WAKE UP, PEOPLE!! I live in a fantasy world with the stupid comedies and romantic dramas, so I must hand it to the Arriaga/Gonzalez-Innaritu team for continuing the trend of stirring moviegoing and attending church/going to rehab into a blur. Thank goodness we have these merchants of emotional suffocation to hand out the needed shots of REALITY. That’s what movies are for. Time to leave your comfort zone!! I-N-T-E-N-S-E.
Like the equally unrelenting and pretentiousÂÂ 21 Grams, Babel feels like eminent disaster as each scene begins. This genre reached its pathetic conclusion with Crash,ÂÂ gave the movies of Todd Solendz an unfortunate reason to exist, andÂÂ should have ended with American Beauty. Sure, they look different, feature disparate cultures, but the message is the same: We need constant reminders of just how fucked-up the world has become. You know what does a good job of letting me know how fucked-up life can be? Life.
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