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.

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.

Hee! Well, yeah. The film looks silly as hell. I'm just speaking in general. Almost every time I hear that battle referenced, people like to use the much more impressive 300 number, instead of the more accurate 1,000 or so.

Plus, Gerald Butler looks like he spends most of the movie using "psychotic" as his main motivation.

Yes, there were 300 Spartan warriors guarding the pass at Thermopylae

And the Spartans? Not exactly teh pretteh. You know, at least the Charge of the Light Brigade had men in pants! With hair no more obnoxious than muttonchops! And there were 600 of them -- chance for more cameos!!

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

OMG, the Spartans can fly?? (N.b. I have not seen this trailer yet.)

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.

That proposition seems like such a stretch to me; I know several people that loved Lost in Translation and wouldn't know Sofia Coppola if she had her name, credits and family tree tattooed to her face.

The parts of Stevens' review that explicitly deal with Marie Antoinette can pretty much be summed up in 'It adds up to nothing'. And there I think she's flat-out wrong. The film is built around the idea that if you indulge without reprieve you'll tire of it, at which point you'll find a slightly modified form of indulgence to partake in. I think that's a point well worth making and point well made. And that's so obviously the meat of the thing it's annoying that people who are being paid for their analysis aren't keen to it.

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.

Isn't there give in 'based on a true story', though?

Isn't there give in 'based on a true story', though?

Tell that to all the people that protested ABC's "Path to 9/11".

I love that Nutty quietly corrected my poor spelling of Thermopylae in my quote. Thanks, Nutty! I knew it had a "Y" in there somewhere.