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Reviews
Sex Education: Episode 6 (2021)
Truly awful
Am I watching V for Vendetta? The overtly fascist (and very questionably morally divided) head teacher is one of the most out of place characters I can recall on any show. She's an unnecessary villain on a show that doesn't need a villain. The direction of the show is aimless.
Isaac is also a pointless one dimensional character, I guess the writers were ok with having a disabled character who can be physically intimate and wax morally superior (despite all evidence that he and his brother aren't exactly stand up guys, stealing gas from Maeve at his introduction), but apparently incapable of working a job? I guess we're supposed to believe he just sits around his trailer all day. How empowering.
There's no subtlety left, I'm afraid. Don't think there's a way to salvage the direction of the show.
There are too many characters given equal time at the detriment of the lead cast, particularly Otis. I think his character turned for the worse in season 2, but it's only gone downhill since then.
Babylon (2022)
Some good, some bad
I think Chazelle means well in all his films, but they're often self-indulgent. Whiplash I liked (though I recommend you look at any critique of it by a real musician who has studied jazz in school). La La Land I couldn't make it past the first 5 min.
I somehow sat through all of Babylon on streaming, though I'm not sure I could have in theaters.
I think the main thing keeping this from being a very strong movie is editing, though the script isn't the strongest. With a shorter runtime and a more focused script, this could have served as the bizzaro, depraved Singin' in the Rain tribute it wanted to be. Instead, it's thematically weak and the ridiculous ending felt like a corny Oscars montage tribute to "cinema". This could have had the impact of a Paul Thomas Anderson style flick, but it feels like a pastiche after the ending seems to imply "hey, maybe all the pain and suffering was worth it." Was it though? It takes a while but you eventually do become invested in the characters (maybe 90 min in), but the ending undoes all actual points the movie was trying to make. You can't make a movie critiquing the movie industry and simultaneously praising it, at least in the way this one did. Without the montage, they could have had Manny come to the realization Singin' in the Rain is an adaptation of his own experience in Hollywood, but instead of showing gratitude he should have shown helplessness.
Now on to the good: cinematography was great, I appreciate it was shot on film, and the acting was well done given the material. Honestly, Tobey Maguire's character and that whole sequence were the highlight for me. The music was also phenomenal, an intense hybrid of jazz, rock and roll, and modern ambient/noise, have never heard a soundtrack like it.