versiunea 1.3. redux (incl. ROCKLAND & alinland)
Raindrops Keep Falling...Burt Bacharach is no more, he was 94... Three-times Oscar winner, six-times Grammy winner and One-time Emmy winner, he is considered the most perfect Pop composer of the XXth Century.
What's New Pussycat (Tom Jones)?, The Look of Love (Dusty Springfield) from Casino Royale, and his cameo in Austin Powers, together with Elvis Costello...
His partner lyricist Hal David died in 2012...
new composers (Michael Abels, Colin Stetson), as the old Usual Suspects :)-Burwell, Zimmer, Pemberton, Desplat, Holkenborg, Elfman, Reznor/ the order is not ascending or descending...
The Top of the 2022 Films is here.
The Top of the 2022 music albums is here.
One of cinema's top masterpieces is on HBO Max (wtf, together with Romanian Netflix these must be the most Arthouse streaming services in the world!!!). Au hasard Balthasar (1966) is Robert Bresson tragic story of a donkey and the girl who befriends him (Anne Wiazemsky in her film debut, she later encountered -and married- Godard and that story is told in in Le Redoutable, she also wrote a book about her experience on this film, 'Petite fille')
Also on Romanian HBO Max there are other 3 films by Bresson (courtesy of Argos Films), all classics and voted masterpieces by the film lovers of the world 60 years ago....so, do yourself a service if you are true film buff and watch them.
Pickpocket (1959)
The Trial of Jeanne D'Arc/Procès de Jeanne d'Arc (1962)
Mouchette (1967)
I remember (and will never forget) the days (& nights) we were hunting those from Criterion Collection....The world was purer when everything was not at a touch of a button on your remote, when you had to walk for miles to catch on a good film, book or album...I know, I'm just old ;) ...but trust me on what Bresson pointed with this film, 'We are all Balthasars'...sooner or later, you're IT...
Hollywood, Cal. The year is 1926, the world was cool and the movies were silent...well, they also shot Horses, didn't they? ;)
Welcome to Babylon, a film abut excess, ambition, dreams and nightmares together, the fourth feature of Damian Chazelle (now 38) after the succeses of Whiplash, La La Land and (so/so) First Man.
A self-indulgent epic especially in the end montage of 'joie du cinema', which I could've done without (and most of us think about the same!!!), 3 hours long (and 9 minutes) but for me could've been longer ;).
It's also rough and vulgar and decadent and loud, just like those times were supposed to be. Or so thinks Chazelle. Here's an interview with him explaining the sources and history of Babylon.
Brad Pitt is silent movie star, Jack Conrad, modelled especially after John Gilbert...He's mostly Brad Pitt and that suffices plenty.
Margot Robbie is the 'It' girl, Nellie LaRoy, made upon Clara Bow. She also has a scene that's sooo reminiscent of her playing Sharon Tate in Once Upon a Time in...Hollywood.. She's gorgeous and uber sexy, but she's kinda too modern and too sexy...
The Mexican dude, Manny Torres (Diego Calva), I guess it's a composite.
The afro-american trumpet player Sidney Palmer (Jovan Adepo) too. These may seem like 'Woke' characters, but actually they were there then.
Lady Fay Zhu (Li Jun Li) is inspired by Anna Mae Wong, the first Asian star of Hollywood (she later went to Europe).
The film makes the transition from the silent age to the talkies, borrowing plenty from 1952's Gene Kelly/Stanley Donen masterwork, Singin' in the Rain.
Other inspirations: the infamous classic book Hollywood Babylon by Kenneth Anger, Peter Bogdanovich's Nickelodeon, John Schlesinger's Day of the Locust (two Paramount productions as this one is, even starting with the old black and white logo, but using Kinescope as a substitute of the studio).
There's a comparison of Hollywood with a jungle, an Animal Kingdom, from the elephant at the beginning to a lizard, a rattlesnake, an alligator. Where's the Monkey? Well, plenty on the screen, from the extras to the actors themselves.
There's cameos of the era VIP's, from Irving Thalberg (Max Minghella) To Marion Davies and WR Hearst, to even Patty Arbuckle. I guess the German director should be Erich Von Stroheim. Also nice to see Eric Roberts in an A picture again, he plays Margot's father, Robert Roy.
*****
If I would've seen the film in 2022 (it opened for Xmas in the US but only beg. Jan. WW) it would've made made my Top Movies of the year list, even flawed as it is...It got mixed reviews, loved the SF Gate calling it 'the worst movie of the year' and quote:
`It is like “Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood,” if Quentin Tarantino directed it as a teenager.'
Got 5 noms and a Golden Globe for best music (Justin Horwitz, Chazelle's collaborator on all his fares) and only 3 Oscar nominations tho (music, which might win, set design and costumes). More generous with the Brits at BAFTA -8 noms (including cinematography and editing, which I think were shunned :(). Horwitz's score has some cues from La La Land, mixed with Fellini's Nino Rota circus music and Mussorgsky's Night on a Bald Mountain. And a song about a certain pussy...
3 1/2 out of 5 - 7 out of 10
