My 18-Word Review of “Coyote vs. Acme”
If you ever wanted to see John Cena act opposite Foghorn Leghorn, this is the movie for you.
My 10-Word Review of “The Mandalorian and Grogu”
I’m sorry, but why does a Mandalorian need a moustache?
Coppola’s Folly
I was home alone this weekend so I decided to take a flier on Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis, which I’ve been curious about since it came out, though there seemed to be a universal consensus that it was terrible.
Which it is, but in a very special way. Only a true artist could create a disaster of this magnitude, a wildly ambitious epic that takes huge swings and completely misses all of them. I don’t quite have the words to describe how, just, off it is. I’m tempted to say it is Francis’s Beyond the Valley of the Dolls — full of manic energy, insane plot twists, and sudden, drastic, whiplash-inducing changes in tone— but that would be unfair to BVD, which is a hundred times more fun.
The only entertaining part was watching, say, Adam Driver or Dustin Hoffman and wondering what was going through their heads when filming this thing. I can’t imagine it played any better on the page than it does on the screen; they had to know what they were signing up for; but when Coppola calls you take the part, right? Was it worth it?
In truth I found it hard to watch more than a few minutes of Megalopolis at a time, and my rental window expired with a half-hour still to go. So maybe there’s some fantastic ending that redeems it all — but I sincerely doubt it.
Perhaps it’s time for a rewatching of Apocalypse Now, especially with the recent departure of Robert Duvall. Maybe the smell of napalm will get this bad taste out of my mouth.
Is It Just Me?
Last night I was watching a 1968 movie called Wild in the Streets when I saw this on the wall of a teenager’s bedroom:
I think it’s supposed to be Dylan, but doesn’t it look like…? Gave me the creeps, rather.
My 22-Word Review of “The Phoenician Scheme”
This is a very Wes Anderson Wes Anderson movie. If you like Wes Anderson movies, you will like this Wes Anderson movie.
Sherman and the Flying Teapot
A few days ago, thanks to my friend Sam, I learned about Sherman Hemsley and Gong.
Let me back up a little bit. Sherman Hemsley, as most of you reading this probably know, played patriarch George on the beloved 1970s sitcom The Jeffersons. Little information on his private life is to be had, but it appears he was an unusual cat. He was also a musician; here he is on Soul Train:
Gong, meanwhile, were a group of European freaks who played psychedelic rock/jazz/prog/whatever. Hemsley apparently was a fan. According to Gong leader Daevid Allen, as quoted on Dangerous Minds,
(more…)It was 1978 or 1979, and Sherman Hemsley kept ringing me up. I didn’t know him from a bar of soap because we didn’t have television in Spain (where I was living). He called me from Hollywood saying, “I’m one of your biggest fans and I’m going to fly you here and put flying teapots all up and down the Sunset Strip.”