A film so infected by the spirit of 1969 that cameos by Neil Armstrong, Charles Manson, and Tug McGraw would hardly come as surprises, CQ, the first feature by writer-director Roman Coppola, coasts for long stretches on its time-machine-like qualities alone. In a Paris still recovering from (and reveling in) the outbursts of the preceding spring, aspiring filmmaker Jeremy Davies does the best he can as editor of a campy science-fiction movie that takes place in the year 2001. In his spare time, he uses a 16mm camera to document his failing relationship with French girlfriend Élodie Bouchez. In the film within the film–a nice evocation of an era when talent from many countries gathered to speak the international language of the B-movie–Angela Lindvall plays an in-demand secret agent who, from her home high atop the Eiffel Tower, receives orders to track down a moon-based revolutionary (Billy Zane) with a secret weapon borrowed from the government and a wardrobe borrowed from Che Guevara. Should she defeat him, or join the cause? Director Gérard Depardieu doesn't seem to know, and when he's fired from the project by iron-fisted producer Giancarlo Giannini, Davies is (eventually) brought to the helm. In addition to his family name, Coppola boasts an impressive background as a video director, and he brings the best qualities of that field into play with CQ. It looks great–thanks in large part to production designer Dean Tavoularis and Wes Anderson cinematographer Robert Yeoman–but just as importantly, it looks like it's interesting. Ultimately, it's not, but that almost doesn't matter. Taken in busy bits and pieces, CQ feels like an accomplishment. Put together, the bits and pieces don't fit so well. Brilliantly evoking a time and the styles it wore, Coppola's turn-of-the-'70s Europe otherwise seems underpopulated. In his limited number of scenes as a director of questionable brilliance, for example, Jason Schwartzman registers in a way allowed few other characters. Mostly, Coppola settles for detailing the creative frustrations of Davies' uninteresting protagonist, and in the process, he lets CQ become an ersatz 8 1/2. With such a rich milieu, Coppola is practically focusing on the peanut vendor as the parade passes by.