Babylon

[Drunk Monk]

Babylon

A story of early Hollywood? Count me in. I'm surprised this trailer wasn't given a Red band for the nudity.

This film is a lot. It’s cinema about cinema, specifically that transition from silence to talkies. It struggles to become meta and sometimes almost achieves it.

Margot is a coked out wild child with a Jersey action. Lots of her vamping it up. Brad is an aging A lister. Jun Li is an obtuse character - a title card maker with a power lesbian vibe. Jovan blows a mean horn and the jazz is a driving force here. Tobey is seethingly creepy. Decent performances by all and some superstar level stuff from Brad & Margot. 

There’s lots of orgiastic parties. Lots of toplessness in the background. These parties keep escalating in their Babylonianness. 

The cinematography is impressive. Several complex oners and some swooping angles moving through crowds and architecture. I’d recommend this to the camera folk here on this basis alone.

But it’s long. Painfully long. Over 3 hours when it could’ve been half that. It has many fine cinematic moments but there was a lot of wasted space that shouldn’t have been rescued from the cutting room floor.  It goes for one of those French-artsy-fartsy ending and it almost works here, but gets too grandiose trying to make some sort of statement on art in movies. 

It’s crass too. Vomit humor. Blood splatter humor. Elephant diarrhea humor. Oops - that’s kind of a spoiler but it comes early in the film and then is abandoned. That puerile aspect feels forced.’

Not quite D00M recommended.

[Greg]

Did you see this for free on Prime or did you pay?

[Drunk Monk]

It’s on paramount+

Or maybe mgm. 

I know, I know, wrong sub4m, if it was p+, but I get p+ through Amazon and I was all cheesed up when I posted this.

The more I think about this, the more it’s a definitive flop. So many good elements but put together in such a sloppy self centered way that it doesn’t work. It’s a film designed for the awards shows which is another reason why it fails.

[cranefly]

Did you see this for free on Prime or did you pay?

Good question.  I was interested, but then it winked like a prostitute and held out its hand for compensation.

I could elaborate, but perhaps I won't.

[thatguy]

Watched (on Showtime currently, I think). It should have been titled "Babylon and on and on". What was it even about. The magic of Hollywood...the dramatic changes going from silent to talkies and the impact that had on Margot and Brad's characters. I don't think the story succeeded on that front. At the end, they had to include a montage of the history of film making from the silent era to the present just to hammer the point home. 

From the opening elephant scene to the parties to the LA underbelly with Toby McGuire, the movie tried to shock with debauchery, but I think it just diluted the story. 

This film did not need to be an epic. The montage could have sufficed. 

I hadn't ever seen Flea in an acting role and was surprised to see him get so much screen time. 

--tg

[Drunk Monk]

Ya know, I just added this to my queue because I forgot I watched it already. Upon re-reading my own review, it jogged my memory somewhat, at least enough for me to remember I didn’t care for it.

Strange. I did the same thing with The Batman. These memory black outs… It’s starting to worry me.

[Greg]

Flea was in Back to the Future 2 and 3.

I have Babylon on the DVR

[Drunk Monk]

Meh. 
Amsterdam was better but only just. Both films had great casts including Margot, but both miss their mark. Babylon was completely forgettable obvs.