CQ
CQ
R | 24 May 2002 (USA)
CQ Trailers

A young filmmaker in 1960s Paris juggles directing a cheesy sci-fi debacle, directing his own personal art film, coping with his crumbling relationship with his girlfriend, and a new-found infatuation with the sci-fi film's starlet.

Reviews
Linbeymusol Wonderful character development!
Teddie Blake The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.
Sabah Hensley This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama
Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
rps-2 Okay, the film festival crowd probably loved it. But your average, popcorn munching movie goer who has scraped to-gether the ten or fifteen bucks it costs to see a movie these days will probably wonder why he or she made this choice. If it's stamped "Copolla" it's automatically great stuff, right? Wrong! It's a neat spoof of filmdom's pretensions. But it's terribly "in." I worry when film makers are more concerned about entertaining themselves rather than the public. It's interesting as a cinematic curio and it does have a chuckle or two in it. But once it's run its course in the movies and on TV, the dust will grow thick on the film cans and tape boxes holding it. Hardly either epochal or an epic!
TigerMann Watching the trailer for this movie, I couldn't help but feel excited.Look at all the swank 60's spy movie references!Well ... this wasn't the movie I'd hoped for. I believe that "CQ" is Roman Coppola's (son of famous Francis Ford Coppola) first feature-length movie. And I suppose that all first-time directors flail and hick-up in their first (hell, even second and third) films.But Coppola very blatantly tries to conceal all his director and writer disabilities by shrouding the film with 60's pop-culture trivia ... something that I'm sure his "hipster" handbook directed him to do.The premise involves an American attempting to edit a ridiculously avant-gard sci-fi/spy Modesty Blaise-esque movie in Paris ... while in his personal time he whines and moans about how he isn't adept enough to sustain a meaningful relationship ... all this through the eyes of a camera. And whilst he records his day-to-day life on film ... he neglects his stunning french girlfriend.So ... our young American in Paris ends up taking the reigns of the spy movie and plenty of hijinx ensue.It isn't hard to predict how the movie will end. And if you wait around long enough and can somehow see past Coppola's bloated, pretentious and pedestrian writing and direction ... then you'll have earned a shining ticket to complain about how great this movie COULD have been.And people wonder why nobody remembers (or wants to remember) this movie. Chalk it all up to the futile attempts of a son of a great director to become more than his father.Remember ... even old Francis Ford had to LEARN filmmaking. Anyone ever see "Dementia 13?" It wasn't a HORRIBLE movie ... but then again ... it wasn't "Apocalypse Now," either.Roman's sister, Sophia Coppola has done so interesting work. If anyone inherited Francis Ford's filmmaking genes ... my guess is that it's her. "The Virgin Suicides" is a really excellent movie. "Lost in Translation" wasn't bad either.So ... Roman ... keep on making those music videos. Your video for "The Strokes" was painfully dull ... but it was a little easier for me to switch channels.
mrchaos33 Roman Coppola has worked on his father's films since he was a teenager, doing sound on The Outsiders and directing the second unit and special effects for Bram Stoker's Dracula. CQ is his feature film debut, although he is already well known for directing music videos. The action takes place in Paris in 1968 and involves a character named Paul, an idealistic American film student who ends up directing a sci-fi b-movie. CQ is an incredibly layered and stylistic film, maybe too much so. There are two films within the film, and Coppola cuts back and forth randomly, using Paul's cinema verite black and white experimental film to provide the emotional core of the story, while the science fiction film propels the action. It's a valiant try, and while it's not completely successful, I really liked CQ. Coppola has nailed the time and place perfectly – Paris in 1968 looks like the hippest spot on earth – coaxed good performances from his actors and put together a soundtrack that actually adds to the movie, rather than just support it.
theorbitor I highly recommend this film for anyone who has a nostalgia for the great halcyon days of 60's European cinema. The plot very loosely revolves around the cast and crew of a Sci-fi, sex romp film, like the cult classic by Roger Vadim, "Barbarella" with Jane Fonda. The lead character is played at just the right level of smartness and sweetness by Jeremy Davies as a young aspiring film maker who's working as a directors assistant who in a plot twist ends up directing the film himself at the end. This is the first film by Roman Coppola, who wrote it as well, and it is visually beautiful and innovative with a good balance of fast paced story advancement and quieter character development moments, like some between Davies and the great Dean Stockwell who plays his father. I really enjoyed this film and was a bit surprised actually how much I liked it, anyone who doesn't get the obvious cliche ironic cinematic references or can't appreciate some of the campy good spirited fun by calling it "Stoopid" needs to lighten up.