Before we get to Avatar—the movie with “no cultural footprint” that nevertheless spawned the highest-grossing worldwide release of 2022—let us contemplate the fate of Babylon.
Damien Chazelle’s early-Hollywood epic has received mixed notices from critics and has been mostly ignored by audiences since its release two weeks ago, prompting lots of “well what did anyone expect” and “how did Chazelle snooker anyone into giving him $80 million for that movie” snegros. And, indeed, “three-hour ode to/critique of classic Hollywood’s excesses that opens with a literal ton of elephant dung” doesn’t, well, sound like a winner on paper, at least when you put it as bluntly as that.
But maybe its existence makes more sense if I describe it this way: “Brad Pitt and Margot...