Once Upon a Time, Singin’ in the Rain: A Realistic Chazelle-Like Production of a Dead Body in Hollywood
Hollywood has a penchant for its earlier self, as evidenced in movies such as Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood and Sunset Boulevard. Already a Golden Globe nominee (oddly classified as a “musical or comedy”), “Babylon” could be an awards player despite its flaws thanks to that dynamic, fueled by its star power and tantalizing subject matter.
It’s more than 30 minutes before the title blasts across the screen, but by then, Chazelle has introduced most of the key characters, including an aging Douglas Fairbanks-like star (Brad Pitt) on wife No. Whatever, a talented musician (Jovan Adepo), and a tough-as-nails wannabe actress (Margot Robbie, stealing every scene she’s in) who announces, “I’m already a star,” and then when asked what movies she’s been in says, “Nothing yet.”
There’s also the gossip columnist (Jean Smart), the exotic entertainer (Li Jun Li) and an assortment of strivers and stars, with everyone having boarded the same escalator, the only question being whether their side is heading up or going down.
In the film Singin’ in the Rain, sound pictures set the stage for careermaking rises and tragic falls, as well as shaking everything up in a big way.
There’s some poignance in that, but Chazelle comes bounding out of the gate so aggressively – with such over-the-top flourishes, from projectile vomiting to the elephant relieving itself at an unfortunate time – that it’s difficult to care much about most of the cartoon-quality personalities.
The movie is enjoyable but the middle segment is not very enjoyable and is reminiscent of the days when there were breaks in the movie. In that sense, the truck with the elephant turns out to be a pretty good metaphor, just not in the most flattering of ways.
Thematically, there’s also a vague sense of wistfulness for the freewheeling excess of the time – back when a dead body could be treated as an inconvenience – at a moment when Hollywood and other industries have been forced to look hard at the misconduct that kind of environment allowed to fester.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/23/entertainment/babylon-review/index.html
What Makes a Movie: Why Did “The Way of Water” Come Out 13 Years After Its First? The “Avatar 2” Case
The intellectual property that could get more people to brave that length is not connected to “Babylon” in any way.
The ideal of watching these movies with the people in the dark is exactly what will happen if current trends continue.
The show must go on, and hope springs eternal. For now, though, “The Way of Water” doesn’t share much in common with the current ways of movie-going. For Disney and theaters, the sequel to the first movie has been thirteen years since it came out.
History is seemingly repeating itself, as “Avatar 2” is following a similar course after its debut prompted some box-office watchers to question whether its studio, Disney, could ever recoup its massive investment.
The concerns were understandable. Before the pandemic and streaming caused the behavioral shift, the skew of theatrical revenue toward opening weekends had become more pronounced.
As it stands, people not motivated to rush out right away increasingly appear content to wait and consume movies on their ever-bigger TVs at home. Even Marvel’s major sequels of 2022 (featuring Doctor Strange, Thor and Black Panther) weren’t immune to that phenomenon.
Cameron’s epic is overcoming multiple factors that ought to have worked against it, none more so than its three-hour-plus length, which means theaters can run the movie fewer times in a day.
Theoretically, that endurance-test running time tends to both scare away casual movie-goers and depress theatrical totals – an issue cited in regard to “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” which runs a half-hour shorter; and “Babylon,” a star-studded spin on Hollywood’s silent era that was basically dead on arrival box office-wise, which has generally been the fate of most of the year’s awards bait.
So, what sets “Avatar 2” apart? Even if it meant not rushing out to see it immediately, the movie screamed “spectacle” which made people want to see it in theaters. Fans like to catch the movies early to avoid spoiling them, but it isn’t as important as the experience of the movie.
As noted by Indiewire, thegrim reality for movie distributors is one of the reasons for the new year-end films released.
The fauna on Pandora might be unique, running counter to prevailing habits. The quest to find ” another “Avatar” could easily lead to many misses as well as hits.
The Realistic Universe ain’t a Wonderful World, but a Realistic One: The Attractive Case of the Ant-Man
Already, Hollywood is expressing optimism about 2023, with an impressive arsenal of identifiable titles to attract people to theaters, starting in February with “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.”