What did poor Sofia do to earn this?

Godfather III

It's ostensibly set in the court of Marie Antoinette because she's a convenient cultural touchstone, not because we're learning about the story of her life.

I'm fine with all that, but again, I've seen ads for the movie that say "based on a true story." That's pretty much begging for people to judge its accuracy.

I think that Sophia Coppola was trying to ease the historians' transition to this film.

this film.

Every time I see a trailer for that, I think it's ad ad for a video game. I can't remember the last time I've seen such crappy looking CGI.

Yeah, the woman is bland as all get out in front of a camera, but sucking in Godfather III can hardly be her fault and her fault alone.

But she's a decent director, and not acting in films any more.

I suppose it's too much to ask for some critics to let one bad, nepotistic acting appearance go.

Every time I see a trailer for that, I think it's ad ad for a video game. I can't remember the last time I've seen such crappy looking CGI.

Oh dear. Actually, I may wind out checking it out, just because.

BUT..... That number, 300, has always bugged me. Yes, there were 300 Spartan warriors guarding the pass at Thermoplye (sp???), but there were also about 700 slaves and servants there too, that always seem to get left out of the count of defenders. Not that it makes the defense any less spectacular, but those peeps deserve their place in history too.

I suppose it's too much to ask for some critics to let one bad, nepotistic acting appearance go.

I swear, it's like they're relishing the chance to bash her because she finally made the kind of movie they were expecting from her the first time around, and have all this pent up bile that they couldn't do so for VIRGIN SUICIDES or LiT.

I can see the accuracy issue being a big deal with the crowd at Cannes (where the response was mixed, not out-and-out negative), but I somehow doubt that's what got up the nose of the US critics who are getting personal with the reviews.

Sean, that seems to be among the least of the film's problems with historical accuracy.

I'm not even going to get into the film's problems with the laws of physics.

where the response was mixed, not out-and-out negative

The response at Cannes (according to a critic I know who was there, and who's been going to Cannes for 15 years), was very much the same as the response at Cannes to every other movie that screens for the press. The media crowd at Cannes is a very loud and vocal one, and almost all movies are both loudly cheered and booed at the same time. So that's been blown way out of proportion.

Honestly, I see a lot of misogyny in the way the press treats SC. She gets far more shit for being a Coppola than any of her male relatives.

I don't think it's the Godfather III performance. I think they're saying her movies are overrated because she's an appealing celebrity with a famous name. I think Stevens is taking the position that it's not that she's a bad director, but that there's no there there, and people are giving simple mood pieces too much credit because they like the persona of the director. I haven't seen the movie, so I can't say. But I also thought LiT was overrated. YMMV.

I'm not saying that Coppola is without talent as a director. She has a keen eye for composition, impeccable taste in music and fashion, and a nice sense of understatement. The Virgin Suicides was haunting, if slight, and Lost in Translation goes an amazingly long way on nothing but setting and mood. But it's possible to believe both things: that Coppola is a filmmaker of promise and that her path to success has been cushioned, not only by her place in the Coppola family, but by her own savvy image-management. She cultivates the persona of a shy, melancholy, and effortlessly glamorous girl wandering through a strange new world, bemused by the accolades heaped upon her—a persona that's replicated in the dreamy, glazed female protagonists of all three of her movies so far.