Babylon

Babylon (2022)

Written and directed by Damien Chazelle

Stars: Diego Calva, Margot Robbie, Brad Pitt, Jean Smart, Jovan Adepo, Li Jin Li, Lukas Haas, Olivia Wilde, Tobey Maguire, and Flea

After the miserable experience of watching La La Land earlier this year, my expectations for this movie were very low. Hearing the mixed reception of the movie during TIFF, I believe. People either loved the movie or hated it. I was in the middle with it.

Touted as the love letter to the movies like Empire of Light or The Fabelmans did before it, this completes that unexpected trilogy. Taking place during the waning times of the silence film era Hollywood. Drugs, booze and hedonism was in full effect. The most unlikely of people; an aspiring filmmaker, Manny (Calva), an actress Nellie (Robbie), and an aging silent film star, Jack Conrad (Pitt) lives intersect with hilarious, disastrous results.

Seeing the movie is like you are in a fever dream. I kept thinking, did I just see that? Did that happen? What am I looking at?

The first half of the movie is like a roller coaster ride. You bolt out like a bat out of hell. Your head is spinning. Everything is a blur. Then, the second half of the movie slows way down. You are returning back to the starting position. That's where the movie lost me. I thought the movie was going to be nonstop debauchery from start to finish. It was not.

It felt confused to me. It seems that Chazelle threw everything at the wall to find something to stick. Not all of it did. A couple of characters in the movie could have been cut from the movie.

Out of the performance that have been nominated for awards so far, I have enjoyed Calva's performance more that Robbie's. He was hell of lot better than Pitt's.

The movie looked good, but it was not cohesive enough for me to recommend people watch it.

Rating: 7/10

Best Picture Nominee Catch Up Movie: Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood

Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood (2019)

Written and directed by Quentin Tarantino

Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Margaret Qualley, Austin Butler, Dakota Fanning, Bruce Dern, Mike Moh, Luke Perry, Rafal Zawierucha, Julia Butters, Emile Hirsch, Timothy Olyphant, Damian Lewis and Al Pacino

This is the only Tarantino film that I did not see. I am very glad that I did not see this at the movie theater, because I would have walked out.

During the waning days of the Golden Age of Hollywood, the movie follows, an aging television star Rick Dalton (DiCaprio) and his stunt double Cliff Booth (Pitt) as they meander throughout a couple of days in their lives.

I never thought these words would come out of my mouth, but this Quentin Tarantino film is boring. It's understandable that he wanted to encapsulate the heyday of Hollywood. There are better films that have done it better.

I paused the movie, did things that were more enjoyable than sitting through this. I yawned multiple times watching this. Nothing happens through most of this bloated movie. I didn't care about any of the characters. Why does this story need to be told? Tarantino did revisionist history before with greater success. 

There have a been noticeable decline in the quality of his movies as of late. I did not care for The Hateful Eight nor this film. I'm not that excited for supposedly Tarantino's tenth and final film, because I don't care to see it.

Rating: 3/10

World War Z

World War Z (2013)

Directed by Marc Forster

Story by Matthew Michael Caranahan and J. Michael Straczynski

Screenplay by Matthew Michael Caranahan and Drew Goddard & Damon Lindelof

Based on the book by Max Brooks

Stars: Brad Pitt, Mirelle Enos, Daniella Kertesz, Fana Mokoena, James Badge Dale, Ludi Boeken, Elyes Gabel and David Morse

There has been a lot of bad press surrounding this movie from the inception, the constant reshoots, Brad Pitt clashes with the director and rewrites to the script. Everybody thought the movie was gonna suck major donkey balls, including myself. My thought was that it was gonna be a trainwreck and marvel in its awfulness. After watching movie, it's not godawful. It's bland.

It's a typical day in Philadelphia where Gerry Lane (Pitt) spends quality time with his family. All of a sudden, a mysterious epidemic sweeps the world. People panic, running from people that look like they were on bath salts, the world is ending around them.

Gerry gets a call from an old friend, Theirry (Mokoena)-- Gerry and Thierry, really?-- to hide out in battleship where the outbreak reach them. Some of the greatest minds the field of medicine try to determine what kind of outbreak it is. Gerry was tasked to find the source of the outbreak so they could figure out a way to stop it.

Having only read the first ten pages of the book when I borrowed it from the library must have saved me from eviscerating this movie. The movie was supposed to be a December 2012 release. I don't think it belongs in the middle of summer movie season. It looks like it on more grand scale that it is, but its not.

The way the movie plotted along was disheartening for me as a viewer. The "twists" were seen from a mile away. It felt like the movie was dumbed down. It insulted me. The movie unsatisfying with dull action scenes, the stale dialogue and the "are you fucking kidding me" climax. Blurgh!

My Rating

The Tree of Life

The Tree of Life (2011)

Written and directed by Terrence Malick

Stars: Brad Pitt, Jessica Chastain, Sean Penn, Hunter McCracken, Laramie Eppler, Tye Sheridan and Fiona Shaw

I don't know what to say. Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life was eagerly anticipated that it was delayed a couple of times. When it came out, the movie was met with little fanfare. It didn't come back tot he radar until it was nominated for Best Picture, Director and Cinematography at last years Oscar. I watched the film last night and I had to marinate on it.

The movie is a serious of flashbacks when Jack O'Brien (Penn) is haunted about what happened in his childhood back in the late 1950s. Most of the film dealing with the strained relationship between his strict religious father (Pitt) and his free spirited earth mother (Chastain), younger Jack's (McCracken) relationship to his father and a tragedy that changes the family dynamic forever.

I heard a little bit about the movie that it was metaphysical take about life, love and connection. I understand  that it what Malick wanted to do on screen, but I felt like it was no executed well in my opinion. I don't know if was Penn's distancing himself from movie, but I never understood why he was in the movie. He looked so lost and confused. I had the same trouble with the film like with 2001: A Space Odyssey -- which there were many comparisons of . I understand that you wanted to make this grand statement about the human condition, but do we need to go back to the beginning. We get it.

I went through a range of emotions when I saw this film, I was confused, bored, angry, in awe, back to anger, boredom and relief that it was finally over. As I said before, I understood that Malick wanted to make a movie about the human condition, the relationship between a father and son, the difference in people's beliefs about God, the Devil, Heaven and Hell. That's all well and good. I was not invested in the movie that much. If the movie has the relationship between Mr. O'Brien and Jack without seeing closeups of nebulas, seaweed and light posts, I would have enjoyed it more.

I will say that the strongest aspect of the movie was the cinematography by Emmanuel Lubezki. It was some gorgeous visuals.

My Rating

Moneyball

Moneyball (2011)

Directed by Bennett Miller

Written by Aaron Sorkin and Steven Zaillian

Story by Stan Chervin

Based on the book, "Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game" by Michael Lewis

Stars: Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Chris Pratt, Stephen Bishop, Casey Bond, Nick Porrazzo, Kerris Dorsey and Robin Wright

I have to get this out of the way. I saw that the Metacritic of this movie was 87. Hmm... personally, I don't like baseball even thought I help out to park people for Astros games. Ironic, huh? I was mildly interested in this movie when it was released last September. Seeing that it scores six Oscar nominations, I had to see what the fuss about. People think that this movie is a home run, but I felt like it was a bunt.

Billy Beane (Pitt) was a baseball player who was drafted into major league baseball out of high school and was not right to be a big star. He is now a general manager of the Oakland Athletics (I hate that name) that came off of a bad 2001 - 2002 season where the team didn't make it to the playoffs. Other top tier organizations are snatching up their stars players like Johnny Damon, Jason Giambi and Jason Isringhausen for more money that they could pay for. Reeling from the loss, Beane tries to find a different way to have a winning team for the next season. He enlists the help of Peter Brand (Hill), a Harvard grad that introduces Billy to sabremetics, which is basically make an equation about who the best people to draft into the them. He puts all of his faith into a man that doesn't know that much about baseball.

Being that I don't like baseball anymore, I tried to like the movie, but I was bored with it. Okay. Not much as much uninterested. I thought the first half of the movie was decent. There was a specific about why Beane doesn't watch the games that made me give up on the movie. I was checking to see how much time is left on the movie. I was looking up the real people of this movie. I learned that one of the characters has been changed from the book to the movie, because the real person didn't like the why that were portrayed.

I would normally not spoil a movie, but this movie is based on real events. The Oakland A's didn't make it to the World Series that year. If the only purpose of this movie was to gloat about a winning streak, this film should not have been made. Period. Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill were nominated for their roles. They were fine. Not Oscar worthy performances. I thought why was Philip Seymour Hoffman in this movie with a thankless role as the manager of the team. He had nothing to do. He was just there.

My Rating