CQ (2002)

That was an excellent one.

Absolutely the worst movie.

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

This is a movie about making a movie. Such movies may be entertaining, but they need some substance, to do so. It did not happen here, I am afraid. Mr Coppola did not inherit his father's skills, unfortunately (neither did his sister, who can however make movies which one might watch).I do wonder how this movie came to get such rave reviews. Let's see: the lead male actor, supposedly a director, is as expressive as a frozen squid and his voice has the same pitch whatever he says, the lead female actress has an expression on her face that never changes, the plot is totally segmented in bits with perhaps one single connecting element, the movie within the movie idea must be more stale than paleolithic rocks... Would that be enough?I regretted every single moment I watched this movie. A walk with the dog is far superior entertainment to this unbelievably lame movie. It's as if a François Truffaut plot were directed by Dick Cheney...Brazil, some other classic SF movies? You must be really joking...

I have just read the comment posted on IMDb site and I was really sorry to see that such an excellent movie was appreciated in such a wrong way. The plot description is correct, as the movie deals with the making of a B-Science fiction movie, but the message is to continue the fight against tyranny and this is it. The rest, including the movie itself is just the cover-up to say a thing, that is the most important in life, but has transformed itself into a cliché due its very importance. Roman has chosen excellent setting to enhance the very essence of the film. Jeremy Davies personifies the word "cool" and Ajgela Lindvall leaves Jacqueline Bisset eating her heart out. Gerard Depardieu, one of the greatest french actors, appears in quite a cameo-ish role but packs it with excellent emotions and symbolism. Hope Roman will someday give us another good one, as CQ remains, to this date, his solo directorial adventure.

My son rented this. Wonderful recreation of the style and atmosphere of the giddy culmination of franco-italian filmaking in the late '60s permeates a hilarious movie- within-a-movie. Reminiscent of Barbarella, 8 1/2, and the 10th Victim, shot in both B&W and color, the struggles of a young editor who is losing connection with his girl-friend because of his obsession with both the film he is working on and the beautiful leading lady are affecting and involving. Given an awful sci-fi film to rescue from a fired director, by a producer who is both intuitively brilliant and ridiculously old-school, the editor obsesses over the ending while falling in love with the star.The stylishness of this film is as important as the story. CG focuses loving attention on the pre-digital world of continental film-making with long shots of threaded-film editing equipment, cameras, reel-to-reel tape-recorders, tiny old cars careening through the streets of '60s Paris, and "8 /12"-style parties. I was astonished at how it evoked the feelings I experienced upon first watching the "fun films" of Fellini, Antonioni, and Godard, and the relationship-centric films of the British "Girl With Green Eyes" period. Rent this film!

Roman Coppola has worked on his father's films since he was a teenager, doing sound on The Outsiders and directing the second unit and special effects for Bram Stoker's Dracula. CQ is his feature film debut, although he is already well known for directing music videos. The action takes place in Paris in 1968 and involves a character named Paul, an idealistic American film student who ends up directing a sci-fi b-movie. CQ is an incredibly layered and stylistic film, maybe too much so. There are two films within the film, and Coppola cuts back and forth randomly, using Paul's cinema verite black and white experimental film to provide the emotional core of the story, while the science fiction film propels the action. It's a valiant try, and while it's not completely successful, I really liked CQ. Coppola has nailed the time and place perfectly – Paris in 1968 looks like the hippest spot on earth – coaxed good performances from his actors and put together a soundtrack that actually adds to the movie, rather than just support it.