Much to pick apart but I won’t bother.

The disparate segments never cohere into a Film, but the casting is really what does it in. Winds up feeling like a fake movie with all these randos blown up on an IMAX screen. 

Overall, far too noncommittal but the one thing of note I can say is that for the first time, Nolan seems to remember that he is at least half an American. It seems to trouble him.

Babylon is terrible in places but it’s also the first real effort anyone has made at bringing James Ellroy’s vision of LA to the big screen, so I kinda dug it. It’s a mediocre romance and a shaky poison-pen, but it’s weird and dark and genuinely beautiful in a handful of moments. I sort of wish it were front-to-back grotesquerie and tapped more into the criminal element but what can you do. If I saw it in 70mm I’d probably give it an extra half-star. In the end, I’m mostly glad this exists but I also don’t really care for Boogie Nights so what do I know.

Nice to remember that you can be trapped in the same soulless job until retirement and still have a rich inner life.