Bye-bye Babylon
“If people know more about a story, then it’s their responsibility to keep putting what they know into the conversation.”
—John Sayles, interviewed in Past Imperfect: History According to the Movies
The Siren is by nature an enthusiast. She doesn’t write a lot of pans. She wrote this one last winter, and ever since, she’s been tinkering and sighing and wondering if she really wants to spend her time fighting about a lousy movie. But ongoing attempts to enshrine last year’s Babylon as some kind of masterwork have forced her hand. There are good reasons so many (don’t #NotAll the Siren, she said “many”) film historians loathed Babylon. Those reasons require time and space to explain, and are related to why we don’t like this movie’s all-too-obvious main inspiration, Hollywood Babylon. To us, Babylon isn’t just vulgar and unfunny, it’s also pernicious.
In a way, the Siren was also persuaded to hit “publish” by a recent New York Times article about MovieTok influencers. They’re basically paid movie publicists, and in the words of the great philosopher Bugs Bunny, “It’s a living.” But the Times also calls them “the new school of film critic,” adding that “some tenets of the profession — such as rendering judgments or making claims that go beyond one’s personal taste — are now considered antiquated and objectionable.” Rendering judgments? Antiquated, did you say? You’re playing my song!
“When you read a critic’s review, it almost sounds like a computer wrote it,” said Cameron Kozak, 21, who calls himself a “movie reviewer” and has 1.5 million followers.
You may agree with what follows, or you may object to it. But see here, Mr. Movie Reviewer Cameron Kozak—I’ll be damned if you could get a computer to write it.