Last Week Was a Movie: Aug 12 - 18, 2024
Film Vomit's weekly recap: What we watched, what we recommend, and what to avoid.
As I continued my journey through Francis Ford Coppola's filmography, Jalen caught up on one of last year's best movies, and we both convened for the latest chapter in the Xenomorph saga. Here’s everything we at Film Vomit watched last week:
David: 7.75/10
Francis Ford Coppola’s relentlessly horny musical drama “One from the Heart” follows a working-class couple, played by Frederic Forrest and Teri Garr, as they break up on the night of their fifth anniversary, each spending the evening with their idealized partners. Forrest’s Hank, a frugal mechanic, pursues a circus performer named Lelia, played by Nastassja Kinski, while Garr’s Frannie, a window dresser at a travel agency, falls for the adventurous cocktail singer Ray, portrayed by Raul Julia. As this quartet of characters traverses the bustling streets of Las Vegas on the 4th of July, bathed in the neon glow of Sin City and boxed within the Academy ratio, a surrealistic dream unfolds where every expression of love is deeply cinematic.
Through a series of immaculately staged compositions that constantly juxtapose and superimpose the characters' emotions on the screen, an intoxicating feeling takes hold. The unmistakable insanity of being in love is rendered by a filmmaker solely focused on finding a way to convey this emotion through cinema. Filmed entirely on the sound stages of Coppola’s American Zoetrope studio, utilizing lavishly constructed sets, elaborate miniatures, and stunning backdrops that drove the film’s budget north of $20 million and plunged Coppola into a decade of financial turmoil, the film’s intentional superficiality casts a melancholic incantation on the audience.
This film almost reads as a condemnation of New Hollywood – its staggering commercial failure is often cited as a key marker of the movement’s death – as it forces the audience to consider that the films from the 60s and 70s, which epitomized the movement and the supposed fidelity it brought to cinema, were as escapist and fundamentally artificial as everything that came before. The cynical might call “One from the Heart” a regression from a visionary filmmaker to the techniques of a bygone era; the sincere might see it as a touching love letter to the storied history of cinema.
If love is to be seen as a metaphor for cinema, and cinema as the one true escapism for the working class, then the film’s ending is as harrowing as it is beautiful. No matter how hard we try, we cannot escape our lives, and in the end, we all have to come home sooner or later. If the theory holds that Coppola’s best work is done under the gun, then there is something to be said about the self-imposed implosion he set off with “One from the Heart” – an artist burning down the house he built in the name of his art. The title says it all.
I strongly recommend “One from the Heart” to anyone who considers themselves a cinephile. Even the musical-phobic can find enjoyment, as the film’s Oscar-nominated musical numbers (crafted by Crystal Gayle and Tom Waits) are not performed by the characters within the film but rather thematically narrate the story.
Jalen: 9.5/10
“American Fiction” is a great movie, and Jeffrey Wright is the most underrated actor in the business. This movie is so great that I have no business writing about it. Watch it and have your own experience.
I highly recommend “American Fiction.” The dialogue is next-level, and Jeffrey Wright absolutely kills it in his role as Monk.
David: 7.5/10
The first time I saw Francis Ford Coppola’s adaptation of “The Outsiders” was, like most people my age, I’d imagine, in middle school, after finishing S. E. Hinton’s novel of the same name. I had forgotten much of the film in the decade-plus since my last viewing, but the embarrassment it caused me will never be forgotten. The final project for “The Outsiders” portion of my seventh-grade English curriculum was a choice: either write a paper comparing the differences between the book and the movie or create your own personal poster for the movie. Naturally, I chose to create a poster and proceeded to procrastinate for weeks.
On the night before it was due, after being berated about my laziness by my mother during the 8:00 P.M. drive to and from the local Michaels, I crafted my minimalist masterpiece on a sheet of sturdy black poster board. Painted in gold on the poster was the usual information (the title, the billing block, etc.) as well as a stallion and, in big, bold letters, the iconic words spoken by Johnny Cade: “STAY GOLDEN, PONYBOY.” However, as I burned the midnight oil, toiling away at a project that could have easily been completed at any time during the three weeks allotted, I made a critical mistake that would not be revealed until I took my poster up to the front of the class and presented it to the most savage audience imaginable: a room full of 12-year-olds. In my exhausted state, I misspelled the word “golden,” and as another student was quick to shout out in the middle of my presentation, my poster read “STAY GOLGEN, PONYBOY.” Stay fucking golgen.
The teacher still gave me an A on the project, likely out of pity for my blunder and after quelling the laughter of my classmates, but as an awkward pre-teen, I would’ve gladly traded the humiliation for an F. As for the film itself, it largely holds up to this day, despite the indignity it caused me. In the same year that he would be forced to sell the 23-acre Zoetrope Studio to begin paying off debts, Coppola’s adaptation would release into theaters to modest financial success, lighting the matches of several dynamite careers. It’s hard to say who had the better draft class in 1983, the NFL or Coppola, as “The Outsiders” helped launch the likes of Matt Dillon, Ralph Macchio, C. Thomas Howell, Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, Diane Lane, and of course, the CEO of movies himself, Tom Cruise.
With a bevy of split-diopter shots and superimpositions, Coppola brings Hinton’s novel to life with classical grace. The only real knock against the film is that it’s drastically hindered by its romanticized score, composed by the director’s own father. While he wasn’t quite ready to jettison his father’s work from the movie in 1983, the 2005 re-cut (subtitled The Complete Novel), which released after his father’s passing, largely balances out Carmine Coppola’s sweeping score with needle drops and new compositions. Discordant music aside, Coppola sufficiently fulfilled the request of Lone Star Elementary School librarian Jo Ellen Misakian, who petitioned the renowned filmmaker to adapt the book on behalf of her 7th and 8th-grade students. Although it falls markedly short of his greatest achievements, Coppola’s “The Outsiders” is still an evocative piece of coming-of-age filmmaking.
As a faithful adaptation of Hinton’s novel, “The Outsiders” is an easy recommendation to anyone who enjoyed the book or enjoys sturdily constructed dramas about the perilous act of growing up.
David: 7.75/10
Shot back-to-back and released in the same year as his other S.E. Hinton novel adaptation, Francis Ford Coppola’s “Rumble Fish” is, in his own words, the “Apocalypse Now” to “The Outsiders’” “The Godfather” – a stylistic fever dream of pure expressionism. Matt Dillon, upgraded from his supporting role as Dallas Winston in “The Outsiders,” portrays Rusty James, a teenage hoodlum infatuated with his older brother, the local legend and former gang leader known as The Motorcycle Boy, played in a whisper by the great Mickey Rourke. Rusty James wants to be just like his older brother, and his older brother wants to be nothing at all. Colorblind and hard of hearing (both characteristics that influence “Rumble Fish’s” black-and-white cinematography and unique sound design), The Motorcycle Boy drifts back into town after a trip to California, wandering aimlessly through a former life that no longer satisfies him. The gangs are all gone, and despite Rusty James’ desire for the return of territorial disputes and semi- frequent rumbles, the streets have a new kingpin: heroin.
The viewer may feel as though they have unknowingly received a hit of smack when watching “Rumble Fish,” as the film, in stark contrast with the straightforward nature of Coppola’s previous Hinton adaptation, presents itself as a bit of an enigma, its own narrative of secondary concern to Coppola’s experimentation and homages to cinema. Gone is the flashback structure of the novel, as well as many key scenes and characterizations. Coppola co-writes the screenplay here alongside Hinton (during his off days working on “The Outsiders,” no less), and in doing so, imbues the film with his distinct personal identifications. The movie is dedicated to Coppola’s older brother, in a gesture so touching that it becomes clear this film was the director’s “one for him,” cementing “The Outsiders” as “one for them.” Coppola, by his own admission, worships the ground his older, intellectually superior brother walks on in the same manner that Rusty James does, and as Rusty James becomes Coppola’s avatar, “Rumble Fish” has no choice but to be as sweepingly cinematic and staunchly anti-commercial as its revolutionary artist.
Shrouded within its plangency, there is one central theme that reverberates throughout “Rumble Fish’s” tone poem: time is passing faster than we know, and there’s not a damn thing we can do about it. The clock keeps ticking, the sky keeps shifting, and we must choose to either knowingly march to our deaths or learn to see the beauty in the wide-open horizon of possibility.
I’ll concede that “Rumble Fish” can be somewhat flummoxing, but among its lineal descendants are Richard Kelly’s psychological portrait of confined adolescence, “Donnie Darko,” and Nicolas Winding Refn’s moody, atmospheric masterpiece, “Drive.” If you love either of those films, you will likely find enjoyment in “Rumble Fish.”
David: 7.25/10
You can read my full thoughts about “Alien: Romulus” here.
Though it offers nothing new to the franchise, fans of the “Alien” films will find “Romulus” sufficiently entertaining. If this is your introduction to the saga of the Xenomorphs, you might even love it.
Jalen: 7.5/10
I should be fined for this: the only “Alien” movie I had watched before “Alien: Romulus” was “Prometheus.”
“Alien: Romulus” was a fun watch. It's a classic setup—people trapped on a spaceship in the future, being hunted by alien life forms trying to mate with and kill them. It's impossible not to enjoy that.
The stars of the movie, Cailee Spaeny as Rain Carradine and David Jonsson as Andy, absolutely killed it with their performances, especially Jonsson. The way he portrayed two opposite versions of Andy was amazing and added a unique layer to the film.
I'm not someone who views the adoption of AI as something to be afraid of, but there was an unsettling feeling the movie conveyed when Andy would turn into a completely different version of himself depending on which hardware was installed.
All in all, I recommend seeing “Alien: Romulus.” It's a fun watch, and the effects were great—especially in a time when CGI is ubiquitous in almost every movie.
David: 7.5/10
A cocaine trafficking bust, a mobster muscling a film producer, a business deal involving casino owners with mob ties and an Arab arms dealer, and a murder—all events you might expect in a Francis Ford Coppola film. But in the case of “The Cotton Club,” these events took place behind the scenes, in a movie whose origin story is arguably more compelling than the story it tells.
The film originated with producer Robert Evans, who optioned the rights to a historical picture book about the nightclub by James Haskins. The road to the silver screen for “The Cotton Club” was paved with scandal and blood. Initially, the film was set to be co- produced by Evans and Paramount Pictures, with “The Long Goodbye” director Robert Altman and “The Godfather” author Mario Puzo attached. Despite Evans securing $12 million from Saudi tycoon Adnan Khashoggi, the flop of Altman and Evans’ film “Popeye” sent Paramount running for the hills. This, combined with Evans’ arrest for slinging snow, led him to secure sole ownership of the film negative—a move he hoped would recoup losses from legal fees and bad stock-market investments. Production stalled as Evans entered a plea deal to produce an anti-drug PSA campaign in exchange for a clean record.
Four years later, with his legal issues behind him and planning to direct, Evans hired William Kennedy and Francis Ford Coppola to rewrite Puzo’s script. Coppola, still harboring a grudge against Evans for meddling in the production of “The Godfather,” was nonetheless in no position to turn Evans down, burdened as he was with debt from the failure of “One from the Heart” and the bankruptcy of Zoetrope Studios. At the last minute, Evans thrust directing responsibilities onto Coppola. By then, $13 million had already been committed to “The Cotton Club,” with Las Vegas casino owners, the Doumani brothers, and businessman Victor L. Sayyah adding another $30 million in exchange for a 50% ownership stake. Evans mortgaged his Beverly Hills mansion and stock in Paramount’s parent company, Gulf + Western, to further bolster funding.
With all this money in play, it was inevitable that someone would get hurt. In the case of “The Cotton Club,” that someone was promoter Roy Radin, one of the film’s financial backers, who was murdered three months before filming began. Radin’s killers alleged that they were hired by Evans and Radin’s girlfriend—a disgruntled drug dealer who felt she was being cut out of the film’s profits. Evans would later plead the Fifth when brought to trial for this murder in 1989.
When filming finally commenced, a crew of 600 people costing $250,000 a day pushed the movie over budget within weeks. Coppola, who constantly rewrote the script during production, walked off set when Evans deducted his $4 million salary to cover the film’s escalating costs. Desperate to salvage what was rapidly becoming a disaster, the Doumani brothers convinced Orion Pictures to advance the film’s costs on the condition that Evans step down. They even hired mobster Joseph Cusamano to intimidate Evans into relinquishing his stake in the movie. A barrage of restraining orders, lawsuits, and countersuits followed, and when the dust finally settled, the budget had ballooned to $58 million. Sayyah and the Doumani brothers were denied producer credits, and Evans was barred from post-production.
What emerged from this calamity? A pretty damn good movie. Coppola’s “The Cotton Club” blends fact with fiction, centering on the denizens of the famous Harlem nightclub in the 1930s. Some characters are real, some are fictional composites, but all are compelling as Coppola weaves a story about finding dignity through one’s art. The Cotton Club hosts the greatest African American performers in the world, even though no African American is allowed in the audience. For an African American tap dancer named Delbert “Sandman” Williams (played by Gregory Hines), this means compromising familial relationships and concealing his romance with an African American singer passing as white, all while striving to climb the ladder of success. For a white musician named Dixie Dwyer (played by Richard Gere), this means finding any excuse to play his trumpet while serving the neighborhood kingpin and falling hopelessly in love with his employer’s mistress. The only freedom of expression these characters have is through their art, so despite “The Cotton Club’s” superimposed montages and flashy cinematography, the most engaging scenes are the ones where the camera remains still, simply capturing the beauty of these performances.
If you enjoy well-acted crime dramas or stories of artists striving to find their place in the world, then I definitely recommend “The Cotton Club.”
David: 7/10
What if you fainted at your 25-year high school reunion and woke up back in your senior year of high school? What would you do? Would you leverage your knowledge of the future for financial gain? Would you hook up with people you secretly harbored feelings for? Or would you try to cherish the time you have with loved ones who have since passed? These are the questions Kathleen Turner’s titular character must confront in Francis Ford Coppola’s “Peggy Sue Got Married.” A woman staring down the barrel of divorce from her high school sweetheart is transported back to the whimsical days of 1960, given a chance to rewrite her history.
In this sense, “Peggy Sue Got Married” is another example of Coppola’s recurring exploration of fatalism, though this time it's rendered through the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia, with the rough edges sanded off and the exterior coated in sugary sweetness. Turner’s melancholic performance anchors the movie, while the performance of Coppola’s nephew, Nicholas Cage (who plays Peggy’s first love and soon-to-be ex- husband), drifts into caricature, creating a near-constant tonal clash. Cage, sporting a blonde wig, fake teeth, and speaking in a voice so nasally it sounds as if he were possessed by the ghost of Lois Griffin, feels like a cartoon character among a sea of real people, turning every scene he’s in into a comedic spectacle regardless of intention.
Turner would later criticize Cage’s behavior on set, falsely accusing him of being arrested multiple times for drunk driving and even stealing a dog during production. Cage sued Turner for defamation and won, proving that the only thing he was truly guilty of was benefiting from nepotism and overacting. Cage, who only agreed to take part in his uncle’s film if he could play his character in this over-the-top manor, certainly abides by the fantastical framework of the movie, but his performance sucks all the dramatic tension out of the room.
If you’re a junkie for zany Nicholas Cage performances, then “Peggy Sue Got Married” will give you a quick fix. Otherwise, this movie is best suited for Coppola completists and nostalgic boomers.
David: 6.5/10
A subdued companion piece to “Apocalypse Now,” Francis Ford Coppola’s “Gardens of Stone” chronicles the domestic side of the Vietnam War. Coppola reteams with the great James Caan, who plays Sergeant Hazard, a hardened Korean and Vietnam War veteran assigned to The Old Guard. In a stellar performance, Caan beautifully captures the contradiction at the heart of Hazard, a military lifer who cherishes the U.S. Army as the only family he’s ever known, yet detests the Vietnam War for the lives of young soldiers it has claimed. Along with his equally cynical longtime friend, Sergeant “Goody” Nelson (played by the always impeccable James Earl Jones), Hazard oversees a regiment of “toy soldiers” that perform the ceremonial funerals at Arlington. Estranged from his son due to a bitter divorce, Hazard finds no fulfillment in his job, wishing instead to be instructing at the Army Infantry School at Fort Benning in the hopes of training soldiers for the perilous journey to Vietnam.
When the son of an old army buddy is assigned to his platoon, Hazard takes the young soldier under his wing, seeing it as an opportunity to ensure one man’s safe return from hell. That young soldier is “Jackie” Willow (portrayed by D. B. Sweeney), a second- generation military prodigy being groomed for upper management, despite his desire to see the front line. Naturally, nearly every character tries to talk some sense into Jackie, as this portrait of military life explores the plight of men trained to be warriors but denied a war to fight in. It would be a real tear-jerker if the film didn’t give away its emotional gut punch in the first five minutes. As such, “Gardens of Stone” feels less like a statement and more like an appendix. But when you’ve already made the definitive Vietnam War movie, I suppose any attempt at revisiting that subject matter would inevitably fall short.
“Gardens of Stone” is a fine enough drama, but unless you love James Caan as much as I do, there are better military movies to spend your time on.
David: 7.5/10
As I watched Francis Ford Coppola’s “Tucker: The Man and His Dream,” two thoughts occupied my mind. The first was my best friend Jalen, a car enthusiast and dreamer to the core. “Tucker’s” story of an eccentric visionary trying to build the car of the future against insurmountable odds would be like catnip to my surrogate brother and Film Vomit partner. The other was Martin Scorsese’s Howard Hughes biopic “The Aviator”—imagine my amusement when Hughes showed up in “Tucker”—another visually stunning tribute to a maverick thinker. However, unlike “The Aviator,” which offers a truly haunting portrait of a unique mind, “Tucker” (like many of Coppola’s 80s efforts) has a frustratingly upbeat disposition. At times, “Tucker” is so painfully optimistic that it comes across as, at best, disingenuous and, at worst, incompetent.
Yet, neither of these assessments is accurate, as “Tucker” is less a biopic about Preston Tucker (brilliantly portrayed by Jeff Bridges) and more an autobiography from Coppola himself, with the Tucker 48 serving as a clear allegory for American Zoetrope. All the good intentions in the world couldn’t save either Coppola or Tucker, as the forces of industry were too fortified against their respective winds of change. Sure, Coppola’s father was an early Tucker investor, and the filmmaker had plans to make this movie long before the collapse of American Zoetrope, but as the project evolved from a musical to an experimental film and finally landed as this straightforward, saccharine tale of an invention that failed for being too good, a thematic bitterness starts to take hold. It feels like a surrender; the type of commercially polished movie producers had been trying to force Coppola to make for years, used as a Trojan horse for his farewell to Hollywood.
Coppola was content to ride off into the sunset of independent experimentation, free from the fiscal structures that had confined his imagination, yet knowing that his contributions would be adopted, mimicked, and stolen by many artists yet to come.
“Tucker: The Man and His Dream” is an easy recommendation for film nerds and novices alike. Come for the feel-good, based-on-a-true-story drama, and stay for the interiority it offers into the mind of one of the greatest filmmakers to ever live.
David: 7.5/10
"Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in"—a statement as true for Michael Corleone as it is for Francis Ford Coppola with “The Godfather: Part III.” After turning down a third installment for years and intending to leave Hollywood after “Tucker: The Man and His Dream,” Coppola finally acquiesced at the behest of his sister, Talia Shire, and turned the greatest duology ever made into a trilogy. Spending most of the '80s backed into a financial corner, it makes sense that Coppola's first film of the '90s would be a revival of the Corleone family saga. Coppola would again have to contend with the machinations of a major studio, but now, he'd face an even more unforgiving beast: sixteen years' worth of fan expectation.
With its initial title (which Coppola did not want), “The Godfather: Part III” sells a false bill of goods and sets itself up for failure. Continuing the same naming convention for this third installment creates the assumption in the audience that this chapter will be as sweepingly epic as the two masterpieces that preceded it, despite that never being Coppola and script co-writer (and “The Godfather” author) Mario Puzo's intention. Often unfavorably (and unfairly) compared to the first two installments, “The Godfather: Part III” suffers from Coppola's success, but to consider this a bad movie by any means is preposterous. Disappointing? Maybe, and it's true that a disappointing movie is ultimately more painful than an outright bad one, but there is still evidence of mastery in this maligned sequel.
I'm obsessed with the look of this film, as the patina and near-pitch black aesthetic of Gordon Willis' cinematography from the first two films is gone, or rather, sparsely implemented, as the legitimacy that Michael had been striving for has finally come to pass. There is more room for light, as the darkness of the family business has been put behind Michael (or so he thinks), and with that light comes forgiveness and remorse.
Only by its most recent recut (“The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone”), which re-establishes Coppola and Puzo's intended title, can “The Godfather: Part III” be justly judged. This is not the triumphant third chapter in a saga, but a somber coda—a parade of repeated images and motifs, reinforcing the cyclical nature of fate. This is not the death of a man, but the death of that man's ambition. There will be a new "Michael Corleone" because there must be, but Michael Corleone doesn't want to be "Michael Corleone" anymore. Perhaps it's not the most thrillingly cinematic conceit, but The Godfather: Part III's cascading consequences for a man finally succumbing to his own conscience are poignant nonetheless. If two cosmic dominoes had fallen in a different direction—Winona Ryder not dropping out and being replaced by Coppola's daughter Sofia (who is a much better director than she is an actress), and Robert Duvall getting the money he deserved to reprise his role as Tom Hagen—then this film might have had the potential to rival the two totemic masterworks it follows.
Though not as vital to the human experience as the first two films, “The Godfather: Part III” fittingly continues Michael Corleone's story for those who want more beyond “The Godfather: Part II.”
David: 8.5/10
If One from the Heart is horny, then “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” is positively feral—an erotic dream in which sexual repression is given freedom through pure, unabashed cinematic maximalism. With this adaptation of the classic vampiric novel, Francis Ford Coppola crafts some of his most compelling images using the antiquated techniques of the past. Firing his visual effects team, who claimed that what Coppola wanted couldn’t be done without modern digital technology, and replacing them with his own son is one of Coppola’s most impressive nepotistic flexes. Every staggering image of horror, sensuality, or spectacle is captured in-camera and rendered with the most thrillingly tactile achievements in costuming and set design.
“Bram Stoker’s Dracula” is phantasmagoric to its core—a fever dream in which Keanu Reeves' attempt at an English accent goes unnoticed because Gary Oldman’s Transylvanian accent is even more hilarious. Anthony Hopkins as Van Helsing is a treasure, gliding through this sex-charged hallucination with mania radiating from every line reading and movement. Yet, beneath all of its absurdity and reverence for the history of cinema, there is a forward-thinking message bursting out of “Bram Stoker’s Dracula.” Landing in theaters in 1992, attacking an audience still rife with HIV/AIDS panic, this aching parable about the power of love leverages audiences’ sexual fears in the same way Stoker himself leveraged racial fears. The combined forces of men and all the structures they hold dear crumble in the face of romantic passion. This is not just a movie with a capital M, but an impassioned plea to get your freak on.
I highly recommend “Bram Stoker’s Dracula.” If you love gothic horror, technical spectacles, or just truly unhinged movies, then you’ll love “Bram Stoker’s Dracula.”
So, that’s everything we watched last week, but we want to know what you’ve been watching! Jump into the Discord and let us know if you’ve seen anything good lately.
David Lee
Published August 19, 2024