Continued ...
08 May 2002

Arts & Craps:  I saw a great film on Tuesday morning, just hours before catching The Force and it couldn’t be more different than the big show.   The movie is called CQ and it’s the directing debut of Roman Coppola… yes, HIS son.  And unlike his talented-but-not-really-as-a-film-director sister, his debut suggests that he can walk the walk that his iconic father hasn’t walked in five years now. 

CQ is a film about film and about the people who make film.  It’s set in 1969, just as the auteurs and the money men were clashing in full force.  Coppola’s story, which he also wrote, focuses on a frustrated film editor, working in Paris for a Dino De Laurentiis type, played with élan by Giancarlo Gianinni.  While he “borrows” film stock and a camera and other accessories for a personal film that seems to be made up mostly of toilet seat confessionals, Paul (played by Jeremy Davies) is editing a Barbarella-style film with one major exception… it has no sense of humor about itself and either does its director, played by Gerard Depardieu. 

Paul’s decent in to success brings him into contact with a wide variety of other characters, including his too-insightful girlfriend (Elodie Bouchez), an outrageously successful hack director (Jason Schwartzman) and a producer who pulls off that balancing act of slug/sycophant (Massimo Ghini) with a style that could have informed George Hamilton’s unfortunately written character in Hollywood Ending.  John Phillip Law turns up, understatedly, considering his Barbarella credentials, as a government agent.  Billy Zane scores as an on-camera hero who is less simple off-camera.  And seeing Dean Stockwell work, even in a short scene, made me really sad that we aren’t seeing more of this guy in films.  He’s just a beautiful actor.

But the stunner of CQ is Angela Lindvall, a first-time actress and full-time supermodel, whose best work in the film is not when the camera is slobbering all over her like a horny sheepherder, but in her little side moments, when she shows a natural relaxation in front of the camera.  This girl has the very real potential of being the next Rene Russo in Hollywood… smart, sexy and grounded to boot.  I understand the power of on-screen beauty.  I’m still trying to find out whether Angie Harmon or Rebecca Romjin-Stamos or Jill Hennessey can actually act, even as I watch whatever images of them get put on a screen.  (Not really true… missed Rollerball on purpose… though I think that Romjon-Stamos’ real-life personality, if a director can ever capture it, is the stuff of stardom.)  But Ms. Lindvall could be a supermodel Winona Ryder, without the sticky fingers.  Or a thinner Angelina Jolie… without the needle marks and blood drinking.  She really could pick up where Cameron Diaz leaves off and where Julia Stiles’ apparent lack of humor about herself does her in.  She is one to watch.

But I haven’t really praised Roman Coppola enough yet.  I don’t know what the budget was on this film, but I’m guessing around $8 million.  And Coppola makes the most of it.  It doesn’t hurt that he has Dean Tavoularis handling the spectacular production design.  I don’t know what kind of stock cinematographer Bob Yeoman (Drugstore Cowboy, The Royal Tennenbaums) was using, but he manages to re-create the soft, warm color of 70s film remarkably.  Judy Shrewsbury’s costume design gets knowing laughs all by itself, without ever trying so hard that it seems out of place.  (Ms. Shrewsbury also does 70s sexy as well as anyone has.) 

It’s Coppola’s vision, however, that rises to the top of the impressive list of credits.  This movie tells you it’s going to be pretentious, but then turns out to be so much smarter than that.  It tells you it’s going to be moody and turns out to be delightfully funny.  It abuses its characters for their undeserved success, but still challenges its hero to think about whether he, too, is an aspiring fraud. 

CQ’s reflection of artists and the love of cinema-and-self suggests nothing less than a new voice that deserves to be considered as a possible successor to the best European directors.   This is, however, Roman Coppola’s first film.  And I’ve been disappointed before.  Yet, he seems so self-assured.  There are those who will love and those who will hate this film… but Coppola never takes a false step, however you feel about what he is saying.  And that is remarkable.  He’s going to have to disappoint me in a big way before I give up on this talented young director.

CQ gives me hope.  As sad as Hollywood Ending made me… as happy as I was with Spider-Man and Attack of the Clones… this is beginning to look like a summer of quality, even in the face of the giant footprint films. 

TOMRROW’S COLUMN:  I still want to tell you about About A Boy, another film that I am having a bit of a love affair with.  (From the Nick Hornby book… nothing to do with Rogers Hornsby)   And I still have to explain why movie civilization as we know it may soon be coming to an end.  Roll those dice, move those mice!

READER OF THE DAY:  Chicago Joe writes:  “First things first - what are the train wrecks?  What stinks from here? 

Scooby-Doo is the first obvious candidate; too much money and too little talent drawing from an awfully thin source.

Bad Company just isn't on the radar.  People like Hopkins and Rock but neither really draw.  And what is this "your twin brother was a secret agent" Prince and the Pauper crap?  Come on.

Devine Secrets is really going to have to have the goods or it will be like a water droplet on a hot skillet - it can't just be okay.  Holding it's release date against a move to the fall will be a good sign.  Ditto Reign of Fire.

I still feel like Adam Sandler is over.  I think his core of guys have moved on and are now trapped in the house with that first kid.  To the high-schoolers he might as well be Chevy Chase.  But Deeds will tell; it looks dead center on his range.

It's time to stop giving John Woo a pass because he made Hard Boiled more than twelve years ago.  Audiences are not going to have to settle this year; the spread looks too rich.  Windtalkers smells like trouble.

When I go to hell I'll be trapped in an endless double feature of Curly Sue and The Country Bears.  Some folks will see anything with a Disney logo on it but this thing looks so bad as to strain credulity.  Wow.

They dodged a bullet with the first Stuart Little and apparently didn't learn a damned thing.

Lilo and Stitch looks darn cute, and I actually laughed out loud at the trailer but I have this sad sense that kids are turning their noses up at traditional 2D animation.  I'd love to be wrong.

Pluto Nash is obviously a nightmare and Dana Carvey has some loyal friends, I'll give him that.  But August is a dumping ground and the H. Ford memorial slot aside, it always will be.

So what will work?  I can see XXX breaking out in a big way, but Signs has got the palpable vibe going months ahead of schedule.  What will be the surprise hit?

There are six slam-dunks this summer.  Spidey, and the Clones of course, Spielberg and Cruise, MIB2, Goldmember and Perdition.  That's too many slam-dunks, isn't it?  I don't think so.  If they all did over $200M I wouldn't blink.  Not after last weekend.  Folks want to go to the movies this summer I think.”

E ME:  How do I convince you to see CQ?