Cup of Coffee: April 10, 2024

Good morning!

There’s a whole lot today. In addition to the recaps we have some bad Red Sox news, a quick DFA, a Julio Urías update, some more insight into the removal of Skip Schumaker’s option, more nonsense from the A’s brass, a nice post about the A’s for once, but not from me, because my heart is as black as coal, and we ask if there is anything Mookie Betts cannot do.

In Other Stuff, I have a book for you, we learn that Elon Musk is really, really stupid and that his lawyer is even worse, and I stand up to defend the new Francis Ford Coppola movie even though (a) I have not seen it; and (b) it may very well be really, really bad. But it’s the principle, dammit!

Let’s go.

And That Happened 

Here are the scores. Here are the highlights:

Tigers 5, Pirates 3: Detroit scored four runs in the top of the ninth to turn what was heading toward a 3-1 loss to a 5-3 victory. The rally came courtesy of RBI singles from Gio Urshela, Kerry Carpenter and Jake Rogers with a healthy assist from some melting down by Pirates closer David Bednar who, in addition to the hits, walked a guy and plunked two batters. It was Bednar’s third blown save in four chances and it led to the fans in PNC Park booing him. Afterwards Pirates first baseman Rowdy Tellez expressed anger at the fans for the booing, saying, "This is the pride of Pittsburgh. To everybody: We don't do that here.” I respect his coming to the defense of his teammate, and I’m generally not one to boo anyone, but Tellez has been a Pirate for like 16 minutes and I humbly submit that if Pirates fans wanna boo anyone after the ride they’ve been on there for most of the past couple of decades, they can do so. Maybe if Andrew McCutchen told them to cut it out it’d be different, but Tellez is till using Google Maps to get to the ballpark.

In other news, how about those durable new Nike/Fanatics uniforms!

Jumpin’ Jesus on a pogo stick, Major League Baseball, clean this shit up. Buy and dye some Carhartts if you have to. This is embarrassing.

Orioles 7, Red Sox 1: Corbin Burnes allowed one run on two hits over seven innings to pick up his second win. Colton Cowser, which is about the most Orioles Player Name ever, drove in four runs via a pair of RBI doubles and a sac fly. There were two bright things for the Red Sox, though. First, Tyler O’Neill hit his sixth homer of the season. Second: 18-year-old Brianna Wakefield, the daughter of the late Tim and Stacy Wakefield, threw out the ceremonial first pitch to Red Sox coach and Wakefield’s former teammate Jason Varitek. Not a dry eye in the house, man.

White Sox 7, Guardians 5: The Chisox scored five runs in the first which, given how their offense has performed so far this season, is equivalent to most teams scoring 12. Cleveland had tied it up by the fourth but Dominic Fletcher hit a two-run double in the eighth to seal the win and end Chicago’s five-game skid.

Brewers 9, Reds 5: Christian Yelich and Blake Perkins each drove in three for Milwaukee while Jake Bauers knocked in a couple. Joe Ross — who I had just assumed was abducted by aliens or raptured or something — won his first big league game since June 29, 2021, allowing three runs, two of which were earned, on five hits while working into the seventh.

Yankees 3, Marlins 2: Carlos Rodón allowed only two unearned runs over six and was backed by an Alex Verdugo homer, a Giancarlo Stanton RBI double, and an RBI single from Juan Soto. That’s four straight wins for New York, who improved to an MLB-best 10-2. They also started 10-2 in 1922, 1949 and 2003. They won the pennant in all three of those years.

Blue Jays 5, Mariners 3: Bo Bichette hit a two-run homer in the third, George Springer had a couple of RBI singles, and Isaiah Kiner-Falefa doubled in a run. That was enough for Chris Bassitt who allowed only one while working into the seventh. Seattle has lost three in a row and six of seven.

Dodgers 6, Twins 3: Tyler Glasnow was ridiculous, shutting the Twins out through seven on just three hits, striking out 14, and not walking a soul. James Outman and Will Smith each had three-run homers. I feel like we have had an unusually high number of games so far in which two players on a team have hit three-run homers in a single game with those homers standing as the only runs their teams scored in that game. I know it’s happened at least twice but I’m almost positive it’s happened three times so far. Which means nothing, but it’s the sort of stuff you notice when you do what I do for a living. Not that anyone else really does what I do for a living.

Atlanta 6, Mets 5: Atlanta starter Reynaldo López threw six scoreless innings as his mates built a 6-0 lead. Pete Alonso hit a three-run homer in the eighth and New York plated two more runs in the ninth to make it close, but closer Raisel Iglesias struck out Alonso with a runner on to end the game. Phew. Ronald Acuña Jr. had two hits scored three runs and stole three bases.

Royals 4, Astros 3: It was tied at three from the fifth inning on but Sal Perez walked it off on the second pitch of the bottom of the tenth by singling in the Manfred Man. Perez and Nelson Velázquez each had two hits for the Royals. Bobby Witt Jr. and Maikel Garcia each drove in a run. Kansas City is 5-1 since the failure of the Jackson County tax referendum last week. Correlation is not causation, but what my usual bullshit presupposes is: what if it is?

Cardinals 3, Phillies 0: Sonny Gray’s Cardinals debut was worth the wait. He tossed five shutout innings, striking out five, scattering five hits, and leaving only because he’s on a pitch count in the early going. After he left four Cards relievers combined on four shutout innings to complete the blanking. Nolan Gorman homered in the fourth. J.T. Realmuto left the game early when he got popped by a pitch on the side of his neck while catching. He seemed basically OK afterward but he’ll be checked again today.

Athletics 4, Rangers 3: There’s no “i” in “team” but there is one in “Langeliers.” Texas led 3-2 entering the top of the ninth, with both of Oakland runs coming on solo homers from Shea Langeliers. One in the second and one in the seventh. Langeliers came up again in the ninth and, whaddaya know, hit a go-ahead two-run homer off of closer José Leclerc to help secure the win. The A’s have won three of four.

Diamondbacks 3, Rockies 2: Corbin Carroll and Randal Grichuk homered while Merrill Kelly allowed two runs over six. The win was Torey Lovullo’s 500th as a manager. It also snapped a five-game Dbacks skid. It was likewise important because it evened up the season series between these clubs at one. You may think that’s insignificant but, as MLB insiders and all 90s kids know, whoever wins the annual Rockies-Dbacks series gains exclusive use of the right to wear uniform vests and the color purple for the following year.

Rays 6, Angels 4: Stop me if you’ve heard this one before but Mike Trout homered and the Angels lost the game. José Caballero had three hits and two RBI for the Rays while Isaac Paredes homered and Harold Ramírez knocked in two. Also this, from the AP gamer, caused me to raise an eyebrow:

Aaron Civale (2-1) allowed only two more hits after Trout’s two-run shot in the first. The right-hander gave up three runs (two earned) in five innings with four strikeouts. The four earned runs Civale has permitted in three starts have come on three homers.

“No one ever wants to give up homers, but also no one ever wants to have traffic. The more you’re pitching out of the windup, the better. I think every pitcher shares that same sentiment,” Civale said. was fun:

I may be reading too much into that, but that sounds a lot like Joe Morgan or whoever saying that home runs are rally-killers. Like CIvale was happy to give up the two-run shot to Trout because otherwise the Angels might’ve had more guys on base that inning. Must investigate further to see if he is a sleeper agent from the early 2000s.

Nationals 5, Giants 3: CJ Abrams homered and drove in three, Riley Adams hit an RBI double and Jacob Young had two hits and three stolen bases. The Giants loaded the bases with no outs in the ninth but didn't score a run. Overall, San Francisco left 11 runners on base and went 1-for-6 with runners in scoring position. They went 0-for-10 with runners in scoring position on Monday. Rough stuff.

Cubs 5, Padres 1: Christopher Morel hit a grand slam and Yan Gomes went deep as well. Five Cubs pitchers combined to allow just one run on four hits. Of course the guy credited with the win, Drew Smyly, was the least effective of all five of those pitchers, allowing that one run on a homer. The game’s starter, Ben Brown, making his first big league start, pitched four and two-thirds of shutout ball — yanked one out away from qualifying for the win despite the bases being empty — and none of the other three relievers allowed a hit. I feel like we could use an overhaul of the win rules.

The Daily Briefing

Orioles to call up Jackson Holliday

The Orioles have yet to make it official, but ESPN reported last night that the team is calling up infielder Jackson Holliday, the number one prospect in baseball.

The baseball justification for the move is pretty obvious: Holliday is destroying Triple-A pitching just as he destroyed it in 2022 and 2023. So far on the young season he’s hitting .333/.482/.595, with seven of his 14 hits going for extra bases. Meanwhile, Jordan Westburg, who has been the team’s primary second baseman in the early going, has started slowly, hitting .195/.242/.355 through his first nine games. It’s hard to deny that Holliday would be an upgrade at the keystone for an O’s team which figures to challenge for the division title this season.

On the business side, the Orioles had a choice: if they kept Holliday in the minors past this week they could ensure that he would not accrue a full year of service time this season. However, per the Prospect Promotion Incentive in the latest Collective Bargaining Agreement, that could later change if Holliday were to finish in the top-two in Rookie of the Year balloting regardless of when he was promoted. At the same time, by promoting Holliday before the service time cutoff, the O’s make themselves eligible to gain an extra draft choice if Holliday wins the Rookie of the Year award or if he finishes in the top three in MVP voting during his three pre-arbitration seasons.

So, in addition to simply wanting the team to get better, the O’s are making a wager that Holliday is likely to finish high in awards voting, thereby presenting the club with a chance to snag a draft pick and eliminating the incentive to game his service time.

Bad Bosox news: Trevor Story is done for the season, Nick Pivetta on the IL

The Red Sox announced yesterday that shortstop Trevor Story will undergo season-ending surgery to repair a fracture in his shoulder. He had initially been placed on the injured list late last week due to a dislocated shoulder he sustained while making a diving stop, but further examination revealed the fracture, surgery for which has a six-month recovery time.

This, sadly, will be the third straight season basically wrecked by injuries since Story signed his six-year, $140 million deal with Boston just before the 2022 campaign began. He played in 94 games in 2022, 43 in 2023, and he’ll only log eight in 2024.

In other Sox injury news, pitcher Nick Pivetta was placed on the 15-day injured list yesterday with a right elbow flexor strain. Pivetta has made two starts this season, allowing just one run over 11 innings while striking out 13. A tough loss to be sure.

The Mets DFA’d Julio Teherán

Julio Teherán signed with the Mets on Friday. On Monday he made his first start for them, getting a no decision after giving up four earned runs on six hits in two and two-thirds innings. They DFA’d him yesterday.

What was your favorite part of the Mets Julio Teherán Era?

Julio Urías charged with five misdemeanors 

Back in September, then-Dodgers pitcher Julio Urías was arrested on suspicion of felony domestic violence following what witnesses described as a physical altercation between Urías and his wife outside of BMO Stadium in Los Angeles after a soccer game. The Dodgers placed him on leave. He became a free agent at the conclusion of the season.

In January the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office declined to file felony charges against Urías, but they wrote in their report that Urías pushed his wife against a fence and "pulled her by the hair or shoulders” and they referred the matter to city attorneys to consider misdemeanor charges. City attorneys have so considered them and now they have charged Urías with five counts: one count of spousal battery, one count of false imprisonment, one count of assault, and two counts of domestic battery involving a dating relationship. Urías is scheduled to be arraigned on May 2.

Urías was previously arrested back in 2019 after he shoved a woman to the ground. Authorities ultimately deferred prosecution in that case, conditional on Urías completing a 52-week domestic violence counseling program, which he did. As a result he was given a relatively light 20-game suspension by Major League Baseball. One presumes that Rob Manfred will not be as forgiving now that Urías is a two-time offender. Nor should he be. Urías should never play again as far as I’m concerned.

Some more insight into the removal of Skip Schumaker’s option

Recently we learned that the Miami Marlins had eliminated manager Skip Schumaker’s 2025 option. While that seemed surprising, my feeling on that was that it was probably good for Schumaker in the long run given that the Marlins are not in a good place and he was not hired by the current front office, all of which puts him at risk of being a scapegoat or simply being miserable.

Yesterday, however, we learned that not only might this be good for Schumaker, it was basically demanded by him. That comes via the Miami Herald in which it was reported that Schumaker had voiced his frustration to team owner Bruce Sherman in response to the departure of former GM Kim Ng, who hired Schumaker the year before. The Herald reports that Sherman agreed to remove the club option on the contract “as a show of good faith” to Schumaker. Specifically, by voiding it it gives him an out if he and new president of baseball operations Peter Bendix can’t get along this year.

To be sure, the Herald reports that, despite the Marlins’ awful start, Schumaker and Bendix are basically doing fine, though most people around the organization expect Schumaker to leave at the end of the season regardless. Can’t blame him.

John Fisher and Dave Kaval claim they are gonna spend big

I had missed this until Ken Rosenthal talked about it in his column yesterday, but A’s owner John Fisher and his henchman Dave Kaval claim that the A’s payroll is gonna go up! And not just when they finally move to Vegas, if indeed they do, but even once they’re in Sacramento!

A person briefed on the A’s plans in January said the team intended to carry payrolls in the $130 million to $150 range during the ramp-up period before they relocate to Las Vegas, then $170 million-plus once they move into their new fixed-roof stadium.

The payroll is currently $61 million. How they plan to more than double it while playing in a minor league ballpark that is not gonna appeal to any free agent who has any better options is an open question.

For his part, Rosenthal went around and asked a few guys who will be or can be free agents next year if they’d be willing to become a Sacramento Athletic. While the guys he asked were diplomatic, they all made it pretty clear that it won’t be happening. More because of the lack of interest in competing on the part of ownership than the Triple-A stadium, though the stadium was cited as a problem too.

This is all just hypothetical, of course. Fisher and Kaval have less than zero in terms of credibility at this point, so I’d sooner believe that they have a standing invite to brunch at Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao’s house than I’d believe they’re going to massively expand payroll, even if they had willing takers of their money. Which they almost certainly won’t.

What’s going to happen is this: the A’s are, per the back-of-the-envelope numbers Rosenthal sets forth in the column, going to continue to rake in around $200 million+ of local TV and central revenue before they sell a single ticket to a game, they’re going to continue to field teams with sub-$100 million payrolls, and they are going to continue to pocket the difference. The pipe dream, I presume, is that they’ll somehow make it to Las Vegas, they’ll somehow be successful there, and that at some point — preferably while John Fisher is still young enough to play a lot of golf — they’ll realize a massive appreciation in team valuation at which point they’ll unload it to someone else.

I’m not saying they’ll pull that off — if we have learned anything in the past couple of years it’s that there is no one in baseball’s ownership ranks who is more incompetent than John Fisher — but I think that’s the plan.

Aaron Cameron’s 100 All-Time Favorite Oakland A’s 

There has been a lot of hate thrown on the Oakland Athletics in this space of late. To be sure, it’s totally justified hate, but the volume has been pretty great. I’d like to say that I will now offer a corrective, but I cannot do that because (a) I can’t think of anything positive to say about the organization; and (b) I don’t really want to anyway.

But thankfully we have Aaron Cameron around.

Most readers who spend any time in the comments know Aaron as (a) a fellow middle-aged father; and (b) a long-suffering Oakland Athletics fan. Thankfully, because of his age, Aaron remembers when being an A’s fan was not to suffer, so he has a lot of fond memories of the club. Yesterday he put that memory to work and wrote a post setting forth his 100 all-time favorite Oakland A’s players.

The biggest surprise of the whole list is that two current members of the Athletics make the top-100. They just barely make the top-100 but they’re on there, man. The least surprising thing on the list is who Aaron’s favorite Athletics player of all time is. I don’t say that because Aaron has told me so before. Rather, I say that because the player in question should rank high on every single baseball fan’s list of their favorite players of all time. In between him and the current A’ a lot of guys are remembered.

This game is supposed to be fun, dammit. And Aaron reminds us that even if the people who run our favorite teams could not harm us more if they were literally beating us over the head with a sledgehammer, there is still fun to be found. Even if we must retreat into our memories to find it.

Mookie Betts nominated for an Emmy

Mookie Betts can do it all. He’s a five-tool player who has won an MVP, has finished second in the MVP voting three times, and could easily win one again. He has two World Series rings. He has made the damn nigh unprecedented move to shortstop at the age of 31. He has bowled multiple 300 games.

And now he’s been nominated for an Emmy Award for “emerging talent” based on his work with Bleacher Report, TBS and FOX Sports. If he wins this, next up has to be an EGOT, right?

Other Stuff

Baseball: The Movie

In a little over a month a pretty damn cool book is coming out. It’s called Baseball: The Movie, and it’s by movie critic and Cup of Coffee subscriber Noah Gittell. I got a chance to read an advance copy and to offer a blurb for it and, folks, I can assure you, it’s right up your alley.

As the title suggests, Baseball: The Movie is about baseball movies. But it’s not some cursory, blog-style “here are the best baseball movies of all time!” kind of thing. It’s an in-depth exploration of baseball movies and where they fit in the pop cultural and historical context of their times. More than a collection of reviews, it’s a definitive history of the baseball movie, what they mean, and what they say about America at various points in history. As the publisher blurb says, “Gittell sheds light on well-known classics and overlooked gems, exploring how baseball cinema creates a stage upon which the American ideal is born, performed, and repeatedly redefined.” Sometimes publisher blurbs are baloney, but that’s right on the money here.

Baseball: The Movie comes out on May 14. But you can and should preorder it now. You’ll be really glad you did.

Elon Musk is really, really stupid and his lawyer is even worse

For years Elon Musk was considered some sort of genius. One could refer to any number of fawning magazine and newspaper articles about him to see that portrayal. Hell, one could just watch “Iron Man 2” in which Musk has a cameo as himself, with the obvious implication being that he was the sort of fellow big brain that MCU big brain Tony Stark considered to be a peer.

The last several years have certainly put lie to that notion. Indeed, these past several years have shown the world’s richest man to be (a) not as smart as people once thought; (b) a pretty unapologetic white supremacist and antisemite; and (c) perhaps the most immature person in all of public life. He’s basically a big dumb racist crybaby.

The stupidity and the white supremacy are well-documented. Today I want to talk about his immaturity. And to do so I will use a transcript of a deposition for which he recently sat in a lawsuit brought against him for falsely claiming that a 22-year-old Jewish man named Benjamin Brody was part of a neo-Nazi brawl. The Huffington Post has produced the entire deposition transcript here. Their story giving all of the background and context can be read here. A note to my lawyer friends: you do NOT want to take a big sip of coffee before reading any part of those pages because you will 100% destroy your monitor in a fit of apoplexy and disbelief-fueled spit takes.

Honestly, I can’t decide what part of it all is best.

There’s the very first question in which the plaintiff’s lawyer asks Musk if he thinks he did anything wrong at which point Musk’s lawyer, Alex Spiro of the New York law firm Quinn Emmanuel, ordrs Musk not to answer the question, which is complete bullshit. Such bullshit continues on through the entirety of the deposition as Spiro constantly interrupts, constantly instructs Musk not to answer questions, attempts to feed answers to Musk, and behaves in a combative, obstructionist manner. He sounds like a weapons-grade asshole. Like beyond your normal level of asshole lawyer. Just gobsmacking, even if it’s not surprising.

Also not surprising: the plaintiff’s lawyer has filed a motion for sanctions against Spiro, in which he says that Spiro “behaved “in the most obnoxious manner one could contemplate without crossing into parody.” I believe that’s an understatement. Oh, and there’s also what appear to be valid claims set forth in the motion that (a) Spiro was engaging in the unauthorized practice of law in Texas; and (b) that Musk destroyed evidence on the day the court’s discovery order was issued. That’s probably not a good thing!

Right after that comes the part in which Musk argues with the lawyer taking his deposition, claiming that he — the lawyer — was suing Musk as opposed to the actual plaintiff in the case. Like, he doesn’t let go of it. The lawyer asks if he understands that a man named Ben Brody has sued him and Musk keeps saying, over and over, that in his opinion it’s the lawyer deposing him who is really suing him in order to get money. I get that dealing with a client like Elon Musk is hard, but it’s Alex Spiro’s job to prep his client to answer the questions he’s asked with as little drama as possible. I guess Spiro was more interested in being a jerk.

Then there’s the part where Musk freely admits that he did not make any effort to ascertain the truth or falsity of his statements. And the part where he admits that he noticed suggestions that the things on which he was basing his tweets were probably unreliable but ignored it. And the part where he admitted that he had doubts about the truthfulness of what he was tweeting but did so anyway. And the part at the end where he claims that a private citizen being falsely accused of being involved in a brawl between neo-Nazi groups, having that accusation seen by over a million people, after which the man was doxxed and barraged with death threats and harassment was harmless in his view. That’s a hell of a thing for anyone to say but, more importantly, it’s probably fatal to Musk’s defense in the suit.

Which makes it totally understandable why, as the deposition was concluding, Musk’s lawyer desperately claimed that he was going to attempt to have the transcript sealed despite the fact that there is absolutely no legal or factual basis for sealing it. He clearly wanted to do it because he knows his client repeatedly shot himself in the dick during the two hour deposition and that it would lead to his public embarrassment. Spiro subsequently filed multiple emergency motions after the deposition to that effect, all of which failed. But he was sure as hell right about the embarrassment part.

It’s been a long time since I practiced law, but I still remember my encounters with jackasses like Spiro. The worse one ever came in my final months in the profession when, while working for the State of Ohio, an opposing attorney told me that he was “going to take a meat axe” to me over a discovery dispute. Within like two hours he called me to apologize and it was all resolved amicably. He was caught up in the heat of the moment and kind of went nuts for a while. Nothing in the transcripts here suggests that Spiro was caught up in something. He just sounds like a miserable asshole.

As such, it is my hope and expectation that Musk and Spiro will be blasted back to the stone age here. And given that the plaintiff’s lawyer in this case, Mark Bankston, is the same guy who blasted Alex Jones back to the stone age in the case brought against Jones by the parents of the Sandy Hook victims, I think there’s a pretty good chance that happens. Maybe someone will even take a meat axe to them.

Hollywood doesn’t know what to do with “Megalopolis”

At 84, the great Francis Ford Coppola is well past the age when most filmmakers are still making movies, let alone making ambitious ones. But over the past several years he has poured all of his energies, and nine figures of his own money, into a passion project he first envisioned over 40 years ago. The film is called “Megalopolis.”

“Megalopolis” is a sci-fi drama starring Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Aubrey Plaza, and a bunch of other people. It’s set in a post-apocalyptic New York and focuses on a progressive and idealistic architect, played by Driver, and his efforts to rebuild the city. I’m sure there’s a lot more going on, but that’s what has been reported about it.

The film has not been screened for critics yet, but it was recently screened for studio executives in an effort to obtain distribution for the independent production. The Hollywood Reporter had a story about that the other day. The strong suggestion based on that story is that the studios aren’t too keen on it, primarily because they don’t know how to market it:

Coppola, 84, has said no decisions will be made regarding a festival bow until a distribution plan is put in place. But while there was no shortage of curious suitors there — in addition to Rothman and Sarandos, Warner Bros.’ Pam Abdy, Disney live-action boss David Greenbaum, Netflix’s Ted Sarandos and Paramount’s Marc Weinstock were all spotted — multiple sources inside the screening tell The Hollywood Reporter that Megalopolis will face a steep uphill battle to find a distribution partner. Says one distributor: “There is just no way to position this movie.”

“Everyone is rooting for Francis and feels nostalgic,” adds another attendee. “But then there is the business side of things.”

I suppose it’s possible that the comments about “positioning” and “the business side of things” is a diplomatic way of saying that the movie isn’t very good. And to sure, there are several other comments further down the article which suggest that the movie is bad and in some ways cringeworthy. If so, it wouldn’t be shocking. I mean, let’s be frank about it: while Coppola has made some of the greatest films in the history of cinema, he has also helmed near-disasters, particularly when his ambition and his vision were at odds with commercial realities.

It’s also worth noting that Coppola has not made a major picture, as opposed to festival-oriented films with limited releases, in a very, very long time. His last two commercially-oriented Hollywood pictures were “The Rainmaker” and “Jack,” 27 and 28 years ago, respectively, and both of those were unambitious work-for-hire things Coppola did to help get his finances back afloat after a string of commercial and creative setbacks. He’s a legend, but he’s probably the least-bankable legend imaginable.

Yet it’s also the case that Hollywood studios are totally fine with bad movies as long as the think they can make some money off of them. Sadly, the best way to make money, at least in the minds of studio executives, is to release movies that they can market and position in easy ways. To signal to audiences that the movie in question is something they already like either because it’s a sequel, it’s part of a larger franchise, it has a huge bankable star, or because it fits right alongside a half dozen other movies which have done well over the past several years. If “Megalopolis” was crap — and, again, it may be! — they’d still line up to release it as long as it was easily marketable crap. So yeah, I take that unnamed executive at his word. The movie is going to have a rough time getting distribution mostly because the studios don’t know how to sell it.

It’s still pretty disappointing, of course.

I know the movies are a business and I figure that, even if “Megalopolis” is great cinema, it’s highly unlikely to make serious money. But this is Francis Fucking Ford Coppola. He’s a living legend making what will almost certainly be his last movie and, unlike so many legends before him, it’s an ambitious movie which, good or bad, success or failure, is notable for that alone. More broadly, Coppola not only made a handful of the greatest films ever, but his creative and commercial successes, plus his mentoring of George Lucas and Stephen Spielberg, two men who essentially created the modern blockbuster-oriented business of Hollywood, has to count for SOMETHING. He’s more than earned the right to go out on his terms, and Hollywood will be better, cosmically speaking if not commercially speaking, for helping him do that. Not that I really expect any of them to care about the cosmic side of things.

All I know is that we live in a world in which these same studio execs put hundreds of millions of dollars behind dreck like “Black Adam” and “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts.” If they can release that trash but they can’t find a way to properly release the final film of one of the greatest directors of all time, even if it’s a bad movie, to hell with ‘em.

[Editor: Craig, did you read the part of the article in which it says that there’s a super awkward scene in “Megalopolis” in which an 85 year-old Jon Voight’s character is shown “in bed with what looks like a huge erection” after which the scene “takes quite a turn”? Maybe this isn’t the film upon which to make these points.]

IT’S ART DAMMIT! IT’S NOT SUPPOSED TO MAKE US COMFORTABLE!

[Editor: Look, I’m not gonna tell you what hill to die on, but I’m gonna bookmark this for when the movie does come out and we can discuss it later.]

HE MADE “THE CONVERSATION!” HE CAN DO WHATEVER HE WANTS! IF I SAY IT’S SAFE TO SURF THIS BEACH, CAPTAIN, THEN IT’S SAFE TO SURF THIS BEACH! I’LL SURF THIS WHOLE FUCKING PLACE!

[Editor: Maybe log off for the day, Craig]

Fine.

Have a great day everyone. I am not a crackpot.

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