Movie Review
Babel

By: Jonas Oransky
2006-11-17



Posted 11/20/2006 - 01:14:58 AM by motelmoka:
 do you happen to know the song playing at the deaf japanese girl story just before she enters the club? there's a drifting ambience followed by this amazing robot jam I must find. The song appears before the earth wind and fire mashup-. I think while she's staring at the city from the metro bus.
 
Posted 11/20/2006 - 04:32:44 AM by hibeside:
 yeah. your critique is basically what I thought about 21 grams. I think it's a script/editing problem. We end up seeing melodramatic scenes, i.e. over the top and unnecessary, because we are being spoonfed the drama/plot. If he just leaves these parts out, the film is perfectly readable and dramatic. The 21 grams scene where Watts tells Penn to kill del Toro is overly dramatic because we already know she tells him this and we even know why; it doesn't advance a plot/themes/thought, besides, look at the POWER of the ACTOR. Why put us through a screaming yelling tearing Watts 'I want you to kill him; I want you to kill him.' To put the audience through cringing pain? Scenes need to be sacrificed, if this guy is going to be a powerful filmmaker. Only reason it isn't straight melodrama is because it's told non linearly. I think that style has been beaten enough for the sake of Powerful films, even if he's one of the best at it. Right now, his melodrama is populous telenovela on the big screen. I have no reason to see this Powerful, bible-referencing cry-fest. And I do like Bible referencing stories (Magnolia), just not in the f'n title man.
 
Posted 11/20/2006 - 04:37:52 AM by hibeside:
 yeah. i think i meant populist. so much for that post.