The Quest for Fame: Triumph and Tragedy
Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke
I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) when they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative.
“You see, you can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”
(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson & the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the song’s name)
Babylon (Damien Chazelle, 2022) rated R 168 min.
Opening Chatter (no spoilers): While my wife, Nina Kindblad, and I are cautiously probing into eating indoors at local restaurants along with attending a play in Berkeley this coming weekend where immunization and masking still calm our COVID concerns, we’re not rushing out to movie theaters regularly yet so streaming’s still helping us get caught up on newly-announced Oscar contenders with our newest option being this mammoth Babylon, which supposedly is available for $19.99 rental at Apple TV+, Amazon Prime Video, Vudu, and some others, but when I checked out Amazon it was only going to be offered for a $24.99 purchase last weekend so we went with Apple instead (rental should be in place for Amazon very soon). I’d been intrigued by this film from when I first read about it because it’s set in the grand old Hollywood days of the pinnacle of silent movies as they blend into the sound era but with a much more dramatic premise of those times than seen in the famous musical, Singin’ in the Rain (Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, 1952; this one streams for free on HBO Max, rents for $3.99 on the platforms noted above), although that MGM landmark’s also incorporated in various ways into Babylon. As much as I liked the concept Chazelle’s exploring here along with his attempts to work in so many themes relevant to the era he’s depicting, I do find Babylon to be a bit lengthy for what it’s trying to accomplish (for me, if you’re going for around 3 hours you need to fill all that time with content that doesn’t seem to drag along, as with Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather trilogy [1972, 175 min.; 1974, 202 min.; 1990, 162 min.]), but at least if you’re watching it at home you can plan for an appropriate time block for your screening, pausing the multi-plot-flow as needed. Also, here are links for the schedule of the cable network, Turner Classic Movies, which gives you a wide selection of older films with no commercial interruptions and the JustWatch site which offers you a wide selection of options for streaming rental or purchase. If you'd just like to learn what reigned at the domestic (U.S.-Canada) box-office last weekend, go here.
Here’s the trailer:
(Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge it; activate
that same button or use the “esc” keyboard key to return to normal size.)
If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film or want to save some $ (as well as recognizing those readers like me who just aren’t that tech-savvy). To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid these all-important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters with colors plus arrows:
⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.
What Happens: We begin in 1926 Bel Air, CA (west of downtown Los Angeles, in the Santa Monica mountains, although I’m not sure if it had such a desert environment in the time depicted) where Manuel Torres (Diego Calva)—who at age 12 emigrated from Mexico with his parents (whom he no longer visits) into Southern California—has arranged to pick up an elephant (brought in from Mexico, I think) to take to a lavish party at the nearby-mansion of Kinoscope Studios’* head Don Wallach (Jeff Garlin); getting the heavy beast to the destination is a struggle, though, up steep roadways so Torres and another guy get out to help push the truck, whereupon they’re drenched with elephant poop (so you know within the first few minutes of this film what kind of approach you’re likely to be exposed to). Task completed (and Manny, as he’d prefer to be known to enhance his intended-L.A.-persona, somehow fully cleaned up, clothes and all) meets the uninvited-arrival at the party of Nellie LeRoy (Margot Robbie)–enhanced her surname a bit to play up the royalty aspect of “Roy”—a New Jersey wannabe-starlet who’s determined to break into pictures, just as Manny also wants to be part of this industry, to have a life much bigger than the restrained one he’s living now.
As the camera wanders through this huge bacchanal we see people having sex right there in the crowd, others indulging in drugs (including Manny after he brings Nellie in, both snorting cocaine), and a nude fat guy, Orville Pickwick (Troy Metcalf), ecstatic that actress Jane Thornton’s (Phoebe Tonkin) urinating on him (so we know in this early scene reasons for the R rating). We also see Chinese-American Lady Fay Zhu (Li Jun Li), a lesbian who creates intertitles for Kinoscope’s silent movies as well as displaying her skills as a cabaret singer (I get the impression she wants parts in the movies even though that doesn’t seem to be happening, but she makes an impact singing “My Girl’s Pussy” [actual tune of the time, although not until 1931]); as well we get a brief introduction to jazz trumpeter Sidney Palmer (Jovan Adepo), harassed when offstage by his band leader as not effectively in the groove with the rest of the orchestra, seemingly destined for a flop career (we’ll see him occasionally throughout this story, for some time consistently dealing with the same rejections).
*This studio’s name is fictional (with signage attached to the actual Paramount Pictures entrance [distributors of this film])—just as “Woltz International Pictures” was appended to that stunning studio-lot-gateway in The Godfather (1972), also a Paramount film—but is similar to Kinetoscope, the name of Thomas Edison's viewer for his one-take-short-movies, shot with his Kinetograph camera, in what are arguably the first accurate examples of what we know as the cinematic process.
The party takes a turn for the worst (although no one seems to notice except the Kinoscope honchos tasked with keeping everyone blissfully happy) when Jane’s found passed out (not clear if she’s alive or not), has to be carried out through the main ballroom because of no accessible rear exit, so Manny brings in the elephant as a major distraction as Jane’s quietly whisked away to a hospital, a situation that allows flamboyant-dancer-Nellie to be noticed, told to report to the set the next day to take Jane’s place in a western. Manny also stumbles into studio work when he’s told to drive a drunken star (who has trouble staying married to furious wives; a later one, Estelle [Katherine Waterston], clashes with him because she’s a Broadway star, but he sees her work as esoteric, movies as high art), Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt), home so he can be ready for work the next day too. Once home, however, Jack falls over a balcony, bounces off of a tile roof, lands in his pool unharmed, goes to bed for a bit before heading off to the set with Manny as the morning goes along. (All of this occurs within roughly the first ½ hour before the Babylon title finally pops onto the screen).
During the filming Nellie proves adept at dancing on the bar in a saloon, oozing as much sexiness as she can with her clothes on, even able to cry on demand so the director’s quite satisfied with her even as the nominal star, Constance Moore (Samara Weaving), is furious about being upstaged by this newcomer. Jack needs some time to get ready—but he’s there when called on—for his big part in a war movie where hundreds of extras fight over command of a hill, with a demanding director (who could easily be a wartime field marshal; seems to imply Cecil B. DeMille’s lavish Formalism [emphasis on plot, cinematic processes; see summary of The King of Kings {1927} as an example] or Eric von Stroheim’s perfectionist Realism [emphasis on character development, relatable settings; see summary of Greed {1924} as an example]) who faces a crisis when the physical tumult of the attack scene results in a damaged camera, a replacement needed while the light’s still right. Manny (who previously had no success in trying to negotiate with the extras over their demand for more pay) is sent into L.A. to get another camera, which he does after battling traffic in both directions, waiting nervously for the needed instrument to be returned to the rental center. As Manny saves the day, the final shot comes off perfectly at sunset as triumphant Jack kisses his co-star. Jack’s career continues to succeed, Nellie’s takes off like a rocket (encouraged by famed gossip-columnist Elinor St. John [Jean Smart]), as Manny rises quickly through the ranks to join the top-brass at Kinoscope.
By 1928, though, the industry’s in upheaval because of the success of the first sound-dialogue (and musical) feature, Warner Brothers’ The Jazz Singer (Alan Crosland, 1927), so Manny adapts his minions to the new technology, Jack finds his screen presence isn’t what it used to be as he doesn't adapt well to this new format, while Nellie struggles with the requirements of sound too (there's an extended scene of her first attempt at recorded dialogue that goes through many failures, finally succeeds, but the cameraman dies of heat exhaustion in a cramped camera booth) leading to her increasing drug use/gambling, despite Manny’s attempts to keep her from such over-indulgence; she can’t seem to help herself at a big party with her drunken, inept business manager/father, Robert Roy (Eric Roberts)—her catatonic-mother’s (Vanessa Bednar) institutionalized in a N.Y.C. sanitarium—when she goads him into going into the desert to fight a rattlesnake which he attempts but passes out so Nellie takes on the snake, only to be bitten in the neck, rescued by Lady Fay who kills the rattler, sucks the venom from Nellie, then gives her a passionate kiss. As we get to 1932, Jack’s barely staying alive at MGM (references allude to mega-producer Irving Thalberg [Max Minghella], yet we don’t see much of him), Sidney’s moved past former criticism to star in Kinoscope musicals with an all-Black orchestra, but Manny has to convince him to use makeup to darken his skin to the same tone as his fellow musicians so he won’t be seen as White, resulting in the movie being banned in the South when audiences would perceive the band as mixed-race, so—to preserve the salaries for his bandmates—he does as he’s told, then leaves this studio for good, with great disgust.
As Hollywood’s trying to (superficially, at best) clean up its image in 1930, Manny fires Lady Fay because of her perceived lesbian affair with Nellie, then Manny and Elinor try to reframe Nellie as higher-class, sending her to a party at San Simeon with William Randolph Hurst (Pat Skipper) and Marion Davies (Chloe Fineman), but the pressure of being so out-of-place, trying to act sophisticated (Manny too; claims he’s from Spain) results in her wild rejection of everything these swells stand for, concluding with vomiting on Hearst. Jack then confronts Elinor about her negative article on his declining career to which she replies her kind are like cockroaches, surviving disasters but ignored by society while he'll live forever in his movies even as his current career's essentially over. Nellie has her own troubles by running up huge gambling debts ($85,000) with gangster James McKay (Tobey Maguire) so Manny tries to help her with aid from aspiring actor/drug pusher “The Count” (Rory Scovel) who comes up with the needed cash, but when they take it to McKay he insists they all go a subterranean location of wild parties where he can pitch movie ideas until he realizes the bag holds just prop money. ⇒Manny and “The Count” narrowly escape, Manny convinces Nellie to leave with him for Mexico, but when he goes to get “The Count” to join them a McKay gunman shows up, kills “The Count” and his roommate, lets Manny leave on the condition he stay away from L.A., but when he gets back to his car, Nellie’s wandered off into the night (a later newspaper clipping shows she died not long after). Jack sees Lady Fay at a party where she tells him she’s off to Europe looking for better movie parts; he displays confidence, yet goes back to his hotel to commit suicide. In 1952 Manny, with wife and child, comes back from N.Y.C. to L.A., goes alone to a theater to watch Singin’ in the Rain, crying when seeing scenes so much like what he lived through. Then we get a fantastic, quick montage of major cinematic examples from over the last century, returning to Manny as he smiles at Gene Kelly’s great "singin' and dancing' in the rain" scene.⇐
So What? As someone who taught film history (along with aspects of cinema's theory, criticism, social effects, even screenwriting) at the college level for a few decades, along with being very impressed with Chazelle for his previous successes of Whiplash (2014; Best Supporting Actor Oscar for J.K. Simmons, along with noms for Best Picture, Chazelle for Best Adapted Screenplay, wins in the Best Film Editing, Best Sound Mixing categories; review in our October 16, 2014 posting) and La La Land (2016; review in our December 21, 2016 posting [my #4 of that year, with the top slot going to Fences {Denzel Washington, reviews in both our January 4 and January 12, 2017 postings}]; 14 nominations total, won for Best Cinematography, Original Score, Original Song, Production Design, topped by Chazelle as Best Director, Emma Stone as Best Actress [it was also Best Picture for about 5 minutes until it was clarified Faye Dunaway had announced the wrong name, the actual winner being Moonlight {Barry Jenkins, 2016; review in our November 10, 2016 posting}]), so I was eager to see Babylon, pleasantly surprised when I found it newly-available for streaming, watched it with great anticipation, enjoyed much of what I saw, but—like Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (Ryan Coogler, 2022, 161 min. [review in our December 1, 2022 posting]) and Avatar: The Way of Water (James Cameron, 2022, 192 min. [review in our January 26, 2023 posting]), this one’s also just too damn long for its own good, even while using many wonderful, effective, useful-for-context elements.
In truth, I can understand why Chazelle insisted on including so many allusions to the historical happenings of Hollywood in this era, just like I went on forever in an academic journal article, “Cinema 2001: Despite Hobbits, Hallucinations, and Artificial Sweeteners Kubrick Re-Emerges” (you can download the whole thing if you’re in a masochistic mood by visiting my website, scroll down under the RESEARCH area) to pack in everything I could think of to lead into, then explore how the content of A.I. Artificial Intelligence (Steven Spielberg, 2001) wasn’t nearly the super-sweet-story it was often lambasted as being because I still found eerie traces of Stanley Kubrick’s long-attachment to the project to be disturbingly-alive in the outcome; I knew I could have cut a good bit out, but I was determined to pack in all that intrigued me about this topic, just as I know Chazelle did with Babylon. For those of you who aren’t saturated with (marinated in?) U.S. film history where the Golden Age of silent movies was changed forever through the success of synchronized-sound-technology, you may easily wonder why there are so many narrative threads woven into this story, but all of them had relevance back in those days, so, if nothing else, our screenwriter-director may have added to his own fascination with these people and events in his attempt to broaden contemporary audiences’ awareness of this time, even though history is just a springboard for what he will ultimately present.
Without me spiraling into an extended history lecture on some of what’s being referenced in this film, I’ll offer a more concise account by referring you to this article from Variety where you’ll find verification there were a lot of drugs floating around the industry in those days before the studios attempted to clean up their act (at least on the surface) as a result of the 1922 establishment, slow actions over the decade of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (now the Motion Picture Association) headed by former Republican National Committee Chairman/ Postmaster General Will Hays; Orville Pickwick’s clearly a reference to popular comic Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle and his 3 trials (no conviction) for allegedly raping, killing Virginia Rappe during a 1921 party in a San Francisco hotel; Nellie LeRoy is somewhat inspired by the on-screen-sensuality of Clara Bow, “The It Girl,” whose transition to sound pictures was also hampered by shifting mores and bad publicity; Lady Fay Zhu is absolutely inspired by Anna May Wong, a rare Asian/Asian-American presence on screen in those days whose co-starring role with Marlene Deitrich in Shanghai Express (Josef von Sternberg, 1932) leads to a connection with Deitrich in Morocco (von Sternberg, 1930) where this German sexpot sings while wearing a tux in a nightclub, kisses a woman, providing a scandalous bisexual connotation in this early sound era, all of which is in Lady Fay’s parallel scene.
Then, we see several references to Singin’ in the Rain including how Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) accidently got a break as stuntman in a silent western movie bar scene that led to his increasing top stardom just as Nellie gets an unexpected chance to dance sensually in another bar scene leading to her quick rise to silent-movie-fame. Plus, there’s a matching-scene of Nellie’s disastrous attempt at her first sound performance, like Don’s screen partner, Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen), when she first has to resort to vocalizations, although much of what goes wrong in Singin’… is Lina’s fault while only a couple of Nellie’s takes are ruined by her actions (we also have the accent connection between Nellie and Lina as both, when speaking naturally, have strong regional intonations not easy to listen to although Nellie makes a much better effort to develop an acceptable-screen-voice). Another inclusion in Babylon from …Rain is the clumsiness of both Don and Jack resorting to silly repeated statements of “I love you” in what are supposed to be tender, romantic scenes which gets unintended laughs from a preview audience for Don, a premiere screening for Jack. Of course, these obvious homages are finalized in Babylon with Manny at a screening of Singin’ in the Rain where its narrative similarities to what he'd witnessed in his Hollywood years brings this all full circle.
There are other connections to this long-ago-realm of classic Hollywood cinema such as gossip-columnist Elinor St. John inspired by reporter Adela Rogers St. Johns (although those of us not that well informed likely think more of the famous pair of insider-revealers from the mid-1930s to mid-1960s, Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons [the latter actually started her newspaper career in 1914]) along with that long, opening debauchery scene inspired by depictions in famous silents Intolerance (D.W. Griffith, 1916)—where it takes place after a military victory in ancient Babylon—and The Ten Commandments (DeMille, 1923), although the more-blatant-version by Chazelle also takes contemporary inspiration from Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut (1999)—or, at least, that orgy’s original scene before Warner Brothers censors insisted on CGI to “soften” it to avoid a dreaded (financially restrictive) NC-17 rating (although you can now get the original unrated imagery on video rather than the R version released long ago). So, does all of this historical referencing justify Babylon’s extended length? I’ve thought about that quite a bit in choosing a rating but must admit that while I admire Chazelle’s determination to deliver the vision he has of this project—despite a lot of criticism for this being too self-indulgent, drawn-out (as well as difficult for theaters, given the length impedes the number of daily screenings)—yet, I must confess it just tries to do a bit too much: for example, the extended scene of Nellie’s introduction to soundstage-filming which certainly gives us the full picture of the difficulties filmmakers of the late 1920s faced but each take could have been cut back a bit, just as the opening orgy goes on forever before we'll even get to the introductory title.
We benefit from the presence of Sidney Palmer in how he’s shown as basically in the background (a racist social assignment), criticized by fellow musicians as not being front-line-material (even as he proves them wrong), but essentially he’s there to provide a repeated presence so we can empathize with him in one big demeaning scene. That’s a great (yet horrid) depiction (especially when he leaves Kinoscope in utter fury), but some useful time could have been trimmed from the overall length by not having him pop up so often (yet, I realize that tactic would reduce him to a token presence which would not properly-accomplish the filmmaker’s intensions either). Similarly, the whole underground bit with Torres, McKay, etc. (despite its evocation of the hellish-underworld in the German Expressionism classic Metropolis [Fritz Lang, 1927]) seems like another candidate for exclusion, if not notable trimming, but I guess we needed something to get Manny out of his L.A. cinematic options, especially when his intended future with Nellie is compromised. One scene that doesn’t need to be shortened, though, is the great existential-encounter between Jack and Elinor, which, for me, could have set Jean Smart up for consideration as Oscar’s Best Supporting Actress.
Bottom Line Final Comments: Well, I can either be somewhat ironic and continue to “babble on” about Babylon in this posting or I can heed my own advice about something that extends beyond reasonable confines, get this review over as quickly as I can; I’ll try to opt for the latter (yet I didn’t quite make it, as you’ll see), start with noting Babylon had its domestic release on December 23, 2022 but to date has made only $15.4 million in northern North America (still playing in a few theaters) with a global haul so far of $50.5 million, so it’s being called a flop because it’s not even close to recouping its reported $70-80 million production costs (plus many more of those millions for marketing and distribution). The CCAL hasn’t helped much with Rotten Tomatoes reviews coming in at 56% positive, Metacritic average score surprisingly a bit higher at 60% (as with anything I review, more info on these critics’ accumulation sites is always found father below in Related Links listings).
However, in that I often take my local critical guru, Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle, to task when he’s not supportive of something I like, it’s only fair I cite him here when he’s considerably more enthusiastic than I am (despite how I marvel at specific aspects of this film, verifying for me Chazelle’s got a great career ahead—if only he doesn’t try again to be as extravagant as the master [often successful] of over-the-top, Cecil B. DeMille) overall about this extravaganza: “ ‘Babylon’ is a fever dream, a filmmaker’s riff that captures the splendor of the period and the excitement of being young and at the center of something new, something the whole world was watching. […] Don’t mistake his movie’s lack of sentimentality for callousness. ‘Babylon’ is coarse, hard and wild, but its emotion is undeniable. ‘Babylon’ is what movie love really looks like.” I come in just a bit short of that praise; however, I’m considerably more supportive than RollingStone’s K. Austin Collins (“Part of the problem has to be that Babylon is an emotionally cryptic tribute to Hollywood and its movies that’s too much of a tribute and not enough of an actual, thriving movie. […] Its panache begins to feel more like the idea of panache — like a bodysnatcher lurking under a skin of actual cinematic style, all empty gestures and wiry nothingness. The disappointment is that the movie wields so much and achieves so relatively little”) or others whom I respect who are notably sour on what's transpired.
I’ll agree Chazelle’s not as fully commanding with this film as in other works of his I admire more, but I still find a lot to appreciate in Babylon even if the whole package could be successfully trimmed. I’ll trim my own diatribe by closing out with my usual ending-trope of a Musical Metaphor to sing of what’s been written before, this time being another “Babylon,” a song by David Gray (on his 1999 White Ladder album) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zI_SBAkdKzc (lyrics reside below the YouTube screen if you’d like to sing along) where he’s focused on a man whose romance has come to an end but he wants to retrieve it, especially within the context of his beloved London (which he admits is the basis for using “Babylon” as the title because in Victorian times London was often considered the modern-day version of ancient Babylon [located in present-day Iraq, capital of the Babylonian Empire, 19th or 18th century BC, then again 626-539 BC until it was conquered by Cyrus the Great of Persia, as shown in Intolerance]), with Babylon as a city of high culture and large population for its time, although it suffered a downfall never to truly regain its former independent glory, which seems to be related to Gray’s song about a guy mourning the end of a relationship, wants desperately to get it back, can’t guarantee what will happen. Maybe I’m off on a wild tangent here, but these lyrics: “Looking back through time / You know it’s clear that I’ve been blind / I’ve been a fool / To open my heart / To all that jealousy, that bitterness, that ridicule […] You know I’m seeing it so clear / I’ve been afraid / To show you how I really feel / Admit to some of those bad mistakes I’ve made / If you want it / Come and get it / For crying out loud […] Let go your heart / Let go your head / And feel it now” seem viable to be coming from Jack, Nellie, and/or Manny as each of them wants fame so badly, ultimately have to admit their actions are responsible for their own downfalls, accept their fates, even though toward their Hollywood ends they held desperate hope for a return to glory.
I’ve always had a fondness for this song, even though when I first heard it I was happily married (still am; even better, same wonderful wife) but it brought back memories of dashed past romances, hopes of “all the lights [not] changing green to red,” even as it ultimately took years until Nina came along to help the marvelous “changing red to green.” For me, this song has the completeness that Babylon, the film, somewhat lacks, but together they make a pleasant pair. Babylon’s not been totally ignored by the Academy, though, with Oscar nominations for Best Costume Design, Original Score, Production Design, along with a Screen Actors Guild nod for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture (their version of Best Film), so we’ll soon see if any of that notice pays off.
SHORT TAKES
That’s all for my critical commentary this week (which usually reminds me of some parting lyrics from Pink Floyd’s "Time": “The time is gone, the song is over, thought I’d something more to say,” or maybe R.E.M. knows me even better [from "Losing My Religion"]: “Oh no, I’ve said too much / I haven’t said enough”), but whether you agree with any of that stuff or not I’ll offer you one more opportunity to be in unity with an attitude that would benefit all of us, James Taylor’s "Shower the People" (on his 1976 In the Pocket album), because we should “Shower the people you love with love / Show them the way that you feel / Things are gonna be much better/ If you only will.” We’re now sailing through divisive times; it could be a smoother ride if we’d only help each other a bit more.
Other Cinema-Related Stuff: Here are some extra items you might like: (1) Variety's current predictions for Oscar wins; & (2) AMC to charge ticket prices based on seat location.
Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:
We encourage you to visit the Summary of Two Guys Reviews for our past posts* (scroll down to the bottom of this Summary page to see some additional info about you wacky critic, Ken Burke, along with contact info and a great retrospective song list). Overall notations for this blog—including Internet formatting craziness beyond our control—may be found at our Two Guys in the Dark homepage. If you’d like to Like us on Facebook (yes?) please visit our Facebook page. We appreciate your support whenever and however you can offer it unto us!
*Please ignore previous warnings about a “dead link” to our Summary page because the problem’s been manually fixed so that all postings since July 11, 2013 now have the proper functioning link.
AND … at least until the Oscars for 2022’s releases have been awarded on Sunday, March 12, 2023 we’re also going to include reminders in each posting of very informative links where you can get updated tallies of which films have been nominated for and/or received various awards and which ones made various individual critic’s Top 10 lists. You may find the diversity among the various awards competitions and the various critics hard to reconcile at times—not to mention the often-significant-gap between critics’ choices and competitive-award-winners (which pales when they’re compared to the even-more-noticeable-gap between specific award winners and big box-office-grosses you might want to monitor here)—but as that less-than-enthusiastic-patron-of-the-arts, Plato, noted in The Symposium (385-380 BC)—roughly translated, depending on how accurate you wish the actual quote to be—“Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder,” so your choices for success are as valid as any of these others, especially if you offer some rationale for your decisions (unlike any awards voters who blindly fill out ballots, sometimes—damn it!—for films they have never seen).
To save you a little time scrolling through the “various awards” list above, here are the 2023 Golden Globe nominees and winners (if you even care about them after all of their recent controversies) and the Oscar nominees for 2022 films.
Here’s more information about Babylon:
https://www.babylonmovie.com/ (not much of an official site so here's another one: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10640346/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXYa4H7iym4 (32:50 interview with screenwriter-director Damien Chazelle and actors Diego Calva, Margot Robbie, Brad Pitt, Jean Smart, Jovan Adepo,
Li Jun Li, Toby Maguire [sound quite low, use of CC button at bottom of YouTube screen helps considerably]) and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7Qw6-QBgH4 (7:09 interview with
actor Diego Calva)
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/babylon_2022
https://www.metacritic.com/movie/babylon-2022
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