I know some of you are going to be upset with me that I’m not reviewing Megalopolis. But look. The one thing I can’t stand is purposeful disregard for screenwriting. When they, the writer, believe they’re so above the fold, that they can disregard all convention and write whatever the heck comes to mind.
Who sets up a character’s ability to stop time and then just… never pays it off? I’ll tell you who. Francis Ford Coppola.
I’ve read the screenplay. Years ago. There was more pretension in that script than a West Hollywood farmer’s market. And it looks like Coppola hasn’t changed anything from that draft. Why does this matter? Because I read 25 scripts like Megalopolis a year. Big operatic pieces of bloat with a million ideas and nothing to guide them. These screenplays are born out of writers who have imprisoned their inner editor. Whatever they think of, it goes in the script. AND IT NEVER COMES OUT.
Which is Megalopolis to a T.
It is not art.
It’s laziness.
Ego-driven writers believe they’re creating the former because they’re following their writing soul. But when you don’t identify the suckiness in your script and taking the time to get rid of it, you’re just lazy.
The craft of screenwriting is built on improvement. It is about taking your ideas and using each new draft to improve them, reorganize them, elevate them! Which is actually fun. I love improving stuff. Finding a more interesting way into a character. Coming up with a better set-piece. Identifying some form of conflict that turns a boring conversation into an exciting one.
Coppola is not interested in that. He’s using the George Lucas Phantom Menace method of screenwriting – one-draft-and-done. And then he wonders why his movie only made 5 million dollars on opening weekend.
It’s because when people see the trailer, THEY DON’T KNOW WHAT THE MOVIE IS ABOUT. If people don’t understand what they’re going to see, they don’t go. Period. It’s one of the things good screenwriters think about when they put a script together: Is this premise clear? Will it be clear in logline form? Will it be clear when I pitch it to someone? Will it be clear as a trailer?
Think about that. If someone asked you to pitch your movie right this second, would it be quick and easy to do so? Or would you talk for five minutes and stumble all over yourself trying to explain it?
Because when I look at Megalopolis, I don’t see an elevator pitch. I see a space-elevator pitch.
Consider this a plea to screenwriters everywhere: Come up with clear concise ideas that have clear concise executions. The more complex the nature of your story, of your narrative, of your plot, of your structure, the more time you’re going to have to put into the script to get it right. More drafts. More feedback. More reshuffling your ideas of what the movie is. It can be done. But you need a legion of people helping out. You’d think Coppola would’ve been smart enough to do that but I get the impression he didn’t call a single fancy friend of his for feedback.
Okay, let’s move onto Wolfs, one of the oddest movies you’ll see all year.
What I like about Wolfs is that it’s the kind of movie Hollywood used to make – a movie star movie. Every frame of this film is dependent on movie star faces being on screen. Because if you took those movie star faces off for even a second, this would fall apart real fast.
It’s still cool to see though. This is the type of movie that would’ve done gangbusters at the box office in 2002. So it does feel a bit odd to watch it on streaming. You feel like these guys deserve more, even if Apple paid every above-the-line talent member 500 million dollars so they could have this exclusively on their channel.
And you know what, for a good 30 minutes there, this was more than just a movie-star movie. It was a fun little contained screenplay about two fixers who get called to the same job. If you haven’t seen the film, Amy Ryan, who’s the district attorney, hires a male prostitute and brings him up to her hotel room where he begins horsing around and accidentally falls onto a glass table and dies.
She calls a fixer, George Clooney. But as soon as he starts cleaning up, Brad Pitt arrives. He’s been called by the hotel manager, who has cameras in the rooms and saw the whole thing. The two then have to clean up this mess, George for Amy Ryan and Brad for the hotel. But due to the intricate nature of everything, they both have to work together. Things then take a turn for the crazy when they find out the prostitute had blocks of heroin on him and, oh yeah, he’s still alive.
I believe, at one point in time, that this entire screenplay took place in the hotel room because that’s the better story. Or, at least, the story that could play out in the more clever way. Once the kid comes back to life and they have to chase him all over the city, any chance at a clever fun screenplay was abandoned especially once you start throwing arbitrary Eastern European criminals into the mix (the Albanians and the Croatians).
Writer-Director Jon Watts makes a choice that, no matter what, George and Brad are going to be cool in EVERY SINGLE FRAME and while sometimes that works, there are other times where it flat-out stifles the scene. The two are SO not bothered when this kid runs across the city that I didn’t feel an ounce of worry that they wouldn’t catch him. That’s the whole point of the scene, to make the audience worried that he might get away. But if the actors (the characters) never worry for a second, why would I worry?
But then there are times where it worked! My favorite moment was when they had to crash a wedding and got pulled into the main wedding dance with all the men, in a circle, dancing wildly. The contrast between the Croatian’s dancing exuberance and George and Brad’s hang-dog looks while being pulled round in a circle was hilarious.
There were some missed opportunities in the script. The story got a little less exciting when we learned that the kid was just some random dude and not a prostitute. Because I would’ve loved to rope a prostitute in there and get Amy Ryan on board for more than the opening. But I know why they did it this way. They didn’t want three good-looking guys running around the city. Watts needed contrast. So he went with a dopey kid. Why would Amy Ryan bring a dopey aggressively unsexy kid to her room? She wouldn’t. Which is a plot hole you have to accept.
I think if this entire movie stayed in the hotel room (or at least the hotel), it would’ve been better. And if George and Brad’s energy raised up as the movie went along, to match the energy of what was happening, it would’ve been better. It’s still not a bad way to spend two hours and it’s a low-key Christmas movie if you need something for the family to watch (okay, maybe little Darla can’t watch). Overall, I say it’s worth checking out.
What I learned: Here’s a tip. I want every screenwriter to pick a night of the week. Any night is fine. Then, practice the pitch of your latest script out loud. Do one quick “logline” version. 10 second pitch. And then do one longer version where you fill in the details. A 1-2 minute pitch. Practice these once every week so that when someone asks you what you’re writing, you won’t stumble all over yourself telling them. Cause if you wait until the first moment someone asks you to pitch your script, I guarantee you it won’t sound any good.
