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APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: MEGALOPOLIS (2024) – THREE TAKES

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Keep reading for alternate takes from Giles Edwards and El Rob Hubbard

DIRECTED BY: Francis Ford Coppola

FEATURING: Adam Driver, , Jon Voight, , , , Lawrence Fishburne

PLOT: In mythical New Rome, inventor Caesar Catalina can stop time and has invented some kind of miracle substance called “Megalon,” but demagogues and rivals scheme to ruin him.

Still from Megalopolis (2024)

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Megalopolis is a movie conjured by an 85-year old film genius that feels like it could have been made by a fresh film school graduate, if someone had given the kid $120 million dollars and tasked him with making an Important Statement. And I mean this all as a compliment: Coppola here is as brash, fearless, ambitious, and pot-dazzled as a twenty-four-year old tyro with stars in his eyes. Acting your age is for politicians, not filmmakers. The resulting movie is a bizarre mashup of Titus (1999), Southland Tales (2006), and Metropolis (1927), and if the entire city of New Rome constantly glows with a golden hue, it’s because the movie’s bananas.

GREGORY J. SMALLEY COMMENTS: Francis Ford Coppola conceived of the idea for Megalopolis as early as 1977, so you would think he would have had some of it plotted out already when it came time to sell his winery and finance the film in 2019. But, by all appearances, he decided to throw away whatever notes he had made in the previous decades and just wing it. The movie is plotted like a Shakespearean epic—when it’s plotted at all. The basic idea is that America today is a lot like Rome as it neared the end of the Republic and slid into the grandest despotism the world had ever seen. The solution, in Coppola’s view? We need more dialogue, because, as Caesar says, ” when we ask these questions, when there’s a dialogue about them, that basically is a utopia.” Also, it might help to have the unexplained ability to stop time, and to develop some new material called Megalon, which can do everything from design evening gowns for virginal pop stars to form the basic building blocks of the conveyor belts in an inner city Garden of Eden. Sounds like a job for Elon Musk—no, wait, we were shooting for a utopia.

Cesar Catilina (Driver) is some kind of hard-drinking Nobel Prize winner/architect who sleeps with socialites and reporters. Franklyn Cicero (Esposito) is the no-nonsense mayor who hates Cesar because he’s not pragmatic enough; his bright daughter Julia (Emmanuel) wants to sleep with Cesar (and support his utopian dreams). Cesar’s uncle, Crassus (Voight), is the richest man in New Rome, with all the altruistic humility that position implies. He marries entertainment reporter Wow Platinum (Plaza), who has also been sleeping with Cesar. Crassus’ son, the brilliantly named Clodio Continue reading APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: MEGALOPOLIS (2024) – THREE TAKES →

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APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: KINDS OF KINDNESS (2024)

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DIRECTED BY: Yorgos Lanthimos

FEATURING: , Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, Margaret Qualley, Hong Chau, Mamoudou Athie

PLOT: A triptych of twisted modern fables from Yorgos Lanthimos: a boss dictates every aspect of his employee’s life; after his missing wife returns, a police officer suspects that she’s been replaced by a close copy; two cult members search for their messiah.

Still from Kinds of Kindness (2024)

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: It’s narrative unpredictability from Hollywood’s foremost Greek surrealist, with trice the weirdness. John McEnroe’s broken racket will be gifted (and stolen), Emma Stone will cry “lick me again!” (not what you think), and dogs will (mostly) have a blast on the beach.

COMMENTS: With Kinds of Kindness, Yorgos Lanthimos seems intent on jettisoning any casual fans who might have come on board with Poor Things. Reuniting Lanthimos with screenwriting collaborator Efthimis Filippou, and shot several months after the hit fantasy with much of the same cast, Kindness was knocked out in a spiffy three weeks. Featuring murder, abortion, cannibalism, roofies, canine supremacy, and other kinds of bad behavior, the kindness-free Kindness works as a bitter palette cleanser for the frothy and sweet (by Lanthimos standards) Poor Things.

The three tales are linked by one “R.M.F.,” a peripheral character whose lends his name to all three titles. The stories range in tone from absurdist to magical realist, with digressions into genuine surrealism, but their dim view of core human behavior brings everything together. This time, Lanthimos steers away from stylistic excesses—no affectless acting, no ultra-wide lenses, no baroque sets—and lets the stories’ bizarre high concepts carry the weight. The director takes advantage of everyman Plemmons, a new addition to what is fast becoming a regular troupe, putting him front and center in the first two stories. In “The Death of R.M.F.” Plemmons is an exceptionally needy employee hiding behind a mustache, while “R.M.F. Is Flying” sees his cop descend into a paranoia that slowly transforms him into the coldest-hearted of bastards. Stone plays a key roles, especially in “Flying”—particularly her monologue about what happened to her when she was stranded on a deserted island, which, with its followup in the midpoint credits, lands as Kindness‘ most out-there moment—but really takes the spotlight for the finale, “R.M.F. Eats a Sandwich.” There she plays the more obsessive of two traveling cult members on the messiah candidate-vetting circuit, who also has a troubled relationship with the child and husband she left behind to pursue this strange vocation. She drives a purple muscle car like a maniac and gets a Lanthimos-trademark weirdo dance scene. Dafoe and Qualley (and to a lesser extent, Chau and Athie) add fine support as they drift through the trilogy of tales, possessing the bodies of various characters as needed.

If there is a complaint, it’s that, while each story stands on its own at about 45 minutes, watching them back-to-back-to-back can be a bit trying. There’s little relief from the dour atmosphere. (It would work brilliantly as a three-episode miniseries.) But that’s a mighty small disclaimer, given the uncommon bounty here: literate absurdism delivered by a top-notch, thoroughly dedicated cast and crew.

There is a common theme running through the each of these parables: unthinking obedience, the willingness of people to commit any atrocity in exchange for a sense of belonging. This makes it a sly political allegory for our times. Kinds of Kindness could be set in any era, but it speaks to just how horrible it is to be alive in 2024.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Director Yorgos Lanthimos trips over himself reconnecting with his inner freak in ‘Kinds of Kindness,’ a frustrating triptych that works hard to reconfirm his weirdo cred after he experienced a pair of mainstream successes.”–Adam Graham, The Detroit News (contemporaneous)

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APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: KATERNICA (2023)

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DIRECTED BY: James Edward Newton

FEATURING: Fran St Clair, Paul Richards, Annabella Rich, Anna Fraser, Tony Mardon

PLOT: A theater student discovers a forgotten one-act play; its production triggers mysterious disturbances in the lives of both her sister, an aspiring actress, and a washed-up thespian attempting to resurrect his career.

Still from Katernica (2023)

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Alarming theatrics—both narrative and cinematic—couple with puzzling body horror, resulting in a baffling and unnerving foray into the improbably verité realm of stage-on-screen.

COMMENTS: Fill me in out-of-focus nougat, dip me in close-up chocolate syrup, and call me an Art House Bar. Katernica is a film about a play about madness, and it could only fall deeper into somber-sweet pretension if it were French instead of British. But mysteriously, this languidly jumpy beast keeps your interest. The characters are broadly relatable and interesting; the coat hanger plot frame holding up the story is quirky; and there’s an undercurrent (and over-current) of something strange—and even more so, it introduces one of the most bizarre characters I’ve ever seen on screen.

With a cast of five, everyone’s at least a little bit interesting. Esther shows an academic’s pluck in decrypting an obscure little play. Her sister Eve fascinates with a mysterious pregnancy and similarly mysterious emotional history. Jerry elicits both sympathy and disdain as a washed-up director. The doctor (named, I should tell you, “Katernica”) turns the knob from coldly unpleasant Eastern Eurotrash archetype to something neat to behold. These four are the main movers and shakers in the story, ticking events forward to a mid-film bit of nastiness and the final scene: a monologue delivered at Art House amped to eleven.

But then there’s Mister Case. This guy… the only (admittedly poor) comparison I can make is to the post-encounter Edgar from Men In Black. We first hear him, painfully expressing the importance of saving Eve’s baby, then see him in a blurry close-up. With every line of dialogue, with every movement, it looks as if he wants to rip out of this suit of human skin that so obviously pains him. He has a very shadowy ambition (which comprises the second of the two interesting and weird things about Katernica), and enlists the aid of the doctor—and the unwitting aid of the pregnant actress. As both a role and a performance, Mister Case is unfailingly, and fascinatingly, creepy.

Katernica has its shortcomings. From my modest encounters with theater, I know that Katernica is accurate—but I simultaneously feel that as a genre it’s best avoided on film. But, of course, sometimes a little rough-cut gem happens. James Edward Newton, the director and co-writer, puts before us something both flashily mundane and obscurely menacing—not unlike an unlabeled box of mixed confectionery.

Katernica [Blu-ray]

Katernica [Blu-ray]
  • A mysterious play envelops the lives of an ambitious drama student, her actor sister, and a washed-up director in a surreal nightmare.
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CAPSULE: ALTERED PERCEPTIONS (2023)

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DIRECTED BY: Jorge Ameer

FEATURING: Oran Stainbrook, Matt Fling, Danny Fehsenfeld, Vincent Giovanni, ,

PLOT: Pandemic, violence, and sedition threaten to destroy the United States; a father and son embedded in opposing political organizations are its last hope.

COMMENTS: Like most movies, Altered Perceptions ends with the standard notice, “This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental.” I’m going to go ahead and ignore that. With characters like slimy Senator Ted DeMarcos, bigoted Governor Ron San Diego, and an obvious George Santos look-alike as a spineless henchman (sportingly portrayed by director Jorge Ameer himself), it is clear just which politico goons the filmmaker is referencing. Indeed, the protagonist’s name—Alex Feretti, son of Dr. Feretti, a Whitehouse disease big-wig—echoes a certain Dr. A. Fauci of pandemic fame.

And what a pandemic! Sure, Covid was bad enough, but it seems that the vaccines and boosters for it trigger a nasty mental deterioration coupled with homi- and suicidal violence in many who received it, especially blacks and HOMOsexuals (emphasis mimicking DeMarcos’ singular pronunciation). This leads to chaos in the country, which a gallery of secessionist goons take advantage of, ultimately requesting that all Blacks and HOMOsexuals who have received the vaccine voluntarily check in to observation facilities in America’s South and Southwest. And oh yes, it affects the elderly, too (cue not-at-all-President-Biden being called on to step down); and what with the pre-eminent disease guy (aforementioned Doctor F̶a̶u̶c̶i̶ Feretti) being a prominent homosexual, it’s all looking very bad for various put-upon groups.

The paragraph above is ill-wrought, so as to better give you an idea of the narrative flow of Altered Perceptions—and I haven’t yet even touched upon the fully-frontally nude time traveler who is desperate to enlist the help of Alex Feretti, who is not only the son of the nationally known doctor but also the top aide to Senator DeMarcos. These shotgun blasts of social commentary, interspersed with interludes of well-intentioned guesses at what a gay relationship is like, crackle over the course of two hours as we watch society collapse from both macro- and micro-focus. And before I forget, there’s a strange plot from North Korea brewing as well.

Jorge Ameer kept my interest throughout, it is true. But much of that stemmed from the constant crinkling sound I heard as the plot unfurled. The screenwriter is a neuropsychologist, and while axes are ground, its never clear what they ultimately end up swung at. Ameer is obviously earnest, but his technical (and storytelling) proficiency is only a few notches above Tommy Wiseau’s. The acting ranges from C- to B+, with son Feretti scoring the former and father Feretti the latter, rendering their interactions one-sidedly stilted. And while I don’t hold clunky special effects against anyone, others do—and are so warned.

Still, I much prefer a film’s reach to exceed its grasp than vice versa, and while I could reel off any number of further quibbles, I’d feel petty doing so. Ameer takes a stab at making a Big Movie with Big Ideas under the restraints of a low budget. If you will allow the use of a crummy double-metaphor, Altered Perceptions is like a slice of Swiss cheese: there are plenty of holes; but also like a slice of Swiss cheese, it holds together just enough to make it a notable addition in the greater Sandwich of Cinema.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“… this is a glitchy, channel-surfing trawl through recent American history, where the dialogue is stylised and repetitive, the characters dumbed down, and the narrative unbelievable to the point of surrealism. Yet this is part of the point: for here, as in a Neil Breen film, artifice is foregrounded, the medium is the message, and ultimately it is the viewer’s perceptions which are altered, as Ameer – who also plays one of DeMarcos’ aides – infects us all with the maddening irrationality of America’s contemporary culture wars.”–Anton Bitel, Projected Figures (contemporaneous)

Altered Perceptions [Blu-ray]

Altered Perceptions [Blu-ray]
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APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: I SAW THE TV GLOW (2024)

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DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: Justice Smith, Brigette Lundy-Paine, Ian Foreman

PLOT: Two misfit teenagers become obsessed with a paranormal TV show, leading them into delusions that persist into adulthood.

Still from I saw the TV glow (2024)

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Glossy yet staticky, ever-glowing with pinks and purples, I Saw the TV Glow broadcasts lo- and hi-fi visuals that always threaten to drift away into dreams and nightmares. Paired with its melancholy psychological depth and extreme narrative ambiguity, Schoenbrun‘s plucky hallucination is a clear contender for one of the weirdest low-budget, high-impact films of 2024.

COMMENTS: To sophisticated eyes, “The Pink Opaque” doesn’t seem too entrancing; but when you’re a teenage outcast yearning for an escape from reality, you cleave to any alternate reality you can. The fake TV show within the movie is about two teenage girls who communicate through a psychic bond; in each episode they fight a different “monster of the week” sent by the “big bad,” Mr. Melancholy, who is also the Man in the Moon. The show’s theatrical character designs are culled from “Pee Wee’s Playhouse,” Nightbreed, and A Trip to the Moon, and the mythology and general vibe resemble “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” or a juvenile version of “X-Files.” Or does it? Owen’s memory may be unreliable. The show’s stylistic characteristics aren’t stable, but get jumbled up in his mind. The series finale he remembers seeing—or maybe which Maddy only convinces him he saw—includes the main characters being drugged with amnesia-inducing “luna juice.” It has a much darker tone than the rest of the series, more indigo than pink and more murky than opaque. It seems highly unlikely the Young Adult Network would greenlight this disturbing ““-adjacent finale.

Owen is drawn to the program for several reasons, the most important of which is that he has trouble making, and keeping, friends, and Maddy is so obsessed with the show that she showers anyone who expresses the slightest interest in it with attention. “The Pink Opaque” also has a forbidden allure for Owen: it airs in the latest original programming slot on the Young Adult network, after his strictly-enforced bedtime, and his stern father disapproves of it, scoffing that it’s a “show for girls.” Sneaking over to Maddy’s house to watch it, or secretly watching the clandestine VHS copies Maddy leaves for him, is an adventure. Maddy’s attachment to “The Pink Opaque” is even unhealthier: although we are spared direct evidence, there’s a strong implication of abuse and neglect in her home life. The show is the most escapist form of escapism for her—that is, until she decides to actually run away from home, leaving a burning husk of a TV on the lawn in the wake of her disappearance. Coincidentally, “The Pink Opaque” is canceled when Maddy leaves town.

While the following paragraph may be spoiler-ish—so zip out of here if you wish to go in blind—it is likely you’ve already heard that I Saw the TV Glow is a metaphor for gender dysphoria. The allegory, however, is not too on-the-nose. If I didn’t know writer/director Schoenbrun was trans1, would I even pick it up? Given the clues scattered about, I think I probably would, but I can’t say for sure. Owen’s backstory is only revealed in hallucinations and hallucinatory flashbacks. All we really know is that he feels like he doesn’t fit in—that pervasive teenage affliction that, in his and Maddy’s cases, is simply more pathological than their peers. Meanwhile, the theme of the effect of media on vulnerable populations—which was also explored in Schoenbrun’s debut, We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, wherein a similarly alienated teenage protagonist gets delusionally swept up in a viral Internet phenomenon—is more at the forefront. By the film’s end, imagery merging humans and TVs, reminiscent of Videodrome, reinforces the focus on pathological fandom in the face of pervasive media—but leaves a crack for Schoenbrun’s underlying metaphor to shine through.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…a trippy experience about soothing teen angst and existential uncertainty with media… the narrative doesn’t always engage, and some choices feel broad or more like weird-for-weird’s-sake flourishes. Still, there’s enough here to applaud and consider for days afterward, particularly the raw performances by Smith and Lundy-Paine, who each have a magnetic screen presence.”–Brain Eggert, Deep Focus Review (contemporaneous)

  1. The original text of this review read “Shoenbrun was a trans woman.” Further research, inspired by a reader, showed that Schoenbrun does not specifically identify as a “trans woman.” Most common they refer to themselves as “nonbinary, using they/them pronouns.” However, in interviews Schoenbrun does identify as “trans” or “transfeminine,” though not specifically as a “trans woman.” Since “transness” is so essential to the movie’s theme, I have chosen to use the word “trans” here. ↩︎