By Alex McPherson 

Vulgar, shocking, but irresistible, Damien Chazelle’s “Babylon” is a toxic love letter to cinema that’s impossible to look away from, even in its most extreme moments.

Chazelle’s three-hour extravaganza mostly takes place in Hollywood from the late 1920s to 1930s, following actors and below-the-line workers navigating a ruthless world of celebrity as the industry transitions from silent films to talkies.

We begin with Manuel “Manny” Torres (Diego Calva), a Mexican immigrant and aspiring filmmaker working odd jobs for studio bigwigs in the hopes of breaking into the industry himself, transporting an elephant to a party at a Kinescope executive’s mansion. While Manny and helpers try to push their oversized truck up a hill, the elephant proceeds to defecate all over them (the camera gives us an up-close look at the animal’s anus as it’s smeared in feces). Indeed, this outrageous moment accurately reflects the sort of gross-out humor prevalent throughout the entirety of “Babylon” — every type of fluid comes into play during the runtime.

The party Manny’s en route to is, unsurprisingly, completely insane, filmed in unflinching long takes by cinematographer Linus Sandgren. Drugs are plentiful, lewd sex acts take place wherever you look, and enthusiastic partygoers dance as a jazzy band (led by the established musician Sidney Palmer, earnestly played by Jovan Adepo) blares Justin Hurwitz’s jaw-droppingly amazing score. Plus, there’s that elephant. 

Amid the chaos, though, Manny meets the love of his life, a brazen, New Jersey-born starlet named Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie) who crashes the gathering , and who — in between snorting a seemingly never-ending supply of cocaine — draws enough attention to herself that she scores her first film role (the original actor overdosed that night).

Brad Pitt and Diego Calva

Despite any and all red flags, it’s love at first sight for Manny — they’re both outsiders in search of something greater than themselves. In attendance as well is Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt), an alcoholic, womanizing actor who’s made his career in silent films. Manny is tasked with driving him home the next day, and Jack helps him score some assistant jobs on sets. 

As the years tick by and these passionate souls experience soaring highs and cacophonous lows amid the changing tides of entertainment and mental health, “Babylon” refuses to slow down or give viewers time to process the crazy narrative on display.

By juggling so many characters — each encountering different facets of Hollywood’s less-than-glamorous side — the film can’t quite give each of them time to fully sink in, but the tonal whiplash ultimately works to its benefit. By the end, I felt beat up. But just like the ravenous cravings that drive the characters back to the silver screen, I wanted more.

As you can tell, “Babylon” isn’t for everyone. The full-throttle nature of Chazelle’s film will undoubtedly turn off many viewers — but lack of restraint is the point. With hectic editing jumping between characters and years, camerawork full of whip pans, zooms, and dolly shots (calling to mind the early work of Paul Thomas Anderson), and Hurwitz’s aforementioned dynamic music, the film is a near-overwhelming sensory overload.

Scenes of depravity and carnage are accompanied by those showcasing the movie-making process. We see Jack and Nellie shine in their element, all while film crews suffer in the background (some with injuries, or worse) — illustrating the blood, sweat, and tears going into the art we might take for granted. One extended scene featuring Nellie acting on a set that’s trying (and often failing) to record sound smoothly, is sweaty, intense, and darkly hilarious. 

Jean Smart as Elinor St John

The screenplay, by Chazelle, opts for broad satire most of the time, with humor that only sporadically lands. The skewering of studio bigwigs and working conditions is a bit much, to say the least. But again, the brutality serves to underline the idea of cinema being an art we’re drawn to through thick and thin — the power of images being an all-encompassing force of escape and transformation, visualized in the brilliantly trippy ending.  

These characters, with varying degrees of privilege, are swept up into a system that chews them up and spits them out as very different people. They’re shells of who they once were, having sacrificed their well-being for the purpose of entertainment. Manny ascends the corporate ladder, but loses part of his cultural heritage in the process, having to adapt to increasingly repressive policies.

Jack, crestfallen, struggles to accept his dimming star power, and Nellie (with Robbie fully in command of her craft), is chasing the next high (even if that means “fighting” a snake). She’s undeniably talented, yet deeply insecure stemming from a vague yet turbulent childhood and grappling with a misogynistic public sphere.

Li Jun Li plays Lady Fay Zhu and Jovan Adepo (back right) plays Sidney Palmer in Babylon from Paramount Pictures.

Palmer and Lady Fay Zhu (Li Jun Li) contend with racist attitudes, forcing them to “change” to find success. It’s all rather depressing in the end, and it’s true that a more focused approach would have given “Babylon” additional emotional weight, but it effectively shows lives in flux, spiraling toward harsh reckonings.

Also worth noting are smaller turns from Jean Smart as an intelligent yet unhinged gossip columnist named Elinor St. John, a stressed-out Flea as a studio fixer, and Tobey Maguire as a skin-crawling mob boss James McKay. The whole ensemble — some heavily exaggerated, others more down-to-earth — perfectly fits this wild-and-woolly tale.

This is a maximalist, boundary-pushing, and meaty film to digest. Overstuffed though it is, “Babylon” is a thrill to watch, with assured direction and style out the wazoo. Fair warning, though: if you have a weak stomach, avoid at all costs.

“Babylon” is a 2022 drama written and directed by Damien Chazelle and starring Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Diego Calva and Jean Smart. It is rated R for strong and crude sexual content, graphic nudity, bloody violence, drug use, and pervasive language and the runtime is 3 hours, 9 minutes. It opened in theaters Dec. 23. Alex’s Grade: A-

By Lynn Venhaus

Loud, vulgar, and hollow, “Babylon” is an excessive look at nascent Hollywood without much to say and even less to feel despite its 189-minutes run time.

The drama traces the rise and fall of multiple characters during the silent-to-talking pictures era in early Hollywood, focusing on uninhibited decadence and depravity.

Meant to both celebrate Tinsel Town as a dream factory and to pull back the curtain on a morally bankrupt culture, “Babylon” is a cumbersome mess from writer-director Damien Chazelle, who has crafted pretty images – and some disgusting things that you can’t unsee — in a story without heart or soul.

Chazelle, the youngest Best Director in Oscar history for “La la Land,” when he was 32, has tackled a behind-the-scenes look at aspiring hopefuls in the industry before. But while that opus had characters you cared about and was sprinkled with pixie dust, the five storylines in this frenzied panorama are callous caricatures of ambition and downward spirals.

Brad Pitt appears to be on automatic pilot as hard-drinking matinee idol Jack Conrad, a suave player with a trail of ex-wives. Margot Robbie is dialed up to 11 as coarse New Jersey-born Nellie La Roy, a combative, self-destructive starlet. Newcomer Diego Calva stands out as dreamer Manny Torres, who becomes useful as a studio ‘fixer’ but is unfinished as a character. Jovan Adepo is gut-wrenching as Sidney Powell, a black bandleader facing demeaning requests – in a too-brief storyline. And Jean Smart has one showy scene as Elinor St. John, a powerful gossip columnist modeled after Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons, but otherwise her performance is perfunctory.

Tobey Maguire

That results in a very busy scenario, with a sprawling cast. Tobey Maguire has an unsettling cameo as a degenerate who thrives on sleaze. And blink and you’ll miss Olivia Wilde as one of Jack’s wives, Katherine Waterston as one of his soon-to-be ex’s, Max Minghella as Irving Thalberg and Chloe Fineman as Marion Davies.

The opening 30-minutes are a shocking display of debauchery – those squeamish about bodily fluids, you are warned — and it gets worse from there, but is there anything new to say in concentrating on bizarre grotesqueness and cocaine-fueled party guests?

If you are familiar with Kenneth Anger’s tawdry tattletale, “Hollywood Babylon,” published in 1959 but so controversial that it was unavailable 1965-1975, and its follow-up in 1984, then you’ve read about the headline-grabbing bad behavior of fame-seekers in that era.

The film begins in 1926, then depicts how the change to talkies affected the business. In perhaps the best scene, the problems in the transition wreak havoc on a set with La Roy the ingenue. Frustration leads to more belligerent actions and escalating tirades, and a casualty happens that’s treated so cavalierly, it’s just hard to wrap your head around the attitudes.

The film’s assorted narcissists, posers, and hangers-on — people who may have sold their souls and are drawn, like moths to a flame, to the star-making machinery – eventually burn out or fade away. But Chazelle cheats us with an unsatisfactory wrap-up of their fates in a puzzling finale.

A stunning presence on screen, Robbie demands attention as someone who craves the spotlight but loses her luster when she has too many walks on the wild side. She has played complicated women before – Tonya Harding in “I, Tonya” and Harley Quinn in “Suicide Squad” and “Birds of Prey,” but it’s hard to muster sympathy for such an unlikable character as vainglorious Nellie.

Take away the outrageous examples of living out loud and the gross-outs (projectile vomit, bone-crunching rat-eating, kinky sex acts and funhouse freaks), “Babylon” is hard to figure out the endgame. Why should we care?

Technically, the artisan work is first-rate. Justin Hurwitz’s jazzy propulsive score captures the hedonistic time while cinematographer Linus Sandgren goes big on a grandiose scale, as does production designer Florencia Martin. The man-made opulence contrasts with the undeveloped Southern California hillsides that the cinema pioneers used for their sandboxes and playgrounds.

Above all, disappointment rests with Chazelle, who needed to get out of his own way – and pick a lane. You can’t have it both ways. He demonstrated such a flair for imaginative storytelling in “Whiplash,” “La la Land,” and “First Man,” that “Babylon” made me angry. He took the joy out of make-believe, which is his point, I suppose, but made it repulsive.

We need the magic of movies as an escape from cruel everyday realities, to engage us with flights of fancy. “Babylon” collapses from the weight of its ambition, a nihilistic abyss. It’s a colossal waste of time, talent, and money.

“Babylon” is a 2022 drama written and directed by Damien Chazelle and starring Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Diego Calva and Jean Smart. It is rated R for strong and crude sexual content, graphic nudity, bloody violence, drug use, and pervasive language and the runtime is 3 hours, 9 minutes. It opened in theaters Dec. 23. Lynn’s Grade: D.

Margot Robbie plays Nellie LaRoy and Diego Calva plays Manny Torres in Babylon from Paramount Pictures.

Jamie Lee Curtis to Host Lionsgate Live! A Night at the Movies to Help Furloughed Movie Theater Employees

“The Hunger Games,” “Dirty Dancing,” “La La Land,” and “John Wick” Will Livestream

Global content leader Lionsgate (NYSE: LGF.A, LGF.B) announced today that the studio will honor the communal experience of watching movies in movie theaters and support the people who make those places great with a special program that reminds everyone how much we love going to the cinema. The studio is presenting Lionsgate Live! A Night at the Movies, a program of four Fridays of free movies streaming live on YouTube. 

Beginning this Friday and continuing every Friday spanning four consecutive weeks, the studio will team with Fandango and YouTube to livestream four of Lionsgate’s most popular library titles – the blockbuster The Hunger Games, the classic Dirty Dancing, the Academy Award®-winning La La Land, and the box office smash John Wick – on Lionsgate’s YouTube page and Fandango’s Movieclips YouTube page

Lionsgate Live! A Night at the Movies will be hosted by Jamie Lee Curtis. Curtis will share her own movie memories as she is joined by special guest celebrities and YouTube personalities. Each week’s night at the movies will feature special programming and interactive opportunities for fans, like real-time fan chats via YouTube Live, live tweeting @Lionsgate and partners, and shared fan engagement opportunities in-show, including movie trivia, movie-themed challenges, and more.

The Hunger Games

Most importantly, audiences everywhere will have the chance to join Lionsgate in showing support for the country’s temporarily jobless movie theater employees and how much we all appreciate and miss them. Lionsgate’s initial donation as well as the audience and partner donations throughout this event will benefit the Will Rogers Motion Picture Pioneers Foundation, an organization dedicated to helping workers throughout the motion picture industry, and will link to the Foundation’s charitable page so that viewers who are able can help as well. The Will Rogers Foundation is currently providing financial assistance to theater employees furloughed by the COVID-19 crisis.

The free movies that will livestream on Fridays at 6:00pm PT/9:00pm ET are:

April 17 – “The Hunger Games” 

April 24 – “Dirty Dancing”

May 1 – “La La Land” 

May 8 – “John Wick” (age registration required)

John Wick

To present the live movie event, Lionsgate is joining with some of its most dedicated partners like Fandango and important exhibition partners such as the National Association of Theatre Owners, AMC Theatres, Regal, and Cinemark Theatres, among other regional circuits. And what’s a movie without popcorn and snacks? Popcornopolis, purveyors of gourmet popcorn and “known for the cone,” will support with a consumer movie night offer, with 10% of sales donated to the Will Rogers Motion Picture Pioneers Foundation. And SnackNation, the country’s leading provider of better-for-you snacks, drinks, and coffee for the home and office, will curate a movie-themed snack box with a special price and free shipping.

“There’s nothing that will replace the magic of seeing a movie together with your fellow moviegoers in a theater on a big screen, but this is a chance for America to come together to recreate the experience,” said Joe Drake, chairman, Lionsgate Motion Picture Group. “This is a great chance to show the country’s theatrical employees how much we miss going to their theaters and how much we support them. Jamie Lee Curtis – a woman who literally grew up with the movies and movie theaters – is one of the world’s biggest movie fans, so it’s a real thrill that she’ll be our host for this event. Let’s have some fun watching some classic movies together at home while celebrating moviegoing!”

Dirty Dancing

John Fithian, president and CEO, National Association of Theatre Owners, added, “Throughout the 125-year history of the cinema, this is the first time that movie theaters have been shut down across the country. Whether it was the Depression, wars, disasters, or local calamities, movie theaters have always been a gathering place where audiences can come together to laugh and be moved, reacting as one, to put their troubles behind them or forget about their hard week at work, and just get lost in the amazing stories on the big screen. Until we can gather again in our nation’s theaters, we’re grateful to Lionsgate for honoring the theatrical moviegoing experience and we are thrilled to join together with them over these next four Fridays, not only to see four classic movies for free, but also to allow fans and celebrities to share their own moviegoing memories. We love that so many people will be talking about what makes going to the movies so unique and memorable.”

ABOUT LIONSGATE

The first major new studio in decades, Lionsgate is a global content leader whose films, television series, digital products and linear and over-the-top platforms reach next generation audiences around the world. Lionsgate film and television properties also support a global network of location-based entertainment and other branded attractions as well as a robust video game business. Lionsgate’s content initiatives are backed by a nearly 17,000-title film and television library and delivered through a global sales and distribution infrastructure. The Lionsgate brand is synonymous with original, daring and ground-breaking content created with special emphasis on the evolving patterns and diverse composition of the Company’s worldwide consumer base.