Dr. DVD

Sounds like it may get a Best Picture nomination and maybe one for Calva and Robbie, but likely won't win any of the major areas. I would say costume, art direction, and production design are a lock in terms of nominations. I would wager the major categories hinge on its financial performance. Given that they've decided to go wide with this on December 23rd, I'm kind of skeptical this will draw any major crowds during the holidays. They may also be thinking that waiting until early January for a wide release would have made it DOA if it's more "truly monstrous" and fails to get any award noms. by that point.

dex14

dex14

dex14

Reviews: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/babylon_2022

DJariya

A good friend of mine saw an early screening last week that had a Q&A with Chazelle and Robbie. He said the movie was terrible and torture to get through. He's a big movie buff like me and thought it's one of the worst of 2022.

Dr. DVD

The fact that that all of its Golden Globe nominations are in Musical/Comedy says a lot. Did he make that comment to Chazelle and Robbie?

DJariya

He wanted to. But, he didn't want to disrupt the suck up session with everyone telling Chazelle and Robbie how great it was.

stvn1974

Looks like Amsterdam Part II.

TomOpus

Local movie critic said to avoid it at all costs. He's usually pretty forgiving.

dex14

Why wouldn't it be in that category?

Decker

Exactly. So weird that Robbie appears in two highly anticipated films this Fall with high profile casts and made by respected Oscar nominated directors and they both turn out to be train wrecks. Makes me kind of worried about Barbie.

Troy Stiffler

I'm still going to watch. It has great trailers.

rexinnih

Interesting, the trailer looked great. Will still watch it.

GoldenJCJ

There’s more than one review that indicates that Chazelle loses sight of the story he’s telling with this movie. Based on the trailers, that seems to be exactly the case. The trailers are all over the place.

It’s one thing to watch a 3+ hour movie, it’s something completely different to watch a meandering, unfocused 3+ hour movie.

dex14

Perkinsun Dzees

Overall, I actually thought this was a pretty decent if overlong movie about 1920s-30s Hollywood that is much better than Russell's flaccid Amsterdam. It's definitely a visionary director's movie -- or at least a movie made by a director who's convinced that he's a visionary. There's lots of hyperactive crosscutting, montages, and other showy directorial touches that make this a definite must-see for film school nerds. It's rarely less than visually captivating, has a great use of music and a stellar performance by Margot Robbie. I found it amusing that Chazelle cast Robbie's twin, Samara Weaving, in a couple of scenes with Robbie. At first I wasn't quite sure if it was Robbie playing dual roles and interacting with herself. It was also nice to see that Eric Roberts, playing Robbie's opportunistic father, is still getting decent roles in big Hollywood movies.

Ultimately, though, Babylon is a film that celebrates the magic of movies while satirizing the debauchery and soul crushing business of Hollywood, but doesn't really have much new to say about either subject that hasn't already been said in countless movies before it. And though it strives for big emotions, the characters aren't really relatable enough to make their arcs as emotionally resonant as the film desires. At 3-hour plus, the story also begins to get too repetitive and predictable, and it's hard not to feel that Chazzelle is so overly impressed by his own craft that he can't help but throw in a derivative scene near the end featuring a deranged looking Tobey Maguire that is mostly just an overt homage to PT Anderson and Boogie Nights. Still, there are some memorable sequences, such as when Robbie's character is forced to do take after take during a movie shoot due to technical problems related to the advent of sound, which ends up driving her and the crew to the breaking point. There's also an amusing "vomit" scene and a "snake fighting" sequence that has Tarantino and Pulp Fiction written all over it.

dex14

Agreed with mostly everything you said.

The first two hours were great but the last hour was a bit of a slog. I feel like the whole party scene that Tobey Maguire leads them on could've just been cut. It really pulls you out of the film. They could've done a hard cut after the talk about the fake money to them being shot for a comical effect.

And the end montage... holy shit... Chazelle was a bit up his ass there. I kept saying to myself just end it already!

There is a decent film here that would've absolutely been stronger with a tighter edit.

Special note to two smaller performances... Olivia Hamilton (Chazelle's wife) and Spike Jonze, who played the directors on the Kinoscope back lot. They were so great.

Also... what is with Flea showing up in a bunch of stuff lately??

Dr. DVD

I tried watching this movie yesterday and thank God I have Regal Unlimited as this now holds the honor of one only two movies I have walked out on in my lifetime. Granted, I kind of went in with the intention of leaving about an hour or so in unless the movie really gripped me as I wasn't exactly in the mood for this kind of movie at this time of year and then using my Unlimited subscription to catch the rest some other time, but man.... don't know if I care to see the rest of it. I will give credit where it's due, the cinematography was great, as was the production design, but aside from Calva, I really didn't care for any of the characters and thought what of the movie I saw was just over indulgence in pretentious filmmaking. I wonder if the people who signed Chazelle to this deal bothered to even watch Babylon before doing so? Robbie looked good, but I wouldn't have been surprised if Chazelle would have had her character fart in someone's face the way this movie was unfolding. If that really does happen, don't tell me. Not a good image to contemplate. What was amusing is that there were only three people in the theater including myself and I got a chuckle when Robbie and Calva made their little pre-movie thank you message about seeing the film as intended "on a big screen with an energetic crowd". Screen was big, but the crowd was non-existent and not very energetic.

Throwing Copper

Big budget and this thing did about 3 or 4 million opening weekend.

Between Amsterdam and now this, Margot Robbie is having a tough year at the box office.

AaronHernandez

The American Margot Robbie is having a great 2022 and was a strong addition to Welcome To Flatch.

Dr. DVD

I wonder if Chazelle's contract with Paramount will be nullified with this flop? Robbie needs to fire her agent and learn to play roles other than variations on Harley Quinn, which I believe she can, she just isn't trying too hard.

DaveNinja

I just saw this and liked it. The music was great. It could have been a tighter plot with more focus.

Dr. DVD

Same could be said of a lot of movies these days. It just seems to make more of a difference when the movie is character driven and about excess (i.e. this movie, Casino, Wolf of Wall Street).

Throwing Copper

Now that it’s completely bottomed out after just 3 weekends, we should have a streaming date fairly soon.

If they were smart they would get this bad boy out there before the end of January.

Looking forward to watching this train wreck at home.

Hazel Motes

I really enjoyed this. Solid performances across the board.
My one major gripe is that I didn’t think Pitts character
Everything else I quite liked.