This past weekend, Gareth Edwards’
Godzilla
opened to a monstrous $93 million, which is pretty remarkable for a non-sequel, non-superhero movie, especially one following in the footsteps of one of the most critically panned blockbusters of the last decade (that would be Roland Emmerich’s reviled 1998 version). If someone told me several years ago that a giant reptilian monster would out debut a legendary web-slinger, in the same month no less, I would have shrugged them off without hesitation, but such is the case as Godzilla stomped on Peter Parker and stole his summer crown (although the X-Men will probably steal it again this upcoming weekend). Clearly, Legendary Pictures’ well-planned marketing strategy – which hid the titular monster, played up the massive world destruction, and featured an angry Bryan Cranston trading in meth for mutated beasts – paid off in spades. While anticipation was extremely high going in – not…
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I would imagine that releasing a “debut feature” is a nerve-wracking experience for a director, but when your name is Gia Coppola it has to have some added layers of serious anxiety. Granddaughter of New Hollywood icon Francis Ford Coppola (
The Godfather, Apocalypse Now
, Gia follows in the footsteps of her aunt Sofia (
Lost in Translation, Bling Ring
) and uncle Roman (the ill-fated
A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III
) and into the director’s chair for her debut
Palo Alto
, based on a 2010 collection of short stories by actor James Franco, and she luckily falls into the same cool and sophisticated camp as her stylish aunt. While it’s easy to dismiss an emerging Coppola as riding on the fame and piggybank of his/her legendary family tree, as many did to Sofia in her early days, Gia displays a unique, accomplished vision…
SHARF @ THE MOVIES 