Babylon (2022)

Fair warning: some spoilers in this review.

My friend and I went to see Babylon today at a local theater. Before the movie, two of its stars - Margot Robbie and Diego Calvas who plays "Manny" - introduce the movie and assure us - the audience - that we're watching the film "the way it was meant to be seen - on the big screen and then they say "we hope you enjoy Babylon".

I hoped so too since it's a 3 hour long movie. But really was curious about it since it was about old Hollywood and the seedy world behind the scenes, from the same director who made La La Land. I didn't love that movie because it ended on such a depressing note. It made me never want to watch it again, even though I liked some of the dancing scenes and set pieces. That was 6 years ago.

After watching Babylon, I never want to watch the movie again, except for maybe a few scenes that I really liked. For example, I really liked the scenes where the outdoor silent movie scenes were filmed. There's a camera pan sequence that shows all of the different movies that were being made on the same outdoor lot - a bar scene, a jungle scene, a battle scene, etc. There was a similar scene in Peter Bogdonovich's Nickelodeon (1976) which also was about silent filmmaking. 

In the first 5 minutes of Babylon, there's a scene in the desert showing how an elephant is being pushed up a hill to be an attraction at a Hollywood party. And then we see it's anus shoot out a gush of wet dung and squirting all over two people pushing the truck uphill. Am I enjoying the movie yet? 

What I thought might be a true ensemble film (like a Robert Altman film) really isn't. It focuses primarily on 3 characters and how they react to the transition from silents to talkies. 

The character of Manny, a Mexican immigrant who becomes a servant to one of the studio heads and later works his way up to an executive, is one of the three major stories told. 

The other prominent stories are of white actors played by Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie. Their characters are very similar to those of Jean Dujardin in The Artist (2011) and Jean Hagen in Singin In the Rain (1952), respectively. In The Artist, the lead character thinks of killing himself, and even points a gun to his head (before his dog saves him). But in Babylon, Brad Pitt actually uses it on himself. Tragic. But not unheard of for actors to do that. George Sanders and George Reeves were two examples. In Babylon, we sort of get a sense of what let the Pitt character to pull the trigger.

There were two other very interesting characters that were in the movie that I wished had gotten more to do in the film. In fact, both of their stories would make for a great feature film, I think.

The first is a Black trumpet player who first starts out as a musician on the studio set and playing at lavish parties. He then works his way up to be an early film star like Dizzy Gillespe or Cab Calloway (their names are not mentioned, but the movie heavily implies this could be part of their story). The other is a singer / supporting film player and studio staff member that is a characterization of Anna May Wong. A different name is used but we get the idea that this is partly her story, too. 

Great idea here - how about a long overdue biopic of Anna May Wong for a change? I think we're ready for her story in 2023!  And lets see more films about the early Black films of the early 1930s. Let's see a movie about The Nicholas Brothers, for example. 

There's even a female director on the silent movie set, which I suspect is a tribute to Alice Guy-Blaché, who did make silent films. At one point in Babylon, the director character even utters Alice's trademark line "Be Natural", which is the same name of the great documentary on Alice's life. But no biopic of hers has ever been made either. 

In the final analysis, my friend and I both felt that the character types played by Robbie and Pitt have been told many times in other movies. 

This film focuses on the tragic stories behind the transition from silents to talkies, but it's so long, and the gross-out humor is over the top. At the same time it is self-indulgent tribute to old Hollywood. Unfortunately, what's left out are the other stories of actors who succeeded the transition like Lilian Gish who lived to be almost 100 and had great acclaim in the "talkie" era and beyond. 

Sigh. I really wanted to completely enjoy this movie, and even love it. But in my opinion, it's unfocused, it's way overly sentimental at the end, and it's missing so much. Another blogger, Self Styled Siren, also did not like it. 

This new blog post from Bobby Rivers talks about Babylon and I agree with his assessment of the film, too. (I tend to agree with Bobby most of the time in his movie assessments)

Another perspective by Surrender to the Void.

Another vlogger that I usually agree with is Deep Focus Lens, who loves musicals more than I do. In their video review of Bablylon they use the phrase "thematically muddled", and also they emphasize how the characters "don't exist in the times they live in", and compare it to Boogie Nights and Casino where some parts they don't  like (and are "awkwardly inserted") and some they do. Check out the revie below:

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Nashville (1975) and Jeff Goldblum as the Tricycle Man

In today's post, the spotlight is on Jeff Goldblum and his role in Nashville (1975), an American satire blending music, politics, and more. The film was directed by Robert Altman, known for his ensemble casts and interwoven storylines. Nashville features 24 characters, not counting cameos and an unseen Presidential candidate.

Jeff's role is smaller compared to some of the others. It's also one of the rare times when his character does not speak in a film. Hard to imagine Jeff not saying anything. But his presence is essential in my opinion.

This was only his 3rd film credit, and his largest role at the time.

Jeff''s involvement in the film is covered in the superb book The Nashville Chronicles by Jan Stewart (published in 2000; Goodreads link here). It's a really great book if you are fan of this film and want to learn more behind-the-scenes stories, and want to read more interviews with the cast and crew.

As recounted in the book, Robert Altman saw Jeff perform in a play in New York. The play, which opened in 1973, was a musical cabaret/burlesque called El Grande de Coca-Cola. Jeff 's role required him dance, perform magic acts, perform various physical stunts, and play the piano. New York Times theater critic Clive Barnes raved about the show in his 1973 review here. Some photos from the show could be found here from the New York Public Library digital archives, and some newspaper advertisements here from the blog It's All The Streets You Crossed. 

Altman was really impressed with Jeff's talents, and eventually cast him in a small role in his latest film project, California Split (1974). The part required Jeff to fly to California to film his scene, even though it was very brief.  

Altman also wanted Jeff in his next project (Nashville), and told him that his part would involve riding a motorcycle. The script (written by Altman and Joan Tewkesbury) was still in development. In the meantime, Jeff eagerly enrolled in some riding courses in New York to begin practicing for his part, but eventually failed his motorcycle license test.

Nashville began filming on location in the summer of 1974. 

When Jeff arrived on set to start filming, he learned that he now had to ride a longer three-wheeled motor bike. He recalls in The Nashville Chronicles, "I wanted to get as much practice as I could, so I drove it to and from the set. Till I sort of mismanaged my fuel tank one day and it ran out of gas on the highway going to the location." Someone from the local teamsters eventually picked him up.

Surely inspired by the quirkiness of the character in El Grande del Coca Cola, Altman also wanted Jeff to include some magic tricks in the film, but wasn't sure when and where they'd be used.  Jeff practiced a number of new tricks and showed them to Altman, who liked them and asked that he bring the the props on set every day and be ready to perform them when the time came. And he did, silly and wonderfully. 

Because he doesn't speak in the film, he's like a mime; he's either on his bike, enjoying a show, or just hanging out.  I think of his character as being comedic relief when we need him, because a number of storylines delve into some serious subject matter (infidelity, exploitation, racism, etc). 

Just seeing The Tricycle Man do one of his silly tricks every so often brings a smile.  

The film never explains what the character is doing in the city of Nashville. Is he a local? Is he on vacation? I don't think we don't need to know. He's just traveling through. And I'm glad he's there. 

At the end of the book The Nashville Chronicles, the author writes about Jeff: 

Who could have predicted that the strange tall guy on the long bike with the funny glasses would endure as Nashville's most recognizable veteran? But the funny glasses and mute posturing of the Tricycle Man concealed an actor with a slouching sexiness and oddball insouciance that came to the fore time and again in The Big Chill, The Fly, Silverado, Jurassic Park, and Independence Day.

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This blog post is part of the Jeff Goldblum Blogathon hosted by emmakwall (explains it all) and Realweegiemidget Reviews

Robert Altman's A Wedding (1979)

Robert Altman's A Wedding is a humorous wedding satire where a blue collar girl marries into a wealthy family with mob connections.  The humor is a bit dark at times, especially when the matriarch of the higher-class family (Lilian Gish) passes away in her upstairs room of her mansion while the wedding takes place downstairs. Another scene involves a car crash.

The film is discussed by several members of the cast and crew in the book Robert Altman: The Oral Biography by Mitchell Zuckoff (2009, Random House), In the book, screenwriter John Considene remembers that Altman wanted to make a film about "The American wedding industry".  Considene and Altman created over twenty characters and numerous story arcs, carefully planned in advance.  Co-screenwriter Allan Nichols remembers, "If anything A Wedding was about gossip and how gossip spreads and how gossip hurts, and how gossip helps and how gossip kills and how gossip kills the right guy sometimes."  In the same book, Carol Burnett (who plays the mother of the bride) remembers that Altman said to the actors "Please if you have an idea for a scene, come to me with it. I want to hear it. Some of the best scenes in my movies have come from the actors' ideas". 

Altman pledged all of his profits from the film to the proposed Equal Rights Constitutional Amendment, although the profits from the film were not much.

With Mia Farrow, Peggy Ann Garner, Howard Duff, Mia Farrow, Paul Dooley, Geraldine Chaplin, Dina Merril, Lauren Hutten and Desi Arnaz, Jr.