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Babel

It's no Crash
By PETER KEOUGH  |  February 20, 2007
2.0 2.0 Stars


BABEL: No one to blame but destiny and, of course, stupid Americans.

String together a handful of stories, contrive a semblance of irony and fate with artificial connections, inject innocuous liberal sentiments, and you’ve got Oscar nominations, à la last year’s Crash. So goes Alejandro González Iñárritu’s film. A couple of kids in Morocco get hold of a Japanese guy’s rifle and pop an American tourist (Cate Blanchett) arguing with her husband (Brad Pitt) on a bus while back home their children go on a wild ride with their illegal immigrant housekeeper. Such is life. And really, there’s no one to blame but destiny and, of course, stupid Americans. Of more interest than the specious plotting and politics is the filmmakers’ thing about incest and voyeurism; they seem to have concocted the whole Tokyo episode to get comely actress Rinko Kikuchi out of her clothes.

On the Web
Babel's Web site: http://www.paramountvantage.com/babel/

Related: Babel rousers, Fall back, The Oscars go to Hell, More more >
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ARTICLES BY PETER KEOUGH
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    Nicolas Cage is at his best in Bad Lieutenant
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  •   INTERVIEW: NICOLAS CAGE  |  November 24, 2009
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    In The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Wes Anderson excelled at telling adult stories with childlike whimsy. Telling children’s stories with adult whimsy is another matter.
  •   SWINE FEVER: AN EVENING WITH HUNTER S. THOMPSON  |  November 24, 2009
    Only Hunter S. Thompson could come up with a line like that; no one else had his knack for the near-Biblical proverb. Few writers outside of Madison Avenue or the New Testament can sum up a zeitgeist so cannily in a phrase.

 See all articles by: PETER KEOUGH

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