MEGALOPOLIS is a lot of things. It's a sprawling epic tale ('A Fable' as stated), audacious and very messy. Mainly, it's Francis Ford Coppola taking a big swing - again - and not giving a fuck at 85. Some of it may seem familiar and some of it will have people on their feet applauding the testicular fortitude, while some of it will have people walking out wondering if dementia has finally caught up with him.
'It Is What It Is - Deal With It, Motherfuckers!' is basically Coppola's response to criticism. And judging from recent recuts of earlier work to present them in definitive versions, Coppola has decided to cement his legacy as a cinema artist before leaving the stage."
The best way to describe the film is as a huge mashup of elements - plotwise, Coppola uses a historical incident from Ancient Rome referred to as 'The Catalline Conspiracy' as the framework for the allegorical aspects of the story (and yes, being a typical American, I had to look it up). The tone, look and feel is raided from well over the past 100 years of American culture; one of the big touchstones is the 1936 film THINGS TO COME and a myriad of references, allusions and homages.
Coppola was a guest programmer on Turner Classic Films the night before the screening stumping for MEGALOPOLIS and the two films he chose were screwball comedies, LIBELLED LADY and THE AWFUL TRUTH. As it turns out, those choices did have bearing, as MEGALOPOLIS does take aspects of the 30s-40s screwball comedy, but doesn't do full-on pastiche (it doesn't reach the velocity, but that doesn't seem to be Coppola's intent). Although in the first third, it seemed like we were getting FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA'S 'THE HUDSUCKER PROXY'.
Other references: THE FOUNTAINHEAD/ATLAS SHRUGGED (without the neurotic over-the-top sexual tension; there's a bit of Ayn Rand in the mix since it's about utopias, but not so much as to poison the entire enterprise - along with the THINGS TO COME, it could also be called FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA'S 'TOMORROWLAND'. Not such a reach, since Brad Bird gets a mention in the 'Special Thanks' credits); thrillers of the 1940s such as NIGHTMARE ALLEY; some direct refrences to THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER. The epics of the 1950s set in Rome, of course (the great score has some homage to Miklos Rozsa and Dimitri Tiomkin - and there's even a chariot race!); silent films (which become more apparent in the last third of the film when the referencing moves more into the background and the film becomes its own thing). I'll even go out on a limb and say there's even a little bit of BATMAN (Tim Burton's Keaton) there.
That also goes to the actors: high praise for everyone involved from Coppola veterans Giancarlo Esposito, Lawrence Fishbourne, Jason Schwartzman (who I was mistaking for Stanley Tucci at first, then did the math on the age) to 'newbies' Adam Driver (whose character could be seen as an extremely benign version of a creative genius than what he portrayed in ANNETTE), Aubrey Plaza ('Wow Platinum' has a touch of Ida Lupino/Audrey Totter), Shia LeBoeuf, Jon Voight (playing a slightly more benign version of NYC character Trump). Grace VanderWaal makes an impression as a Taylor Swiftish type character; Nathalie Emmanuel isn't bad, but at times appears to be slightly overwhelmed and Dustin Hoffman's character is in and out quickly before making an impression (which may be due to post-production concerns, possibly).
I deliberately haven't gotten into the plot/story of the film for the reason that it doesn't ultimately matter - if you come into MEGALOPOLIS expecting a three-act story structure hitting all the beats that you read about in articles & books about screenwriting, you're not going to be happy from the start. As stated before, part of MEGALOPOLIS' title is 'A Fable', reinforced by the first scene of the film, shown in a teaser trailer of Adam Driver's Caesar preparing to step off a building. If you don't accept the outcome of that scene at the start, nothing after that is gonna make you like it better.
Another snide title that could be applied to MEGALOPOLIS could be FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA'S 'SOUTHLAND TALES' which is not that far off the mark. I did do a re-watch of ST before Monday's screening to get into a proper frame of mind, and it turns out it was a good choice. SOUTHLAND TALES is an overstuffed commentary (in either version) of America in the early 00's, coming out of the 90s with the Book of Revelation taking place in Los Angeles and what was considered to be at the time absurd satire that was ridiculous has turned out to be more coherent than our current nightmare reality.
MEGALOPOLIS is an overstuffed commentary by a veteran filmmaker of America (NYC as an alternate version of Rome) using a historical incident as a center for a sprawling spewing visual essay around the statement, "We Need To Talk About The Future". It's the work of a director not at all concerned of 'weekend box-office success'. Like ST, it's designed to be watched repeatedly and being able to find things you may have missed the last time you saw it and to have a life well beyond the 1 to 2 week window of theatrical release (if the film gets a theatrical release at all).
It's an Event Experience - if you're lucky and savvy enough to be near and attend an 'Ultimate IMAX Experience' with its William Castle-ish interactive scene (which is something Coppola apparently wanted to do for sometime; TWIXT had an interactive element for a screening or two, but it didn't work out ultimately). It's unwieldy; some of it is clunky and eye-rolling but that is balanced out by great performances, visual artistry and callbacks to previous work. It's the sum of a career that spans some 60 years and Good or Bad, it's MEMORABLE.
Reaching the age where you start to discover that people who were a significant part of your past start Exiting, Stage Left...
It's been over a month since learning of Ray's death - I can't say that I was a close friend; the last time I saw him in person was in 2019 at a Buckets reunion show in San Francisco. We were Facebook friends, but aside from the occasional comment, I didn't keep close tabs on him. But he - or more accurately stated - his work has been a consistent part of my life since going to my first Buckets show at Hotel Utah back in the early 90s. My main contact with him was at shows, aside from running into him at a Michael Nyman Band concert in 1994 - and the music, of course.
Most of what I can say about Ray I put in a Facebook post, right after learning of his death - and even that was repurposed from what I had written about him and the band, reprinting an interview I did for my first zine... Again, I wasn't a close friend. But I felt like I knew an aspect of him through his music, and that aspect I kept - and will keep - alive for quite sometime, if that makes any sense to anyone.
Death has been a part of most of my thinking over the past 5 years for obvious reasons; Covid of course. But once you get past 55, it gets harder to push it back into the recesses of your mind and you start noticing things more and more when the realization finally hits, "Oh, yeah - I'm 'Old' now." And you notice familiar faces and names disappearing, family and friends. But they're not totally gone; you have memories. It's difficult to put most of those memories across in speech and word, at least the thoughts and feelings, which are more vivid (at least for me) than the actual actions are in detail.
So with his music, he's still around - just in a different form.
I put the following together in tribute - "Breakdown Lane" is one of his best songs, although it's done by a different Buckets lineup than the one I knew.
Here's the rest of that FB post, which has that interview with Ray back in '93.
Here's some of what I wrote about Ray Halliday (AKA Earl Butter) and his band, The Buckets for my zine in the late 90s, which is probably the closest I can come to saying anything meaningful at the moment.
That, and performance footage of the band that I shot in the early 90s when I went to their shows. Look for their album on Bandcamp and some of Ray's other work (The Verms, etc.) on Soundcloud, YouTube if you're inclined to dig. But enjoy this playlist and the words in the meantime.
From MIMEZINE #4 - The Music Issue (late 90's started - early '00 when finished)
One of the law librarians in the firm that I used to work at in SF - Andrea Ebner was her name - was acquainted with some of the local musicians; I think what got us talking was an offhand mention of American Music Club. Well, one time she invited me to the Hotel Utah to hear a band that a friend of hers was playing in. Since she'd already proven she had good taste in music, I took her up on it, which is how I ended up seeing The Buckets in their first SF show. Her friend was Noah Chasin, who was then in HARM FARM, another band whose shows I caught at every available opportunity, on guitar.
I had no idea that it was a country band - I would have said, at the time that I hated country music (now I can amend that to I hate what's considered country music nowadays) [still - 2024, RH]. Noah was the only one I recognized; the others were unfamiliar - a tall, rather good-looking girl with a violin, another woman on bass, a guy with a ukelele, the drummer and the singer. I remember laughing throughout the set - the members of The Buckets all used stage names; "Earl Butter", "Wanda Taters", "Charlie Bucket" (which was Noah's name), so I didn't entirely think that they were being serious.
The other reason was the songs, which were pretty funny in a very clever fashion - they started the set with "Things Go Wrong" and from that moment on, I was hooked.
If I hadn't gone to see The Buckets, I would have not have discovered Ed's Redeeming Qualities -- I attended shows by these two bands religiously - so when I decided to do my first issue, I wanted to feature both of them.
Here's the original interview with The Buckets from Issue #1.
THE BUCKETS - 1993 Post-show, Larry Blake's, Berkeley, CA
Earl: Hard to say. Utica, NY is where we’re from, but I would say we originally started playing in Boston. We’re from all parts of the U.S
.
Wanda: We were born & raised there...
Earl: Or near there, as Wanda was.
Q: How long have you all been playing together?
Earl: I’d say 2 years. Wanda & I have been together most our lives.
Wanda: We’ve been together for a long time; coming up on half a decade, aren’t we 'Ray'?
Q: What started you down this road of broken relationships & wanderlust?
Earl: Broken relationships & wanderlust, mainly. It’s absolutely true. Wanda & I moved from one part of the country to the other every couple of years & we’ve seen each other through a lot of broken relationships - one right after the other after the other & the songs come out of that. Every relationship is a different song - sometimes several.
Wanda: Ray did a whole album’s worth out of 1 relationship.
Earl: You can milk a whole album or 2 out of 1 relationship & if you don’t mind stretchin’ the truth a little, you can get a lot more - do double albums.
Wanda: “12 SONGS -- 12 BROKEN HEARTS”.
Earl: The 1st country-rock opera. “12 SONGS - 1 BROKEN HEART”. That’s what we’ll call our greatest hits album.
Q: A silly question -- why, specifically, country?
Earl: I’ll field that one...
Wanda: Please.
Earl: I don’t know -- I started out playing in rock bands pretty much & I found writing rock songs... Looking back at it, I had too many influences & too many things were trying to sound like something else and I felt like, there was no way I’d found anything that sounded original. When I wrote something, it sounded old; it sounded used. And also, the thing with R&R, you have to be, it seems to me, extremely clever all the time.
Q: But most of the Buckets songs are extremely clever...
Earl: I’ll get to that. There’s so many people doing R&R & so many good people doing it & for me, I just couldn’t find a way to make it feel comfortable. And when I first started writing country songs, I wrote them for this band I had in my head called The Buckets, & I wrote 1 song, "Postmarked VA", and within a week to 2 weeks, I had enough songs for a set. It was the easiest thing I’ve ever done.
Q: How many other bands were you in before you decided to strike out on your own?
Earl: I was pretty much only in 2 other bands -- 3, if you count a small stint with a more famous band. I was in 2 bands with 1 guy who wrote all the songs & sort of was the director of the band. Got a lot of influence from him, I guess, just in mostly writing songs. He gave me confidence to just go out & do it. He’d just sit down & write songs. I’d been trying for so long & had written so many terrible songs & this guy sorta gave me the idea that you could write songs -- if you just relaxed, you could do it.
Wanda: You’d actually been trying to write songs before you met me?
Earl: Yeah. When I was 18, I just wrote all sorts of terrible songs. I’d always tried & just gave up on it all during undergrad. During grad school with this one guy, I started writing -- nothing very good. And you?
Wanda: Never occurred to me for a second that I could write a song.
Earl: Until --
Wanda: Until I met you guys.
Earl: There was a group of us that met at school & everyone was writing stories; the most amazing, well-fit group of people I’d ever met in my life. It was the biggest community of people that belonged together. It’ll never happen again, I don’t think.
Wanda: It was an amazing coincidence of kindred spirits.
Earl: And the material that came out of it; there were so many stories, so many songs, so many pieces of art & so many bands -- it was really something & it all had to do with the compatibility of the group. That’s where all these little offshoots got started.
Q: You were living in North Carolina for awhile.
Earl: I lived there for about a year, when these guys moved out here. We all decided to leave Boston & New England. These guys came here & I went to NC ‘cause I just wanted to be -- quiet. I didn’t want to go to another city, I guess.
Q: Where in NC did you live?
Earl: I was in a place called Lexington, which is famous for being the B-B-Q capital of the world, which it probably is.
Wanda: The B-B-Q is amazing.
Earl: Yeah. It’s a town of about 3 - 5,000 to, I think, about 100,000 coming there once a year for B-B-Q Fest; somethin’ to see. I went down there; didn’t do much. Just sort of hung out for a year.
Wanda: He had free rent in a cool house with, like, 10 cats.
Earl: I had 6 cats, 6 wild cats; 40 acres & a house I didn’t have to pay rent on. It was pretty nice - good for a year. Got a little lonely after that. And I got 12-15 songs out of it.
Wanda: He was working by himself with a 4-track, writing songs. They sounded more acoustic & minimal; THE BUTTER BROS.
Earl: We do some of those songs.
Wanda: Some, yeah. There’s still a lot in the wings.
Earl: They were demos for The Buckets. I thought I would try to get them going in NC, but there was nothing . The big town I was nearest was Winston-Salem & there was just nothing going on near there. There’s a lot of great towns in NC; Winston-Salem , at that time, didn’t have much happening & I couldn’t generate much interest. Also, down there, country music was sorta -- out. And I was just coming into it. When I started, the most I’d heard of country was Hank Williams & Dwight Yoakum, who got kinda big on the college charts.
Wanda: Hank Williams, Jr.?
Earl: No! I hate Hank Williams, Jr.
Wanda: Hank Williams was having a run on the college charts?
Earl: No; Dwight Yoakum was.
Wanda: Oh.
Earl: I was saying, all I had heard of country was those 2 -- and 'Hee Haw' which I watched all the time when I was a kid. (laughter) Oh God, we watched 'Hee Haw' every Sunday night.
Q: The 1st Buckets show I saw was at the Hotel Utah.
Earl: Was that the whole Buckets? Yeah, that was. Was there a girl bassist? [Tynan Northrop, Little My]
Q: Yeah, and one of the guys from Harm Farm -- T. Hallenbeck?
Earl: No, we had Noah Chasin, playing guitar. There were a lot of little things before the band got started; that was the 1st show as a full band. Then that broke to pieces, came back together & really got a semi-solid lineup.
Q: How did the other members -- Long John Gonzales, Kid Coyote & JoJo Hoot -- come in?
Earl: Long John came out of a drummer we used for a little while.
Wanda: Who was on drums at Hotel Utah -- was it Adam?
Earl: Adam.
Wanda: There was a time when we had this guy, Ross [Inden], on drums. And John was a friend of his from LA; they’d known each other for years. John was in a band that was in Mexico & he moved to LA to play bass. He moved up here & was looking for work, so Ross set us up with him.
Earl: Actually, he was the 1st permanent guy, besides me & her. Everyone else we knew or sorta knew & we didn’t know him at all. We knew we wanted him when we saw him; he’s been there ever since.
Wanda: Real comfortable fit -- Cory, we knew already. We knew his other band (Pupcage) & their mutual friends.
Earl: We actually picked him out. We were at a party one night & saw his old band. And we sat & watched him, ‘cause we knew that Noah was leaving. We approached him that night; I remember asking her, “Whaddaya think? Whaddaya think? I think that’s the guy I want.”
Wanda: We picked him for his rock style. Both of us really like guitar players that play strong leads.
Earl: Yeah. He was real precise.
Wanda: We had no idea that he really had a lot of county in him. He had all the licks & knew all the tricks. And, he had cowboy boots & has been known to wear cowboy hats.
Q: So it all fit perfectly. You currently play as a 5 piece band, since Jesse “Boots” Daniels left.
Wanda: 6 bodies is a lot of people onstage. Especially with all the small stages around here. 5 bodies feels really comfortable.
Earl: And also, the more people you have, the harder it is to get people together --
Wanda: -- and to agree on something. I really miss the banjo sound.
Earl: Definitely. I’ll tell you something, I miss him onstage. He’s a big crowd draw. Right now, we’re not thinking of replacing him. I listen to recordings & I think, “It’s amazing”, but also, we’re looking to be a little harder. Not so much R&R, but harder imagery, I guess. So hopefully, our sound is gonna change a little bit.
Wanda: Country-metal.
Earl: Yeah. We want to be right in-between Garth Brooks & Nirvana. An equal amount of both.
Q: You’ve got 2 tapes out; INTERSTATE DEMO & BARN DEMO. How is the reaction to them?
Earl: We don’t know. Our friends think it’s great.
Wanda: By word-of-mouth, it seems people really love it. But because they’re cassettes, we haven’t done anything with radio stations, so we don’t know how radio will feel about it. We’ve just submitted to labels & that’s always ...
Earl: The 1st tape; we didn’t send out that many & we sent it to sort of the wrong places. We’re just now sending out the 2nd tape to record companies, so nothing’s really gone on. The 1st tape, there were 6 companies I got responses from, but nothing more than “We like it.”
We’re hoping to put out a 2 single set -- 2 7" records. It’d be like a double album, but with singles... like FRAMPTON COMES ALIVE. We’re going to go in & record next month; that’ll be our 1st real test-the-water, see-what-people-think, get-some-radio-play deal.
Wanda: We could have one big continuous photo... me on a chaise lounge -- in a halter top.
Q: Go for the Donna Fargo look.
Earl: Exactly.
Q: With everyone’s schedule, how do plans for touring look?
Earl: We’ve finally got a band that agrees that we all can tour now. We’ve got a new drummer coming in -- Melanie from SF Seals, Harm Farm. Her name will be BeaDonna Potts.
Q: What happened with JoJo Hoot?
Earl: He had too much stuff going on.
Wanda: And he lives far away.
Earl: He’s actually gonna be our 2nd, when Melanie’s busy. He lives way out of town; scheduling problems. He’s doing his own record & writing songs; He was just over-committed. We think he’s great; we’re also excited about Melanie -- it’s a pretty big deal. It’s like getting the 1st draft pick.
[Kid Coyote, saunters in.]
Q: It’s Kid Coyote at the table!
Earl: Kid, you have an interesting guitar style. What’re your influences?
Kid: Too many; too many to name. Anybody that’s pretty crazy & wild enough to take a little chance & shoot it over the edge.
Earl: That’ll be a pull-quote.
Kid: Jeff Beck -- he’s my numero uno favorite guitarist.
Earl: Are you kidding me?
Kid: No, I would kid you not.
Earl: Be serious. Don’t say “Jeff Beck” in this -- try somethin’ else.
Kid: David Gilmour...
Earl: Oh stop it! Go back downstairs.
Wanda: Doc Watson...
Kid: Clarence White. That’s about it.
Q: Thank you, Kid.
Earl: Yeah, thanks... Can we go back & erase that?
The double 7" set never materialized (facetious as it probably was, it sounded like a great idea), but they did put out a single of "Cowgirls" b/w "Western Star", and they did release a CD on Slow River Records, THE BUCKETS in 1996. After this interview, when Melanie joined the band, John Pike left the band and was replaced by Steve Silbert in 1994. The "small stint in a more famous band" reference that Ray alludes to is in regard to The Breeders - if you check the credits for the songs "Glorious" and "Doe" on the first album, POD, he's co-credited with Kim Deal.
Know this right upfront - this is definitely a biased
review.
Having written about and worked with Mike McCarthy (AKA John
Michael McCarthy, J. Michael McCarthy, JMM, depending at what point in his
career you discover him), it's no surprise that I would claim to be an
enthusiastic fan of his work.
McCarthy is a Memphis-based artist who first
made his name in underground comix and was able to transfer and adapt his style
to film. TEENAGE TUPELO, his second feature film, is celebrated - nay,
enshrined - in a large-format release (AKA 'coffee-table book') from
Fantagraphics Underground. And while it goes into exhaustive detail on the making
of the film, it also functions as a celebration of American Pop Culture and a
veneration of Family Created.
TT the film - shot on Super-8 film in the early 90s, is
McCarthy's fictional (w/elements of semi-autobiography) take on his origin
story - the main character, D'Lana Fargo, is knocked-up by has-been local
singer, Johnny Tu-Note who's back from an Army stint overseas and wanting to
make a comeback and D'Lana's pregnancy is a problem, as well as a problem for
D'Lana's mother, who sets up an adoption with a local couple, the McCarthy's.
Adrift with no allies, D'Lana falls in with Thee Madd, Madd Man-Haters, a local
lesbian trio/gang who are ardent fans ofsexploitation actress Topsy-Turvy, who D'Lana more than resembles. It's
a film with many layers - a pastiche of the exploitation dramas of the late
50s/early 60s, also incorporating a Scopitone and nudie-cuties; some side-eyed Elvis
history/mythology
As a tagline for the film states -
"Everything Revealed! Nothing Explained!" Well, that changes with the
book...
Comprised of interviews, articles, reviews and essays (some
newly written specifically for the book), it goes into practically every aspect
of TT and its creator; the production and post-production - the music by Impala
gets close attention with remembrances by band members of the music scene at
the time and recording sessions for the film; 'The Gospelvis' and reception of
the film at the time as a new release by Something Weird Video.
And pictures. Lots and LOTS of
pictures. Even better, lots and lots and LOTS of pictures of the 'starlets' in
the film - Dawn Ashcroft (McCarthy's wife at the time), Kristen Hobbs, Sophie
Couch and - D'Lana Tunnell! As well as behind-the-scenes pix, candid shots -
it's also a good pictorial history of early 90s Memphis cultural scene.
All of that alone would justify the
book - cultural history and some 90s cheesecake, and none of it is
disappointing - but it's the last third that raises it from just an archive of
an obscure cult film into a genuinely affecting affirmation of Family - the one
that you originate from and the one you create along the way. Both Tunnell and
McCarthy are adopted children and both give their account of growing up,
discovering their origins and the aftermaths of discovery...
It has a hefty price - $75 - but the quality of
the content and binding makes it more than worth the price.
If all of this sounds enticing to you, what would be even better would be having the actual film to view! Fortunately, TEENAGE TUPELO is available on blu-ray directly from McCarthy - packed out with a director's commentary, photo galleries, a selection of McCarthy's short films and documentaries. It makes a great introduction to McCarthy, if you're not familiar with his other films like SUPERSTARLET A.D., CIGARETTE GIRL, DAMSELVIS - DAUGHTER OF HELVIS (available on blu-ray from Vinegar Syndrome/Saturn's Core) and THE SORE LOSERS (also available directly from McCarthy in a 3-disc blu-ray/DVD/CD edition).
