Love it or hate it. There isn’t much middle ground or neutrality regarding Damien Chazelle’s (La La Land, First Man) divisive Babylon, a fantastical look at the debaucherous look at the rise and fall of the Hollywood movie industry during the 1920s. While some might believe its 56% /52 % scores on Rotten Tomatoes suggest it’s an ordinary movie, those average scores may result from people either loving or hating it. I enjoyed the movie. It is far from being in my top ten of the year. With only a couple of 2022 films left to watch, Babylon sits at #16 (out of the 74 2022-released films I’ve seen). It’s a fine film and one that is worth viewing.
Category Archives: Jovan Adepo
Overlord (2018)
Any great movie years needs a variety of different types of movies. First, you have to have massive heavyweights during Oscar season. Second, you need to have a handful of movies excluded from contention simply because there isn’t enough room. These would be movies that, during a normal, might not just be considered for a nomination but might win some. These are movies that when you look at your Top 10 list at the end of the year and don’t see that film’s title make you scratch your head until you see the list of titles there instead, and then you say to yourself, “Okay, that makes sense.” Third, I think a great movie year needs to have at least one memorable comedy and one memorable horror as well. I am not a huge documentary guy (I like them but don’t see them in the theater and don’t review them). I often refer to 2010 as being the best year for movies in my lifetime. It hit, mostly, all of the above criteria. With under-the-radar terror films like Devil, The Reef, and Frozen…and I’m not talking about the Elsa and Anna Frozen, it had enough of the horror (seriously, see the ski-lift movie called Frozen). I was worried about the comedies of that year at first, but The Other Guys, Date Night, and Get Him to the Greek checked this checkbox. And then there were amazing movies like True Grit and The Kids Are All Right that would have made most year’s Top 10 List. The final category of a great movie year is being hit by great movies that flew completely under the radar. 2010 had both Rabbit Hole and Love and Other Drugs to fight that category. 2018 has at least one of those under the radar gems with the surprise audience and critic hit Overlord.
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mother! (2017)
There are two different types of people in the world. There is the group of people who, when asked if they’ve seen Darren Aronofsky’s (The Wrestler, Black Swan) mother, will say no. And then there is the group of people who kind of look at you with a bizarre look on their face and shamingly say, “Yeah,” and hope that you don’t ask any follow-up questions. And that’s not to say they are embarrassed by admitting that they’ve seen the movie (we’ve all been at a theater before when we walk out with our heads down, hoping that we don’t see anybody that we know because we don’t want them to know we just paid to see a movie that was THAT bad), but because the film is so far out there that a follow-up question asking the person what they thought about it or if they liked it might allow them to draw conclusions about us. Aronofsky makes movies that you either love or hate. I absolutely adored The Wrestler and Black Swan but passionately hated Noah. I have a certain respect for Requiem for a Dream and have desperately tried but have been unsuccessful in my attempts to sit through The Fountain. If you have not liked a single one of the movies that I just referenced, I can almost guarantee your experience with mother! will not be an enjoyable one. However, if have liked one or more of the five previously mentioned film and are willing to go into mother! I cannot promise that you’ll enjoy it with an open mind, but I do think you will appreciate it. I found myself appreciating it far more than enjoying it, but I THINK I still enjoyed it. I will say this…the film started as a normal film might start, but ended differently than any film I’ve seen before. And the entire time, I could not look away from the screen. This film absolutely offers something that you just haven’t seen before, especially with a cast as magnificent as this one.
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Fences (2016)
We all know about Alonzo Harris (Training Day). Most of us know about Frank Lucas (American Gangster). Some of us even know Tobin Frost (Safe House). Add Troy Maxson to that list of vile characters portrayed by Denzel Washington. Okay, so the character he portrays in Fences (a movie he also directed) isn’t AS bad as the characters portrayed in those aforementioned films. He’s a different kind of bad. There is some good in Troy. I think he means well. But he is a complete hypocrite. He talks about doing right by others, providing for his family, and teaching them the importance of right over wrong. But in the end, Troy does only things that fill his massive ego. And in doing so, he hurts every single person who has ever cared for him.
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