Babel

Okay, I'm going against the grain here.

We watched the movie "Babel" over the weekend. I thought it was crappy. I know, I know, it was Oscar nominated and stuff like that. That's the main reason I got the DVD, but I thought it was crappy.

I won't even get into the arguments regarding the way the Morrocan government works or the racist stereotypes or the young boy getting off on his older sister naked or gunshot trajectories, etc.. Nope, not going anywhere like that.

I just didn't feel there was enough character development for me to give a hoot about any of them. Yes, there were awful and thought provoking situations, but these were mainly the results of stupid decisions by selfish and/or shallow people IMHO. As one review I read said, "When bad things happen to stupid people, should we care?"

That said, I'm strangely not disappointed that I watched it, even though it took about 2½ hours of my life. At least the ending left me with the feeling that maybe these people will get their acts together now. But then again, it was just a movie.

The only virtuous person in the movie, I felt, was the Morrocan translator guy who helped Brad Pitt's character. Then there were the little kids. I did worry about them, but that's just because they were innocent little kids surrounded by the "stupid people" referred to above - parents, illegal nanny. There was also the deaf Japanese girl for whom I did also feel some compassion. I wanted to befriend her and tell her to stop being so slutty.

Anyway, I'm not sorry I watched it. I just found the stories and the characters annoying. One bad decision followed by another and another and another, like when there's people you just wanna slap, but you can't because they're on the TV. Watch it, see what you think.

And as for that whole artsy fartsy "interwovenness", yeah, okay YAWN. Sorry, not all that impressive.

One and a half goat skins out of 4 for "Babel".