribeca Film Festival in June. Luna has shepherded the film since 2019, when he was approached to back a project about the dangers journalists in Mexico face in speaking truth to power.

Maza, who worked on the actor’s dinner table docuseries “Pan y Circo,” has found in Luna a principled collaborator. One whose rabid curiosity about the world is inspiring.

“I was impressed back then with how well informed he was,” says Maza over Zoom about their first meeting. “I think now I understand why. I know his habits: all the time he’s reading news or listening to the radio. I recall that when we were talking about politics and things I was like, ‘Man, this guy knows his stuff.’”

“State of Silence” was originally conceived as a series. Luna funded the pilot but found no network that would produce it. By 2022, Maza had reworked the project into a feature-length film funded independently by Corriente del Golfo, with help from the Ford Foundation and Luminate.

Recently acquired by Netflix, the documentary offers a harrowing and urgent portrait of the violence journalists in Mexico have come to expect when reporting on everything from cartel shootings to local corruption. That it arrives the same year as “La Máquina” speaks to the type of work Luna devotes his time to.

“Diego and Gael know about this,” Maza shares. “They’ve done this their entire careers — how to make entertainment that can also nurture us, inform us and that can raise awareness. These are two projects now that, while they may not look too similar, they help paint a portrait of contemporary Mexico.”

If Luna’s career is driven by a tenet, it’s the belief that the stories he tells matter and that the work demands he be invested in what it can say.

“You spend so much time thinking of it, convincing others to do it, then doing it, then promoting it,” Luna says. “So it should matter.”

“I do believe that specific stories can change your perception. I think that is something you remind yourself every time you approach this job: You might be participating in something that will give hope to others and that will make you proud,” he says. “In that search, you can miss many times, obviously. And you will miss many times. But it’s the search that matters.”