My Thoughts on “Babylon”

Foreword: 

This was originally written on Friday January 13, 2023 and was posted on DeviantART on Thursday April 6, 2023. I’m finally getting to reposting my review of the 3 hour period piece prestige drama misfire, Babylon. I’ve been busy all week, going to Albuquerque with my grandma for appointments, to shop for Christmas stuff 🎄 for her to use in her arts and crafts shows, or to sell on her own and make extra money 💵, as well as buy other things that we need around the house. Oh, and also get a haircut 💇‍♂️. You might’ve noticed that my profile picture on my Blogger, YouTube, and GMail are all different, and that’s why. 

I cut my hair 💇‍♂️ because it was getting too long, and becoming increasingly annoying to maintain. Using more shampoo and conditioner than I usually like to use. Plus, my hair kept looking ugly every time I got out of bed 🛏️. I mean, you saw that picture that I took of myself after I voted early before the Election 🗳️, you know what I’m talking about. I’m pretty exhausted 😩. She decided to go back down again to get some more stuff that she needs to make arts and crafts stuff to sell, as well as get a filter for our heater, and I was willing to go down with her again for a fifth time, but then my dad decided to go. 

He wants to buy some stuff I guess, to buy more bike parts for his bike 🚲 that’s always breaking down and injuring him, and to buy stuff his own art projects that he’s working on to try to make extra money 💵. I chose not to go because I didn’t want to anywhere near him. I just don’t like it when he comes with us to Albuquerque, and I much prefer it when it’s just me and my grandma. I’ve always felt like we have so much more fun and get so much more done when it’s just the two of us, and my dad isn’t with us. He’s kind of a drag, a third wheel. He’s a very impatient man ♂︎, and he gets tired and bored right away, and is always rushing us, and when we’re shopping for example, he barely does anything to help us. He kind of just wanders around doing nothing. Plus, he gets angry very easily especially when he doesn’t get exactly what he wants, and whenever he does that, whenever he has his little outbursts, he just ruins our mood and makes us feel miserable. He makes me feel miserable at least. 

He’s sort of like this at home too because he barely helps us around the house. Every once in a while, he’ll do something like do the dishes, or vacuum the carpet, and take out the trash 🗑️, but a lot of times, he leaves us hanging and we’re the ones who actually have to do those things. He’s not even that good at doing some of these tasks like he’s not good at changing the oil, like he’s the reason why he had to buy a new vehicle since he offered to change the oil in our old vehicle (the Chevy Malibu), and he completely messed it up. He caused all of the transmission fluid to come out, and that did irreparable damage to the car. He’s kind of just a lazy bum who barely does anything except eat, sleep, and smoke weed. He eats all our food, and drinks all our soda and other drinks and feels barely any for me and my grandma. Whenever he does do anything helpful, it’s only at his convenience and only when he feels like it. He’s as unreliable as they come. 

I guess that’s why I still don’t really like him even I’ve gotten over my angry, hatred, and resentment of him for all the bad things he did in the past due to his drug addiction. To me, it feels like he hasn’t really changed at all, as he’s still addicted to drugs, it’s just that he’s substituting it with marijuana, which isn’t as bad as meth for example, but it’s still not great. I would prefer if he didn’t smoke weed at all and was just completely clean, but he’s not and I don’t think he’ll ever stop. He’s addicted to weed, and he’s probably going to keep smoking it until the day he dies. To the degree he has changed, it hasn’t been for the better as he’s become lazier and less reliable. I feel like all of those years doing drugs and alcohol completely killed his brain cells 🧠 and changed his behavior for the worst as he’s more forgetful now, he’s slower and more low energy, and he doesn’t clean up after himself among other things. 

I try to be nice to him, and I don’t try to start any arguments with him or anything, but it’s just hard especially when he does something truly infuriating or doesn’t do anything at all and just wastes away in his room. I usually just stay away from him, and limit my interactions with him. Only when I have to, only when I do have to talk to him, I’ll do it. But, I don’t need to talk to him or interact with him, I usually don’t. I have so much more fun with my grandma than my dad, and I prefer it’s just me and her, and dad isn’t with us and is just at home. I can talk to her, and open up to her about a lot more stuff than I can with my dad. 

I just feel more comfortable talking to her than him because I don’t feel like I’ll be judged, or that I won’t be scolded, or feel like I’m not being listened to while he tries to dominate the conversation and barely gives me any space to talk and express myself. I don’t want to feel like I have to have a connection to him if I don’t want to. I did kind of lash out this morning when my grandma told me that she was going to Albuquerque for a fifth time and she was taking my dad down with her, and I do truly feel sorry for that, but I didn’t want to lie to her about how I felt, and hold it inside while all those feelings fester and get worse. She’s always telling me to be honest and tell her what’s on my mind, and to never bottle anything up, and I didn’t, even if it risked hurting my dad’s feelings. He took it well all things considered. 

So, that’s why I haven’t been writing or posting anything this week, and why I’m just barely getting to this one now. I stayed home, and I’ve decided to use this time wisely and to my own advantage. I guess I could have written this foreword out while I was in Albuquerque whenever I had downtime. After all, that’s I did for the foreword of my Attack of the Clones review. But, I just didn’t feel like it. I just felt like either watching videos on YouTube like watching videos on the outcome of the Election 🗳️, Trump’s appointees, the Republicans increasingly falling in line while expressing limited skepticism about the people is appointing to be in his cabinet and lead these departments, and the Democrats trying to regroup, revise their electoral strategies going forward, and safeguard their states the degree that they can be from being affected by the worst Trump’s policies (especially the mass deportation stuff) once he gets back into office. As well as watch videos about the international community’s reaction to the Election 🗳️, watch longplays of games from years past, and listen to Spiderbait’s rendition of “Ghost Riders in the Sky” as featured in Ghost Rider 🔥 (2007); specifically the end credits version as it is the cleanest and most high quality version available on YouTube. 

The point is that I wanted to relax and enjoy my moments of peace in-between all the shopping, looking around, and going to appointments that we’ve been doing for the past few days. That’s not to say I wasn’t working on my blog at all, I was. I was editing some of my past posts, adding things, taking things out, and replacing videos that were removed on YouTube with ones I saved onto my Backup Plus and uploaded directly to Blogger. I did that with my Rail of the Star ☆ review and my Ruby Gloom review, both of which had videos on them that were removed from YouTube, but that I had saved at an earlier date, and could just add back in by uploading them directly onto Blogger. 

When you don’t get paid 💵 to do this kind of thing, you kind of have less incentive to write every single day. There’s less pressure for me to do so than if I were to doing this to make money 💵. I would like to make money 💵 off of this, I could help my grandma pay for some of this stuff that she struggles paying every single month because of the cuts made to her Social Security after my grandpa died, but I don’t. This is still just a hobby for me, and even though I could turn on monetization 💵 at any time, I can’t because I don’t have a bank account of my own, and it’s all about advertisements and I don’t have any view engagement to make that even remotely viable. 

Plus, I probably wouldn’t get it anyway since one of my posts has a Nazi flag, and that would inevitably be seen as “non-advertiser friendly.” I mean, the flag is there for educational purposes, it’s in a post that discusses alternate history. It’s not a post that promotes Nazism or anything. But, Google and advertisers will still treat it as though it is. That’s why history YouTubers always have to censor themselves when they talk about war, or terrorism, or talk about Nazis, or Hitler. Like, you can’t mention Hitler in your video, and you can show a Nazi flag even if it’s done in a purely educational way if you’re reliant solely on advertisements to make your money 💵, because it will scare advertisers and you’ll be demonetized. You also can’t talk about 9/11, or show any footage from 9/11, or talk about al-Qaeda or Osama bin Laden (like you can’t even mention them by name without getting demonetized) for pretty much the same reason. 

That’s why history YouTubers have to either accept sponsorships from these really dodgy companies that sell cheap poorly made products, or provide a service that doesn’t work as advertised and makes your life a living hell, or are just pure scams, or have some other morally questionable thing about them like being lead by a cult leader, or get a Patreon account, or a SubscribeStar account, or a Ko-Fi account and just have their most dedicated followers donate money 💵 to them. And I imagine it’s much the same on Blogger since it’s owned by Google just like YouTube is, and I don’t want to go through any of that. So, for the time being, I’m leaving monetization 💵 off, and I’m not making any money 💵 off of my blog posts. It’ll remain a hobby for now. Which is fine with me, I what I do on here, if I’m not getting my paid to do it, and even if no one is really reading it yet at this time. Writing is my passion, and getting the chance to do it any capacity is fine with me. 

Given that this is my fourth post for the entire month of November, I guess you could probably surmise that I have not seen any new movies yet this month to write reviews for. I haven’t seen Venom: The Last Dance, I haven’t seen Weekend in Taipei, I haven’t even seen Red One 🎄🎅 even though I have no intention of ever watching Red One 🎄🎅. And I guess a lot of people feel the same way about it as it has had a pretty dismal opening weekend so far, and is on track to becoming a major box office bomb 💣 due to it’s high production budget, which was $250 million 💵. Plus, you have to factor in marketing costs too, so it’s unlikely that Red One 🎄🎅 will make back its budget. I’m not surprised that Red One 🎄🎅 is failing at the box office because it wasn’t a movie that people were particularly excited about. Like, when the initial trailer dropped, no one was saying, “Oh man, that looks really good, I gotta go see that! 🤩” Everyone was kind of expecting it to be bad, based solely on the trailers, and the involvement of Dwayne Johnson and his production team. The movie didn’t look that good to me certainly. And judging by the critic reviews, it is pretty bad. 

So, it wasn’t a movie that excited anyone or managed to win the hearts ❤️ and minds of moviegoers, which is the main priority for a Christmas movie 🎄. Christmas movies 🎄 are supposed to win people’s hearts ❤️, and bring joy to anyone who sees them. But, it seems Red One 🎄🎅 didn’t do that. Instead, it’s just a typical Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson movie with MCU-style humor and banter, a failed buddy formula setup, a weak story with a weak villain, and CGI effects that don’t at all live up to expectations given the massive budget. It’s just a generic action-comedy movie from Dwayne Johnson that is painfully safe, by-the-numbers, and boring, just like Red Notice, that Netflix exclusive movie that Dwayne Johnson was in with Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot. 

It’s funny how Dwayne Johnson has been in two movies that both have the word “Red” in them, and they’re easily two of his worst movies, his most generic, lazy, by-the-numbers movies. Movies that feel as they were conceived in a board room, or were written by AI or an algorithm, and had no artistic passion behind them. They were made solely to make money 💵 and boost Dwayne Johnson’s ego. Considering that this movie isn’t making any money 💵 right now, it’s safe to say that it failed doing at least one of those things. I also think this movie is failing because of Dwayne Johnson himself. Dwayne Johnson has become oversaturated and people are just getting sick of him. 

Plus, Dwayne Johnson has been embroiled in some online controversy and he is generally a less well-liked figure in Hollywood. On the movie front, people don’t like him because he won’t step out of his comfort zone and try something new. He rather just play it safe, and do these really generic and forgettable blockbusters that no one will remember anything about in a couple of years and just go in one ear and out the other. He doesn’t take chances or reinvent himself like Dave Bautista does. If he did that, he probably would be more liked, but he doesn’t. So, even though this movie probably wouldn’t even exist without Dwayne Johnson, his involvement with it is what’s dragging it down besides the poor quality of the storytelling and the characters. 

Also, and you maybe disagree with me on this one, but I also think this movie is failing for the same reason that Venom: The Last Dance didn’t do that well, and that’s because it was released around the same time as the Election 🗳️. In Red One 🎄🎅’s case, it was released a week after the Election 🗳️, and everyone is still dealing with the aftermath, and worrying about the future under a second Trump presidency, and freaking out and complaining about his cabinet and departmental picks. A lot of people are still in political mode, and are not in the mood to see a movie right now, especially when there are bigger things in the world to worry about and the movie didn’t even look that good to begin with. Had this movie been released later on the month like just before Thanksgiving or after it, when people are actually thinking about Christmas 🎄, maybe it would have done better, but I’m really not sure for the reasons I’ve given above. 

Gladiator II’s also out right now, and while that may potentially do alright, better than Red One 🎄🎅 certainly, I still no intention of ever watching it. Not just because I’ve never seen the original Gladiator, but also because this one didn’t look all that enticing. If I see any movies in theaters this movie, it’s probably going to be either Venom: The Last Dance or Weekend in Taipei. But, I still doubt that I will given my family’s financial situation and how expensive going to the movie theater has become now. I’ll probably end up seeing these movies when they’re on VOD like when they’re on Fandango at Home, or when they’re on Blu-Ray 💿. 

Which probably won’t be next year which I won’t be able to count them in my list of new movies that I saw in 2024, or include them in my 2024 New Year’s Eve Recap. But, I’m hoping that I can get one more new movie before the year closes out. I’m planning on reviewing Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver, and Terminator Zero, which isn’t a movie, it’s a series, but I still said that I would review it and I want to keep that promise. If and when I review Rebel Moon – Part Two, I will post it on DeviantART since I posted my review of Rebel Moon – Part One on there as well, and I want to provide some closure by posting the reveal of the second part on there as well. 

Since I have mentioned the Election 🗳️ a few times, I might as well talk some more about it. I don’t want to keep harping about the Election 🗳️ or about Donald Trump, but there are things that I feel I should touch on before I completely move on from this topic. First all, Trump’s cabinet and departmental nominees have all been pretty terrible, but luckily, some of them have been so terrible that there’s been some mild pushback from even Republicans and there is a good chance that a couple of them may not be confirmed by the Senate despite being it controlled entirely by the Republicans. The picks that have drawn the most controversy have been RFK Jr. as Director of the Department of Health and Human Services, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy as the dual heads of a new department called the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE for short), Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense, and most controversial of all, Matt Gaetz as Attorney General. 

Tulsi Gabbard being picked to be the director of National Intelligence has also drawn some criticism, but not as much as RFK Jr. being picked to be the director of the Department of Health and Human Services or Matt Gaetz being picked to be the next Attorney General. There has been surprisingly a lot of pushback at Matt Gaetz from being picked to next Attorney General, even from Republicans, and there is increasing talk that he may not be confirmed by the Senate despite there being a Republican majority. There is even talk and some other more crazier choices may be confirmed either. 

If it were up to me, none of these picks would be confirmed to fill these positions, in fact, Trump wouldn’t even be president at all if it were up to me. I hate all those people and I don’t think any of them are deserving of the position they’ve been offered, or elected to in the case of Trump. But this isn’t a perfect world, so you gotta take what you can get. I would say there are couple of these picks that are most likely not to be confirmed. Matt Gaetz is probably the one who’s the most likely not to get confirmed because even the Republicans hate him. Republicans hate his guts, and they wouldn’t want to put him in such a high position of power even if he is the one that Trump picked. I will say though, if Matt Gaetz is confirmed and he does become the next Attorney General, he will surpass Merrick Garland as being the worst Attorney General this country has ever had. 

RFK Jr.’s another one, he’s just too cuckoo crazy 🤪 for some Republicans and even they know that we’d have a public health crisis if he was allowed to have a position. But, I think it’s more likely that he’ll be confirmed, like of the two, he’s the most likely to be confirmed because there are a lot of Republicans (a lot of MAGA Republicans 🇺🇸) who share his antivax sentiment. Unfortunately, I do think Pete Hegseth will be confirmed even if he is extreme, even if he is unqualified, and even if he does have similar sexual assault allegations against him just like Matt Gaetz does. 

But, Jake Broe seems to be fine with him being the Secretary of Defense despite him being horribly unqualified for the job, because he said some statements during his time on Fox News about supporting Ukraine 🇺🇦. That’s one of my biggest issues with Jake Broe is that he only ever seems to think about these sorts of things in terms of how they would benefit Ukraine 🇺🇦, and not how they would affect America 🇺🇸 itself. Like, “oh sure, he’s bad for America 🇺🇸, he’s bad for our democracy, but at least he’s good on Ukraine 🇺🇦 👍,” it’s a very shallow and shortsighted way of looking at the world. 

Maybe because he doesn’t live in the United States 🇺🇸 (as far as I know), and won’t be affected by Trump’s policies, at least not that much than if he actually lived in the country itself. So, he can afford to just focus on Ukraine 🇺🇦 and just talk about how things will affect Ukraine 🇺🇦. I know he’s a pro-Ukraine channel 🇺🇦, and his channel exists primarily to talk about Ukraine 🇺🇦 (it didn’t always used to be, but it does now), but this is taking it too far. He seems to have no real concern for his fellow Americans 🇺🇸. 

Plus, he doesn’t even know that Pete Hegseth will actually be good on Ukraine 🇺🇦 if he’s confirmed and does take the job. Just someone said encouraging things in the past, doesn’t mean they’ll do encouraging things now. Trump is only appointing people based solely on their affinity and loyalty to him, qualifications be damned. I doubt Pete Hegseth will anything his position that will go against what Trump says, and what Trump wants him to do. He’ll likely just fall in line and do whatever he says even if he wouldn’t otherwise agree with it, and that would likely include Ukraine policy 🇺🇦. So, don’t make the mistake of assuming that Pete Hegseth will be an ally of Ukraine 🇺🇦 like Jake Broe seems to have. He’s falling prey to wishful thinking, hoping that things won’t be as bad as everyone is worried that it will be, when we have no reason at all think that based solely on Trump’s actions during his first term. 

We have no reason to give him or anyone in his administration the benefit of the doubt on that. I know Jake Broe cares about Ukraine 🇺🇦 and wants them to win, but this is not the way to do it, this is not the way to advocate for Ukraine 🇺🇦’s future. Putting your hope in a wannabe tyrant that he won’t keep his word about siding with Russia 🇷🇺 and Putin on most issues, and won’t give Putin and the Russians 🇷🇺 a favorable deal and give them exactly what they want. Including sanctions relief because I’m sure Trump would lift sanctions on Russia 🇷🇺 if he was asked to by Putin. I think some of the other pro-Ukraine channels 🇺🇦 on YouTube are a bit more realistic when it comes to how they think Trump will act during his presidency as far as foreign policy is concerned than Jake Broe is. I don’t think I’ll watch Jake Broe anymore from here on out. The European channels have completely lost faith in the US 🇺🇸 being of anymore use in the Ukraine conflict 🇺🇦. 

Another thing that I want to talk about with the Election 🗳️ is that people who voted for Trump, or voted third-party, or didn’t vote at all, are already regretting their decision. Like, apparently Google searches for “how do I change my vote?” and searches for “what’s a tariff?” spiked after the Election 🗳️. I guess Jon Stewart was right in his statement about the Election 🗳️ when he said that all the takeaways from pundits and politicians will be wrong. Every pundit, commentator, and campaign strategist was saying that Kamala Harris lost and Trump won because of the economy, or because of identity politics, or because Democrats lost touch with the working class, or because the American electorate 🇺🇸 has shifted more to the Right, or incumbency bias, or just plain racism and misogyny. 

But, the answer is much more simpler than that. Like Trae Crowder said in his second video about the Election 🗳️, it seems like it really just boils down the fact that the American electorate 🇺🇸 has the memory of a goldfish and they don’t do any research or think things through before they even vote. Like, those questions that were in the top search results on Google and others, those questions that people should have been asking, those are things that people should have been researching before the Election 🗳️ and before they even cast their votes. 

If people actually thought about this stuff for a little bit longer and before they went to the polls and filled out their ballots, then Kamala Harris might’ve actually won. But, a lot of people didn’t, and it’s because of their ignorance, their shortsightedness, and their poor decision making that we’re stuck with Trump for another four years, possibly even longer if he tries to stay in office long after his second term has expired. This is what people mean when they say that we’re in an idiocracy, and that the movie, Idiocracy was a documentary and not a movie. I haven’t seen Idiocracy by the way in case you’re wondering, I’m just saying that based on what other people have said. 

I’ve already rambled on and on about other stuff that isn’t about Babylon and I probably should get to talking about the movie before I wrap this up. Given that I’ve gone this long without talking about Babylon shows you how little I have to actually say about it. I’ve said pretty much everything that I had to say about that movie in the review itself, and I have very little to add in this foreword. I have not seen this movie since I saw it back in January. It was a one time watch for me. I didn’t like it at all. And it was a movie I was excited for, or at least interested in. The trailers were pretty good, and there seemed to be a lot of enthusiasm for it. Even though, I do think the majority of the enthusiasm for this movie had to do with Tobey Maguire’s involvement in the cast. But, all that enthusiasm died down once the movie actually came out, and people saw what it was really like. 

I feel bad for anyone who saw this movie solely for Tobey Maguire given how little he’s actually in it, and how he doesn’t even show up until the third act. It just wasn’t very good. It’s too long, it did not need to be 3 hours long, especially given how episodic it is and how little plot is in here, the characters are not that likable or engaging, the message and tone is all over the place and not in a good way, and the ending was horrible. I understand the ending was supposed to be a tribute to the art of filmmaking as is the entire film, but it just fell flat, and just took you out of the movie. All the immersion and engagement you had with the story and characters was gone once that final montage kicked in. 

The movie also seemed confused about its message and what it was trying to say about Hollywood and the film industry as a whole. Is Hollywood an inherently corrupt and degenerate place? Or is filmmaking an art form that should be respected and admired despite any corruption there is in the Hollywood system? The movie settled on both, and as a result, it has a lot of mixed messaging throughout. You’ll have a party scene at the beginning that takes up 5 or 10 minutes of the movie’s runtime and gets repetitive and boring real fast 🥱😒, and was emphasized heavily in the marketing (above anything else really), and a scene set in an underground sex dungeon to show how degenerate Hollywood is (almost playing into right-wing conspiracy theories about Hollywood), and scenes that show how bigoted Hollywood is or was back then, and then you’ll have a bunch of scenes that are meant to convey the artistry of filmmaking, and show the transition from silent film to sound film affected the lives of these characters. 

In the end, it just felt like vanity project on the part of Damien Chazelle that didn’t ultimately pay off. The YouTube channel, elle literacy put out a video recently talking about the “genius director myth,” which deconstructed the auteur theory and the notion of the director being the being author of a film and taking the full credit for the work of hundreds or thousands. It also talked about how a lot of famous directors over the years (particularly male ones ♂︎) have developed cults of personality around themselves, and their most devoted fans hail them as infallible geniuses, and how that sort of director worship is harmful and allows for the abuse of power by these directors. And while that video was mostly in response to the allegations made against Francis Ford Coppola and the troubled production and ultimate failure of Megalopolis in theaters, I immediately thought of this movie and of Damien Chazelle after I saw it. He fits right in with that sort of thing, and is definitely part of the problem. 

He wanted to be seen as a genius director, as an auteur and an artist just like many before him were, and he thought that this movie, Babylon, would be his magnum opus and his ticket to becoming a truly respected director in Hollywood. But it wasn’t, in fact, it maybe the thing that ended his career. Damien Chazelle hasn’t made another movie since then, and there’s been no announcement that he is working on another film project. The studios may have finally lost their faith in him this time, and may not decide to give him another chance after a failure of this proportion. This movie didn’t even win any awards, or get nominated for that many, even though it’s clear Damien Chazelle made it to try to win some awards since it would’ve increased his prestige as a director and a filmmaker. 

I think a big chunk of the reason why this movie failed was due to the marketing and the lack of name recognition and the lack of any real draw. Although the trailers were good, they really didn’t do a good job at conveying what the movie was actually about. Both of the trailers focused heavily on that party scene at the beginning, and some of the other vulgar and raunchy scenes to I guess show that this movie was indeed rated R and was edgy as all hell. 

You watch those trailers, and do you at all come away from them knowing that the movie’s going to be about the transition from silent film to talkies and about this guy’s rise through the ranks to become a top studio executive running a movie studio? No, probably not. Sure, the descriptions on YouTube underneath the trailers say this, but very few people actually read the description on YouTube videos, just look at the comment section. The posters didn’t help either since again, they focused way too much on that damn party, and showing off which actors were in it, rather than what the movie’s actually about. The title didn’t help much either, like I’m sure there was a lot of confusion about the title. Like, why is it called Babylon? To this day I still don’t know. The answer to that question still alludes me.

Speaking of which, I don’t think there was enough of a draw to convince people to go out and see this movie, especially when they could easily just go see Avatar: The Way of Water 💦 instead, which was released around the same time. Sure, it had a big cast with a lot of famous well known actors, but that alone isn’t enough to draw people in anymore especially since the “death of the movie star ⭐️” that so many film essayists have talked about has happened, making it different to sell the movie based solely on which actors are in it. 

They couldn’t sell the movie based solely on Damien Chazelle’s name either since he’s not that well known of a director, which makes this being his vanity project that was supposed to shoot him up to the tippy top all the more hilarious 😂. Yeah sure, he’s made movies that were popular like Whiplash, La La Land, and First Man 🌕 (maybe not that last one, but you get what I mean), but there’s a lot of people out there who don’t even know he directed those movies and wouldn’t make the connection with this movie. I also think word-of-mouth hurt it a lot. Like, people saw this movie and didn’t like it, and they told their friends and family they didn’t like it, and so they didn’t see it, or they watched a negative review of the movie, and decided not to watch it based on that. It happens. 

 

—

 

(This is the poster for Babylon.)

 

I just finished watching Babylon, and while I was initially hesitant to write about it, I decided that it would be best if I did. I saw this on streaming, and on in theaters as Damien Chazelle probably intended, so I had to rewrite parts of this journal since I had already started writing it with the expectation that I would see it in the theaters. But, since that never happened, I had to rewrite significant parts of it. With that out of the way, let's talk about this thing.

I think it goes without saying, but this movie is not for everybody. It's long, it's vulgar, it's crass. The opening scene features an elephant 🐘 pooping on a guy's face 💩, in excruciating detail. You should probably be able to tell if this is the kind of movie for you just from seeing that opening shot, and if it isn't, then just switch it off, and watch something else. I feel bad for anyone who was eating anything when that scene came on, especially in the theaters. There are definitely parts of this movie where you probably shouldn't eat anything because they're just so gross 🤢.

And you should probably think twice before drinking anything 🥤 too because it's a 3 hour movie, 3 hours and 9 minutes (or 189 minutes) to be exact. It's actually good that I saw this on streaming and not in theaters because I tend to pee a lot whenever I drink a lot of liquids, especially caffeinated ones, and I would've kept getting up to use the bathroom and missed a bunch of parts. But, with streaming, you can pause the movie, do your business and then play the movie again when you return. After watching it, I can see why some feel that this movie would be better off as a mini-series rather than a 3 hour movie, especially with now episodic this movie is, but more on that later.

This is director, Damien Chazelle's most ambitious movie, and his most expensive movie. $110 million 💵 is a lot of money 💵. Not to a director like James Cameron, the guy literally just made a movie with a budget of either $350 million 💵 or $400 million 💵, maybe even as high as $460 million 💵 😱, and is either the most expensive movie ever made, or one of the most expensive movies ever made; no one knows for sure how much Avatar: The Way of Water 💦 actually costs.

So, $110 million 💵 is pretty much nothing to a director like James Cameron, who pretty much gets handed blank checks every project he makes just because he brings in the money 🤑. All three of James Cameron's past few movies, Titanic (1997), Avatar, and Avatar: The Way of Water 💦, have all made well over a billion dollars 💵 each 🤑, Avatar made over $2.923 billion, almost close to $3 billion 🤑; though that was mostly thanks to multiple theatrical re-releases.

But, it is a lot of money 💵 to a director like Damien Chazelle, who had never made a movie that exceeded $70 million up until this point. Yes, yes, I know that on the Wikipedia page for this movie, it says that the budget is between $78 million 💵 or $80 million 💵, but the last time I checked it, it said it was $110 million 💵. And according to same Wikipedia page, that you count the production cost and promotional costs, the movie's budget could be as high as $160 million 💵, meaning that it would have to make $250 million 💵 at the box office in order to break-even, which it did not. The movie only made $63 million 😞, meaning that it's a flop no matter how you slice it, no matter much it actually costs (between all the amounts that have been stated). But, I'm not entirely surprised that this movie didn't do that well, despite the star power ⭐️ involved.

Not only was it released around the same time as Avatar: The Way of Water 💦, but the movie's also about Old Hollywood, and the transition from silent movies to talkies in the 1920s and 1930s. That's not really a topic that a lot of people are interested in, unless they're already film buffs, and they're into film history, or just American history 🇺🇸 in general. I'm more into world history myself, specifically Asian history (and 20th century Asian history to be more specific), but I do like film history and I do like behind-the-scenes type stuff, so this movie was up my alley.

That being said though, after watching this movie, I didn't feel like this movie did as much justice to the subject matter it was exploring as it could have. It doesn't engage you in the material that much, like it never really becomes that interesting to the viewer. There were standout moments to be sure, but, overall, this movie doesn't do as great of a job of exploring this period of film history as Damien Chazelle intended it.

The most intriguing aspect of this movie is probably the drama that the characters experience outside the film production, specifically the inner turmoil that they experience during the transition from silent movies to talkies. As this movie shows, many actors were staples of the silent film industry are unable to adapt to the transition to sound movies, and are left behind and left by the wayside. This is seen the most explicitly with Nelly la Roy (Margot Robbie) and Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt), two silent film stars that are unable to adapt when the industry transitions to sound.

Which is all the more ironic given that Jack Conrad is initially intrigued by the idea of sound movies, and thinks it'll be the revolutionary thing that will redefine the form. While he is right in the sense that sound movies were revolutionary and did redefine the form, they are also what lead to his downfall. Jack Conrad commits suicide towards the end of the film after falling into a deep depression due to his fledgling career, and his inability to get with the times, and Nelly la Roy disappears, and is later found dead; though they never explain or show how she died, just that she was found dead at age 34 or 35.

The best part of this movie in my opinion is the speech that Elinor (Jean Smart) gives to Jack Conrad when he confronts her about the negative article she wrote about him in a magazine, talking about his declining career. She basically tells him that even when he, and everyone else in the film industry are long gone, their films will still remain, people still watch their work years from now, and become infested in the worlds and characters they created. Thereby, they have achieved some sort of immortality through their work.

I feel like this speech encapsulates the core themes of this movie better than the final montage of the film does, how it's all about legacy, leaving your mark on history, and making sure you make something that stands the test of time, and just a general celebration of film and film history. This speech is also all the more tragic when you realize that the most of the movies made during the silent era have been lost to the time forever.

The film 🎞️ they used in those days was nitrate film 🎞️, and nitrate film 🎞️ is extremely flammable 🔥, and it can be damaged very easily. So, a lot silent movies have been lost forever because they were destroyed in fires 🔥, or they weren't preserved properly. So, some of, if not all of Jack Conrad's films might've lost forever, and he may not even have the kind of legacy that he desired.

The most sympathetic character in this movie is Manuel "Manny" Torres (Diego Calva), who starts out as a low level employee of Jack Conrad, nothing more than an errand boy, and eventually becomes a powerful studio executive. We see how the industry changes him, and not always for the better, as he is forced to make difficult choices, and do morally or ethically questionable things for the sake of the movies and for the sake of the studio.

He ends up hurting a lot of his relationships with the other people in his life like Nelly la Roy, Lady Fay Zhu (Li Jun Li), and Sidney Palmer (Jovan Adepo), who all either quit, or are fired from the studio, and go in their own separate ways. You can tell that he feels conflicted, and doesn't take any pleasure in doing these things, but he has to do it because it's his job and it's the nature of the industry (at the time); the studio system is one of the disliked aspects of the film industry, certainly in Hollywood, and as this movie shows, that's always been the case.

But, Manny decides to help Nelly la Roy when she gets in trouble with these mob guys led by James McKay (Toby Maguire), and he ends up rekindling his relationship with her, to the point that they talk about wanting to get married and have kids, even if that never pans out in the end because well, she dies. But, despite this, Manny does manage to find some happiness as at the end of the film, he is married and does have a daughter, but not with Nelly of course because she was already dead by the time the movie transitions to the 1950s at the end.

This is where we get that infamous final montage where we see the history of film 🎞️ over the course of the 20th century up until the present day in the early 21st century, and we see clips from contemporary movies like the original 1982 Tron, Jurassic Park, The Matrix, and James Cameron's Avatar (2009). Surprised they didn't show a clip from Star Wars (AKA Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope) as well considering Star Wars is considered a landmark movie, and is just as influential as any of those other movies, maybe even more. They could've at least shown a clip from Jaws 🦈. It sort of goes without saying that this final montage didn't quite have the desired effect that Damien Chazelle was hoping.

It seems like this is a lot of people's least favorite part of the film, even more than the party scene at the beginning or the mobster stuff with James McKay, Toby Maguire's character. That last clip at the end with Avatar, was a major thumbs down 👎  for me, I had to dock some points just for that one. This montage certainly is a bit jarring, and doesn't jell well with the rest of the movie, but you can sort of see what Damien Chazelle was trying to do, even if he didn't stick the landing.

But, speaking of Toby Maguire, I kind of feel bad for anyone who went to see this movie just to see him. He's barely in it, he doesn't even show up until 2 and a half hours in, and he's only it for around 5 or 10 minutes, and then we never see him again after this. It's an extremely bit part, and it wouldn't even really be all that worth mentioning if it wasn't Toby Maguire playing the role. This is also the part of the movie where it goes from being a film about filmmakers making movies in the silent era, and the transition from silent movies to sound movies to a mafia crime thriller type film about Manny trying to pay off Nelly la Roy's gambling debts.

That being said, he does do a good job with what he's given. What I can say? He's good at playing creepy weirdos, and James McKay certain is one creepy weirdo. The entire scene where he takes Manny and the Count (Rory Scovel) into that underground place is extremely unsettling and tense. Like, you feel just as uncomfortable with the situation as Manny and the Count do, and as they go down to the lower levels, it just gets more disturbing and unnerving. This is not a place that you would want to be in at all.

I think I blame the marketing for building this false expectation in people's heads that Toby Maguire was going to be a big part in the movie, when in reality he wasn't. They were just capitalizing on his newfound popularity thanks to Spider-Man: No Way Home 🕷️🕸️ and all the Bully Maguire memes. It's a lot like what happened to Keanu Reeves when his career was revitalized by the John Wick movies, and will probably happen to Brendan Fraser and Ke Huy Kwan now that their careers have been revitalized by Everything, Everywhere All at Once and The Whale 🐋 respectively.

One last thing before I wrap this up, I really liked Li Jun Li's character, Lady Fay Zhu in this movie. She's probably my favorite character in this movie besides Manny himself. She wasn't really the silent type or the mysterious type as I initially predicted from watching the trailer, but she definitely had an elegance and coolness to her. She was definitely the one female character ♀︎ who was like a cut above the rest. She isn't in the movie that much, but she makes every minute she's on screen count.

My favorite scene of her is when she saves Nelly la Roy's life by sucking out the venom from the rattlesnake 🐍 that bit Nelly la Roy's neck after she attempted to fight it (after being frustrated that it didn't bite and kill her father, who is a bit of an asshole and a sleaze). Nelly la Roy thanks her by giving her a long passionate and sensual kiss, and the two hit it off, having a lesbian relationship ⚢ with each other, which ultimately gets Lady Fay Zhu fired from the studio they all work at because the social climate at the time was becoming increasingly more conservative and more hostile to homosexuality 🏳️‍🌈 in any form. She actually has the happiest ending in the whole movie besides Manny and Sidney, as after she gets fired from the studio, she goes to work in Europe for Pathé. She drops by and meets up with Jack Conrad, who is a close friend of hers, to say goodbye to him one last time before she leaves and before he commits suicide.

Overall, this movie wasn't as entertaining as I had hoped it would be. But, it isn't as bad as some people said it was. It's okay, there are good moments, there are good aspects, and it is well-made, but it just didn't appeal to me. This is surprising to me considering that I really into film, and I do like film history and behind-the-scenes type stuff. The movie certainly didn't need to be as long as it was. Considering how little plot there actually is in this movie, and how a lot of it is a bunch of disconnected vignettes that makes it feel very episodic, you could've easily have told this story in half the time. I would say that this is definitely one movie where the trailers were actually more entertaining than the movie itself.

One that I want to know is: why is it called Babylon? I've seen this movie from beginning to end, all 3 hours of it, and I still don't know why it's called "Babylon." They aren't working on a movie called Babylon, and there's no metaphorical or allegorical meaning that could be discerned alluding to the ancient city. When I saw the first trailer, I speculated that the title referred to the Biblical story, "The Tower of Babel," since the movie mainly deals with the transition from silent movies to sound movies, and it's about hubris and vanity. But, if that were the case, why not call the movie, "Babel?" It would be a lot easier for people to make that connection.

The only other thing that I can of as to what the title, Babylon refers to is Hollywood itself, like Damien Chazelle is trying to compare Hollywood to Babylon, this grand city full of hubris and vanity. But, that seems like a pretty weak connection to me. I'm starting to think that the movie is like Reservoir Dogs, where the title doesn't really mean anything, but the filmmakers thought it sounded cool. Another more apt comparison would be The Wolf of Wall Street, which a lot of people compared this to when it came out.

The title, The Wolf of Wall Street really doesn't mean anything, Jordan Belfort wasn't even ever referred to as the "Wolf of Wall Street" when he was a stock broker. But, that could've just been Jordan embellishing his own story to make it sound cooler and more impressive; I don't know how reliable of a narrator Jordan Belfort is. So, Babylon could easily be one of those examples of a movie with a title that has no real meaning behind it, but the filmmakers thought it sounded good.

I'm glad I didn't see this movie in the theaters because I feel like I would've walked out of it feeling unsatisfied with what I just seen. And I'm glad I took my aunt's advice and watched this movie on streaming instead of buying the Blu-Ray 💿 because I feel I would've wasted my money 💵 buying the physical release of this movie. 

(This is another poster for Babylon.)