The Stranger's Jas Keimig says: "I know, I know—this is the second time this week I'm recommending a three-hour movie. BUT! I'm telling you, it's worth it. Damien Chazelle's Babylon is a period epic covering Hollywood's transition from silent films to "talkies." In an interview with RogerEbert.com, Chazelle laments the way silent films got cut off at their peak, and, in the movie, he reproduces the decadence of the era with humorous depravity. Giant piles of cocaine, sweaty orgies, excessive drinking, sultry dancing, and elephant shit fill up nearly the entire first whole third of the movie—the party energy nearly oozes off the screen. Babylon follows several main characters over the years as they try to navigate the film industry's hard shift into the toxic, extractive force it is today: aging star Jack (Brad Pitt); saucy and chaotic ingenue, Nellie (Margot Robbie); an aspiring film star Manny (Diego Calva); trumpeter-turned-actor Sidney (Jovan Adepo); cabaret singer Lady Fay Zhu (Li Jun Li); and Jean Smart as a shrewd gossip columnist, Elinor. The film is simultaneously a hysterical yet rich examination of that weird transitional era and also a melancholy love letter to the business itself."