The shocking hubris of the 'Megalopolis' trailer

Fake critics, the Oscars-style DNC, Rabbi Robert Smigel, and more in this week’s notes column.

Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis has been one of the year's most talked-about movies. It’s the 85-year-old director’s long-in-the-works dream project, which he largely self-financed by selling some of his wine interests. It’s Coppola’s “magnum opus,” even if he’s already made a few of those, and implicitly, the final film of his career. 

After a reportedly tumultuous production—once again, par for the course with Coppola—Megalopolis debuted at Cannes in May. The reception was divided, but most early reviews indicated the film was bizarre and a massive creative swing. That’s the kind of buzz that tends to make me excited to see something. 

After Cannes and a private screening in Los Angeles, there were weeks of reports that Megalopolis was having trouble getting a domestic distribution deal. Eventually, Lionsgate came on board, setting a release date for late September. Last week, Utopia was reported as joining the distribution effort to “create and implement specialty marketing, word-of-mouth, and non-traditional theatrical distribution initiatives targeting moviegoers.”

This week, the film debuted its first full trailer. The second half was the standard footage from the film, which looked pretty cool. But before that came something a bit unconventional: quotes from esteemed film critics like Roger Ebert and Pauline Kael, who had slammed Coppola’s previous pictures, like The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula, at the time of their releases:

A bit smug, yes, but most critics seemed to react that Coppola had earned the right to have some fun in the marketing for this film. 

But then Vulture’s Bilge Ebiri noticed something: The quotes were all fake and did not appear in the original reviews by any of those people. For one thing, Pauline Kael famously loved The Godfather, so it didn’t sound right that she slammed it. By the end of the day, Lionsgate had pulled the trailer. 

There was speculation that some lazy Lionsgate employee had just asked ChatGPT for negative critic quotes instead of just opening Rotten Tomatoes and filtering for negative reviews of those movies. I’m just wondering why Francis Coppola, who likely knows every word of every negative word of those films from memory, would sign off on this. 

Not that there weren’t real negative reviews of The Godfather. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., the Kennedy White House aide-turned-respected historian, spent some time reviewing films for Vogue in the ‘70s, and slammed the film as “an overblown, pretentious, slow, and ultimately tedious three-hour quasi-epic.” (For some reason, I remembered the word “quasi-epic” from some making-of book I read 30 years ago.) 

Will this ultimately mean anything for the film? Probably not, aside from a Lionsgate marketing employee or two who’s probably out of a job. If Megalopolis ends up as a movie of consequence, this should make an amusing chapter in the making-of books. 

The DNC was all about showbiz 

Without weighing in too much on politics… the Democrats put on a great convention this week in Chicago. Kamala Harris nailed her acceptance speech while the party showcased a fine balance between the party stalwarts of the past and their deep “bench” of future stars. The other party, where only one person has mattered for the last ten years, has no bench to speak of. And Tim Walz and his family made my original home state of Minnesota proud. 

The other big takeaway? This convention was really all about movie stars and music stars, and at times felt a lot like the Oscars. You can tell which party has 95 percent of the nation’s creative people and which one doesn’t. 

Spike Lee was there, as part of the New York delegation, and my son even recognized him, although I believe his exact words were, “Isn’t that that guy who’s always at Knicks games?” There was a surprising cut during Harris’ speech to Ben Stiller. And Leon Panetta — who James Gandolfini played in Zero Dark Thirty — had a surprisingly prominent late speech on Thursday. 

And that was even before the bizarre wild goose chase throughout the day on Thursday when a couple of dodgy reports stated that a major “mystery guest” was lined up for the night, and TMZ reported (erroneously) that Beyonce was slated to perform. I assume Beyonce will endorse Harris, if she hasn’t already, and Taylor Swift will too, although either would have upstaged the candidate if it had happened Thursday. 

Each night had musical guests and movie star hosts. While I loved the musical dance party of a roll call, it got to be a bit much at times, especially since the main speakers were pushed late into the night almost every night of the convention. 

And also, while I love Julia Louis-Dreyfus, but shouldn’t the star of Veep be the last person they put in this spot, convincing us to make a female vice president the president? 

And of course, everyone was expecting 1968-style chaos, and I’m guessing at least one filmmaker landed in Chicago hoping to make their own version of Medium Cool. But not much of that happened, just a few isolated idiots burning flags.