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-

OVERLORD : Tuesday 18th December 2018.

I saw 'OVERLORD' this week, and here we have an American WWII horror offering that spins a new slant on the historical D-Day Landings. Directed by Western Australian Julius Avery, whose only other feature so far has been 'Son of a Gun' in 2014, this film is Co-Produced by J.J. Abrams and is set on the eve of D-Day. Initially thought to be the fourth instalment in the 'Cloverfield' series, this rumour was subsequently denied by Abrams earlier in 2018. The film was released in the US on 9th November, cost US$38M to make, has so far grossed US$42M and has generated mixed or average Reviews so far.

On the eve of D-Day in early June 1944, American paratroopers are preparing to drop in behind enemy lines to penetrate the walls of a fortified church and destroy a radio transmitter. When their plane is shot down the five remaining soldiers Corporal Ford (Wyatt Russell), Private Boyce (Jovan Adepo), sniper Tibbet (John Magaro), photographer Chase (Iain De Caestecker) and Dawson (Jacob Anderson) must continue on foot.

When Dawson inadvertently steps on a landmine and is killed, the remaining four must continue steadfastly onward. In doing so they encounter French woman Chloe (Mathilde Ollivier) who agrees to escort the group to their ultimate destination. They learn en route that Chloe lives with her younger brother Paul (Gianny Taufer) and her aunt who was the subject of Nazi experiments in the vicinity of the church and has consequently been horribly disfigured and is in serious ill health. The group arrive at Chloe's home in the village where the church is located, and take time to take stock of their munitions and rest up, agreeing to start their mission at 3:00am, and have the church destroyed to rubble by 6:00am - the planned time of the commencement of the allied forces landings on the coast of Normandy.

Corporal Ford orders Tibbet and Chase to check on the planned rendezvous site in the event that any of the other soldiers from their downed aircraft survived and made it. Meanwhile, Ford and Boyce hang back while a routine inspection is conduced on the household by a Nazi patrol, led by SS Hauptsturmführer Wafner (Pilou Asbaek). The two soldiers remain motionless upstairs in the attic looking down on the unfolding events below through cracks in the floorboards. When Wafner attempts to rape Chloe, Boyce intervenes and they take him prisoner, with Ford rendering the Nazi Officer unconscious with a swift headbutt.

Boyce goes off in search of Tibbet and Chase to the rendezvous point, but en route comes close to the perimeter fence of the church. There he sees a cart load of naked disfigured bodies all lined up and torched several time with two flamethrowers, overseen by some official looking doctor type wearing spectacles and a white coat. Boyce is chased down by a very angry dog, and hot on his heels he manages to evade attack by jumping into the back of a truck containing the dead bodies of several of his paratrooper colleagues. The truck passes through the heavily fortified gates of the church, and the bodies are unloaded by two German soldiers. Boyce escapes the truck and begins to snoop around. He comes across a lab where seemingly bizarre experiments are being undertaken on humans.

Boyce is shocked and horrified by what he has witnessed and notices a black tar like substance that is rising up from under ground that seems to be distilled into some kind of serum, which is being injected into the less than willing patients. Boyce takes a sample of the serum already prepped up in a syringe, and rescues Rosenfeld (Dominic Applewhite) a fellow paratrooper being prepped up for experimentation, who was captured by the Nazis. The pair escape the church building through a waste tunnel.

Boyce and Rosenfeld make it back to Chloe's house, where Rosenfeld has his wounds attended to. Wafner refuses to explain what the serum is when questioned and as a result is strung up and gets a serious beating at the hands of Ford. As the squad prepare their assault on the church, Wafner attempts to escape, shooting and killing Chase in the process. Boyce is distraught by his death, and seeing the syringe close to hand injects Chase with the serum. Within minutes the serum brings Chase back to life, but he immediately begins to mutate, showing inhuman strength, a resistance to rapid close quarter gunfire, and turns hostile, forcing Boyce to pulverise his head with his rifle butt to stop him. In the ensuing chaos, Wafner escapes taking Paul as hostage, although he sustains a serious gunshot wound to his face by Ford in the subsequent shootout.

With time quickly ticking down the zero hour of 6:00am, Boyce convinces Ford that their priority must be to destroy the underground laboratories. So Tibbet and Rosenfeld are dispatched to create as much mayhem as they can at the main entrance and kill as many pesky Nazi's as the can possibly mow down between them, leaving Ford, Boyce and Chloe to enter the church through the same waste tunnel that Boyce had fled from earlier. Ford and Boyce split up to plant explosive charges - Ford to the radio control room and Boyce to the labs, while Chloe goes off in search of brother Paul.

While setting the charges, Ford is attacked by a mutated Wafner, who had previously injected himself with a potent mix of untested serums, which gave him near superhuman strength, the ability to heal his wounds while driving him increasingly insane. A fight breaks out and Wafner this time gains the upper hand. Boyce intervenes and is able to distract Wafner, so allowing the now badly injured Ford to inject himself with a sample of the serum.

They fight again, but the combination of Boyce and Ford this time forces Wafner down the pit where the compound was discovered courtesy of a gas bottle explosion. Wafner is down but he's not out, and in the ensuing minutes it takes Wafner to climb out of the pit, a badly injured Ford forces Boyce to leave him behind to finish what he started. Ford ignites a fuse to a stick of gelignite and waits for an advancing Wafner and now a number of other Nazi soldiers risen from the dead to approach, before kaboom!

Boyce successfully blows up the laboratory and with it the radio tower and the church escaping just in time for the church and radio tower to collapse behind him in a ball of flame and rubble. Following the destruction of the said target building, Boyce reports in to his commanding officer who has set up a base in the village, that is was Ford's decision to lay the explosives inside the church rather than outside to ensure its destruction, while electing to not mention the serum or the lab as Ford believed that neither side should have ownership of such a product. The officer in charge accepts Boyce's recounting of the story, and advises him that his company, what remains, will be reassigned to a new company as the war rages on.

'Overlord' starts out as any WWII actioner might, with a plane carrying its cargo of Uncle Sam's paratroopers flying over enemy lines at night with a clear cut mission in mind. As the tension mounts and the sky all around turns orange as the enemy anti-aircraft fire explodes in comic book colours of that era creating mayhem aboard and downing a squadron of airborne troop carriers wiping out too many lives in an instant, you just get a sense that this film is gonna be in yer face! And this where the normalcy of a war film of the modern era comes to an end, giving way to a horror Sci-Fi mash-up that delivers on the body horror, the gore and the nigh on immortal almost indestructible Nazi soldiers and French locals that are the subjects of clandestine underground laboratory experiments. The film is good fun, at times intense, often completely insane, the FX are well executed and it provides an alternate D-Day Landing account possibly like none you have ever seen before . . . . which is no bad thing! That said, it was not quite the horror gore fest I was imagining, and Boyce as the lead character seems as indestructible as those other antagonists all around him and manages to stumble around the old church with all its hidden secrets for the duration with nary a scrape. That said, for lovers of WWII actioners, blood and gore, wanton death and destruction underpinned by a reasonably tightly woven (alternative) story, then this is the film for you.

'Overlord' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard, from a possible five.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-