The scope of the destruction
Lurching somehow even further right
Corey Atad returns today to write about Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis and the late work of Jean-Luc Godard.
"Megalopolis is not the worst movie I’ve ever seen, not by a long shot. I don’t know that it’s good, but I also don’t know that 'good' or 'bad' have much meaning when discussing a work so radically uninterested in normal barometers of quality or even taste. It’s a gaudy film, simultaneously grand and cheap looking," he writes.
Read it down below or jump to it here.
Luke O’Neil
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The scope of the damage from hurricane Helene is devastating. Asheville North Carolina has been hit particularly hard. Here is a list of places you might consider donating to help flood victims.
Aerial footage captures the extensive flooding in Asheville, North Carolina, as Helene submerged buildings. pic.twitter.com/15R89vWTvf
— AccuWeather (@accuweather) September 28, 2024
Meanwhile after it was announced that another $8.7 billion is being sent to Israel the U.S. embassy in Beirut – where our money and weapons are being used to slaughter hundreds of civilians as we speak – has told U.S. citizens there to book their own commercial flight out if they want to flee the violence we are sowing. Strangely the government did offer to charter flights for citizens leaving Israel in October of last year.
I thought this take on what is going on here seemed plausible.
"If the U.S. started evacuating U.S. citizens from Beirut, we'd have to admit that Israel's bombings are not 'precision targeted' or 'designed to minimize harm to civilians.' And that's why they won't do it. They'd rather see Americans die than admit the truth about what's happening."
Joe Biden is however reported to be livid with Netanyahu so at least we have that.
Wow what a fun little quiz in the New York Times this week!
Just four days for hundreds of dead human being to be transformed into fodder for the little trivia games we play on our phones.
As all this was happening Kamala Harris was at the border in Arizona lurching somehow even further right on immigration.
"Those who cross our borders unlawfully will be apprehended and removed and barred from reentering for five-years," she said. "We will pursue more severe criminal charges for repeat violators. And if someone does not make an asylum request at a legal point of entry, and instead crosses our border unlawfully, they will be barred from receiving asylum."
Punishing asylum-seekers for irregular entry into the country is illegal under international law. Although we're long past the point of pretending international law applies to us anymore – if it ever did – so who fucking cares I guess.
Try as she might she's still got a long way to go to catch up to this fucking guy in the xenophobia and racism Olympics though.
"She's letting in people who are going to walk into your house, break into your door and they'll do anything they want," Trump said during a deranged anti-immigrant speech on Saturday in Wisconsin. "These people are animals. They'll say, oh, that's a terrible thing for him to say. No. These people are animals. They're stone cold killers. They're heartless...These are real killers."
No matter how many appeals to the right Harris makes about immigrants or crime these are the kinds of things they're always going to say about her anyway. It makes you wonder why she would do it in the first for any other reason than she just really wants to.
At lest there's a new The Cure song though. At least we have that.
Alright here's Corey Atad on Megalopolis. Previously he wrote for Hell World on The Bear and The Zone of Interest.
Luke O’Neil
Luke O’Neil
I have one free subscription to give away donated by a generous reader so whoever wants it chime in real quick. Otherwise I would as always appreciate any support you can give.
Oh a real quick detour into Luke's Movie Corner here. I finally got to watching MaXXXine last night. Despite really liking the other two – especially Pearl – I'm afraid this one was a bit half-baked for me. I would also like to formally retract all previous requests for Mia Goth to kick me in the balls.
Freed from the shackles of sense or expectation
by Corey Atad
There are facts about Megalopolis that precede it. That it has been on Francis Ford Coppola’s mind for four decades. That he almost got it off the ground in the early 2000s, but then 9/11 happened. That he self-financed it to the tune of $120 million, with money from the sale of his winery. At last Megalopolis arrives in theaters this weekend as Coppola’s late-period opus, his great achievement and perhaps great folly. “Worst movie I’ve seen in my fucking life!” a man shouted as he stormed off near the end when I saw it the other day at a quarter-full IMAX screen in Toronto. Jon Voight in a Robin Hood outfit talking about his boner before shooting some characters with a small bow and arrow was apparently a bridge too far for that moviegoer. That’s Coppola’s latest working its magic.
Megalopolis is not the worst movie I’ve ever seen, not by a long shot. I don’t know that it’s good, but I also don’t know that “good” or “bad” have much meaning when discussing a work so radically uninterested in normal barometers of quality or even taste. It’s a gaudy film, simultaneously grand and cheap looking, written and performed like a misguided modern take on Roman theater, with so much pompousness and low comedy. Its story, about a future New York City dubbed New Rome, decadent and on the verge of collapse, is timely and timeless. But what it has to say about a collapsing society is banal at best. Reading about earlier iterations of Megalopolis, it’s clear that the project once resembled something more like a normal movie, but over time Coppola chased his muse through the winding paths of his own synapses, producing the kind of fever dream possible only when a great artist becomes his own patron.