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: Academy Award Nominees
Close (2022)
While the lock for this year’s Best International Feature Film appears to be the fantastically made All Quiet on the Western Front (it’s the only international film nominated in the Best Picture category), 2022 has a slew of movies that may have had a chance to win the category in recent years. Most notable on the list include Argentina’s Argentina, 1985, Ireland’s The Quiet Girl, and Belgium’s Close, director Lukas Dhont’s (Girl) on the loss of innocence.
Women Talking (2022)
Women Talking. That’s entirely what this movie was. Women talking. A more intelligent person than me would have known ahead of time. However, my decision was based on the months of anticipation surrounding this movie’s Oscar-time release and the outstanding critic (90%) and audience (86%) scores it has received. Women Talking was an all-too-familiar example of a movie receiving a Christmas-time release to be as fresh as possible at the start of the awards season, failing to meet its hype. While a good film, Women Talking offers little originality. Sadly, it isn’t very memorable.
The Fabelmans (2022)
Jaws. Close Encounters of the Third Kind. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Raiders of the Lost Ark., Empire of the Son. Jurassic Park. Amistad. Saving Private Ryan. A.I.: Artificial Intelligence. Minority Report. War of the Worlds. Munich. War Horse. Lincoln. The Post. Ready Player One. West Side Story. This massive list of Steven Spielberg-directed movies can be rattled off easily by anyone over 35 who grew up in America. Spielberg could be a synonym for the term “movie director.” However, with 30 full-length featured directing credits already to his name, 2022’s The Fabelmans is the one that is being called, if not semi-biographical, at least his most personal. If that’s true, we get a pretty neat, though not overly sentimental, look at Spielberg’s early influences and how he began honing his craft before becoming the most distinguished director of the last 50 years.
The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)
Dark comedy is not a genre that was made for me. Though there are many exceptions to the rule, the comedies I most enjoy star actors such as Will Ferrell (Old School, The Campaign, Step Brothers, The Other Guys), Adam Sandler (Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, The Waterboy), Jason Segel (I Love You, Man, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, The Five-Year Engagement, Sex Tape, or Ed Helms (The Hangover, We’re the Millers, Vacation). Some of my other favorite comedies are There’s Something About Mary, all three of The original-cast American Pie films, Meet the Parents, Daddy’s Home, Get Him to the Greek, Hall Pass, The Internship, and Long Shot. Some comedies I greatly liked from my adolescence include Uncle Buck, Parenthood, Father of the Bride, Three Amigos, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, The Money Pit, and A League of Their Own.