Babylon

      The newest film from writer/director Damian Chazelle is a two-hour masterpiece trapped in a three-hour bloated extravaganza. With some choice editing and unnecessary gross out moments, this would have been a perfect love letter to the early days of "talkies" and the death of the silent age. 

      The year is 1926 and silent films are all the rage but "The Jazz Singer" will soon change everything. Brad Pitt stars as Jack Conrad, the biggest star of the silent screen, Margot Robbie as Nellie LaRoy, a self proclaimed star forging her way to the top and Diego Calva as Manuel "Manny" Torres, a Mexican immigrant and aspiring filmmaker. The three leads are all terrific.

      Mr. Chazelle opens the film with a Hollywood party filled with total decadence. Drugs, excessive alcohol, sex, a sexual fetish we really don't need to see, and even an elephant (unfortunately with loose bowels). He obviously wants to expose the underbelly of the glamour of Hollywood in those days with all its excess. And for three hours, we see it all, the trajectory of the three leads against a background of both glitz and mud.

        We get treated to the world behind the camera to watch how the early films were made in many terrific sequences. When the "talkies" finally arrive, we watch as studios try to understand the new medium and one scene in particular with Nellie trying take after take to get it right is priceless. We watch Jack Conrad's star begin to fade as he copes with the "new Hollywood" and Mr. Pitt's acting intensifies as Jack's world starts to crack. We see Manny successfully rise through the system, but a toxic love continues to hold him back.

       The film costars Jean Smart as Elinor St. John, the leading Hollywood gossip journalist, Li Jun Li as Lady Fay Zhu, a cabaret singer and title card writer, Jovan Adepo as Sidney Palmer, a Jazz trumpet player, Lukas Haas as George Munn, a producer and Jack's best friend. Also, co-starring is Spike Jonze, Flea, Jeff Garlin, Olivia Wilde, Eric Roberts, Katherine Waterston, Samara Weaving, Max Minghella and Toby Maquire (a criminal who leads Manny into LA's version of Dante's inferno).

        There is a wonderful sequence towards the end, that takes us through a montage of movies through the years as Mr. Chazelle closes his love letter, reminding us of the magic of movies but sometimes at a heavy cost.