Dog’s Movie House: “Megalopolis” Ambitous, Hopeful, Frustrating, Yet Endlessly Watchable!
Howdy Folks! It’s The Kendog here! Francis Ford Coppola is one of the greatest filmmakers of his, or any generation. His 1970s output alone (“The Godfather,” The Godfather Part II,” “The Conversation,” and “Apocolypse Now”) would put him on the Mount Rushmore of cinematic legends. But his last big movie of any note was over thirty years ago with “Bram Stoker’s Dracula.” He’s been largely absent for the last couple of decades, but has now returned with a passion project he’s wanted to make for the last forty years. Financed with 120 million dollars of his own fortune, “Megalopolis” is a sprawling science fiction film that has a lot to say about the human condition. There’s a lot of superflous detail to sift through to get there, though. The result is something of a watchable mess, where flashes of a master’s genius is sometimes buried beneath a chaotic visual palette!
Continue readingDog’s Movie House: “The Invitation” Slick But Somewhat Toothless Take On Stoker!
Howdy Folks! It’s The Kendog here to take a look at “The Invitation” a vampire flick that has oodles and oodles of nods to Bram Stoker’s classic “Dracula.” It stars Nathalie Emmanuel as Evie, a New York artist who manages to, through a DNA kit, discover she is distantly related to an old family in London. After contacting her cousin Oliver (Hugh Skinner) and meeting him for coffee, she impulsively accompanies him to the English countryside to a family wedding. Once at the manor, she falls under the spell of Lord Walter (Thomas Doherty) and, despite the creepy nighttime vibe and the hard time she has fitting in with British aristocracy, she finds herself falling for the handsome and charming lord. Of course, that’s when everything hits the fan and soon she is trying to survive becoming an unwilling new member of a family of monsters.
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