Recent Films 2024

Here are brief comments on recently released movies. SPOILER ALERT! The plots will be discussed.

Megalopolis

After watching this film, written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola, I thought that it was an over-the-top, self-indulgent mess, but I was still glad I saw it. It is fascinating to look at, with its imagined futuristic look, and it has interesting themes. However, it comes off as a bombastic piece, with silly, instead of satiric, characters, like Shia LaBeouf’s Clodio Pulcher. So, I guess I was conflicted. In the film Wonder Boys, Katie Holmes’s character tells the writer, played by Michael Douglas, that he made no choices to leave out material in his overstuffed novel. I feel that is what happened here.

Coppola had been working on this project for a long time and ended up contributing $120 million of his own money to get it made. He recently stated that his main purpose in the story was to compare the United States to the Roman Empire. Thus, the names of the characters and even the male haircuts conjure up that ancient civilization. Adam Driver is Cesar Catilina and Giancarlo Esposito is Mayor Cicero. Lucius Sergius Catilina and Marcus Tullius Cicero were citizens of the Roman Republic and were political enemies. Coppola said that the film suggests that the United States is like Rome, which had a republic with senators, and great thinkers, like Marcus Aurelius (who is quoted in the movie). However, Rome succumbed to self-indulgence and a lack of morality, which led to its fall, and the United States can be headed that way, too. IMDb notes that “several of the famous New York landmarks referenced in this movie are actually mirrored or transposed from their real-life counterparts. The Statue of Liberty is shown with the torch in her left hand, and the Nedick's restaurant in the historic Madison Square Garden is shown on the opposite side of the entrance in the movie.” Those reversals may symbolize how American civilization has changed course and is headed in the wrong direction.

Cesar is a brilliant architect who has invented an indestructible substance. In addition, he seems to be able to stop time. Yet, he uses a T-square, an old-fashioned technical drawing device. There are other analog elements, non-digital clocks for instance. Coppola possibly wanted to show that there has been progress over time. The quotes from Aurelius and Shakespeare may be stressing the highlights of civilization despite the downturns. Fundi Romaine (Lawrence Fishburne) has a cautionary remark when he says, “When does an empire die? Does it collapse in one terrible moment? No, no... But there comes a time when its people no longer believe in it.” Cesar says, “Don't let the now destroy the forever." Coppola said that there is the hope that people can still use their strengths to create a positive future.

However, Fishburne’s character is a narrator at the beginning of the movie, who looks like he will be a major character, but then he and his voice disappear. Dustin Hoffman’s character is suddenly killed off by a tumbling building. Again, the film lacks focus and needs editing.

Conclave:

Those used to superhero films may find this movie a bit wordy and lacking in action. But the words here are significant, and this movie uses the death of a pope and the process of choosing a new one as a metaphor for the division between different factions in our world today.

After the pope dies, Cardinal-Dean Thomas Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes, in an excellent performance) oversees the conclave in the Sistine Chapel in Rome where the cardinals must choose the new leader of the Catholic Church. The film conveys the claustrophobic atmosphere of the situation as these men are locked in together until they reach a decision. Instead of this gathering being a peaceful, inspirational process that Lawrence anticipates, it turns into a “war,” as Cardinal Bellini (Stanley Tucci) loudly informs Lawrence. There are liberals (such as Bellini), conservatives, and even a racist reactionary, Cardinal Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto). Bellini says that Tedesco and his group were “savage” in their treatment of the late pope, trying to desecrate his memory. The film suggests that this kind of nastiness is what is happening in the world outside the supposed insulation of the church members. That connection is reinforced by terrorist attacks outside the conclave which cause debris to invade the religious sanctuary and crash down on the interior of the chapel.

The conflicting forces here are either looking to the past or the future. There is a new cardinal, Benitez (Carlos Diehz), who was a late moment appointment by the dead pope. He brings real life experiences of war to the cloistered group. He announces his view when he says, “The Church is not the past. It is what we do next.” There is also the battle between certitude and doubt. Lawrence, who is a questioner, delivers a homily where he says, “There is one sin which I have come to fear above all else … certainty.” He goes on to say that “certainty is the great enemy of unity … the deadly enemy of tolerance.” The film says that those with absolute stances that demonize others, who are different, will perpetuate war among the world’s inhabitants.

The resolution of the story is unexpected and conducive to discussion.

Here:

This film reunites the Forrest Gump team: actors Tom Hanks and Robin Wright, and director Robert Zemeckis. The title refers to all action taking place on one spot on Earth in what becomes Pennsylvania since the extinction of the dinosaurs from a meteor strike, through the Ice Age, pre-Columbian times, the American Revolutionary War, and parts of the 20^th and 21^st centuries. Most of the early images are brief, and the story becomes more detailed once it gets to the WWII era.

The uniqueness of the movie comes from the fact that the camera is fixed (until the very end). It does not pan or do close-ups. The actors approach the camera lens when a close-up is warranted. Most of the activity takes place in the living room of one house that is bought by different occupants. The film jumps back and forth in time by opening what are like computer “windows” to transition between scenes.

The action primarily focuses on the Young Family. One can hardly recognize the beautiful Kelly Reilly of Yellowstone as the conservatively dressed matriarch, Rose. Likewise, her husband, Al, is portrayed by Englishman Paul Bettany, who gets the American accent perfectly. Zemeckis has always been a technically savvy director (Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Contact, and the Back to the Future films), and he uses computer de-aging technology to present the younger versions of Hanks and Wright.

There are historical backdrops in the movie in the forms of music, a TV showing programs, and references to the Spanish Flu, WWII, and even COVID. But the plot centers on the characters and their relationships. Zemeckis uses the image of a hummingbird in several shots. It suggests a feeling of continuity that links the shifting events he depicts. It may remind one of the feather in Gump, which implied change, arbitrariness, and union in one symbol.

There may be too much sentimentality here, and the film could have used a bit more humor, but it is an interesting piece of filmmaking.

Gladiator II:

This movie is grand in the old epic sense, with sweeping vistas and grand sets. The CGI use is well done, although the killer baboons, while scary, look fake.

This film is definitely a sequel to the initial film released in 2000. Ridley Scott is again the director, and Connie Nielsen reprises the role of Lucilla, the daughter of slain Emperor Marcus Aurelius and brother of the dead Emperor Commodus who had their father murdered.

There are many other ties to the previous film. especially in the form of the main character, Lucius (Paul Mescal), who turns out to be the son of Russell Crowe’s character, Maximus, in the original movie, and the grandson of Aurelius. Mescal brings gravity to the role as he deals with his being exiled by his mother, Lucilla, and the fact that she married General Acasius (Pedro Pascal) who is responsible for the death of his wife. Lucius loses his wife as did his father. Lucius, like his dad, also becomes a gladiator after becoming a captive. Lucilla eventually realizes Lucius is her son when he exhibits similar fighting techniques, such as planting his sword in the sand and grabbing a handful of the dirt in the Coliseum. In the original Gladiator Maximus is already a general and there is more time spent developing how he wins over the following of the other gladiators, while Lucius’s ability to lead appears abrupt.

While all the performances are solid here, the one that stands out is that of Denzel Washington’s Macrinus, an ex-slave of Marcus Aurelius, who became a gladiator and then won his freedom. (Don’t be surprised if Washington is nominated for a supporting actor Oscar). He now provides gladiators for the games and supplies arms, food, and oil to the empire. He is an Iago-like figure, who implements chess-like moves as he plays others, including the two co-emperors, against each other as he plots to gain power. Scott may be making a reference to current times as the senators compromise their morality by caving to the whims of those in power.

Macrinus is a realist who says that only the strong should survive. Lucius fights for the idealism for which Rome once embodied, a place which stands for liberty and justice. As Francis Ford Coppola said about Megalopolis, comparing America to the Roman Empire, he wanted to show that the ability to forge a positive future is still present.