Babylon Bomb

[Chapin Ratte]

Theworld of cinema has been shocked by the incredible box office bomb of Babylon. The $5.3 million in profits thus far is a staggeringly low number considering the film's estimated budget of $80 million. Production spared no expense in recreating, or rather re-imagining, the roaring twenties and the golden age of Hollywood. Trailers tease a hedonistic but liberated cast of characters as they make their way through the treacherous but thrilling landscape of the film industry.

The wicked irony of Babylon is that life has imitated art. A film about the demise of a sort of film star in a changing industry failed on account of the demise of a sort of film star in a changing industry. In the era of streaming platforms, people have become well-adjusted to watching unlimited content from the comfort of their homes for a monthly rate that is equal or less to that of a singular movie ticket. Television movies are no longer mid-budget showings, but fully funded and imaginative creations. Think of the recent release of Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. This movie was released directly to Netflix, and received relatively little marketing from the streaming platform. When a movie fails at the box office, it is prematurely shuffled away to one streaming platform or another, such as Black Adam already being found on HBO Max.

Wow, that was a good one. Still accessible, and worryingly topical. Hard to believe that it predates the atomic bomb, looking like a prototypical story about primitive people living in the ruins of a blown up world.

Suffolk County Police arrested two 13-year-old West Islip Middle School students yesterday, charging them with writing a note stating there was a bomb at the Beach Street Middle School they attended...

"This is a clear call to civil war," cried MSNBC anchor Joe Scarborough as video played of Trump eating chips. "You heard the words 'the bomb' from his very own lips. Is there nothing this madman won't do?"

Several media outlets reported that Trump's threat of nuclear war came immediately on the heels of Trump vowing to demolish democracy when he claimed he was "about to demolish" some tortilla chips. "We are sickened to hear such vile threats from former President Trump," said Scarborough. "Watch as Trump openly says he's about to 'slice and dice' tomatoes. Slice and dice? Trump is literally saying he plans to cut every one of his opponents into tiny pieces with a knife. Horrific!"

According to sources, the comments came after Trump served up his world-famous guacamole during fajita night at Mar-a-Lago. The guacamole, a family recipe for generations, was made tableside by Trump himself and described as "absolute dynamite" in addition to many other violent and obviously pro-insurrection phrases.

"It's the only solution," Graham said to reporters while advocating for even more hostilities. "If we want to restore peace throughout the world, the only realistic answer is to lay waste to every single nation around the globe."

When asked what he expected to be the result of so much widespread bombing, Graham was indifferent. "They'll all know who's boss," he said. "Nothing will stabilize the entire world and ensure the safety of the American people like making every single country in the world hate the United States. On top of all that, some of us will also make massive amounts of money, so I'm very much in favor of this idea."

Another entry in my growing fascination this year with nuclear holocaust, particularly in those early days of the late 1940s and the 1950s, when people had just seen the world ripped apart by war and had every right to be pessimistic about what was going to happen next. Alas, Babylon was a popular and influential book in its day, at the tail end of the 1950s, a time of rising tensions with the USSR and increasingly powerful bombs and sophisticated delivery systems. The novel focuses on the fictional town of Fort Repose (based on the real town of Mt Dora in central Florida, where author Pat Frank retired after a long journalism career) and how its residents survive a brief nuclear war and its aftermath.

Florida had a tiny population in the 50s. Real Mt. Dora is still pretty close to some pretty populated areas, but I could see a town of that size moved to a more rural area of the state back then doing okay, especially if the nukes wiped out the population of the handful of large cities.

>The five-mile wide fireball reached as high in the sky as the Bear bomber. The shock wave caused the Bear to drop more than half a mile in altitude before Durnovtsev regained control of his aircraft.

Suicide bombers set off devastating explosions near three Baghdad hotels frequented by Westerners and foreign journalists, killing at least three dozen people and wounding more than 70 Monday in blasts that occurred in a 15-minute span.

The coordinated attacks came the same day that Iraq announced the execution of "Chemical Ali," Saddam Hussein's notorious cousin. Ali Hassan al-Majid was hanged about a week after he was sentenced to die for poison gas attacks that killed more than 5,000 Kurds in 1988.

The first explosion went off at about 3:40 p.m. local time in the parking lot of the Sheraton, toppling high concrete blast walls protecting the site and damaging a number of buildings along the Abu Nawas esplanade across the Tigris River from the Green Zone. Two other blasts followed minutes later, striking near the Babylon and the al-Hamra.

Officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the death toll was expected to rise. According to initial tallies, 15 people died at the al-Hamra, 14 at the Sheraton and at least seven others at the Babylon, including two policemen.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Monday's attacks, which come about six weeks after a series of blasts killed 127 and brought an outcry against Iraq's government for repeated security lapses as U.S. troops withdraw.

"The people we've talked to are extremely upset," Garcia-Navarro said. "They blame [the latest attacks] on the Iraqi government. They say it's another example of the lack of security that exists around Iraq."

Security has become one of the main issues leading up to national parliamentary elections scheduled for March 7, and the bombings could be meant to show that the Iraqi government is not up to the task of protecting the capital.

Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the latest bombings "represent an extension" of the activities of insurgents linked to Hussein's regime. However, he did not tie Monday's attacks to Chemical Ali's execution.

I have a fun story I like to tell people about , this year\\u2019s epic box office bomb that incredibly scuppered the filmmaking career of Damien Chazelle, the Oscar-winning director of La La Land and one-time Hollywood golden boy.

It happened at the premiere screening of the film at Sydney\\u2019s State Theatre no less, mere rows away from our bedazzled queen Margot Robbie. Barely 20 minutes in, after an opening scene where a poor stagehand gets doused in elephant dung, and a subsequent scene involving a Weinstein-ian golden shower, I felt my bowels churning, a rising heat drawing sweat across my brow.

Fearing I would pass out right there in my seat, I shuffled awkwardly from my aisle, stepping on toes and bumping against shins as I made it out to the theatre lobby where, discombobulated, I slipped down some stairs in my fancy brogues and black tie, waving away bystanders who offered to help with a shy smile that implied, \\u201CDon\\u2019t worry, I always fall down stairs dressed like a \\u201950s crooner.\\u201D Within seconds, I was locked in a toilet stall spewing my guts out with a roar.

That was actually my second time viewing Babylon, so I already knew what to expect: a piece of filmmaking so bizarrely inept, so confoundingly insane, so, well, gross, you can\\u2019t help but laugh wondering how it came to be. Things aren\\u2019t allowed to be bad anymore, let alone a thing starring Brad Pitt \\u2013 how did this happen?

The people behind Babylon knew it was bad. There were pre-release rumbles that Chazelle and Paramount executives were at loggerheads over the film\\u2019s overlong 189-minute runtime, with the director lamenting the studio\\u2019s desire to keep chopping away (I\\u2019d watch the #ChazelleCut). An interview I\\u2019d secured with him was suspiciously pulled at the last minute, probably because he psychically sensed my first question would be, \\u201CBro, what did you do, R U OK?\\u201D

When it was released in January, most reviewers felt just as confused. Even though it draws a surprising aggregated score of 60 on Metacritic, almost every review is marked by a debilitating neg: \\u201CI\\u2019ll admit that I found much of Babylon mesmerising, even when (maybe especially when) I also found it naive, bludgeoning and obtuse,\\u201D wrote the Los Angeles Times\\u2032 Justin Chang. \\u201CWeeks after I saw it, I cannot quite decide if Babylon is a good film,\\u201D wrote Vox\\u2019s Alissa Wilkinson.

Although it uses the tawdry spirit of Kenneth Anger\\u2019s Hollywood Babylon as its blueprint, the film is essentially Chazelle\\u2019s love letter to Hollywood, warts and all \\u2013 its early mavericks and anything goes ingenuity, its debauched spirit that prodded at conservative mores, its enduring survival in the face of endless disruptions (talkies, censorship, gossip rags, COVID). The Oscars would usually eat this stuff up, but Chazelle botched it to fantastical levels.

It all builds towards one of the most embarrassing sequences in recent Hollywood history, a montage so misguided you\\u2019ll never forget it. Which is exactly why I love it. It\\u2019s a film so messy \\u2013 earnest, awkward, tasteless \\u2013 that I think of it daily. Messiness is good. Messiness is how we defeat the robots.

Messy movies are so much more interesting than legitimately good films. Good is tedious. In a culture so overwhelmingly mid, where everything is passably fine, it\\u2019s the bizarre outliers that stay with you. Things are so rarely objectively bad that when, say, comes our way, it\\u2019s like a jolt from God, a solid disruption from all our endless workplace pleasantries about The Bear. It\\u2019s an unexpected gift, as though you\\u2019re watching something you were never supposed to.

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