MOVIE: Babylon (2022)

by benmweilertNo Comments
Babylon Year: 2022 Rating: R Length: 189 minutes / 3.15 hours If there’s one thing in common with Damien Chazelle’s films, it’s how they center on the sacrifices people endure to pursue their dreams. Whiplash (2014) focused on the physical limits someone might endure to become a successful drummer. La La Land (2016) highlighted how relationships and careers might need to take a second seat to pursuing a dream. First Man (2018) showed how a family might suffer to pursue something greater. Following this trend, Babylon (2022) gives light to the inability of some who have attained their dream—sometimes at great personal cost—to keep it in an ever-changing world. I can succinctly state the problem with Babylon as “I didn’t need to see that.” Clocking in at over three hours long, there were plenty of storylines that could have been cut. For instance, we’ve already seen Brad Pitt’s story of a famed silent film star struggling to find relevance in the talkies through the Best...
Read More

MOVIE: Hugo (2011)

by benmweilertNo Comments
Hugo Year: 2011 Rating: PG Length: 126 minutes / 2.10 hours Enchanting. Charming. Magical. After re-watching this film again, I can still confirm Hugo (2011) legitimately earned all its technical Oscars, even if it didn’t end up winning Best Picture. Ironically enough, this American movie about the origins of French film lost out to a French movie about the origins of American talking pictures (i.e., The Artist (2011)). Of course, the more surprising aspect of this film was how Martin Scorsese was able to make such an entertaining (and family-friendly) film that didn’t involve the mafia at all. Personally, as an avid lover of classic films, I enjoyed the romanticism related to the earliest of film magicians. Scorsese’s love letter to the origins of cinema—and the masters of their craft like Georges Méliès (Ben Kingsley)—is a stark reminder of how much we've lost of cinema’s heritage due to external events that forced the artistic community to abandon their art. The amount of experimentation and inventive...
Read More

MOVIE: Limelight (1952)

by benmweilertNo Comments
Limelight Year: 1952 Rating: Approved Length: 137 minutes / 2.28 hours While it is rare to find a film by/starring Charlie Chaplin that isn't uproariously funny, the depth of the drama of this piece certainly shows the range everyone's favorite silent actor could perform. Chaplin will always have the little idiosyncracies in the way he moves, but when they're applied to a washed-up drunk, suddenly they take a much more serious turn. Films like The Dictator (1940) and Monsieur Verdoux (1947) certainly have their amusing moments, but work better as social commentaries, or at least are more direct about their message than the earlier films like The Gold Rush (1925), City Lights (1931), and Modern Times (1936). What's really interesting about Limelight is it feels almost as autobiographical as it does groundbreaking. I mean, if we were to name one famous actor who excelled at playing a "tramp", Chaplin is the only one who would come to mind (although Buster Keaton, who also appears in the...
Read More