BABYLON : Tuesday 24th January 2023.

'BABYLON', which I saw earlier this week at my local multiplex, is an MA15+ Rated American epic period comedy-drama film Written and Directed by Damien Chazelle, whose prior film making credits take in the highly acclaimed and multi-award winning 'Whiplash' in 2014, 'La La Land' in 2016 and 'First Man' in 2018. 'Babylon' saw its World Premier in Los Angeles in mid-December before its US release on 23rd December, and has divided critics with those who generally praised the cinematography, editing, score, and performances, but were divided on its screenplay, direction, graphic content, and runtime. The film cost US$78M to produce and has so far recouped US$31M but received five nominations for the 80th Golden Globe Awards and won one for Best Original Score, and nine nominations at the 28th Critics' Choice Awards winning one for Best Production Design. So far the film has won twenty-nine awards and been nominated a further 138 times (some of which are still pending an outcome from future awards ceremonies). The film has a run time of three hours and nine minutes.

The film opens up in Bel Air, California in 1926 with Mexican immigrant Manuel 'Manny' Torres (Diego Calva) helping to transport an elephant to a debauched, drug-fueled party at a Kinoscope Studios executive's isolated mansion in the Hollywood hills.

Later that evening the party, which by now is in full swing, is gate crashed by Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie) and Manny very quickly becomes smitten with the very brash, overtly ambitious self-appointed 'star' from New Jersey. Upon meeting her and snorting a few lines of coke together, Manny states that he wishes to be part of something bigger. Meanwhile, Jane Thornton (Phoebe Tonkin) has overdosed on drugs during a golden shower routine on obese Actor Orville Pickwick (Troy Metcalf) and has the elephant walked through the room full of debauched party goers in order to distract them, while he helps carry the comatose girl out to her car and away to the nearest hospital.

Also at the lavish and out of control party are Chinese-American lesbian cabaret singer and title card writer Lady Fay Zhu (Li Jun Li), and African-American jazz trumpeter Sidney Palmer (Jovan Adepo). The flamboyantly-dancing Nellie is spotted and swiftly recruited to replace Jane Thornton in a Kinoscope film having been told that she needs to be on set at 8:00am the next morning. Manny is introduced to and befriends Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt), a benevolent yet troubled, several times married film star. Manny drives a drunken Jack home early the next morning. Jack is also due on set that morning and he asks Manny if he has ever been on a film set, to which he responds with 'no'. Jack helps Manny secure general assistant jobs at Kinoscope, which he manages to complete all tasks asked of him with seemingly relative ease and as a result quickly climbs the ladder within the studio system.

Nellie becomes almost an overnight sensation, turning her into the latest 'it girl', and is keenly covered by gossip columnist Elinor St. John (Jean Smart), who also follows Jack's career. As Al Jolson's 'The Jazz Singer' heralded in sound film so replacing silent movies from 1927 onward, Manny skillfully adapts to such technical changes, eventually gaining Directing jobs. Nellie struggles to navigate sound film's demands, and increases her drug use and reckless gambling, tarnishing her reputation despite Manny's seemingly unwavering assistance and persistence.

Nellie, hires her father Robert Roy (Eric Roberts) as her Business Manager. One night at a party together he tells many of the gathered guests of the time he fought a snake and lived to tell the tale. Nellie perks up and publicly asks everyone if they want to see her Dad fight a rattlesnake. Jack shouts out 'Hell yeah!' and so they drive out into the desert until they come across a rattle snake. As Robert siddles up to the snake he passes out in a drunken stupor and so she fights the snake, which bites her neck, and she passes out. Fay kills it by chopping off its head and sucks out the venom and when Nellie comes around a few moments later passionately kisses Fay. While running lines with his new wife Estelle (Katherine Waterstone), Jack is devastated to learn his longtime friend and Producer, George Munn (Lukas Haas), has committed suicide.

Come 1932, and Jack begins to feel that his popularity has waned since the advent of the 'talkies' and following a couple of Box Office failures. However, he still works in low-budget MGM films. Meanwhile, Sidney has secured his own musical film and orchestra, but is offended when Manny requests he use blackface makeup to darken his skin because under the studio lights he almost appears white, and the picture needs to appeal to Southern audiences. After finishing the film, Sidney leaves Kinoscope and goes back to his roots playing small gigs in bars and clubs. As Hollywood becomes less free thinking and free-doing, studio executives tell Manny to fire Fay, the Kinoscope title writer, because of her perceived lesbian affair with Nellie and the fact that movies no longer need title cards. 

Elinor and Manny attempt to rejuvenate Nellie's image by giving her elocution and deportment lessons so that she can fit in to Hollywood's high society and re-establish her career, but Nellie pushes back against upper-class snobbery at a party, ultimately vomiting violently on the host, and shaming the two people who gave her a second chance. 

Jack tries to call MGM Studio Producer Irving Thalberg (Max Minghella) but is put off several times by his Secretary, telling him to call back at 1:00pm and then at 4:00pm. After 4:00pm and being told that Thalberg had left for the day, Jack drives over to Thalberg's office to find it empty but he finds a magazine with the cover story by Elinor about his declining popularity and confronts her. She explains that his star may have faded, but he will be forever remembered on celluloid. 

Meanwhile, eccentric gangster James McKay (Tobey Maguire) threatens Nellie's life over her accumulated US$85K gambling debt. Manny initially rejects her pleas for help, but later secures funds from on-set drug pusher and aspiring actor 'The Count' (Rory Scovel), and visits McKay with him to pay off Nellie's debt. McKay begins by pitching three outlandish ideas he has for movies. Manny starts to panic upon learning that the money is fake, made by his own prop-maker. McKay invites the men to an underground gathering space for debauched parties and they go, albeit very reluctantly. When McKay realises the cash is fake, he attempts to kill them, but they narrowly escape in a hail of bullets, killing McKay's henchman Wilson (Ethan Suplee) in the process.

After everything that Nellie has put Manny through, he still asks her to flee with him to Mexico, get married, and start a new life together. She resists, but eventually agrees. However, McKay's associate tracks Manny down as he was gathering up a few possessions, shooting The Count and his roommate dead but sparing Manny's life if Manny leaves Los Angeles straight away and never returns. Meanwhile, oblivious to this, Nellie reneges on her decision and dances away into the night. 

Jack encounters Fay at a hotel party at which she reveals she is leaving for new opportunities in Europe. After saying their farewells, a downhearted Jack returns to his hotel room, picks up his revolver, walks into the bathroom and shoots himself dead. A montage reveals newspaper clippings detailing Nellie being found dead in a hotel room at age 34, and Elinor's death at age 76.

We then fast forward to 1952, and Manny returns to Hollywood, California with his wife and young daughter, having fled to New York City and opened his own radio shop. He shows them the Kinoscope Studios entrance, and visits a nearby cinema alone to see 'Singin' in the Rain', where the film's depiction of the industry's transition from silents to talkies moves him to tears. Then, the last one hundred years or so of big screen entertainment taking in clips from '2001 : A Space Odyssey' to 'Terminator 2' right up to 'Avatar' follows as the focus finally returns to 'Singin' in the Rain' and Manny smiles through his tears.

'Babylon' is way too long for its own good, and Writer Director Damien Chazelle could easily have shown more restraint by slicing off thirty minutes of this three hour+ ode to old Hollywood rather than the self-indulgent nod to early cinema that is sure delight cineastes everywhere nonetheless. That said, the production values on display here are first rate; Pitt, Robbie and Calva shine in their roles; and there are some genuine laugh out loud moments here but it's also easy to see where audiences and critics have been divided in their opinions and why those audiences have decided to vote with their feet rather than their bums on seats. 'Babylon' is brash, bold, hedonistic and all credit to Chazelle for going out on a limb to make this ambitious film but I left the theatre feeling a little 'meh!' about the whole thing and how it's mostly all style over substance.

'Babylon' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a potential five claps.

-Steve at Odeon Online-

DOG : Tuesday 22nd March 2022.

'DOG', which I saw at my local independent movie theatre this week, is an M Rated American comedy drama film, and is Directed and Co-Produced by Channing Tatum and Reid Carolin with the latter also having story and screenplay credits, and with both making their directorial debuts. The film was originally slated for its release in the US in mid-February 2021 but was pushed back to mid-July, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and then pushed back again to 18th February 2022 in the US and to last week in Australia. The film has garnered positive critical reviews and has so far grossed US$66M off the back of a US$15M production budget. 

The film opens up with Jackson Briggs (Channing Tatum) wielding an axe down on logs for firewood in his snow covered cabin somewhere in the hills beyond Washington. He receives a call and suddenly his mood changes. Next up he is seen at a bar with other Army Rangers officers celebrating the life of a fellow soldier who has suddenly passed away. After an evening on the turps, Briggs asks Officer Jones (Luke Forbes) for his sign off to be readmitted to the Army Rangers following being medically discharged some time ago. Briggs is desperate to get back to active duty and to do what he does best, but has been turned down several times already, needing sign off from an Officer, all of whom seem reluctant to give. 

Finally, Officer Jones hauls Briggs out of the back of his old Ford Bronco truck where he crashed out the night before, saying that he will authorise Briggs reinstatement if he agrees to perform one important task. That task is to deliver an Army dog, named Lulu, a Belgian Malinois, down the Pacific Coast from Joint Base Lewis–McChord in Washington to Nogales, Arizona in time to attend her handler's funeral. This he must do without any upset, mistakes or trouble along the way, the dog must be delivered safe and healthy, and he must be on time. Otherwise, no reinstatement! The only issue is, is that Lulu has become so traumatised by her active service in the Army Rangers battle zones, that no one dare go near her - as she has already hospitalised three men and is now deemed to be unsalvageable, and for the journey she is to be kept muzzled, on a leash, and following the funeral put-down. 

Reluctantly Briggs agrees, after all he will do almost anything to get back into the Army Rangers. Following further advice not to let Lulu near any one else, or another animal, and to not touch her ears Briggs and his canine companion begin their 1700 mile journey due south in Briggs 1984 Ford Bronco. 

Of course, the journey down to Arizona via Portland, San Francisco and Los Angeles does not go without its fair share of upset, mistakes and trouble along the way. This includes a brief soujourn at a gun club in which Briggs practices his pistol shooting skills while Lulu breaks out of her cage and sets about ripping the trucks seat upholstery to pieces. Then in Portland, Briggs heads to a bar where he has several unsuccessful attempts to pick up women, but then when he thinks he has struck pay dirt with two likely girls who practice tantra the possibility of an evening of pleasure is interrupted by a guy outside trying to quiet Lulu's incessant barking down, and who ultimately throws a rock smashing the back window of the truck. When Lulu jumps through the window and attacks the rock throwing assailant, the girls quickly disappear back inside their house wanting nothing more to do with Briggs. 

Then in San Francisco, Briggs decides he has a plan to stay in a lavish hotel for the night so that Lulu can sleep on a comfortable bed. Briggs decides to act as a blind ex-serviceman and so is granted a penthouse suite at no cost. After settling in, sharing a bath together, ordering room service, Briggs is all suited and booted for a night on the town, and leaves Lulu behind, but Lulu wants to tag along. In the hotel lobby, Lulu charges of her leash with Briggs giving chase, and attacks a man wearing Middle Eastern robes. After the francas Briggs promptly announces in the lobby now packed full of onlookers that all of a sudden he can see! He is promptly arrested and the dog impounded, with no resolution in sight until Monday, and the funeral is on Sunday. Briggs comes clean about his rouse, offers to confess, but states he needs to be somewhere very important by Sunday with the dog, at which point he is let off the hook and allowed to continue with his journey. 

In Los Angeles, Briggs visits his former wife Niki (Q'orianka Kilcher) and his three years old daughter Sam whom he is estranged from. Needless to say that visit does not go well. He then visits Lulu's brother Duke, who had been adopted by another former Army Ranger Noah (Ethan Suplee) who has spent the last six months retraining Duke in how to adapt to humans. Noah gives Briggs some insight into how he can retrain Lulu. When its time to leave, Briggs discovers that his truck has been broken into and all of the possessions belonging to his former colleague Rodriguez have been stolen, including his jacket, his back pack and most importantly his field diary detailing his exploits with Lulu in the field. Noah, Briggs, Lulu and Duke all go on the hunt for the perpetrator with the dogs sniffing out the scent from the dog tags as worn by Rodriguez. They catch up with the thief who is living under a bridge and who claims that he is a war vet and that the possessions are his, but Briggs quickly puts him in his place. 

Continuing their journey south on the wide open road, at night and in the pouring rain, the Ford Bronco blows a gasket and Briggs and Lulu have to abandon the truck and walk. They find an old barn and take shelter there for the night while the rain lashes down with thunder claps and lighting strikes all around them, which unsettles Lulu. At sun up the next morning, the pair head off with Briggs having to physically carry Lulu on his back, because the dog is too exhausted to continue walking. They reach the funeral, as it has already begun. Lulu who is kept on a leash is released and she goes and rests her head on Rodriguez's boots as his coffin is laid to rest with full military honours.

That night, laid up in some cheap motel, Briggs wakes, stumbles into the bathroom and has a seizure. Lulu looks on with doleful eyes. Briggs in time comes round and crawls out of the bathroom eventually falling asleep on the floor, with Lulu resting her head on his chest. The next morning with the truck now repaired, Briggs arrives at the local Army base to hand Lulu over to be put down. He hands her over with a heavy heart having called Officer Jones saying that she has changed and that he should think again about having her put down. But Jones is steadfast. Briggs drives out of the base but in his rear view mirror sees that Lulu is rebelling against her new captors. He halts the Bronco, reverses, collects the dog, and drives out of there. 

'Dog' is a fairly predictable tale of one man's and one canine's road to redemption having both suffered at the hands of PTSD, suicide and both the physical and emotional scars of war. Channing Tatum portrays the lost and wounded former soldier keen to get back into the ranks with his colleagues very well with the emotional heft, the light hearted dialogue and the humorous quips that make his performance all the more realistic, rather than playing this just for laughs and downgrading the film into the realms of kid friendly fare, which this film definitely is not. For first time Directors and Writer Carolin, the pair have proven their ability to deliver a film with a message of overcoming adversity, man and animal bonding all wrapped up in a buddy road trip movie that is a heartwarming crowd pleaser. 

'Dog' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard out of a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-