A little parental advisory warning goes out to start this article, because I'm dropping the f-bomb like a crazy mo-fo on Babel, the movie that will most definitely win the Oscar for best picture this year.
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu directed an absolutely brilliant film in 2000 entitled Amores Perros; it is a picture I will never forget.
He then went on to make 21 Grams which sported some brilliant performances that were completely neutered by an overly stylistic film style. There were good things about it, but I thought it was merely a case of a filmmaker's sophomore jinx via trying to do too much the second time around.
I guess I was wrong because Inarritu's latest film is the bitch of the bunch. Babel is heavy-handed, sappy, unrealistic, cliché, horseshit, boring, a waste of time and talent, depressing, crappy, wholly predictable, and far too fucking long. You should get a medal if you managed to sit through the entire thing, and slapped if you fell for it.
Babel is another one of those movies where everybody's lives are connected in some way (this time on a more global scale), and where everyone's life totally sucks. The parents (Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett) are having marital problems because one of their kids died. Then the wife gets unexpectedly shot. The kids are dealing with the aftermath of their baby brother dying, and due to a crazy mix-up, end up being lost in the desert. The person who shot the wife is really just a perverted tween-year-old kid whose family is poor and carelessly fires a rifle at a bus. His brother ends up dying as a result (we're supposed to be surprised and saddened by this, so act it and don't tell anyone I said anything). There's also a hearing-impaired Japanese girl who starves for attention because her mother committed suicide, and she's… well… deaf, so she can't get a guy to notice her. And all of these stories intersect in a zigzag type way that I'm sure the audience has seen a thousand times by now, and be honest people: Are we really surprised, and pleased to put the pieces together as they are presented to us? Is it really clever anymore? Does anyone actually still fall for this? Do we seriously give a shit?
Well obviously we do, because Babel will take in a lot of Oscars this season. And we'll get the same recycled crap again next year. And people will talk about how “powerful” the film is, and how “real” it feels, and they'll all just be talking out of their asses because that's where their heads shoved.
Fuck. Me.
Jason Pitt
– Canada
Thanks for the insight, "Some"... I'm sure we'll all look at this film much differently, thanks to your brilliant comments.
Go fuck yourself...
Walter
– Netherlands
So, with all your wisdom you state that a director, who at least managed to make 3 motion pictures, fucked up his second film by making it overly stylistic. I really admire writing things like that on a website which makes my fucking eyes bleed. I guess that is merely a case of designer nihilism, aiming for a raw feel befitting the reviews. Raw and real...or should i say raw and unrealistic.
As far as i can see this so called review is not much more than a big rant, trying to please the nonconformists. It's almost as if you watched this movie while you'd rather have wanked to some nasty porn flick, just to fill this place with some more words. All in all, to me you seem nothing but just as attention starved as the Japanese chick, so move your head a bit so i can shove my dick right next to it.
And might you now think i'm a pretentious little shit, writing a big rant about your review and website, i can only say you are right. It's not hard at all to write crap about other peoples hard work, without adding anything insightfull.