{"id":3464,"date":"2023-05-16T15:00:16","date_gmt":"2023-05-16T21:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=3464"},"modified":"2023-03-06T22:07:37","modified_gmt":"2023-03-07T05:07:37","slug":"movie-babylon-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2023\/05\/16\/movie-babylon-2022\/","title":{"rendered":"MOVIE: Babylon (2022)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Babylon\"Babylon
\n<\/u><\/strong>Year: 2022
\nRating: R
\nLength: 189 minutes \/ 3.15 hours<\/p>\n

If there\u2019s one thing in common with Damien Chazelle\u2019s films, it\u2019s how they center on the sacrifices people endure to pursue their dreams. Whiplash<\/em> (2014) focused on the physical limits someone might endure to become a successful drummer. La La Land<\/em><\/a> (2016) highlighted how relationships and careers might need to take a second seat to pursuing a dream. First Man<\/em><\/a> (2018) showed how a family might suffer to pursue something greater. Following this trend, Babylon<\/em> (2022) gives light to the inability of some who have attained their dream\u2014sometimes at great personal cost\u2014to keep it in an ever-changing world.<\/p>\n

I can succinctly state the problem with Babylon as \u201cI didn\u2019t need to see that.\u201d Clocking in at over three hours long, there were plenty of storylines that could have been cut. For instance, we\u2019ve already seen Brad Pitt\u2019s story of a famed silent film star struggling to find relevance in the talkies through the Best Picture, The Artist<\/em> (2011). In fact, the whole of Babylon<\/em> comes off as a gritty remake of Singin\u2019 in the Rain<\/em> (1952). Additionally, within the first five minutes, there\u2019s elephant defecation and a woman urinating on a man\u2014and this is well before Margot Robbie has projectile vomiting later in the film.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s tragic that Babylon<\/em> could have been better. There are significant moments that worked really well and highlighted the differences and difficulties working with sound. There\u2019s also excellent subtext about making it in this era of Hollywood through hard work (if you\u2019re non-white) or just plain luck (if you\u2019re white). Topping everything off is the ear-worm-worthy score by Justin Hurwitz, which should win all the awards it deserves. I wanted to like Babylon<\/em> more, but there\u2019s only so much that can recommend it without having to also suggest fast-forwarding through other bits.<\/p>\n

A bloated, if not occasionally poignant look at the Hollywood transition to talkies, I give Babylon<\/em> 3.5 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n

\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" \"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" \"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" 1\/2<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Babylon Year: 2022 Rating: R Length: 189 minutes \/ 3.15 hours If there\u2019s one thing in common with Damien Chazelle\u2019s films, it\u2019s 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,2],"tags":[3107,3371,2012,406,3372,404,2566,13,8,3373,167],"class_list":["post-3464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-3-5-stars","category-movie","tag-3107","tag-babylon","tag-brad-pitt","tag-damien-chazelle","tag-dreamers","tag-hollywood","tag-margot-robbie","tag-movie","tag-review","tag-singin-in-the-rain","tag-the-artist"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3464"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3464\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3472,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3464\/revisions\/3472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}