Episode 779: Megalopolis (2024)

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 2 (00:20):
Oh g is, folks, it's showtime. People say, good money
to see this movie.

Speaker 3 (00:26):
When they go out to a theater, they want clothed sodas,
pop popcorn in.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
No monsters in the Projection Booth. Everyone pretend podcasting isn't boring.

Speaker 4 (00:35):
Got it off? Don't let them now destroy this forever.

Speaker 3 (01:01):
One filmmaker has always been ahead of his time.

Speaker 5 (01:16):
Go now.

Speaker 3 (01:19):
From visionary writer and director Francis Ford Coppola comes an
event nothing can prepare you for.

Speaker 6 (01:28):
Imagine today's society has a branch of civilization about to
reach it. Dead end.

Speaker 7 (01:40):
Is this way we're living.

Speaker 6 (01:44):
The only one that's available to us. My plan is
I say that people can dream about made uppers.

Speaker 8 (01:53):
What about those standing in your way?

Speaker 2 (01:58):
You like it the way it is? People don't need dreams.
People need help now. Don't let them now destroy the forever.

Speaker 9 (02:10):
We're in need of a great to take about the usure.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
Enjoy the show one, two three, hippie.

Speaker 6 (02:38):
There's still so much to accomplish, but it's ther time, my.

Speaker 10 (02:47):
Sco Francis Ford Coppola's.

Speaker 7 (02:51):
Meg, Welcome to the Projection booth.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
I'm your host. Mike White joined me once again as
mister Rob Saint Mary.

Speaker 7 (03:07):
Don't let the now destroy the forever.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
Also back in the booth is mister Mike Thompson.

Speaker 2 (03:13):
Time stop. It didn't work, Oh well, next time.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
In September of twenty twenty three, the New York Times
positive that men think about the Roman Empire at least
once a week, if not once a day. I don't,
but since September of twenty twenty four, I have thought
about Francis Ford Coppolis Megalopolis at least once a week,
if not once a day. But can you blame me?
Megalopolis is Francis Ford Copalis self financed passion project that

(03:39):
was one over forty years in the making. It's the
story of Caesar Catalina, a man named after not one,
but two kinds of salad dressings. He's a troubled genius
who no one appreciates. Write what you know, Francis. He's
the creator of a substance called Megalon, which is named
after the creature that battled and lost against Godzilla. What

(04:00):
does Megalon do? Is it a building material? Is it
a medical miracle? Is it a floor wax? Is it
a dessert topping?

Speaker 11 (04:07):
Shut up? It does what I say it? Stop asking questions?
If anything, I think we need to really talk about
what the heck this movie is about and see if
we can make some sense of it. I can warn you,
dear listener, that there are no spoilers for this movie.
It cannot be spoiled. It can only be pondered. So, Rob,
when was the first time you saw Megalopolis and what

(04:28):
did you think?

Speaker 10 (04:29):
Well, as soon as I heard that it would be
in the theater, I got there as quick as I
could because I knew it would not last long, and
so I think it only played locally here where I'm
at for about a week. My initial reaction is, I
hope Francis had fun. I hope he had a lot
of fun, because that's a lot of money. I hope
it does exactly what he wanted it to do, because

(04:51):
at times I don't know exactly what he wanted to do.
You know, it's fifty pounds of ideas and a five
pounds so sit casing, so it's there's a lot spilling
out all over the place. I'm glad I'm here with
y'all because it's gonna be fun to talk about it.

Speaker 1 (05:09):
And mister Toompson, I know where you were because we
saw this movie together. You want to give your initial impressions.

Speaker 2 (05:16):
I just remember when it was over, the first thing
I said was wow, and you just said yeah.

Speaker 5 (05:24):
Oh.

Speaker 1 (05:24):
I didn't say platinum.

Speaker 2 (05:26):
I was reacting to the song they were playing at
the end, because I was very excited that they that
the was there. I don't get to hear them at
the movies very often. But then your reaction immediately to me,
oh wait, wait, let's think about the movie for a
second instead of this song, which is now washing away
this experience, at least for the moment. I've seen many

(05:46):
many movies where things don't feel connected. This one, though,
really like seemed to strive for that. It was almost
like trying to be stream of consciousness in some respects,
but also not clearly not wanting to do that. It's
it's just even watching it again, it just feels very
much like just like Rob was saying, there are a
zillion ideas in here, Hardly any of them are fully explored.

(06:09):
Hardly any of them are even fully addressed. They just
he throws something in and it's like, Okay, I've got
to get back to the story, you know. But but
yeah that I just remember walking out and standing in
that hallway like we usually do after the movie. Just
it's sort of in shock, I think, and yet not surprised.

Speaker 1 (06:28):
No, not surprised at all. I mean, we saw the trailers,
we saw that teaser that was out there of Adam
and Drivers standing on the edge of the Chrysler building
feeling very much like Men and Black three but not
nearly as good, and saying time stop and apparently he
can also stop gravity because he's pretty much falling off

(06:49):
of it, and also thinking, wow, it's a tribute to
the Hudsucker Proxy. I can't wait. This will be great
if somebody shows up as an angel as he's falling down,
or to go back to the and in Black three
of it, he suddenly transports and starts to battle against
Jermaine Clement. One of those options would have been so
much better than what we got with this, which is Essentially,

(07:12):
it's a film made for blind people because every time
there's text on screen, Larry Fishburne or a bunch of
children will read it to us. So thank you for that.
This is one of the most sensory friendly movies that
you can possibly imagine, because you don't have to think
while you're watching it. Larry fishburn will tell you what's
going on, or the characters will tell you everything that's

(07:32):
on their mind, no matter what it is.

Speaker 10 (07:35):
On my most recent watch for this show, my note
here is feels like a pot smoking college kid who
had some philosophy and history courses and Shakespeare and decided
to write a movie to fit in all of his ideas.

Speaker 2 (07:48):
I feel like that that's accurate and yet also generous.
At the same time.

Speaker 1 (07:53):
There's a YouTuber that I watched, Steve Schives, and his
opening to his little review question mark was this feels
like an Iron Rand novel directed by Edwood, and I
felt that that was kind of unfair to Edwood.

Speaker 10 (08:08):
Yeah, I mean I would have enjoyed it if it
had Edwards, not special effects, but symbolic effects. There's another
movie we'll talk about later that came out the same year,
and I'm like, I can't believe that they only spent
ten percent, like the catering budget probably of this movie
to make a film that dealt with an architect in

(08:30):
a really interesting way.

Speaker 2 (08:32):
Not to jump into the documentary already, but yeah, when
watching that and just those little things they would show
of like this is how much they're spending on this,
and this is how much they're spending on that, and like, oh,
he's gonna buy this hotel and convert it into it. Like,
just like the movie itself, these are all bad decisions,
Like you're just you're just pouring money away. Yes, you're

(08:53):
spending all this time to create this atmosphere, and you're
spending all this time in the movie to do the
same thing, but it doesn't amount to anything. It doesn't
come together in any way. One of the things I
was thinking about when I was rereading the two hundred
and twelve page script was and I mentioned this to
you earlier, Mike, was that the script is actually, I

(09:16):
hate to say this even but it's like this isn't terrible,
like or not as terrible as the movie. At least
this is trying to flesh out these ideas. And then
read after reading that and then watching the movie, it's
like this movie feels like the cliff Notes version of
the script, Like you had things completely like maybe too
drawn out in the script, but it's you know, it's

(09:38):
it's like, Okay, here's how Claudio takes control of the
immigrant population. We're gonna spend a lot of time with
that in the movie. You know, he's in charge. Now,
that's just what's happening. And if you have any questions,
like he said, Laurence Fishburne brought that you know, has
has told you or Claudio did. So much of this
felt to me like, in a strange way, I'm watching

(10:01):
somebody who's like, I'm spending one hundred and twenty million
dollars to not compromise my vision, while I completely compromise
my vision. You know, like instead of making this full movie,
I'll just make some of it.

Speaker 7 (10:14):
To start with the beginning.

Speaker 10 (10:16):
It's noted as a fable, and that to me feels
like Coppola is letting himself off the hook that he's saying,
you know, it doesn't all come together. It's a fable.
It plays in its own heightened sense, so therefore it's okay.

Speaker 2 (10:37):
It's a fable. So my intentions will be on the
screen and that will be good enough.

Speaker 1 (10:42):
I mean, we talked so long ago about the persistence
of plot, but this doesn't even have the persistence of plot.
You can't carry through from one scene to another what
is supposed to be happening. It's like so many times
we get shorthand when it comes to like well, it's
like the coolest shof effect right where you get this image,
you get this image, and you're to make a connection
between the two. It feels like there's no connection between

(11:04):
these scenes. And sometimes with these images where I'm just
like what did that have to do with this? And
I will say the second time watching this, I was like, Okay,
some of this makes a little bit more sense, but
it still feels like it's being taken in shorthand. And
there's just so many things where I'm like, well, wait,
how does that play into this? And more than anything,

(11:24):
it's like why should I care? We can talk about
Max Landis's cinematic masterpiece Bright as much as we want to,
and think about how can there be a world of
Orcs where Shrek is still a movie kind of thing?
This is like we're in New Rome, but everything's exactly
the same, other than people wear different clothes and they

(11:45):
have cell phones because Claudio's passing out one hundred dollars
bills with a cell phone number on it, but nobody
actually uses a cell phone. I think one time in
this entire movie, it's just really it's strange. I'm not
going to focus on the cell phone thing, but it's
just like, Okay, so this is Rome, but it looks
exactly the same as New York City. And yes, I

(12:06):
mean you're talking about the symbolic effects of Edwood. It
feels like there's so many times where it's just like, well,
this is a metaphor. The whole thing of him stopping
time has absolutely nothing to do with any fucking thing
in this entire movie. It happens what two three times
happens at the end of the movie, happens to the beginning.
He loses his power at one point manages to get

(12:27):
it back because of love. But stopping time has nothing
to do with this film. And there's so many things
where it's like that has nothing to do with the
actual movie itself.

Speaker 10 (12:38):
The big theme that I get is the one Great
Man narrative. So he has this whole thing with and
we can get into the history of New York with
the whole you know, Jane Jacobs Robert Moses, because he's
kind of a Robert Moses character. He's he's doing this
like urban renewal, Right, He's gonna tear down this slum
and build this beautiful thing, and that's going to revitalize

(12:59):
New York New Rome. And this was the battle that
you know, Robert Moses did in the sixties where he
did this to the city and Jane Jacobs was his
you know nemesis, who was like, no, like you think
of the people in the community and everything you're destroying.
He has this push pull tension with the One Great
Man narrative where it's like he won't embrace it enough,

(13:20):
like like he wants to embrace it, but at the
same time he's like it's anti democratic and you know,
this isn't for the people, and so it seems like
he wants to embrace it while saying, yes, give me
the power. I'm the artist, I'm sensitive. I can lead
you to the future. But those people who want to
do the same thing over there and this, you know this,

(13:42):
I'm the one Great Man banner. No, like like they're bad,
like just follow me as the one great man narrative.
So he has this push pull tension with that, and
so it's just muddled. Like I say, it's this philosophical
muddling that you know, if he could have found a
way to do that, but then again, he couldn't focus

(14:03):
on a character that basically is a stand in for him.

Speaker 1 (14:08):
Our main character is such a shithead throughout the entire
thing that I don't empathize with Caesar Ketalina ever, and
I don't think I empathize with anyone in this film.
This whole thing that you're talking about, Robert Moses, is
that kind of the thread of Motherless Brooklyn Because I
finally watched that one recently, where it's this whole like
it felt very Chinatown as far as we have these

(14:31):
buildings that are going up, nobody knows who's approving these things,
and it felt like there were all these machinations at
city Hall kind of stuff.

Speaker 10 (14:40):
I can't say that I know all the particulars of
that history, but I know that it was this part
of this whole thing. I mean, it even happened to
try to a certain extent, you know where we're from
that there was this whole you know, urban renewal, and
it's like, we got to clear the slums and we
put the freeways through, and this will be the great
you know, future city that we want, you know, Delta City,

(15:01):
Proble Cup. So it's all, it's just all of this
aspect of well, I know better than you. I'm the
great artist, I'm the visionary, and because I'm the visionary,
I should get to do this.

Speaker 1 (15:14):
Is that you saying that that's Caesar Catalina or is
that you saying that's Francis for a Coppola or is
that yes to both?

Speaker 10 (15:20):
I think it's I think it's a combo, you know,
because when you look at the documentary later, he talks
about the value of art and the artist and the
strong artist and.

Speaker 2 (15:29):
All of this.

Speaker 10 (15:30):
And I do see that in the in the Adam
Driver character, and that he's like I have this vision
and I have this you know, people don't trust him,
you know. It's like he's got this mysterious goop that
he can do things with and he killed his wife
and there's all of this background on who he is
and why he's sinister, and people don't appreciate him.

Speaker 2 (15:52):
And it's this stuff he's got send stuff.

Speaker 6 (15:56):
I don't know what it is, I don't know where
it comes from, but it will.

Speaker 2 (16:05):
Give you one hair of a headache. I definitely see
it as both, and it's like Copola wants to have
it both ways too, where it's like Caesar's a great man,
but he's also flawed, you know, because he's he's he
does all these terror he does all these terrible things.
But it's okay he does the terrible things because that's
when people how he gets people to listen to him,
because because if you're good all the time, then nobody cares.

(16:28):
In one sense. I'm like, you know, there, there's probably
something there there, There probably is some there probably is
a story there. It's not in this movie, but you know,
I see. But again, it's there's just this overwhelming feeling
of intention, intention, intention, with no execution, no payoff, nothing.

Speaker 1 (16:45):
The story is a little labyrinthine when it comes to
Caesar versus Cicero, and Cicero is the mayor of New York,
Cicero is Gihn Carlo Esposito. We should say that there
are many versions of Megalopolis. There's the script that might
refer to there's the comic book version of this. There's

(17:08):
what we see in Megadoc, which we'll talk about after
the jump, and then there's the movie itself. And there's
even you know, rumors and things of stuff that you
can kind of see throughout the forty something year history
of this. I mean, there was a period of time,
what was it like ninety nine when he was going
to make this a Chinichita and call it something other

(17:31):
than Megalapolis. It was like the return of Caesar Catalina
or something like that. I can't remember, but it was
like he's been making this and remaking it. I mean
there's talk of like, oh, he had five volumes worth
of notes and wrote four hundred pages within you know,
the first year of really working on this back in
eighty three. He'd been thinking of it since the late seventies. Anyway,

(17:53):
when it comes to this, it's like I mix up
some of these versions. So when it comes to the
John Void character Crassus, right, is he the uncle of everybody?
Because I think like Claudio who's played by Shia la
buff and Caesar Katalina are both cousins, okay, all right?

(18:15):
And then again and then the Mayor's kind of in
a separate thing as Cicero and he's got his daughter.
And then while Platinum, that Aubrey Plaza character, she's sleeping
with Adam Driver, whose wife, like you said, is dead
ish maybe.

Speaker 2 (18:34):
Depends on which version we're talking about.

Speaker 1 (18:38):
And she's sleeping with him. He's not into her that
much anymore, I guess, and so she plots and starts
sleeping with John Void and becomes his new bride.

Speaker 2 (18:49):
That all of the things that you just said happened
in this movie.

Speaker 1 (18:53):
All of those exists, but it took a long time
to sort that stuff out because it feels like at
times there are ten twelve main characters on screen at
one time.

Speaker 2 (19:04):
The original script was even worse. There are multiple characters
who got you know, combined into a single character. But yeah,
it's just the way you just described it in terms
of all the different versions and how long he's been
working on it just makes me think like, this is
what happens when you have an idea for too long
and you just grind it into well this.

Speaker 1 (19:25):
Well, we talked about that on the fifth Element episode
where I was just like, you can tell that Luke
Wassan had this idea when he was a kid. And
he probably worked on it so long that the first
time I watched it, I was like, it feels like
there's such a rich tapestry here, but it's completely opaque,
Like it's too taking me a long time to ever
get into the fifth element, just because it was so

(19:45):
dense with lore that was all behind the scenes. And
it feels like this movie is just one hundred percent
behind the scenes lore, and it feels like Francis is
the only one who can connect this stuff, and he's
not telling a story. It feels like he's shirking the
responsibilities of a director by not telling a story to us.

Speaker 10 (20:06):
One of the things that I thought when you mentioned
that there were all these ancillary pieces, you know, I mean,
the doc is its own thing. I don't include that
as part of this, but the fact that there is
a graphic novel that reminds me of when we did
Southlane tails.

Speaker 1 (20:21):
Fuck, yes, you're gonna hear that a lot of this episode.

Speaker 10 (20:24):
Yes, And there's part of me and I said that
on that episode. If the film itself is its own thing,
doesn't stand on its own And I got to go
read a bunch of comic books or watch a bunch
of short films or all this other stuff in order
to make everything make sense. Then it doesn't work as
its own item. Like I appreciate the extras if you

(20:45):
want to build out an entire universe past that two
hours that you want me to spend with it, But
I shouldn't have to spend days rappling with all of
this in order for it to come together.

Speaker 7 (20:56):
It should come.

Speaker 10 (20:57):
Together in this version in two hours, and all the
the other stuff is ancillary and it adds it in riches.
It does not need all of this filigree in order
for it to make sense.

Speaker 2 (21:08):
This is not to be an apologist or anything, but
the graphic novel of Megalopolis is just a Marvel super
special movie tie in kind of thing. There's nothing extra
there except I was saying to earlier at Mike, like,
there's except one scene that's not in the movie that
was shown in the documentary is in the comic book.

(21:28):
But even the comic book is sort of for me.
It was sort of a perfect finishing experience for this, because,
like I said, the cliff notes thing like this was
like the cliff notes to the movie, which is a
cliff notes to a script. I don't think I would
have understood that. If I just read the comic without
having seen any of this stuff, I would not have
understood what was happening in it. And I think that again,

(21:49):
is like you're saying, Mike, so much of this exists
and has existed in Copla's head for so long that
for him it's like no, no, no, it's all there.
It's no, it's only there for you. It's not there
for anyone else.

Speaker 1 (22:06):
When we get so many of these characters together for
the first time, because we're introducing so many of these
folks individually, I think Julia is introduced around the same
time that Claudio is, and but then we get Mayor
Ciso on his own, and then we get that scene,
and it's one of two scenes that take place like
on an elevated thing, because we're going to talk about

(22:27):
the girders later on that are all elevated. Here it's
an elevation above a model of the city, and it's
Mayor Cisro unveiling like, oh, here's my plan to revitalize
the city. It's this new casino and it looks completely gaudy,
looks like, you know, Biff Hannan's casino that he had
back to the future too, maybe like a certain casino

(22:49):
that was in Atlantic City, something like that. Incomes Adam
Driver and he just starts doing the to be or
not to be speech from Hamlet. And from what I understand,
they would have actors do and we see this in
Mega doc and we'll talk about that more later, but
they would have actors do all of these exercises, and

(23:12):
him doing Shakespeare was an acting exercise. It is not
what he says in the script. He eventually kind of
gets to the point. But doing the entire to be
or not to be? Why is that even in this movie?
What is that doing here? Really does nothing other than

(23:32):
show me how many phrases we actually take from Shakespeare,
which is kind of amazing. And when I'm listening to
him going oh, yeah, oh that's a phrase, Oh this
mortal quot Okay, all right, that's oh slings and arrows. Yeah,
that's good. But it's like, what the fuck. It's so
this movie's so self indulgent, and it's like, you're spending
all this time and money to shoot this, why don't

(23:53):
you actually just stick to the story. If the story
is the thing that we should be paying attention to.

Speaker 10 (23:58):
And that's staging on the I'm basically this elevated walkway.
It feels very theatrical. And that's the thing that I wrote,
is I go, you know, couple to me wants this
to be oporetic, Like it almost feels like with the
Shakespeare stuff with the big scale, that he just wants

(24:19):
this to be so overwhelmingly huge. And maybe this is
just in my head because it didn't that one didn't work,
but I think I have a more of a fondness
for it was I saw one from the Heart maybe
like a year ago when they reissued it at the theater,
and I can understand why audiences didn't want that in
nineteen eighty two or three whenever.

Speaker 2 (24:41):
That was done.

Speaker 10 (24:42):
But at least that one kind of had more of
a you know, it was operatic and big, and that
one seemed to have more of a held together a
little bit better. For me here, I'm trying to figure
out why why would you stage this like that? Like
is it just because you think it looks cool as
opposed to is that the best way to bring out

(25:02):
the ideas of the scene and the characters, Like I
don't understand why this is like staged at like a
height and it's obviously over you know, it's up in
the air somewhere. I'm just and yeah, like like in
a big beer house. I'm like, huh, you're right.

Speaker 1 (25:19):
It's like in Jesus Christ Superstar when they're all on
like the building platforms and stuff. Yeah, this does feel
very much like something I would go to the Fisher
Theater and see, like, Ooh, isn't the stage and cool?
They're all above this model of the city and they
all have these very particular ways that they're moving around
and stuff. And then we're going to iris in on things,

(25:39):
which seems to be the thing that he keeps loving
to do on this is irising in for close ups.

Speaker 2 (25:46):
All I could think is like, Okay, are they supposed
to be like the gods looking down in this city
and all the things that they're going to, you know,
and here they are fighting and all that. But to
both of your points, like, there's nothing there to say.
Even if that is the idea, here's like it doesn't
it's not conveying anything. And one of the things you
just said, Mike, that I was thinking about when you're

(26:06):
talking about, oh, he introduces this person to this person
like you know, thinking about it, I don't know if
he introduced anybody. He just drops right into this, to
this whole thing. It's like, Okay, this is so and
so like wild Plattinum, I feel it's the only person
who announces herself. Keep going back to the same place
of just feeling like, Okay, where is the other half
of this movie? Or where is the rest of this movie?

(26:26):
Not that I necessarily want to see it, but I
just feel like it has to be somewhere.

Speaker 1 (26:31):
Yeah, absolutely, I mean at some place. There's all this
footage of Harvey kai tell as this being character.

Speaker 2 (26:37):
I'm trying to hold off about everything I want to
say about the documentary and the earlier footage. Man, Like, I.

Speaker 1 (26:44):
Kept wondering if Adam Driver is the best actor for
this role.

Speaker 2 (26:48):
He wasn't the first choice for this iteration. He wanted
what did Oscar Isaac? And he passed wisely, Because I
was thinking about that while I was reward watching it yesterday,
like well, what would it have been better? No? I
just would have felt bad for him too.

Speaker 1 (27:06):
With the ultra performance that he's giving. At times, I'm like,
couldn't you call up your nephew Nick Cage? And get
him in here. I know he's way too old for
the role, which is sad to say, but I'm not
expecting Adam Driver to go off the deep end. I
mean some of the dialogue while you're just like, what
are they even saying? Like is this English? Like when

(27:27):
he has his first confrontation with Wild Platinum, I'm just like,
what are they even talking about? And even knowing their relationship, afterwards,
I was like, I still don't get it. They just
seem to be talking around each.

Speaker 6 (27:39):
Other conversation that it isn't enough. It's the questions that
lead it to the next step. But initially you have
to have a conversation. The city itself is immaterial, but
they're talking about it for the first time.

Speaker 1 (27:52):
And it's not just about us talking about it.

Speaker 6 (27:55):
It's the need to talk about it.

Speaker 5 (27:58):
It's his urgent to us as water.

Speaker 6 (28:01):
Is it getting messier?

Speaker 4 (28:02):
In you mess? What mess?

Speaker 10 (28:06):
Not only that, but go into that scene. Go into
that scene where they're in I think it's in her apartment.

Speaker 1 (28:13):
Her very messy apartment.

Speaker 10 (28:14):
Yes, it's the place in which I think she's laying
on the bed and he's kind of standing over her talking.
If you listen to his rhythm and intonation he's doing Coppola,
it sounds exactly like how Francis speaks. If you have
ever heard Francis for a Copola in an interview, that's

(28:35):
what he sounds like. And there was part of me
that just went, wow, we're not even trying to hide this,
are we?

Speaker 2 (28:42):
And that, to me is one of the reasons I
got thinking when I was watching it again, like, so,
this is why you change the ending from the script then, right,
because now you know, when you were younger, you could
go ahead and have this more tragic ending, but now
that it's just become this very as you're saying, transparent
metaphor for you and making this movie and your aspirations,

(29:06):
the ending needs to be upbeat because you want this
to be, you know, this great moment. And it's just like, no,
and it just I'm not saying the original ending in
that script was was better, but it in a strange way,
it rang truer to me than what happens here.

Speaker 10 (29:23):
Consider that over the last ten years we've been dealing
with a real estate moguls from New York who has
become the great man authoritarian, And there's part of me
that feels like he's trying to push back on that
while embracing aspects of the Great Man narrative. It's he's

(29:43):
kind of stuck where he's like, well, I love the
great Man narrative, like you know that the hero's journey,
who's gonna lead all of us, you know, forward, But
at the same time, we got to deal with this guy.
And he yeah, that's not good.

Speaker 2 (29:56):
The great Man is fine as long as it's me, right.

Speaker 5 (30:01):
I'm the one.

Speaker 1 (30:02):
I'm the one who knows everything.

Speaker 7 (30:05):
It's not Cicero.

Speaker 1 (30:06):
Cicero doesn't know anything. Cicero is a jerk who apparently
prosecuted the case of my wife. Who let's talk about
the wife. What the hell happens with the wife? I mean,
we have Julia becomes kind of fascinated by Caesar Catalina
and follows him, and we get well, first, the first

(30:28):
mention of the wife is that scene where they're all
on those not girders but above the city and Cicero
steps up to him. That's the first well, no, actually
not the first use. There's an earlier use of the
iris end kind of effect, but there is a shot
of Cicero in driver's ear in Caesar Catalina's ear and

(30:49):
he starts talking about, you know, whatever happened with your wife?
And very cliff Booth of this movie to continuously talk
about this wife and not really give us an answer
about it. So he's in his ear and she's like,
whatever happened with your wife? And nada da da, And
we get this little shot of this woman who looks
a lot like Till the Swinton, but it's not till
the Swinton. It's like, okay, yeah, so what happened with this?

(31:11):
And I don't think we ever really find out? Like
she follows him to this kind of grungy apartment building
or something. He goes up and his wife is there
on this bed and he's comforting her and talking with
her and stuff, and I'm just like, Okay, he sees this,
but she doesn't Julia. But Julia seems to be on
his wavelength because she can see him stop time. She

(31:34):
seems to be the only person that sees him stop time.
So I'm like, Okay, well, is he hallucinating this? Is
this really real? Is she on like a different wavelength
now that is beyond human comprehension and only the great
man Caesar Kendlina can see it. Later on, we get
some shots and we hear about her driving off of
a bridge and it sounds like she was pregnant at

(31:57):
the time.

Speaker 2 (31:57):
That's one of the.

Speaker 1 (31:58):
Few moments of this film that I like, all of
the body painting that makes this form of a woman
with a fetus inside of her, and then they break
apart and you realize that it's people with body art
on and it's all like, you know, kind of like
ultraviolet kind of stuff. I was like, Oh, that's actually
a cool thing France. This way to go. But I
don't know what the fuck ever happened with this woman,

(32:19):
and I guess that's the blocker for him and Julie
to get together. And by the way, one other thing,
real quick, Julia. We first time we see her, she's
at this club and she's with Claudio and the Claudett's
his three other cousins who I guess he's sleeping with.
They keep talking about him sleeping with these girls. Okay,

(32:44):
that's what romans do anyway, And that she's also leaning
that way. She's bisexual, if not lesbian, and that's really
big in the script is about like, oh God, you're
sleeping with women, And I guess this whole movie is
about her like being you know, now reformed into a heterosexual.
That was like the weird like underlying theme that I

(33:05):
was getting watching this movie is like her now suddenly
like you have to be normalized, You're gonna have a baby,
You're gonna marry this guy, You're gonna settle down, no
more running around, no more being bisexual.

Speaker 7 (33:17):
Oh, it's totally in there.

Speaker 2 (33:19):
Yeah, and just completely appreciating Oh he is the great man,
like of course, yeah.

Speaker 1 (33:23):
He probably has a horse cock, right, Yeah.

Speaker 10 (33:25):
And and the whole thing with Shilah buff being in
drag and he's queer as hell in here in his stylization,
and just just this whole thing about you know, which
of course goes to you know, we love Caligula on
this on this sh I guess we guess we've done
Caligula what three times now?

Speaker 1 (33:44):
Three times now?

Speaker 10 (33:45):
Yeah, sexuality and especially bisexuality or you know kind of
you can go anyway as as a sign of decadence.
This whole thing about family and traditional heteronormative family, is
it not. It's not a stretch for anyone who knows
anything about Francis because Francis, they always say, is very

(34:05):
family oriented, Like if you've seen Heart's Darkness, it's like
he brought his family to the jungle to make a movie.
Like he wants to work with his family. He loves
his family. He's a family guy. And so of course
that's going to be the best thing, that's going to
be the most you know.

Speaker 7 (34:21):
The great thing.

Speaker 10 (34:23):
And so to me it falls into that trap of
using queerness as as decadence, which is to me kind
of outdated a little bit too.

Speaker 2 (34:34):
Revenge tastes best when wearing a dress.

Speaker 1 (34:38):
That's true. Yeah I think that was an old Klingon proverb. Yes, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 10 (34:43):
But the other thing in here, and this goes back
to you know, the great man, is that he even
says Driver's character even says at one point, my Emersonian mind.
So I decided to go and look up what Emersonian means.
So individualism, self reliance, the condition of the nature in

(35:05):
nature and the soul together, critical thinking, and rising your
instincts over social conformity. So again he's just layering on this.
I'm a great man because I live by my instincts.

Speaker 2 (35:21):
But isn't there even a lie though in there where
he literally says, instincts are overrated.

Speaker 7 (35:26):
Everyone else's, everyone else's.

Speaker 1 (35:29):
The fact that she's also a woman of color doesn't
really feel very good to me either, And that Cicero,
our enemy, is also a person of color. I mean
John Carlo Esposito, He's got a very interesting background, but
he definitely seems to be coded as black in this
as well as her, as well as of course Laurence Fishburne,
who is his manservant. And I'm just like, wow, that

(35:52):
really leaves a bad taste in my mouth as well.
And like you said, yeah, Claudio being very queer coded.
And I'll be completely honest, when Mike and I saw
this at the theater, I had no idea that was
Shilah buff because of the whole thing with the lack
of eyebrows. I could not place him for the longest time.

(36:12):
And it wasn't until he starts to grow his eyebrows
back then I think I was like, oh, okay. And
then like dB, Cooper is also in this movie looking
a lot.

Speaker 2 (36:20):
Like no, no, no, dB, sweety sweetey. Yeah, he's in
another place.

Speaker 1 (36:26):
He's the guy that sole all that money and jumped
out of the airplane. Yeah, so dbe Sweeney's in this
movie and he's an ice hockey player and he's teaching
this girl how to figure scot Wait no.

Speaker 2 (36:36):
No, no, no, no, no, you're confusing. He's he's the best
friend of this guy who died but made a deal
with the devil and has now come back as a superhero.

Speaker 1 (36:44):
Dad, That's what it was. Yeah, But he's also rocking
the no eyebrow look. And when he's got the no
eyebrow thing, I'm like, he looks like, oh, and I'm
going to fuck up. Another person's saying Frederick Forrest, who
I don't why he was even alive at this point
when they made this movie. And I know, like I
think the Hoffman character was originally supposed to be James Kahn, right,

(37:07):
and Hoffman's character, what the fuck's going on with this character?
He just shows up a couple times in that and
then he has the weirdest and we'll talk about his death.
We'll talk about the Weirdest not off screen, but it
might as well be off screen death.

Speaker 7 (37:21):
And I want to talk more about that.

Speaker 10 (37:22):
But like Mike was saying, there's so much about the Duck,
Like I can't wait to get to the duck.

Speaker 1 (37:28):
But yeah, this whole thing of like we have to
form a family and be normal in all these things.
It just it's it's a weird hill to die on
for this, and even like that kind of to me,
it's kind of racist when Adam Driver does that whole
go back to the club thing, which is one of
the things that makes me laugh the most in this movie,

(37:49):
and I feel like I shouldn't be laughing.

Speaker 6 (37:51):
Well, I want to learn, and you think one year
of medical school entitles you to plow for the riches
of my Amerzonian mind.

Speaker 8 (38:00):
Titles me yes, Entitles me.

Speaker 4 (38:03):
Yes, Entitles me yes.

Speaker 8 (38:07):
Entitles me yes, Entitles.

Speaker 4 (38:09):
Me yes, Entitles me yes.

Speaker 8 (38:13):
Entitles me yes, entitles.

Speaker 4 (38:16):
Me yes, entitles me yes.

Speaker 8 (38:19):
You have no idea about me. You think I am nothing,
just a socialite.

Speaker 6 (38:26):
No, not nothing, But I reserve my time for people
who can think about science and literature and architecture and art.
You find me cruel, selfish, and unfeeling. I am. I
work without caring what happens to.

Speaker 5 (38:42):
Either of us.

Speaker 6 (38:43):
So go back to the club, bear it all and
stock the kind of people that you enjoy.

Speaker 10 (38:48):
Fine, I will Laurence Fishburne like let's talk about great
actor his time rap like slam poetry piece in here,
like with the uh huh again. I feel like that
was another one of those hey just do this, and
he did it, and I think, oh, we're putting that
in him.

Speaker 1 (39:09):
It feels very Gremlins to Key and Peel.

Speaker 5 (39:12):
Skits in the movie Doe.

Speaker 1 (39:14):
Oh you want to do the taber.

Speaker 2 (39:16):
Not to be speech?

Speaker 5 (39:17):
It's in the movie Doe.

Speaker 1 (39:18):
Oh, you want to do slam poetry about time?

Speaker 5 (39:20):
It's in the movie, Doe.

Speaker 2 (39:22):
I feel like some of the actors there were probably like, no,
can we not put that in the movie, Like, oh no, no, no,
it's in there.

Speaker 5 (39:28):
It's in the movie, Doe.

Speaker 1 (39:29):
There is a fan editor of this movie, and I
made several requests of the fan editor to send it
to me, but he never got back to me. A
lot of the stuff that we're complaining about, like the
taber not to be stuff all cut out. I was like,
is there a good movie inside of this movie. I
don't know if that's true, or is there a movie
that just is not as much because this movie is

(39:52):
very much movie. There's very much movie to this movie.
More is less and yeah, the whole thing of Southland tails.
It is very appropriate, this whole idea of like I
get it, why don't you get it? And this is
my magnum opus.

Speaker 2 (40:07):
No one gets it.

Speaker 10 (40:09):
At the same time, there's also visually beautiful things in here.
I am not going to deny that it doesn't look good.
There's one thing that I like as a visual that
feels like it would be okay in a music video,
which is the Crumbling Justice.

Speaker 2 (40:26):
Oh yeah, yeah. The drive through the city is actually
like when the trailer came out, and that was in
the trailer, my wife was like, oh, I think I
want to watch this, and I'm like, you need to
understand that scene there is you've seen it all, like
that's not gonna like there's not going to be any
more of that. But yeah, I completely agree like that
those moments, and that's that's also what makes some of

(40:48):
this like heartbreaking, right, is that you're watching this and
it's like, well, it's not like he doesn't still have
something but it but at the same time, like so
much is not coming to get there, so much is
just not there, and it just it hurts.

Speaker 10 (41:03):
And what hurts, you know, for me as a fan
of his work, is that he can do things.

Speaker 7 (41:09):
He can tell.

Speaker 10 (41:10):
Great stories with next to nothing. And one of my
favorites of his that I have ever since I was
on this show, and even before I was on this show,
I used to just hammer it, and we did it
on this show is the conversation I'm like. The conversation
I'm like that is a like one of the cheapest movies,

(41:31):
and it's all put together by the edit. It's all
put together by the use of the sound. It's very simple,
and it tells a great story. Now it's my understanding
that that did come together in the edit, because I
had an opportunity to talk to one of the editors
once and he said, oh, yeah, like this thing was
narrative and it didn't work, and we tore it apart
and put it all back together. Fantastic. You guys did

(41:54):
an amazing job.

Speaker 2 (41:56):
That only just speaks more to his genius, the very
idea that you could make something it's not what you thought,
but then make something else out of it, Like that's like,
that's it. That's incredible.

Speaker 10 (42:06):
So when I see that he can do something like this,
like I wrote about the Crumbling Justice, I go. I
go at times it's just so beautiful to look at,
but sometimes it's so on the nose that it takes
away from the power of the story.

Speaker 1 (42:18):
Production design of this movie is beautiful. Caesar Catalina's office
is absolutely gorgeous. I love the use of the lines,
the maps, all of these things. It looks so good.
Somebody called that recently, like how specious it is to
just say like the cinematography is great. But I have
to say, the cinematography in this movie is great, and
it plays so well with the production design, and everything

(42:42):
looks so wonderful and just so scrumptious, and you feel like, Okay,
maybe there is a world here, you know, outside of
these sets. It's New York City with a couple things
tacked on to it, but inside of the world other
than maybe the colosseums, which the special effects in that

(43:03):
really draw bad attention to themselves, especially the tumblers. There's
a lot of stuff where I'm just like, what are
you doing here? Like are you supposed to be making
this looks horrible on purpose? And that's what I feel
like I keep coming back to, is like is this
a metaphor? Like are these tumblers a metaphor for something
like of course, like the guy running and breaking through

(43:23):
brick walls and things. I'm like, okay, well that, yeah,
that's a metaphor. But there's so many other things where
I'm just like, what is this? Why are you doing
this particular thing titles me yes, and titles me yes.
It titles me her going through the another model of
the city. But this model is put together with like

(43:44):
cardboard and tires and water bottles and soccer balls and things,
and suddenly she gets transported into this and to go
back to the special effects, this really awful looking special
effects sequence with like that thing coming out protecting her
from the rain and stuff. I'm like, again, is this
supposed to look bad on purpose? Or is this supposed

(44:06):
to be this magical, mystical world that I'm impressed by?
Because the way that the City of the Future actually
starts to look whenever we get these glimpses of it,
it looks terrible. It just looks really nasty and nothing
I would want to live in.

Speaker 2 (44:25):
It makes me feel terrible when I think this is
because it feels so like it's ageist, but it's just
sort of like I like think of going to the documentary. Also,
when he talks about, you know, only wanting like practical
effects and stuff like that, where he just seems like
these are the moments where he feels out of touch
with modern filmmaking to a certain extent of just like, oh,

(44:46):
it looks fine, and it's like no, no, no, it doesn't.
Like have you not seen a movie in the last
ten years, Like, and I know they're not the kind
of movies that you like. I feel like again jumping
to the documentary, like every it just feels to me
every and it's only happened like twice. But whenever he
mentioned this Guardians of the Galaxy, you can just feel
like the bile coming up out of his mouth, like

(45:07):
he's just angry that this all these movies exist, and
it's like, yeah, but but there's stuff to take from
that that you can use you could have used here.
And the other thing that you know, you were just
saying that I had been thinking of before, is like,
is this the case of had you given this to
somebody else who could have taken the step back? Said

(45:29):
you know, read you know, read through the script, changed
it up, you know, and pulled out the themes and
gotten rid of what doesn't need to be there, and
then when we have had something, it feels like, maybe
I want.

Speaker 1 (45:42):
To talk real quick about the kid in the uniform,
the tuba player who just is in this parade, wanders
away from the parade, hooks up with Clodeo, and then
becomes this like master of evil throughout the rest of
this film. And it's like, who the fuck is this kid?

(46:03):
And why do the other people hate him so much
that they're just like, oh, is so and so here? No, okay,
let's go on, Let's just let's go the other way
kind of thing, is what the commandant says. It's just
like another weird thing in that character. Going back to
the script, he's in there from the beginning, this whole
introduction of him as the stuba player. Instead, it's supposed

(46:24):
to be like he's some sort of West Point cadet
and had got kicked out of West Point. Like, okay,
that seems like a much better backstory than he was
a random musician in a parade and Clodio just is like, hey,
come on over here, and then becomes like a second
in command.

Speaker 7 (46:40):
I'm like, what how did this happen?

Speaker 2 (46:44):
It seems to line up with the story that Colpla
tells in the documentary about how he left military school
and sold his uniform and and and so it's like
and even in the documentary, if I'm remembering all this correctly,
I feel like Shilah Buff is like, that's just something
you're hung up on, man like, and they get into
like this argument about it, and it's and I think

(47:05):
I said, like, so this is my wife. I'm just
like I never thought i'd say that. But Shilah Buff
is right, like, this is you know what what like?
And and You're like everything you just said just makes
me feel like he was like Copo is like, no,
I have to have that in there because this speaks
to me. It's like, all right, but what who else

(47:26):
is it speaking to? What else are you really saying
with it.

Speaker 1 (47:29):
There's an interview I saw with Shilah Buff and it
was some podcast, but it was a video podcast, which
I guess is a podcast these days, and it was him,
Shia and David Mammett and they're being interviewed and the
Boof goes off. Of course, the name of the video
is something like Shilah Boof comes clean about working on Megalopolis.

(47:50):
He talks about it for like thirty seconds in a
ten minute video, and he just goes.

Speaker 12 (47:55):
And we fought all through the thing because it wasn't
my dream, and I was trying to learn his dream,
which he always trying to do. When you're on a movie,
you try to learn your guy's dream. Sometimes those dreams
aren't easily accessible. Sometimes you feel like you're not old
enough to get to the dream. With me and him,
it felt like that. It felt like, oh, you know,
I don't know about you know, because I'm a baby
and you don't live to life, you know, so I
would acquiesce to him.

Speaker 1 (48:16):
Yeah, That's what it feels like as an audience member,
is that I'm being kept from his vision at all times,
that I'm not being allowed to know what the hell
is happening, Like I don't know what the significance of
the Soviet said, Like cruising overhead that we get little
shots of here and there.

Speaker 10 (48:34):
That's cult war leftover from an earlier draft.

Speaker 1 (48:38):
If I keep in mind that one of the early
drafts of this was nineteen eighty three, I can see
star wars and Soviet relations and all of this kind
of stuff. I can see Skylab coming out of the sky.
I see all of these things, but in a post
nine to eleven world, it's a whole different story.

Speaker 2 (48:57):
When I was rereading the script, I was like, Okay,
the satellite crashing to Earth is clearly a metaphor for
alluding to to nine to eleven. But then in the script,
nine to eleven happens, and the satellite is still comes
down later, and so I'm like, what are we doing here?
And even in the script, to me, it felt like
when nine to eleven happened, it almost felt like he

(49:20):
was doing the rewrite, and then that event happened, He's like, oh,
I have to put it in the movie, and he
just stopped writing and then added that in, and then
it like jumps forward like six years, and it's like
you can't fit everything in. Man.

Speaker 1 (49:33):
Time is such an important piece of this movie, and
time passes in this movie, but you wouldn't necessarily know
it very well, even her being pregnant and then suddenly
they're getting married and then suddenly there's a baby, And
I'm like, okay, how much time has passed? Like how
much time passes between the beginning of this movie and

(49:56):
the end of this movie? Not to mention the stuff
that takes place before this movie starts, Like, I would
almost like to see a timeline of the movie itself
just to know where am I at when it comes
to these things. How long does it take for Clodio
to suddenly go from playboy ne'er do well? How often
does he do well? Ne'er he does well? Him suddenly

(50:19):
becoming this political figure and the way he joins up
with the crowd and yeah, kind of activates the immigrant
community like you were talking about before, Rob, It's just like, okay,
how long does it take for him to now suddenly
become more of a political figure. It's to the point
where his uncle's like, you got to get out of politics.

Speaker 10 (50:39):
To me, he is the Trump stand in. I mean,
I feel very maga. There's a lot of symbology that
feels exactly maga. I would say, if there's a timeline
on this, I'd say maybe a year and a half
from where it starts to the end, because I mean,
obviously we're hemmed in by nature nine months a woman
having a baby, so that gives us that timeline off
the back end. But I'm not seeing too much further

(51:02):
before that, you know, maybe your naf.

Speaker 2 (51:05):
I feel like there's only one sequence where you see
like the calendar pages lying by, But even that wasn't
as much time. Now, I do think that we need
to understand that. I think it takes about six months
for a megalon to fully heal a headwont So that
should explain at least some of it.

Speaker 1 (51:23):
You have that information on good authority that it's suggested.

Speaker 2 (51:26):
Okay, I got it from one five to one seven nine.

Speaker 1 (51:30):
Yeah, how long does it take to heal a dog leg?
Because suddenly we're talking about megalon can heal dogs? And
we get that little shot and then yeah, later on
he there's an assassination attempt and he gets shot in
the fucking face, and yeah, they use some Megalon on him.
And that leads to my other big, big laugh scene

(51:54):
is him just doing that whole no no no thing.
And I told you this as soon as we left
the theater, Mike, I was laughing because it's so reminded
me of the Internet cat that says no.

Speaker 4 (52:05):
No no no no no no no no no no no.

Speaker 13 (52:11):
Crosses, someone froze our accounts, someone's messing up.

Speaker 4 (52:15):
Oh no no no, I'll be in the car if
you need me.

Speaker 13 (52:18):
Okay, no, no, no no no no no no no
no no no no no no no no no no

(52:44):
no no no.

Speaker 4 (52:45):
No no no no no no no no no.

Speaker 1 (52:50):
Like they reused that, they loop that a few times.

Speaker 2 (52:53):
That helped me enjoy the script more because none of
that's there. There's no assassination attempt. He and Julia don't
get married, they don't have a kid, and then you
know they ultimately, you know, have the very tragic ending
that adds to the whole thing you guys were talking
about in terms of the whole you know, bringing the

(53:14):
family together and how important that is to Coppla where
it's like in these earlier drafts, it's like he wanted
to do that, but it was the world that was
preventing them from doing it right. It was his enemy's
determination to destroy him that ultimately unraveled everything. And it's
sort of like, well, where's that guy, you know, like
where's that artist at because because you know that that
was a little more interesting, but now instead we get

(53:36):
we get this ridiculous think of yesterday when I was
watching It's like, man, I don't know why, he just
really reminded I'm just keep thinking of dark Man with
his bandage on his head.

Speaker 1 (53:48):
The calendar stuff is while Platinum's substory of her and
Crassus Hamilton Crassis, the John Voight character. And it's interesting
that we talk about kind of maga in this movie
and it's not John Voyce Wow Platinum, who in the
script was what w Wow Baltimore and she had a

(54:08):
first name. She was like Lydia wal Baltimore or something,
and Wow is just her nickname, whereas in here it
feels like it's her real name. It very much feels
like that, which is fine. And I know a lot
of people made a lot of like, oh my god,
they have a character named while Platinum. In here it's like, yeah,
I've heard weirder names in twenty twenty five. It's really okay.

Speaker 10 (54:29):
I mean the actress name is Aubrey Plaza, which the
first time I heard Aubrey Plaza, I go, it sounds
like a hotel. Oh I stayed at the Aubrey Plaza.

Speaker 7 (54:36):
It was lovely, you know.

Speaker 10 (54:37):
I mean, so there's part of me. It's just one
of those things with that character. And I got this
like like he was watching way too much, like before
she went to Fox. I think probably the Maria Bartaromo
money Bunny Wall Street business, cutesy gal who tells everybody
about the stocks and all that stuff.

Speaker 1 (54:58):
So that's where the calendar flipping happens. Is her now
machinations of I'm going to marry this banker and I'm
going to take all of his money somehow, And rather
than it being a celebration of their wedding, which is
what I think is happening in the script, it's more
of a celebration of their a nuptial announcement, which is

(55:20):
what leads us to the whole scene at the coliseum,
the bread and Circus sequence. And don't worry, folks, they
will announce that with a title card. I'm not sure
if Larry Fishburn reads all these title cards, but I
would not be surprised.

Speaker 3 (55:37):
Where stands the Colosseum so stands wrong. When the Colosseum falls,
and Rolling falls too, and when Rolling falls, the world
falls with it.

Speaker 1 (55:50):
That scene goes on for fucking ever. It is just
like the longest sequence in the movie. At least that's
how it feels to me. In a movie of things
that feel like they go on for a long time,
this feels like it goes on the longest because it's
got this whole thing of Caesar Catalina getting drunk and
now suddenly Julia is his representative, right and like taking

(56:15):
him through and he's like shuffling through the press line
doing like the running Man dance and stuff. And this
whole thing with the virgin, the vestal virgin, which that
for me, was the only thing that actually came out
of the real story of the real guy Serge Catalina,
who was part of this rebellion in Rome, or proposed rebellion,

(56:40):
and he had slept with the vessel virgin, That's the
only thing. And this whole thing of her suddenly being
able to like morphed into seven different versions and harmonize
with herself. I'm like, well, who are you Ophelia from
the Adams family? This is so strange.

Speaker 10 (56:54):
Well, this is also a thing too where you'd need
to know a little bit of Roman history to understand
why he's represent vestal virgins, because vestal virgins are the
keepers of the fire, and that the idea being that
they had to be virgins, and if they weren't, then
the fire went out, then Rome wouldn't be safe and
the whole thing would collapse. So you have to understand again,

(57:15):
men think about Rome, as you said, every day, so
of course we would know this already.

Speaker 2 (57:19):
I just learned it right now because the movie certainly
didn't explain it to me, even though it had ample
opportunity to do so. With Laurence Fishburne, you know, one
more voice over everybody. That all felt gross. It's just like,
this is just this is all very and it was.
It was worse I think in the script too, because

(57:41):
like in the movie, it's it sort of alludes to, oh, no,
this was all doctored and it wasn't real. In the
movie it was like that. In the script it was
much more like no, no, no. He definitely slept with her,
and he talks about how you know, oh, I'm such
a weak man about it. And there's even a line
from like from Julius like even if it is true,
it doesn't matter. It's like I think it's relevant though,

(58:02):
Like I think if it's true, it's definitely relevant. That's
the other thing about her character, going back to what
we were talking about a little bit before, it's like
it feels like her only job is to just be
in love with him and then be this frustration for
her father and that to me is also just annoying.
We could let this person be like, you know, a
person like you know and somebody who actually has some

(58:23):
kind of agency or anything at all. But now it's
all just there to serve him.

Speaker 10 (58:29):
There's part of me that wonders, and I don't know
anything about you know, I know very little about her background.
But is he writing their love story eleanor did he
upset her dad?

Speaker 2 (58:41):
You know?

Speaker 10 (58:41):
Was he like, you're not marrying an Italian? Not back
then in the early sixties, you know, So I don't know.

Speaker 2 (58:47):
I wondered about the same thing at the beginning of
this this as you were saying, Mike forever a scene,
because yeah, I almost fell asleep watching it the second
time when he goes off on his drug tangent. But
we also get this weird introduction to his mother. Yes,
what is.

Speaker 1 (59:05):
Going on with this Talia Shier relationship and.

Speaker 2 (59:08):
They're bizarre relationship, yeah, and her just talking about how like,
you know, what would she say, is it alligators or
crocodiles have it right because they eat their young And
it's like, what is this about? And then it comes
it comes back later that that actually is one of
the lines I enjoyed the moments was when she when
he's introducing her to Julia and she says that I
always wanted a girl. He goes, Julia is a girl. Mom.

(59:31):
But again it's like, what is what's happening here? Like,
what is this? What is this supposed to be alluding to?
Or what is this a reference to that? I also
don't understand. There's just more and more of that throughout
the movie. And like you were saying before, Rob, when
you're talking about south Land Tails, it's like, I don't
want to have to do a ton of homework before

(59:51):
or after this movie or any movie to be able
to understand and appreciate what it is that you're saying.
I'm not saying I don't want to think think about it.
I want to think about it, and of course I
want to think about it, But when you're making me
rely on a whole bunch of other things, it feels
to me like you're just not You're not doing the work.

Speaker 1 (01:00:10):
The Wild Platinum character is basically Sarah Michelle Gellar character
from Southland Tails. You know, I was waiting for that
to say not as interesting. No, I was waiting for
to say that in the future things will be much
more futuristic, but as opposed to this, where in the
future things will be much more Roman. And it's like
they're so uneven even when it comes to because the

(01:00:30):
other thing that this Colosseum scene brings up is this
idea of the kind of Times Square like scrolling thing
that they have going around the Colosseum floor, which is
all in Latin, and they speak Latin. I think there's
one part where John Carlo Esposito and the actress who's
named The Killer from John Wu's new version of The

(01:00:52):
Killer where they're talking in Latin to each other. Okay,
this kind of reminds me of France is probably speaking
Italian to his relatives or something. But they're so uneven
with is this new Rome or not. I mean, it's like, okay, yeah, again,
they've got all these QR codes and they're doing all
this bidding through QR codes, And at first I thought
they were bidding on the festival Virgin's virginity, and then

(01:01:16):
I realized, no, this is some sort of and again
I get this better. In the script, they're trying to
make money and they're like basically trying to come up
with a campaign. So they're using this event, their bridal party,
to raise funds and I'm like, okay, first off, he's Crassus,
the most well healed man in New Rome. Why does

(01:01:36):
he need money? But yeah, this is their thing that
they're trying to get cash, and that's why they have
all these QR codes and they keep raising money. But
I was just like, yeah, they're selling off for virginity.
But whoops, it's already been taken by Caesar Catalina. I
think my versions a lot more interesting, let more.

Speaker 10 (01:01:53):
Coherent, but in the end it actually wasn't because I
guess it was a deep fake or something.

Speaker 1 (01:01:59):
Yes, yeah, and then it changes her her way of
performing to suddenly now she's more like a sex bomb.
And maybe it's a Britney Spears reference or something.

Speaker 5 (01:02:10):
I don't know.

Speaker 7 (01:02:12):
Madonna, it's Madonna.

Speaker 2 (01:02:14):
It's the eighties Madonna.

Speaker 5 (01:02:15):
Madonna.

Speaker 2 (01:02:17):
My first thought was it was like, oh, this is
the this is like the whole Miley Cyrus thing when
she made that pledge to her dad all those years ago.
But then it's like, now, this script existed before that,
and but it's just yeah, it was, but it's either way,
it's still like I what are we what are we
doing here? And that also in the script was so

(01:02:37):
much more drawn out and explained right in terms of of, oh,
Julie is going to do all this research and actually
find out no, no, no, she's it was her younger sister
that died, and they changed changed things, changed things up,
and all this different detective works in the movie. It's
like they're in this, They're in the catacomb somewhere here.

(01:02:59):
I got it here, it's in this box that we
found in this in the middle of nowhere. It's it's
almost as bad as the as the dust and Hoffman like,
oh if something fell on him, oh Jesus, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:03:11):
Yeah, let's talk about that, because it's like just such
a throwaway where it's just like, oh, yeah, don't worry,
I took care of the Dustin Hoffmann character cut to
him walking in all of these fucking pillars falling on him.
I'm just like, that's it.

Speaker 2 (01:03:25):
I think in the script and in the comic they
explained that one a little bit better because I gets
it's Claudia on his people cave in the place that
they had lured him to, and you know, he gets
buried under the rubble I had forgotten that, and I
was like, oh, I think in the movie it must
be that the satellite hit him. But then when it
happens to like no, it's that's not what happened, Like
I mean, and it's so weird. It's like it said

(01:03:47):
the whole show don't tell a thing. It's like you
managed to do the opposite of both of those at
the same time. Somehow. Think you told us and then
showed us in a way that just told us. It
can show us anything.

Speaker 10 (01:03:59):
If there's one great line reading in this movie, Oh.

Speaker 1 (01:04:01):
I know exactly where you're gonna go. Please tell me
the best line reading in this movie.

Speaker 7 (01:04:07):
What do you think of this? Boner? I've got what
do you think of this boner?

Speaker 2 (01:04:15):
I was thrilled to find a surprise that that that
line was in the script, but he's that he kept
it for all these years, Like no, no, no, this line
is not going anywhere.

Speaker 1 (01:04:27):
Yeah, that's probably the best moment of this entire movie.

Speaker 7 (01:04:31):
Joe Buck comes back around.

Speaker 1 (01:04:34):
Had he and Coppola worked together before John Voyt and Coppola,
I don't think so?

Speaker 2 (01:04:39):
Okay, So either I was I was thinking about that,
you know, you know, going to the documentary where they
where they they It felt like they'd had a relationship
or knew each other before, but I couldn't think of
an example of where they'd actually, you know, made a
movie together.

Speaker 1 (01:04:55):
Yes, so much of Caesar Catalina's process feels like Coppola process.

Speaker 2 (01:05:00):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:05:01):
I was talking about the model of the city with
all the garbage and everything. There's a moment when we're
in his office and there's all of these people with
the Design Authority jumpsuits and they're forming human pyramids and stuff,
and I'm just like, a, is this inspiring you, Caesar
for like new organic design ideas? Because like I said,

(01:05:22):
we'll talk about Mega doc more, but there's so much
of like acting exercises in there, and all of this
feels like exercises, Like we're going to do some weird
shit in here just to inspire you, Caesar, because you
are the great man and you need all of this
different inspiration, and you also need a lot of booze.
Apparently it's okay that he is such a whino when

(01:05:44):
it comes to this. And then yeah, also can do magic,
which Julia can do as well.

Speaker 2 (01:05:50):
It seems going to the ending, right, So You're going
to freeze this moment in time for all of you
because this is your triumph. But I guess what we're
saying here is that, you know, the baby the next
generation is like, you can be stuck in this moment
in time, you can hold on to this moment in
the past, but the next generation it doesn't mean the
same for them, and they're gonna keep moving forward. You know.

(01:06:13):
Maybe that's what it means, but mostly it just feels
like weird. It's like it's like the thing in the
pitch meeting where it's like, I hope that baby's gonna
be okay. Everybody else's throat and the baby's just we're
s watered around, Like yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:06:30):
That's what it feels like. It almost feels like to
commit suicide at the end of this movie by freezing themselves.
Because every other time that Caesar says time stop, he
and Julia apparently are okay to move around. But now
when he says time stop, or she might even stop time,
I don't remember, but when they.

Speaker 2 (01:06:49):
Stop, yeah, he tells her, Julia stop time.

Speaker 1 (01:06:51):
Okay, so she stops the time, and time stops for
everyone apparently in the entire world except for that baby. So, yeah,
does that baby does it just die sitting there on
that magic carpet because no one's there to feed it.

Speaker 7 (01:07:05):
You know, it's got megalon. Okay, that's true.

Speaker 1 (01:07:09):
Yeah, you can eat it.

Speaker 7 (01:07:10):
You know. It's a bit of desert topping. It's a floorway.

Speaker 2 (01:07:15):
Oh no, no, that's I was thinking like now that
it's right. That's right. He got shot after she got pregnant,
because I was wondering if maybe the baby was part Megalon.

Speaker 1 (01:07:23):
We talked about the whole gimmick of the stopping of time.
The other gimmick in this movie, which was actually more
of a gimmick for the movie, was this whole thing
that happened. Now this is did this happen in con
and did it happen anyplace else? This whole idea of
people asking the screen questions.

Speaker 10 (01:07:44):
It happened in con and then kind of like when
they did not with this movie, but you know, with
like certain movies were like, oh you can go see
it in seventy millimeter film print. You know, it was
only in certain theaters. But to me, I don't even
know where that takes place. So there's a part of
me that's like I don't even know where the guy
would stand up and say, hey, you know what the hell?

Speaker 1 (01:08:03):
Well, that takes place at exactly one hour, in like
twenty three minutes. It takes place right after the satellite
finally crashes to Earth. It seems kind of harmlessly, but
you get those shots of the people's shadows on the
building where I'm like, Okay, that's actually kind of cool,
like showing the destruction.

Speaker 2 (01:08:22):
You know, yeah, that was a great shot.

Speaker 1 (01:08:23):
Okay, for instance, you still have it like you still
have an incertain part. So at like one hour twenty
two minutes, they cut to this black room and this
white spotlight comes up, and then suddenly we're in what
looks like a theater, and there's a person that stands
up in front of us who's completely blurry and asks
the question of a screen. And that's where Caesar is there,

(01:08:45):
answering the one question.

Speaker 9 (01:08:47):
What remains is the movie's wow moment, which stunned audiences
and can at its first public screening. In a news
conference scene, someone physically stands next to the screen and
asks Caesar a question. Adam Drive actually suggested this to
replace Copela's original idea after the Alexa ordeal forced him
to cut the gimmick as it.

Speaker 1 (01:09:08):
Is in this movie. It doesn't fit whatsoever. Maybe in
the real experience that we're talking about, that might have worked,
but here in this film it doesn't work at all.
And they should not have had even this framing, like
literal framing of a person in a movie theater talking
to a screen their own shadow cast. You know, pretty

(01:09:29):
soon they start throwing rice and spoons. It's the whole thing.

Speaker 2 (01:09:33):
I think. I found a clip of one of those
screenings on YouTube and it was awkward, more awkward than
the actual movie.

Speaker 14 (01:09:46):
You said that as we jump into the future, we
should do so un aFrame, but what if they do
jump into the future if there is something, well, there's

(01:10:06):
nothing to be afraid of.

Speaker 12 (01:10:08):
If you love.

Speaker 2 (01:10:10):
Or have loved The timing was was odd because it's
not like Copla hasn't done weird stuff like that with
some other movies, not any that I've seen, but I've
read about or heard about. But it just feels to
a certain extent like is this just experimentation for experimentation's sake? Right?
I don't I don't know what this is supposed to have,

(01:10:32):
how this was supposed to have enhanced if your intention
was to feel like you were bringing us into the movie.
Even though Copa is very clear in the documentary he
does not believe those images of those aren't real, even
though shy I believes they're real, it's still like it.
If anything, it took me even further out of the
movie because, like you're saying, it doesn't it doesn't fit.

(01:10:52):
It's a weird moment even within this odd story anyway
of just like okay, this, you know, this thing crashes
down and we're gonna have a press conference with Caesar.
But it doesn't seem to have crashed into any buildings.
It didn't kill anyone, it didn't destroy his you know,
construction site. So I don't know what. Obviously this is

(01:11:14):
supposed to be a nine to eleven metaphor.

Speaker 1 (01:11:17):
You even see what looks like ground zero after that,
But again it's like, we didn't see any buildings get destroyed.
We just saw a metaphor of people reacting as shadows.

Speaker 7 (01:11:29):
I see.

Speaker 10 (01:11:29):
I thought it was going to be towards the end
because there's a whole speechifying piece and here it's also like,
oh God, like if you have to do this, then
you've really lost the narrative. That's like, you really have
to hammer us on the head in terms.

Speaker 7 (01:11:44):
Of this is what the theme is, and the.

Speaker 10 (01:11:46):
Theme is we need a great debate about the future.

Speaker 7 (01:11:49):
Pull yourself up.

Speaker 6 (01:11:52):
Let it not be said that we reduced ourselves to
be brutes.

Speaker 5 (01:11:58):
And mindless beasts.

Speaker 6 (01:12:00):
A third, the human being shall rightly be called a.

Speaker 2 (01:12:08):
Great miracle and a living creature. For all two in mind,
we are such stuff as dreams.

Speaker 4 (01:12:19):
Are made up.

Speaker 1 (01:12:25):
There's a few moments in here where I was reminded
of how the West was won and the way that
that was shown when it was in road show, the
whole thing of the three screens, because after that press conference,
then suddenly we're in a triptich for like the longest
time of Caesar in the middle, like working on his
stuff and things on either side, and that we've got

(01:12:48):
all these architectural drawings that basically looks like you know,
production design drawings, just kind of reusing it for that,
and we go through that for a while. I was like, Okay,
that might have been an interesting effect too, had you
know a Franstis is going to do this up as
a road show type of thing and have this cheapy
gimmick of the you know, like talking with the screen
and everything. Why not do it up even more? And

(01:13:11):
then we end that sequence with the film literally burning up,
and I was like, okay, I've seen two lane Blacktop.
I saw that done a lot better.

Speaker 10 (01:13:20):
I think that was Coppola also trying to be Avlganz
because he was behind restoration on Napoleon and at one
and it goes into triptych at one point.

Speaker 1 (01:13:29):
So right, you're absolutely right. And the whole thing with
like him constantly working with the I guess megalon these
crystals and things, and he just keeps seeing images of
his dead wife. I just kept thinking of a Minority
Report and how much more I like Minority Report and
the whole idea of like the guy who's haunted by

(01:13:50):
his past and stuff, and it's just like, at least
with that you kind of get an idea of what happened.
I still don't know what the hell happened with Caesar's wife.

Speaker 2 (01:14:00):
Minority Report that also informs the character, and in this
I don't know what it does. Like I mean, yep,
he's yep, he's damaged and he and he still loves
his wife because Julia told me that when she somehow
or other saw the thing that he could see but
didn't see it. My assumption is, you know, the little
bit that we get sounds like she came to tell

(01:14:23):
him that she was pregnant and saw something that offended her.
So I'm assuming that he was, you know, messing around
with somebody and and then was just and then drove herself,
you know, drove herself over, you know, into the river,
because of course, now that the great man is cheating
on her, like, how could she say? Why would you
want to stay alive?

Speaker 10 (01:14:42):
I was also thinking another theme that comes up here,
and this is after the assassination of getting shot in
the head. There's a line that says that will not
let time have dominion over my thoughts, which to me
is the whole uh. You know, Vita Brevist artists lung,
you know idea that you know, art and great things
live on beyond us and the importance of creation as

(01:15:04):
an artist, because if you know enough about Coppola, he
champions the idea of that. And I understand, dude, you're
in your early eighties, okay. I remember in college I
had a death class. It was about cultures and death.
And dying, and there's a thing called terror management theory,
and this, to me starts to become like you talk

(01:15:27):
about Einstein trying to find a universal theory of everything. Like,
to me, terror management theory is the universal theory of everything,
like for humans is how I've come to it. It's like,
that's why you have kids, and why people in big
countries and put names on buildings and build statues and
all of this stuff. It's like, I need to prove
that I existed beyond my time, because otherwise I'm going
to be forgotten and swept away into eternity. I really

(01:15:50):
get that he's dealing with that in here too. It's
kind of, you know, a little bit more subtextual, except
in that point, but there is this feeling of I'm
trying to create great art to live beyond me, and
that is that is a worthy cause.

Speaker 1 (01:16:04):
Yeah, that's how this movie is introduced in the Sam
Lawson book. I believe it's called The Path to Paradise,
where it's a him, it's Copola talking with it sounds
like Wasson saying, you know, and I can't remember what
the Italian is, but basically it's I'm close to death.
You know, Vincente Muerte or something. I'm in the Vicinity
of Death and so it's like, Okay, this is Copola

(01:16:27):
like pulling out all the stops. I'm going to make
this movie. This is going to be fantastic. But he's
also dealing with such the piddling things and just like
it feels like he's got such an axe to grind,
Like so much of this movie in the back half
of it is Platinum and Clodio plotting against Crassus Hamilton,
but also that they're plotting against Caesar Catalina and they

(01:16:51):
freeze his accounts so he has no more money so
he can't do this, and I'm just like, Okay, this
is you Francis, Like and to the point where they're
talking about like, oh, when we have this baby, it's
either going to be Sunny Hope or Francis, And I'm like, yeah,
like Francis is Francis is running through this movie. If anything,
Francis is megalon. Yeah, like those weird things that they do,

(01:17:12):
like when he comes and visits Platinum and Clodio after
he's been shot in the head and he pulls off
that the dark Man mask, like you're talking about and
how his image repeats all those times and just like
has that magic like bring noise to it. I'm like,
what are we even doing here? What what is this

(01:17:34):
supposed to represent? Because so much of this movie doesn't
feel like it's real things happening, that it's just metaphorical
things happening, but.

Speaker 2 (01:17:42):
Either mixed metaphors or you know, or poor metaphors. Right.
I took some of that to be that you know,
this is this is also how Wow looks at him,
you know, how Wow sees him? Is this, which which
again is one of those just annoying things where it's
just like, here's what to me looks like a self
made woman. But no, no, no, no, no, what she

(01:18:02):
really wants is this guy. And the tragedy of her
life is that she just can't you know, she can't
have him, or she can't understand, you know, who he
really is, or any of this other stuff. It again
makes me think of the documentary when he's talking to
like the art team or whatever is before he decides
to fire them and stuff like that, and it's just

(01:18:23):
like these people like there's all these toys that you
and all these things that you have at your disposal,
but it doesn't feel like you understand how to effectively
use any of them, and then when you do, it
just doesn't seem it just seems misplaced, you know, like
even the weird look of his face just didn't you know.

(01:18:45):
It was like what he says, I got seventy percent
of what I want. And I'm like, really, because I
think what was the end product? Because it doesn't feel
like seventy percent.

Speaker 1 (01:18:56):
Were almost two hours into this movie and it becomes
while platinums movie for a little bit, with all of
her plotting and her machinations, and suddenly she becomes associated
with scissors because she starts cutting Clodio's hair when she's
letting him fuck her. And then we have this scene
that really reminded me of Orson Wells's Othello that takes

(01:19:18):
place inside of a steam bath. It's so reminded me
of like that scene from Othello. And we have her
in front casting shadows and doing like shadow puppetry almost
and using her fingers like scissors, and you hear like
the scissor noise and everything. I'm like, what are we
doing here? It's almost interesting, it's almost interesting, but it

(01:19:40):
just does not land and that's the thing is, I
don't know if anything in this movie ever sticks the landing.

Speaker 2 (01:19:47):
No, nothing sticks to landing. That's it. That's it.

Speaker 1 (01:19:53):
I want to talk about the end of the movie
because I not make it all the way to the finale. So, Mike,
can you talk a little bit about how the script
of this ends as opposed to the film.

Speaker 2 (01:20:03):
In the script, Cicero contrives a way to finally get
what's his name in the script, Surge, not Caesar. He's
gonna have him killed, and so he's he says to
him like, look, you're you're right, I'm terrible. Come meet
me here, and you know, I will do whatever. And
so he goes. Julia and Caesar go to the to

(01:20:28):
the meeting place. You know, he gets out and Julia realizes,
wait a minute, this is the setup. So she runs
to go stop him, and the I can't remember which
character it is that shoots Caesar, but he shoots Julia
also as they're both dying. Well, then then word gets
back to Frank that his that is you know, basically

(01:20:50):
he's you know, created a situation that killed his daughter.
So the very end of the movie is he goes
into his limousine, I think, and slits his wrists, and
just like the end of The Killer, Caesar and Juliet
are calling towards each other and he says and he says,
time stop, and that's where that's where it freezes, and
that's the end. I'm sorry, it's just I just think

(01:21:13):
that's better, Like, I mean, is it good. That's a
separate question. It just felt truer to everything, like the
whole idea of yes, you know, the great artist is
trying and trying and trying, but ultimately he's you know,
he is defeated by this other person's jealousies, but those
jealousies defeated him too. But yeah, instead it's like, no, no, no,

(01:21:35):
we're going to leave this baby on its own while
the rest of humanity is frozen.

Speaker 10 (01:21:39):
My note about the ending in my letterbox was, it's
ultimately a tale of a great man. The world will
be perfect if everyone just realizes what a genius Caesar
Catalina is, shuts up, give him the money, and files along. Meanwhile,
it talks about the value of democratic values, but ending
with an almost socialist pledge of allegiance.

Speaker 1 (01:21:57):
Oh yeah, that pledge of allegiance. I mean you're already
cringing through this movie, and to end on cringe at
the end.

Speaker 2 (01:22:06):
We have to contrive this way for Gopolo. Let you
know how it is.

Speaker 1 (01:22:11):
I mean, he's always been, I don't want to say
anti American. He's always been a very much critique critique
care of America. I mean, The Godfather is such a
critique of America. Apocalypse Now is a critique of America.
And this film could have been a critique of America,
but it just it doesn't seem to know what the
fuck's trying to say. All right, guys, let's go ahead

(01:22:34):
and take a break and we'll be back right after
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(01:22:54):
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Speaker 4 (01:23:03):
You know why I'm doing this movie.

Speaker 2 (01:23:05):
I have money, I already have fame, I already have
asked yours.

Speaker 4 (01:23:08):
What do I get that I want so fun?

Speaker 2 (01:23:11):
I want to have fun. You have been working on
this project for a while, thirty years.

Speaker 1 (01:23:23):
How did someone spend one hundred and twenty million dollars
off their money on Phoon?

Speaker 5 (01:23:28):
Say your prayer action.

Speaker 1 (01:23:31):
I read the script twenty five years ago.

Speaker 2 (01:23:34):
I'm John Carlo Esposito.

Speaker 6 (01:23:37):
People may look back in thirty years and say, God,
you gotta go back and watch Mechaaloblis.

Speaker 11 (01:23:41):
Know what I'm working with, realizes how weird a movie
this really is.

Speaker 8 (01:23:45):
I read it and then I email I'm back, and
I said, this is a nightmare.

Speaker 2 (01:23:49):
What is going on right now? That guy knows.

Speaker 6 (01:23:53):
He has structured to trust his cast to come up
with something that he hasn't thought of.

Speaker 5 (01:23:57):
I want you to be able to do anything you
want to do.

Speaker 2 (01:24:00):
You seem to tried on chaos.

Speaker 4 (01:24:02):
No, I am confronting chaos. Everyone sit down and don't
do anything.

Speaker 2 (01:24:07):
I've done this for fifty years.

Speaker 8 (01:24:08):
He works from here passion.

Speaker 5 (01:24:10):
Give mean what I want. I don't know what you want.

Speaker 8 (01:24:13):
He's a romantic, he's very repressed.

Speaker 4 (01:24:17):
He's very worth.

Speaker 6 (01:24:17):
What was the last France?

Speaker 3 (01:24:20):
I was so young when I started working with him.

Speaker 2 (01:24:22):
He is my godfather.

Speaker 10 (01:24:25):
It's Francis.

Speaker 7 (01:24:25):
I know where I am and I know it's.

Speaker 2 (01:24:27):
The super Bowl. He's got a big dream. He feels
that it's visceral.

Speaker 4 (01:24:32):
Or in need of a great debate about the future.

Speaker 2 (01:24:35):
God good. That's what's extraordinary about Francis.

Speaker 15 (01:24:38):
He's the opposite of me. I'm a planet out lodding
along and he's a jump off the cliff guy.

Speaker 1 (01:24:44):
Jack that team for his last sell, put all his
money in and lost it, died broke.

Speaker 6 (01:24:50):
But who shares if you die broke if he made
something that you say, isspute.

Speaker 5 (01:24:54):
With the.

Speaker 1 (01:25:02):
All right, we are back and we were talking about Megalopolis.
And a few months after Megalopolis came out, there was
a film released called Megadoc, which has nothing to do
with the Meg I was really hoping that it was
a whole thing about the making of the Meg series,
maybe talking about the third one, which I'm desperately waiting

(01:25:23):
to come out. But instead it's a documentary directed by
Mike Figus, all about kinda the making of this movie.
I'll just say this right out loud. I don't like
this documentary. I love Hearts of Darkness. Thought It was
a beautiful, beautiful documentary really went into Francis's process, how
it affected him, how it affected his family, the making

(01:25:46):
of Apocalypse Now with so many other things. I just
mentioned Orson Wells before the jump, the whole thing of like,
here's how this project started. There was supposed to be
this adaptation by Orson Wells, and they talk you through this,
and we occasionally come back to well, this is a
voiceover artist. Those are sign posts, and there are no

(01:26:06):
sign posts in this movie. This movie mega doc gives
you absolutely nothing to go off of. You are thrown
out into the middle of the sea. Try to swim.
Good luck.

Speaker 7 (01:26:21):
I wrote that.

Speaker 10 (01:26:21):
I said Figus did a good job giving us a
view of what was a foot in the creation. I go,
but he doesn't sense any larger theme, and even at
one point he even says as much. He's like, I
don't know what I'm doing here. I feel like I've
gotten sucked into the vortex along with this production.

Speaker 2 (01:26:36):
The one part in the documentary where it says this
is his video diary. That's the only entry we get
from his video diary, and it's like, well, wait a minute,
like you know clearly you've been doing this for a
couple for a while, like why are you not talking
more about these kind of things? In many ways, similar
to the movie, it's sort of like all over the place,
and there'll be these moments where it's like, oh, I

(01:26:58):
want to know a lot more about that, and then Nope,
just go somewhere else. And like like I've already mentioned
probably more than once, like any time, especially like in
the second half when they would show the old footage
from the first time that he was trying to you know,
that he was doing a test footage with like you know,
Ryan Gosling and Uma Thurman and Virginia Madison. I'm like,

(01:27:20):
where is all of that? You should be making a
documentary just about that? And then for this movie that's
the It is very I think it's very difficult not
to compare it to Hearts of Darkness Darkness right because
of who the subject is, and Hearts of Darkness is probably,
you know, one of the greatest movie documentary's ever made,
but it also came out, you know, years after the movie,

(01:27:40):
and like this is coming out right afterward. There's nothing
in there really about what really did happen. There's not
enough reflection on what the movie was trying to be
or what it turned out to be, and yeah, it's
it feels like Figures had a lot of behind the
scenes stuff that he cobbled together and then it's just
suddenly over.

Speaker 1 (01:28:01):
Any use of on screen titles would have been very welcome,
the idea of here's Uma Thurman reading this stuff, here's
Ryan Gosling actually in front of these green screens, and
this stuff is obviously edited together, you have multiple takes
anything of Yeah, that very brief thing of Virginia Madson,
and thank you for confirming that that was Virginia Madsen,

(01:28:22):
because there's no on screen title that says that it's her.
There's no on screen title in regard to what year
these are taking place, because I have a feeling that
the Ryan Gosling stuff took place at a different time
than all of the stuff with the table read, where
you see that gian Carlo Esposito was part of that

(01:28:44):
early and de Niro and DeNiro, and there's no on
screen titles to even say who these people are, much
less like any sort of voice of God narrator to say,
like in nineteen ninety seven, blah blah blah blah blah,
like there's nothing, there's no base of he was working
on this project for so long, and here are the

(01:29:05):
moments where that almost came together. Here's some of the
stuff about what happened with nine to eleven, here's some
of the you know, I think they do show some
of that footage of what he was shooting, but it's like, God,
you are not telling me anything about this stuff. And
I don't know is Mike Figus known for being a documentarian,
because it really doesn't feel like it whatsoever.

Speaker 10 (01:29:28):
If I can pull out one thing that I think
is a thematic that I found funny later, is like
one of the first lines that Copola has is who
cares if you die broke as long as you make
something beautiful. Then I feel so bad for the effects
team in here when they all get fired because he

(01:29:49):
starts penny pinching. So there's part of me that's like, dude,
I thought you were the fuck it. I'll go live
in a cardboard box in my retirement as long as
I can make exact, factly what I want to make,
make the exact vision that I have. And then now
you're like, ah, you guys just spending too much. I'm
gonna have to let go of y'all. That was this

(01:30:09):
real kind of pushbule tension in there in terms of
a theme. But the one line that I absolutely love
in here, which seems like it should be the poster,
is when he lands on his head, I'm not surprised.
And that's that's George Lucas. Now they give a little
background on the you know, background between Francis and George,

(01:30:33):
and anyone who's a film nerd knows that Francis was
a mentor and helped him and he's has been his
friend for you know, decades since you know, the late sixties.
You know, George Lucas and Frances four Coppola were friends,
and Coppola helped him out, got him started, pushed him on.

Speaker 7 (01:30:49):
Kh X and all the other stuff that he did.

Speaker 10 (01:30:52):
So for me to hear someone who knows him that
intimately in that well and has respect for his friend
and that to say, you know, he's.

Speaker 15 (01:31:01):
The opposite of me, which I was like, that's why
we've got along so well. I'm a plodding along, careful
what I'm doing, plant it out, and he's a jump
off the cliff guy. He had the feeling that he
was sort of invincible.

Speaker 1 (01:31:20):
It's ironic because George Lucas met him because he was
doing a behind the scenes look at the Rain people, right,
like that's how they came together, and it's like, who's
this kid kind of thing, and yeah, like I watch
I rewatched Hearts of Darkness for this podcast, and it's
so funny to see here's George Lucas, young George Lucas
talking about like, oh, yeah, originally I was going to

(01:31:42):
be directing this with this Millias script and YadA, YadA, YadA,
and then like I watched this and here he is
kind of showing like, yeah, here's my involvement, which is
no involvement at all with this stuff. And I'm just like, yeah,
even even you shooting the prequels all in a computer
generated set, like maybe that's saying something more than this

(01:32:03):
thing is like the stuff where they used the volume
and created these beautiful scenes of that look great. I
thought that was wonderful. But then other times where they're
just like, well, we're casturing this, capturing this effect in camera,
like yeah, this kind of looks assy, Like what do
you do? These are very assy effects? And yeah, we're
gonna start Penny pinching where you're going to fire the
production designer or she quits, We're going to fire the

(01:32:25):
production people, we're going to fire the special effects people.
And yeah, it just does feel like it's coming from poverty,
whereas like, well, dude, maybe if you didn't buy a
fucking hotel and tear down all these walls and make
a screening room inside of there. And that's the exact
same shit he was doing and has done for so
many of these films where it's like, oh, yeah, I
bought this thing and then I turned it into a

(01:32:47):
screening room. We're gonna do all the editing here, like
we're gonna buy an RV and do all of these things.
And here like he had that whole idea of I
want to shoot one from the heart as like live
television kind of thing, cut from camera to camera, and
we're gonna have a van outside where you do all
of the mixing and everything. It's like, Okay, you've got
these ideas, but you just never, like I said before,

(01:33:10):
he never sticks to landing. Like occasionally he seems to
be successful despite of himself.

Speaker 2 (01:33:15):
That's exactly what I was thinking. You look at like
his method quote unquote.

Speaker 3 (01:33:24):
I don't see any listen.

Speaker 5 (01:33:30):
At all.

Speaker 2 (01:33:33):
Like you're saying, has not changed. I kept thinking watching
this like Chilah Boff is coming across as like the
Corey Feldman of this situation, where he's trying to make
it all about him, but at the same time he's
not one hundred percent wrong, Like some of these things
that he's complaining about are legit issues, you know, And

(01:33:53):
Copla's reaction most of the time seems to be like,
you don't know anything. I've done this for all my
life and you know I'm I'm And it's like, yeah,
but let's talk about the track record then, like if
you know, just if it's worth fifty percent of the time,
that doesn't mean it's bulletproof.

Speaker 5 (01:34:09):
Sixty percent of the time it works every time.

Speaker 2 (01:34:13):
It does very much feel like he's still living in
this other place, like like going back to the Hearts
of Darkness when he talks about like you know, if
you if you take this much money and treat it
like it's way more than it just makes and it's like,
you can't treat one hundred and twenty million dollars the
way that you're you know, you can't spend it this way.

Speaker 10 (01:34:33):
Figus is up against the fact that Adam Driver, the
actress who plays Julia, there's a lot of people who
either will give him a little bit of time or
like none at all.

Speaker 2 (01:34:42):
She isn't like when people film her eating.

Speaker 10 (01:34:45):
When I think about this documentary, it almost feels like
like you were talking about, let's see if we can
re edit Megapolis and see if there's a better film
in there. There's part of me that it's like, let's
re edit this and make it a documentary about Shila
buff because he actually is the most interesting and engaged
person here. It's like him and Aubrey Plaza are the
two most interesting people I find in this entire documentary.

Speaker 2 (01:35:09):
Because they're the only participants.

Speaker 1 (01:35:11):
Like Aubrey Plaza, both in the movie and outside of
the movie, feels like she is so disconnected from everything
and she's just like, yeah, I'm having a good time.
Yeah this is good. I'm gonna drink this champagne. I'm
gonna just you know, enjoy myself on set do these
acting exercises, and like it feels like half of this
movie is that I'm doing acting exercises and I'm just like,

(01:35:32):
you are wasting so much time and money. Francis, what
the fuck are you doing well?

Speaker 2 (01:35:37):
And that whole weird thing between with her and Dustin
Hoffman where they're doing the arm wrestling thing, which he
just ended it like it was like, okay, forget it.
I'm like, I know everything I need to know about
you now.

Speaker 1 (01:35:50):
And he just comes off as a total creep in
oh yeah thementary, Yeah, yeah, very much so. And yeah,
your main character, Adam Driver does not really want to
talk to you at all, And I'm like, Okay, that
makes for a great documentary. This feels like a DVD
extra that I would complain about on the DVD for Megalopolips,

(01:36:10):
which has never really been released in the United States.

Speaker 2 (01:36:14):
You know, he's doing that road show. This is how
movies make money. This is how Apocalypse Now made money.
You just keep you just keep it in theaters for
one hundred years, even though it's not in any theaters
right now.

Speaker 1 (01:36:27):
She's doing acting exercises, even when she's auditioning for the part.
He's asking her to do these things, and I'm just like, Francis,
you are so fucking annoying. I know that Hearts of
Darkness did not paint him a good light in any way,
but at least I kind of empathized with him at
times because it felt like his whole world was crashing down.
In this one, it feels like he's there pulling it down,

(01:36:49):
you know, he's trying to be Dustin Hoffman and his
death scene just pulling down the columns on himself.

Speaker 10 (01:36:54):
The great thing about Hearts of Darkness is that he
can always point to Brando and go, see, I've got
a deal with the Diva. The Diva is doing this
to me, And in this he's.

Speaker 7 (01:37:04):
Got no by himself.

Speaker 1 (01:37:05):
This is his own diva.

Speaker 2 (01:37:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 10 (01:37:07):
And the thing about Dustin Hoffman, I love the honesty
of Dustin Hoffman in here, where he's like, I don't,
I don't know what any.

Speaker 2 (01:37:14):
Of this means.

Speaker 7 (01:37:16):
I don't have a clue. I still don't.

Speaker 10 (01:37:19):
He's like, I shot it, and I shot it and
I still don't. Just to be that honest and that
willing to be that honest, I mean, that's great. I
think it's partly to do with the fact that he's
about the same age as Copla and he doesn't care
anymore since eighties, what you find is Shia Labuffo in
the other way and trying to push back and go hey, man,
like help me with this, and he's like, yay, you

(01:37:40):
know that's not real.

Speaker 7 (01:37:42):
That's not real. Like you said, Mike, that's not real.
That's real.

Speaker 2 (01:37:46):
Going back to what your earlier question about, in something
like Shilah buff should have directed this, then we would
have Then we would have had something. He'd still be
shooting it but still or.

Speaker 1 (01:37:59):
He'd be watching it in a movie theater. I would
like to see his reaction to watching Megalopolis now, like,
let's re rent out that theater, Shia and just sit
there and watch the movies that you've made since you
did that kind of art installation thing that he was.

Speaker 12 (01:38:14):
Doing yesterday, you said tomorrow, So just do it.

Speaker 4 (01:38:19):
Make your dreams come true. Just do it.

Speaker 2 (01:38:24):
Don't let your dreams be dreamed.

Speaker 1 (01:38:28):
He is responsible for some of the best things in
the Internet, and his whole thing where he's talking about
how he has to make amends with John Voight and
because I was like, oh, yeah, they were in holes together.
I think they've been in a few things and the
first Transformers that's right, yes, of course, who can forget
Sam with wiki Yeah, and John Voight as the president
the loss of sam wit Wiki from those Transformers films

(01:38:50):
really made the last five, ten, fifteen of those just
feel very lacking.

Speaker 2 (01:38:56):
Yeah, I agree, but at least.

Speaker 1 (01:38:57):
We really are clear on what's staff statory rapez.

Speaker 2 (01:39:01):
Yes, that yeah, that was. That was very helpful in
U in the in the fourth one, like a critical
plot point to to that entire story.

Speaker 10 (01:39:10):
But to your reference to Michael Bay, since you invoked him, uh,
do we agree that a bad Francis Ford Coppola film
is better than a good Michael Bay film?

Speaker 2 (01:39:22):
No?

Speaker 1 (01:39:23):
No, I think Pain and Game is way better than
a lot of the movies that Francis has done.

Speaker 2 (01:39:29):
I don't want to say say but like the film
nerded me wants to be able to say no, no, no,
no the worst. But but I have to agree with
Mike and I haven't even seen Pain and Game. I
feel like there are other Michael Bay movies. I'm like, like, uh,
I think that that might have been better.

Speaker 1 (01:39:46):
Armageddon way better than some of the things I've seen.

Speaker 2 (01:39:49):
I mean, it was better than this movie.

Speaker 10 (01:39:51):
Armageddon got a criterion, will Megalopolis?

Speaker 1 (01:39:53):
Ever, I don't know who is he ever going to
release it? Ever?

Speaker 2 (01:39:58):
I feel like that conversation was happening right up until
the movie was released, and then it was like, no,
we're good.

Speaker 1 (01:40:06):
I will say, Peanut Butter falcon way better movie than
this one.

Speaker 2 (01:40:10):
That's almost enough to get me to see it.

Speaker 1 (01:40:13):
Yeah, it was actually pretty good. Yeah, it's so weird,
Like even when Sam Wasawson shows up in this movie,
like my wife was just like who is that? I
was like, oh, it's Sam Watson. He wrote a couple
of books and I forgot that he wrote about Francis.
And then I was like, why was he in that movie?
Why am I asking this question? You know, mister Figus,
Like why aren't you presenting me with a little bit

(01:40:35):
more information about this stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:40:37):
It also does make me wonder, though, if, now that
we're talking about it, if this was the best they
guess could make out of what he was allowed to do.

Speaker 1 (01:40:49):
Well, you can at least put on some on screen
fucking titles. Man, I don't need to see the stuff
with the hats done twelve times. If I could like
save a little bit of money and eliminate some hat
throwing sequences and spend some money for on screen titles,
you know, like let's fire up the Chiron machine and
actually do that, and he has those occasionally where he'll

(01:41:11):
show an actor and say what their name is and
what their role is and they actually say Sam Watson author,
But I'm like author of what, you know, like say
like what he's done. You know, I would really think
that would be great. And yeah, I just feel so
bad for the other cast people that are on here,
except for the costume designer who just seems like a
real pain in the ass.

Speaker 2 (01:41:33):
Yeah, that's true. That feel very much like she is.
This is my moment, and you know I am. You
are all very very fortunate to be in my presence
and seeing all these things happen right now. It's like, Okay,
the costumes were fun to look at in that display
case that they had for them at Greenfield Village or
Heavy Forward when we were there.

Speaker 1 (01:41:55):
They made so many good decisions and then they were
just followed by bad decisions.

Speaker 2 (01:42:00):
That in Aubrey Plais, this crazy outfit at the end, well,
you need to make sure that there's enough enough space
there so that the so that the arrow can get
right in there.

Speaker 1 (01:42:10):
Yeah, I do like the I can't remember who it is,
it says, last time I saw you, you were getting
an arrow pulled out of your ass.

Speaker 2 (01:42:17):
Yeah, yeah, No, I think it was the biggest saying
that too to him in the h in the in
the No, maybe you're right, maybe I'm wrong, but yeah, I.

Speaker 1 (01:42:25):
Think he might be right. I think I might have
been figures.

Speaker 2 (01:42:27):
Yeah, and before you get Mussolini and.

Speaker 1 (01:42:31):
I don't know, do we want to talk at all
about the controversy when it comes to how friendly Francis
was with some of the extras in the movie, because
they sure skirt that issue big time in the stock.

Speaker 10 (01:42:44):
At least they put some passing reference to it in there.
So I guess if you want to know more, go
find out.

Speaker 2 (01:42:50):
I mean, it just it to me. It just adds
on to like the there's just a creepiness to so
much of this, especially the script when Caesar is just
going on and on and on about women, and it's
just like and how weak he is and how much
he wants this, and it's just like, man, this is
all gross. And it was like, because I was reading

(01:43:10):
that before I watched it again and I'm like, was
this in the movie? I really hope not, because I
really hope Adam Driving didn't have to say any of
this stuff, because it's just terrible.

Speaker 1 (01:43:20):
And then Rob you brought up another movie that happened
to come out the exact same year, made for a
fraction of the cost, also about an architect.

Speaker 10 (01:43:29):
Yeah, just thinking about doing this movie got me thinking
about architecture film and the fact that you have two
movies that came out This kind of felt like to me,
you know, in its own little way, that one year
where you had the two World War two movies, you
had Saving Drivate Ryan and you had Thin Redline, two
very different filmmakers, different styles, you know, both doing World
War two movies. So The Brutalist was made for probably

(01:43:52):
the catering budget or maybe the hotel budgets that they
bought and rehab that hotel about ten million dollars. To me,
it feels like it deals with a lot of the
same issues, which got me thinking about how architects are
often perceived in other films. And I think, you know,
you referenced it up the top about iin Rand, and
I think we owe a lot to ein Rand for

(01:44:13):
the fountain Head, for maybe setting us down this path
of the idea that the architect is this megalamaniacal artist
who has a vision and damn the torpedoes and screw
everyone else around me.

Speaker 7 (01:44:24):
You're fucking idiots. I'm the one who who knows.

Speaker 2 (01:44:28):
Yeah, I thought the Brulis was great, and and to
your point, in many ways, the antithesis of this, right,
the brutaliss is is the less is way more, whereas
this is more is so so much less, like I've
been staying earlier, where in the Bruless is like, Okay,
we're gonna go ahead and follow this one character and

(01:44:50):
we're gonna stay with them, and we're not gonna go
off on a whole bunch of different tangents. There will
be other people in his life, and they will be very,
very impactful, but they will also be fully realized. We're
going to see this person's journey through trying to create,
you know, as an artist, being impacted by all these
different things, and how he ultimately perseveres, what that's worth,

(01:45:14):
what the cost is, and and and and where his
art ends up. And there's no there's no trapped baby
at the end of it either. You're absolutely right. There
are so many similar themes because it's it's it's also
I remember a letterboxed review for Megalopolis, which was calling

(01:45:34):
out the whole it was it was I think it
was it was Megan Abbott who had said, like like
a pox on all the great Man movies, and she said,
and any of them that are being made. I think
she said, something made without irony, and she goes, I'm
looking at you, the brutalist, because it hadn't come out yet,
you know, and then it comes out and then she

(01:45:55):
you know, she I'm pretty sure she did like that,
because yeah, like this, this is how you approach this
subject in a way that fulfills the themes that you're attempting, right,
And it isn't just the lack of megalon.

Speaker 10 (01:46:12):
Well, the other piece I was thinking about, Mike, and
you had mentioned this about Coppola commenting on America, and
the Brutalist does that in such a way that it says,
you love me here, you don't love me here. The
whole question of the immigrant experience as the son of
an immigrant, you know, all of it to me is

(01:46:35):
that if Copola could have weeded this down and got
it to a place and made this back during his
golden age in the seventies, that would have been in there,
that would have been that story.

Speaker 1 (01:46:47):
It's a little much with the Guy Pierce character doing
what he does later in the movie. That's a little
on the nose, But otherwise I was pretty pretty happy
with The Brutalist from Stem to Stern, especially all the
hand jobs that are given to the Brutalist by his wife. Yeah,

(01:47:09):
that was fantastic. It was such a stronger story. I
thought that the music was a lot better. The music
in Megalopolis is so discordant at times, and I know
that it's on purpose, but at the same time, it
feels just very childish, just like, Okay, things are stressed out,
so we're going to play very discordant music here. Okay, Yeah,

(01:47:31):
I get it, Like give me something, give me something stronger,
give me something better, give me something that kind of
feels more like a hole. And Megalopolis feels like a
series of scenes. And even though The Brutalist is literally
a movie in two parts with an intermission in it,
it feels very much like a hole and it feels
like this one person's entire life story. I just appreciate

(01:47:55):
how cohesive it is, and Megalopolis is anything but Cohie
and architects and movies. I mean, there was a period there,
especially in the late eighties early nineties where I was
really picking up on how many architects were in movies.
I mean, this is a silly example, but the Peter
Greenaway film Belly of the Architect of Sorry, Belly of

(01:48:17):
an Architect comes out the same year as Three Men
and a Baby, where the Tom Selleck character is an architect,
which comes out just a few years before. I think
it was Jungle Fever, where the Wesley Snipe's character is
an architect, and it just felt like there was so
many freaking architects in movies. I think even Indecent Proposal

(01:48:37):
had an architect in it, and it's just like so
many and it was like kind of a trope for
a long time where these architects, and where even without architects,
I mean, the first movie that pops to my mind
is Ransom with Mel Gibson, or even Lethal Weapon, where
if your house is being repaired or your house is

(01:49:00):
under construction, that means that there's a problem with the family,
and it feels like that was kind of playing right
into this whole architect thing of like, here are these
people that are supposed to be in control and supposed
to be, you know, creating all this stuff, but they're
mired in chaos. You know, you're mired in the chaos
of introducing a little baby into this bachelor apartment with

(01:49:22):
these three wacky guys. Which I still haven't seen the
original French film. I'm always curious how that compares. But yeah,
architects were freaking everywhere back then.

Speaker 2 (01:49:31):
In the In the French one, the baby ends up
trapped and the guys are all frozen in time. It's
it's crazy, man.

Speaker 10 (01:49:39):
When I brought this up, my girlfriend said, Sleepless in.

Speaker 7 (01:49:41):
Seattle, Oh right, yeah.

Speaker 10 (01:49:44):
And then and then as I went into Wikipedia and
pulled up movies about architects, it gave me click which
I've never seen, the Adam Sandler, which he's an architect.

Speaker 1 (01:49:56):
I don't really want Adam Sandler designing anything. I would
much rather have Mike Brady and his brood of children
around rather than Adam Sandler, like, oh, bebety pop. I'm
going to make the house.

Speaker 10 (01:50:08):
A lot of these tropes of the architect I mean,
for lack of a better it seems like everyone's playing
a riff off of Iin Rand. The character has to
be a control freak, the character has to be better
than you, I know, you don't you know? And then
they get to come up and I guess it's all
the individualism, the Emersonian mind.

Speaker 6 (01:50:31):
And you think one year of medical school entitles you
to plow for the riches of my Emersonian mind.

Speaker 8 (01:50:37):
Entitles me yes, entitles me yes, entitles me yes.

Speaker 1 (01:50:45):
Iin Rant's her whole other ball of wax where it's
just I know better than everybody else. Everyone is a
leech on the state. But yet I take SSI. I mean,
it's it's snap benefits all over again.

Speaker 10 (01:50:57):
I mean, if anyone who's listening has any take on architects,
feel free go to the Projection Booth podcast website and
tell us other architect movies. And why does this trope exist?
Why isn't he a painter? Why is he a sculptor?
Why isn't he doing some other kind of art? Why
is it going to be an architect?

Speaker 2 (01:51:15):
I just keep thinking about how it culminated with Seinfeld, right,
like with George always talking about wanting to be an architect.

Speaker 13 (01:51:23):
I don't see architecture coming from you.

Speaker 1 (01:51:25):
Yeah, well you know Megalon is very much like Latex
and Latex accessories Vandale industries could create Megalon if they
just worked a little harder at it. It could be
like transparent aluminum. Who's to say that he didn't invent
it in the first place, all right, guys, I don't
know if I've learned anything more about Megalopolis today from
our discussion than not, but I'm hoping that I can

(01:51:48):
stop thinking about it on a daily basis now. I
feel like I've exercised some demons with this.

Speaker 2 (01:51:54):
Can only think about it less now, That's what I'm
taking from this. More is going to still be less.

Speaker 10 (01:52:00):
Nothing six feeds or maybe it doesn't.

Speaker 1 (01:52:03):
Well, thank you so much, guys for being on the
show today, Robin, Mike. So, Mike, what's been keeping you busy?

Speaker 2 (01:52:08):
Sir? Now that Megalon is out there, I'm really focused
on I think it's called fluid karma or is it liquid?
I think it's fluid karma. So once I'm done developing that,
and you know, then I'm going to stop time and
let my kids live their lives.

Speaker 1 (01:52:26):
As you're stuck in a time loop forever.

Speaker 2 (01:52:28):
Yeah yeah, but I'll just be by myself and.

Speaker 1 (01:52:30):
Rob, how about yourself?

Speaker 10 (01:52:32):
Well, I'm continuing on the path of being the great man,
So you know, just give me your money and follow
what I say. Beyond that, just continue to do the
writing I said, I've written a couple of books over
the past year or so. I'm working on editing them
so that they may be presentable to someone who may
be interested.

Speaker 7 (01:52:49):
So that's been.

Speaker 10 (01:52:50):
About it, watching movies and glad to be since we're
coming into early twenty sixteen. By the time this comes out,
probb me sixteen you are controlling. Yeah, I have drilling
time twenty six I will be on the show more often.
I think I'm on maybe once a month in the
coming year, so that's nice and I always enjoy coming

(01:53:12):
on talking with you, so it'll be fun.

Speaker 1 (01:53:14):
Thanks again, guys for being on the show. Thanks to
everybody for listening. Do you want to support physical media
and get great movies in the mail, head over to
scarecrow dot com and try. Scarecrow Video is incredible rent
by mail service, the largest publicly available collection in the world.
You'll find films there entirely unavailable elsewhere. Get what you want,
when you want it without the scrolling. And yes they

(01:53:36):
have Megalopolis. If you want to hear more of me
shooting off my mouth check out some of the other
shows that I work on. They are all available at
Weirdingwaymedia dot com. Thanks especially to our Patreon community. If
you want to join the community, visit patreon dot com
slash Projection booth. Like you said, Rob, We're all great
man here, just give us money.

Speaker 16 (01:54:04):
So I don't wide up bobus not down a fraize
far out bad, said mom. I get said it is
a fell lot sounds far out of bad.

Speaker 2 (01:54:22):
Go.

Speaker 16 (01:54:25):
Down.

Speaker 2 (01:54:26):
I don't rather show off my dog like far out bad, go.

Speaker 16 (01:54:46):
Strivest my doll right far bad, got lost it said
s side. Oh why not on.

Speaker 5 (01:55:17):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:55:17):
Because not find a way.

Speaker 8 (01:55:43):
Entitles me yes, Entitles me yes. She entitles me yes,
Entitles me yes, Entitles me yes, Entitles me yes, Entitles
me yes, Entitles me yes, titles me yes, entitles me yes,

(01:56:04):
entitles me yes. She entitles me yes, Entitles me yes,
entitles me yes. She entitles me yes, Entitles me yes,
Entitles me yes. She entitles me yes, entitles me yes,
entitles me yes.

Speaker 4 (01:56:24):
She entitles me yes.

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Episode 779: Megalopolis (2024)

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