 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
||||||
| CQ
Directed By: Roman
Coppola Plot
Summary - Review 1 - Review
2 - CURRENT REVIEWS
|
|
|
[STEVE'S SECTION] Check out Reviews, Commentary, and More at Zertinet.com |
LINKS
TO REVIEWS |
|
After viewing
CQ, I did some research which seemed to explain many of the faults in the
movie. CQ is directed by Roman Coppola, the son of Francis Ford Coppolla
of The Godfather fame. From what I understand he was handed this movie on
a silver platter. He was given a rather large budget, general artistically
control over the whole picture and respected actors to work with (including
Jason Schwartzman of The Graduate.) Yet the movie plays out like a over-budget
student film that lacks any of the competence and patience of an experienced
director. To film would have worked better cut down to 30 minutes, and with
10% of it's budget, forcing the director to concentrate on ideas. CQ takes place in Europe in 1969. It's as much a period piece as anything. I'm not very familiar as to what Europe of 69 was like, but this movie seems to at least capture something clearly. Note to self: upon time machine invention avoid Europe between 1955 and 1980. Paul Ballard (Jeremy Davies) is an young American who has gone to Europe to make science fiction movies. He's currently working as editor for a spy/sci-fi movie called Dragonfly. In his spare time he's also creating a 'personal' movie about his life. When the director of Dragonfly is fired for creating a crappy ending to the movie, a new sensational director is brought in. This new director, Flix de Marco (Jason Schwartzman) spends most of his time directing poorly acted fluff involving countless women in bikinni's - and then sleeping with the women. He imparts his wisdom onto Paul who creates a trailer which is dazzling and exciting, so when Felix gets in a car accident with the lead actress of the movie Paul is already to step up and finish the film. Of course, he has to try and complete the movie with an ending that makes the studio happy. Oh yeah and did I mention his girlfriend is leaving him and he is in love with Valentine (Angela Lindvall), the lead actress in Dragonfly. Now although that may sound like a great movie, don't expect that. The movie never changes, the characters are completely stagnant and don't evolve and the plot is simply a device with which to reach a point in the movie where we can stop watching. Barely anything matters except a rough idea that the director has. Sure CQ has a message, but it can't seem to follow it's own advice about what the movie should be. During the movie, Paul takes his personal movie to a group of critics, who tell him everything that's wrong with it. It doesn't have characters we care about, nothing happens, and it's not interesting. Those exact things could be said about CQ. We don't care about the characters. They do things without regard for what their characters are and walk about advancing the plot. And plus the plot is not interesting enough that we actually care. There are moments where I laughed in CQ. Mostly aimed at some of the absurdly campy décor of the time, I found certain things just plain funny. But the movie didn't really have a humorous tone to it. Nor did it have a serious tone. For that matter the movie almost completely lacked a place to go. It remains completely stagnant never changing. Always remaining at the same uninteresting tone. CQ does have redeeming qualities though. It's well acted, shows some artistical vision, and has a wonderful visual palate. Yet these are not enough to make a movie. As an audience we are painfully aware of the fact that these are characters in a movie, and that we're supposed to extract some theme from it. Like the sci-fi spoof movie inside the movie, CQ has an ending, which although it may say something and be interesting, doesn't make up for the lack of skill in the rest of the movie. We can't take the movie seriously because it doesn't take it's audience seriously. We're just expected to like it. I would suggest to Roman Coppola that he wait until he truly has a movie worthwhile, like Sophia Coppola's The Virgin Suicides, before he pick up the camera again and subject us to his work again. Or at the very least go out and stop living under daddy's wing. 
|
|
| Movies
@ Zertinet | Oscars @ Zertinet
| Main Site Best Viewed
at 800 X 600 or greater |
|
