Bold, Brilliant and Flawed. This is what cinema is for.

I think saying that he "made it unapologetically flawed" is a bit of nonsense but I will agree with you that it's a better, more interesting film than many are giving it credit for.

I think my thoughts could best be summed up like this: I'm not entirely sure what it is that I just watched, however I know that I didn't hate it, and yet I didn't love it either.

What I can say is that, despite my ambivalent feeling overall, it is at the very least one of the most INTERESTING films I've seen in recent memory. There are a lot of things in the film where you see them and just go, "Well that's something different."

The world of the film and the characters that inhabit it are kind of bonkers and the absolutely stacked cast give performances that alone make the movie worth watching. Where it falls short though is the story. I was right in my suspicion after watching the trailer that the movie is not really about plot but about ideas, and while there is something of a first, second and third act and a broad story arc, it's obvious that what this film is really about is what Coppola is trying to SAY. However, what exactly it is that he wants to convey with this movie is not entirely clear to me.

I did love the performances. Everyone here seemed like they were having fun making this thing.

Also, the cinematography and visuals are frequently pretty amazing. There are a lot of beautiful and imaginitive images here and, while I purposefully did not look at many reviews, the ones I saw did not give due credit to the film in this regard.

Overall, I have very mixed feelings about the movie, but I can truthfully say that my assessment of the film is much better than that of many of the critics. Coppola swung for the fences here and, while I don't think it was a home run, he at least hit a double. It is, at worst, an "interesting failure," but I would not use the word "failure" for it. It's simply not a total success.