OPEN POST: What Are Your Favorite Coppola Movies?

Who hasn't been moved, at least once, by the work of Francis Ford Coppola, a visionary, frequently bonkers, filmmaker? The first time I saw "Apocalypse Now," his hallucinatory anti-war shocker (and his crowning achievement, I think), I walked out of the theatre unable to speak, as if I'd mainlined the movie's crazed consciousness and couldn't come down. I've seen it at least four times since, and each time, its scenario - or its still powerful vision of the folly of war and mankind's nearing demise - seems even more eerily prophetic. 

He took quite a long road to travel to "Apocalypse Now," from his rag-tag beginnings directing soft-core porn, to working for Roger Corman, to winning his first Oscar for the screenplay for "Patton," but one thing's remained consistent before and after. It's his ability - actually, his insistence - on taking jaw-dropping risks. In many cases, this results in triumph, as with "The Godfather," of course, but just as often, it seems, he slams pedal to the metal, closes his eyes and drives straight off a cliff. 

Yet even his disasters are more compelling than his contemporaries' victories. "One From The Heart" and "The Cotton Club," for example, are fiascos by anyone's definition, but they're also works of a tireless, imaginative, wide-ranging artist. For me, it's possible to treasure his disasters, like "One From The Heart," for instance, for its daring visual schematics, or "The Cotton Club," if only for several swooningly gorgeous scenes, like Lonette McKee's mesmerizing performance of "Ill Wind," brilliantly cross-cut with the violent demise of Harlem's 1920s club scene given the mob's involvement.

His later career has been more misses than hits. Efforts like "Gardens of Stone" and "Tucker: The Man And His Dream" have few defenders - including me. To love Coppola is to have your heart broken on the regular. Unlike Spielberg, who directs with one eye on the camera and the other on his audience, Coppola isn't driven to please anyone but himself, or to realize anyone's vision but his own. This isn't to knock Spielberg, only to say that he has far better Hollywood survival skills. 

When Coppola "does one for the money men," the results range from indifferent - anyone could have directed "Peggy Sue Got Married" or "The Rainmaker," and boy, does it show - to flat-out near-unwatchable catastrophes "like "The Godfather III."

He's struggled to regain his foothold as the years have worn on, sometimes getting close to his glory days - like with "Bram Stoker's Dracula" or the eye-popping, loopily-engaging "Rumble Fish," or even the likable, small-scaled "Tetro" - but his recent movies, including "Youth Without Youth" and "Twist," unfold as if he were only faintly committed. 

All that may change with "Megalopolis," a movie whose pre-release reviews are wildly discordant - there's no middle ground; it's either "genius" or "a big mess" - promising either his last grand vision of hell on earth, like "Apocalypse Now," or a lump of coal with intermittent sparks, like "The Cotton Club." It certainly won't be for lack of trying. 

So let 'er rip: which are your favorite Coppola movies?

Photo Credit: American Zoetrope