The Hip Pocket #37: CQ

Another Coppola knocks this weird little gem out of the park

There is no single canon.

We all have movies we love.

Some of them are great movies. Some of them are terrible movies. Love does not care. Love is unreasonable. Love is blind. We love what we love, and the louder you love it, the better.

One of my favorite things is sharing a film I love with someone. Even if they don't love it the same way I do, that experience imparts something about you to that person. When you share something you love, you are sharing a part of yourself, and there is nothing more vulnerable or personal than that.

I don't think of these movies as the canon or the official library or anything that formal. These are all just movies I keep in my hip pocket, movies I've filed away as part of my own personal ongoing film festival as worthwhile and notable.

This is an ongoing list, one without an ending. This is The Hip Pocket.

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CQ
Jeremy Davies, Angela Lindvall, Elodie Bouchez, Gérard Depardieu, Giancarlo Giannini, Massimo Ghini, Jason Schwartzman, Billy Zane, John Phillip Law, Silvio Muccino, Dean Stockwell, Natalia Vodianova, Bernard Verley, L.M. Kit Carson, Chris Bearne, Jean-Paul Scarpitta, Nicolas Saada, Remi Fourquin, Jean-Claude Schlim, Sascha Ley, Jacques Deglas, Gilles Soeder, Julian Nest, Greta Seacat, Barbara Sarafian, Leslie Woodhall, Jean-Baptiste Kremer, Franck Sasonoff, Jean-François Wolff, Eric Connor, Diana Gartner, Stèphanie Gesnel, Frédéric de Brabant, Shawn Mortensen, Mathieu Tonetti, Ann Maes, Gintare Parulyte, Caroline Lies, Stoyanka Tanya Gospdinova, Magali Dahan, Nathalie Brocker, Wanda Perdelwitz, Mark Thompson-Ashworth, Pieter Riemens, Federica Citarella, Andrea Cormaci, Corinne Terenzi, Sofia Coppola, Emidio La Vella, Massimo Schina, Caroline Colombini, Rosa Pianeta, Christophe Chrompin, Romain Duris, Dean Tavoularis
cinematography by Robert D. Yeoman
music by Mellow
screenplay by Roman Coppola
produced by Gary Marcus and Bob Bellion and Jimmy de Brabant and Michael Polaire
directed by Roman Coppola
Rated R
1 hr 28 mins

It is fitting that a movie that is as concerned with film aesthetics as this one opens with the old United Artists logo.

I understand that there are different ways people engage with movies, different intensities to our mania. For example, thanks to Letterboxd, I know I watched 726 films in 2024. My father’s assumption was that I watch two or three films a week, which seems like a lot to him. That average is more like two movies a day, a rate of consumption that seems impossible to him. When you watch as many movies as I do, the things that are important to you about movies are probably different than the things that are important to casual viewers. I love all kinds of things. I love certain eras of company logos. I love the differences between film stocks. I love different eras of film color. It is decidedly weird what kinds of things I get hung up on in movies, and I accept that it’s just part of loving something as omnivorously as I do. When I see a modern film use an old company logo, it’s like a little bit of time travel, like two different ages of film folding in on one another. You want to get your hooks in me early? Use the ‘70s Warner Bros logo or break out the old Universal fanfare. I’ll instantly lean in a little and pay attention. I can’t help myself.