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. 

Oh god, what to say about this? Took me about half a year to read through it in bits and pieces. I'd get through a portion of violence (true and awful horror treated oh so casually) then not return to it for a few weeks or months until the bitterness subsided. But I was determined to see it through if only to knowingly and silently judge people who praise this book. 

I'm not even sure I engaged the book fully. It was awful (very awful) and beautiful (the prose only sometimes... not the awfulness). While reading, there were sessions that left my body exhausted and my brain blank. This is not my favorite condition to end up, being a husband and father of a five year old. 

I tried to describe my feelings to a friend what the experience of reading this book was like. It was a sunny afternoon and I was having a mezcal (which felt appropriate) and there were only 2 other patrons at the concrete bar. I excitedly compared the book to Link running around in the dark before he manages to wholly light up the dungeon. Just this little guy in green running around seeing only the horror his lantern can illuminate in front of his eyes knowing full well there are other horrors but he can't see them or even imagine them.... then moving on and forgetting the previous horrors to be only in the current horror always. 

He hadn't really ever played Zelda so he just nodded. SMH. I couldn't let it go though, so later I told another friend. He got it. Not sure its a perfect metaphor but feels right to me and I achieved the smug satisfaction of being seen.

So much has been written about this book and discussed. But this is just my personal book log so I don't think there is much more I have to say on it. 

Should you read this book? Probably no. Sorry.

Did I enjoy this book. I dont' know. Probably no. Am I happy I read it? Also probably no. LOL 

But at least now I get to be haunted by the image of the naked Judge forever. 

"He never sleeps. He is dancing, dancing. He says that he will never die."

We read (reread in most cases) Frankenstein for our Holiday book club choice. I read it in high school and again later in college. I think I was more used to reading " Western canon" at that stage of my life. I'm very glad I had that phase. It does a lot for a person... reading those things... in that period of development... but I am decidedly not in that phase now. And I'm pretty glad for it. So, I'm not sure I enjoyed the book as much this go-round. Guillermo del Toro's new version didn't help matters tbh. 

I digress (before I started). I think the "canon" thinking got me thinking about more contemporary Sci-Fi "canon" and what that looks like or could look like. I read enough and try to pay attention enough (or at least some) about what my blind spots are. Octavia Butler was and has been and is still a blind spot so I suggested  Dawn for book club. I didn't know much about her beyond The Parable of the Sower, which I haven't even read. I just know of it. But one of our book club members had already read it and I already had this sick edition of Dawn in my collection so I pushed for it to be our next read. 

After Frankenstein this was a breeze. I zipped through it faster than I have zipped in a while. It was tough in parts and fun in parts and, at least from our little book club limited view, wholly unique. An incomplete list of what we've recently read for book club:

• Methuselah's Children - Heinlein
• Frankenstein - already mentioned
• Dark Matter - no logical reason to be called this...
• Project Hail Mary - discussed here
• Altered Carbon - discussed here
• Scanners Live in Vain - (a personal favorite)
• The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. Le Guin
• Ringworld - Niven

I'm blanking on the others but there were some other stinkers in there too. Compared to the list above I think only the Cordwainer Smith story compares with actual novel storytelling, though, they are nothing alike in any way. Its tough to escape my lived experience of being a white dude and a lot of the stories above are basically white dude stories. I really loved Dawn for not being that which, of course it wouldn't be, but still I'm glad for it. 

Anyhow, quick synopsis. Earth is destroyed. At least people are destroyed. Few folks have been saved and put to sleep by aliens somewhere out in outer space, but not that far away by todays standards. Lilith, our heroine(?), is awakened by her captors and kept prisoner. This has happened many times before. She manages to endear herself to them so as to become their companion(pet?). She's being groomed to wake up others so they can repopulate earth. Then there's some genetic stuff. Some weird sex (sort of) stuff. Alien to human conflict. Human to human conflict in a fake jungle. It gets weirder from there. 

Recommend! 

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.