Pure hackery, that’s what Babylon is. This is a bad movie. Through and through. It more or less announces Damien Chazelle as the most overrated Hollywood filmmaker alive and working today. Trying to be a 'movie' about 'movies', Chazelle's film aspires to be a big monument to the power of cinema. What it reveals is the total creative bankruptcy behind Chazelle's artistry, his idea of cinema, and his worldview.
With what seems like nearly half the runtime consisting characters introducing…
American Me is one of the great American gangster pictures and a film that never quite got it's due. Produced, directed, and starring Edward James Olmos, the film is a tour de force show of his great and under-utilized talents. It's also one of the rare gangster films that completely refuses to glamorize organized crime. Depicting a Mexican Mafia lord and his rise to power from within prison, the film eschews Coppola's nostalgic romanticization of gangsters in the Godfather films…
In my opinion, an overrated and even juvenile picture with Spielberg trivializing one of the most horrifying events in history for profit and prestige. The perspective of the film constantly sides with the nazis, valuing their world view over those about to be murdered. When Spielberg does shift perspective, it is facile and even stereotypical. All of the oppressed in the film are regulated to the background and thus their torment is not truly felt or understood. The shower scene…
