This one was a movie club pick. I've seen it 2 times before. It has always been great. It is still great. I pick out different things to notice each time. This go-round the kids stood out. The movie is nothing without the kids... its also nothing without the rest. It has all the things. The mood(s). The music. The sadness. The strange moments of hope. The picture of LA in the 70s.... it all feels familiar and impossibly far away. 

Love it. 

First off. Amazing poster. I wish I were more than 1 year old in 1982 when this came out. Second off(?)... this is definitely not the wonderfully moody Jacques Tourneur (a house favorite!) film from 1942 starring the truly wonderful Simone Simon (also in Devil and Daniel Webster... another house favorite!). Third off (third-ly?) I truly wish they made insane movies like this today. Honestly, even things half this bananas would be an oasis in a desert. I had to watch this one over the course of two naps (actually "quiet time" which we are still trying to enforce b/c JFC we're tired on weekends). I would guess it is even more potent in one single viewing. 

I'll first list a bunch of things that should get your antanae twitching... The cast: John Heard (of Big fame.... "I don't get it! I don't get it!"), Natassja Kinski (ha chacha cha.. not really for me but in that 80s way...), Malcom McDowell (underused tbh... though I guess I'm glad his character didn't get weirder/grosser/etc.), Ed Begley Jr. (Gets his arm bitten off THEN DIES! from it. Seems like he could have been saved imo), John Larroquette and Ray Wise in very supporting roles. Basically a stacked cast all around but did I forget to tell you that DAVID BOWIE does the song for this movie (Video). Why? No idea. Don't fight the early 80s erotic thriller! All this madness is brought together by Paul Schrader who decides to open with a weird prologue of people from BC times... and also panthers lounging in a tree.

OK so after the opening in Europe(?) during the Dark Ages(?)... we fast forward to an awesome New Orleans in the very early 80s. This time capsule alone is reason to watch the movie. So we find Irena (Natassja Kinski) showing up on the train to go live with Malcom McDowell, her brother who seems pretty into her. :-/ ... also a woman, maid? housekeeper? lives there named `Female` which is pronounced Fuh-mal-ee. Thats pretty bizarre. She ends up in jail later for some reason.

So anyways Irena shows up and after getting creeped on by her brother she wanders around New Orleans by herself a bit during the day and night. While this is happening a panther is skulking around in the night and is killing folks. This whole sitch raises the arm hairs of the zookeeper (John Heard). Irena wanders the French Quarter and it is completely empty in the evening so it must have been an off year for New Orleans. Later she goes to the zoo (as one does... obviously) and John Heard meets her and of course immediately falls in love with her because I guess he had just watched Body Heat and Irena is a lot like Kathleen Turner in that.... The he courts her a bit (they go eat oysters and things) and then gets her a job in the gift shop (lolololo). She loves it! 

[Spoilers Ahead]

So then we meet Annete O'Toole at the zoo who used to date John Heard (IRL she is married to Michael McKean which is fantastic). We find her as she's hosing down an elephant in an 80s erotic thriller way. LOL. We glean that she used to date John H through subtext but she's cool with him moving on. At some point Ed Begley Jr gets his arm bitten off! and we find out he bit the dust later but don't see it. Sorry bout it EBJ. I may be out of order here but then John H and Irena go to the bayou for a little getaway but she won't sleep with him b/c she is starting to be suspicious she's a cat and will eat him after sex... but before all that that there is this awesome exhange:

[Alligators roar(?) and flop in the water]

JH: That's alligators. They're going to eat us.

[blank stare from NK]

JH: There's only one way to keep them away...

NK: ...whats that...

JK: We have to make love...

LMAO... so stupid. The good news is she doesn't fall for it. 

Next they find Malcolm McD (as a panther) and shoot him :( and there is a wild autopsy part where JH saws open the panther with a scalpel (literally saws! scalpels shoudl just slice...but maybe not in the 80s??) and Malcolm McD's ARM flops out of the panther corpse! The corpse then turns into GAS! and melts completely. Truly incredible. There is a weird intermission where Irena tries to leave through the really awesome Amtrak station of 1982 full of wonderful design and red lockers everywhere. She gets like... 21 dollars away but turns around for some reason and is back lickidy split... then is kind of a much bigger creep looking for JH. There is a pool situation (ripped directly off from the 1942 version... but in that 80s sexy way...) and then she finds her man and they smash. She turns into a panther in the grossest way possible right next to JH in bed but she doens't eat him because he's like "Its me".... She then rocks somebody and turns back into a person but goes back for more with JH. He ties her up b/c she'll turn into a panther afterwards and he knows it. Sex panther. 

JH and Anette O'toole get back together. You are left not knowing what happened but it turns out he PUTS IRENA INTO THE ZOO. Thats why he tied her up! F'ing diabolical...

Fade to black. :(

Been meaning to watch this for a while. I know folks were pretty mixed on this when it came out. I suppose the folks still are, though I don't hear a lot of discourse about it lately. One of my friends had the experience of seeing a screening of it (maybe at Music Box?) right before or when it came out. My memory is that he saw it on 70mm but I guess it doesn't matter. I'm sure that was a fun experience, the Music Box always is.  

Babylon is an incredibly pretty film with incredibly pretty people... with a sprinkling of revolting behavior and images. I suppose that is the point. Excess all around. Coming hot off of my Blood Meridian experience I was slightly surprised to have enjoyed this as much as I did; certainly more than i was expecting. Perhaps I am the demographic for this.... The demographic for the magic hour light filled indulgent pseudo-history of Hollywood that this film presents, and most other folks don't care(?). I don't know.

The first half of the film definitely gripped me more than the second half which turns into more of a depressing melodrama (not in the Douglas Sirk way) and includes the eventual and obvious decline of our (pro?)tagonists.

I'm happy I sat through it and it is definitely worth watching for the spectacle alone, especially if you enjoy Hollywood stories. Watching the technical wizardy of both the first party sequence and the next filming sequence in the desert was like discovering you enjoy getting slapped by your partner. Shocking, slightly painful, and thrilling. 

I had been interested in watching this one for years. I'm not sure I have sorted my thoughts about it yet but I haven't posted in a bit so figured I'd at least mention it with some scattered thoughts. 

The opening of this film, in the dingy downstairs nightclub, with dingy downstairs people is truly one of the most beautiful sequences I've seen in a while. A hell of a way to open a movie, letting the audience know everything about the world these two mermaids inhabit. The music is hit or miss but absolutely service the film beautifully... and the literal translations are quite a bit of fun. The Polish title of the film is bit better but more on the nose, "Daughters of Dancing",  and has nothing to imply the aquatic motif so I guess thats why it was Americanized in the US release. 

I didn't adore the second half in the same way as the explosive opening but all the actors are perfect in their roles. The music and set design is flawless. Overall a really fun 92 minutes. 

I think I've mentioned it here before that I really love melodrama. My enjoyment of it has mostly been limited to US melodrama, with a smattering of Fassbinder. I'm sure I could pluck out some other memories of non-US films if pressed but the point is my focus has been primarily on the BIG classics of the US, my favorite being All that Heaven Allows. I had seen that criterion put this edition out last year and, while judging a book by its cover is something one is explicitly taught not to do... I'd guess exceptions can be made when its as sick as the cover above.

The movies starts with some poor dancer (implied prostitute) returning to The Changoo cabaret to plead with her lover to take her and their baby. He quickly dismisses her and the child and wants nothing to do with her. (Knowing nothing about this movie in advance, the inciting plot element here was pretty shocking.) Anyhow, she begs him to take her back and claims she'll abandon the baby if he'll take her back. He's sort of like, "yeah ok, I guess" (clearly not that interested). So then she promptly goes outside to do just that. Even today this is a visually shocking moment.

Alternating moments with the familial disintigration scenes we are introduced to Violeta, the up and coming dancing sensation played by a really incredibly magentic Ninón Sevilla. We get a few choice numbers throughout the film but I'm partial to a call and response number where the crowd (knowing all the words) shout "I want clams, serve me some clams!" and she dances her heart out having a blast. There is also a great one where she kind of just dances in a circle with some tiny steps (potentially due to the tight dress) kicking and smiling and really going for it. She really looks like she's having fun. 

Violeta learns of the baby abandonment and runs out into the night and immediately finds him! Which always tickles me, when they find the thing right away (spoofed in The Jerk at the end... one of my favorites jokes... "How'd you find me?" "I dont' know. First place we looked.") She is down and out a bit, gets fired by the Don of the Changoo which then epically goes out of business because the other matron leaves as well. Right before this she has a wildly suggestive song all about 'dancing'. Good stuff.

Rodolfo (baby daddy) finds Violeta on a street and wants her to be with him. He sees the baby in the corner just chillin and tries to once again do away him him. :( Then he is equally bogus to Violeta but she is saved by the other "dancers" who are on her block. They take him to night court(!), or something, and he gets thrown in jail for six years.

Visually this film is also a wonder. All dark and smoggy. It seems that most was shot at a studio in Mexico City but there are some exteriors that are really striking. Especially by the La Machina Loca club where she later is installed as a "dancer" and then an actual dancer a bit later. She takes up with the owner of this club and he seems ok! and they are happy... for a while, even getting the child baptized. 

Fast forward six years and guess who is getting out of prison? From here it goes from bogus to bleak as hell. All in all a really great film.