BABYLON 😊

BABYLON is the most bat… I mean, elephant sh*t crazy film of the year. Damien Chazelle took all his movies (LALA LAND, WHIPLASH, and FIRST MAN) and mixed them into three excessively filthy hours. Actually, filthy isn’t a strong enough word for how obscene, vulgar, pornographic, dirty, nasty, and foul this movie is. And I mean all of this as a compliment for Damien Chazelle’s opus to the forgotten 1920s of cinema.

Here are the top five reasons why you should see what will quickly become the most polarizing film of 2022:

The Opening – The opening party sequence is legendary. Chazelle claims to have been inspired by APOCOLYPSE NOW and how Francis Ford Coppola artfully had his most significant moments in the corner of the frame instead of front and center. The entire opening “orgy” party is full of easter eggs and has Mandy “ZOEY’S EXTRAORDINARY PLAYLIST” Moore choreographing an epic Margot Robbie “Voodoo Mamma” dance scene.
The Outdoor Film Set – The second sequence in the movie has all three lead actors at the top of their game. A drunken Brad Pitt as a silent movie star, Jack Conrad, the lovable Diego Calva as Manny, and an Oscar “cry” worthy scene with Margot Robbie as Nellie LaRoy. Bonus points for Chazelle going full meta and casting his wife, Olivia Hamilton, as the director directing Robbie. 🤯
The Indoor Film Set – The intensity of a “sneeze” turns the film set into comedic gold as Nellie attempts to become a movie star that can talk.
The Trumpets – Damien Chazzelle hasn’t met a trumpet that doesn’t deserve a closeup. And Sidney Palmers’s (Jovan Adepo) trumpet gets the limelight to play some of the best moments in Justin Hurwitz’s score.
The Technical Stuff – This film should get all the technical nominations. Sound Design, Score, Cinematography, Costume Design, Production Design, etc. It’s that damn good. Ironically, the most disgusting film of the year is also the best-sounding and looking one.

With that much praise, you would think I would want to give BABYLON a 🤩. Yet, I can’t. It’s overlong, and the characters in it are so repugnant that spending this much time with them is tough. That said, I will gladly watch a messy movie with awful characters that is this different, exciting, and so damn interesting again.

So, go “dance your a*s off into the night” and see BABYLON. The movie, just like its characters, is consistently on the edge of losing control. And that’s a good thing!

It opens in theatres on December 23rd.