Episode 276 - Babylon (featuring BFF of the BFE: James DeGuzman)

“Make a mark... and then fade away.” Join your favorite TransAtlantic podcasting crew – Ian, Megs & Liam (B-Tech Kev had to see a man about an elephant) – as we trade our spy gear for trumpets, film reels, and copious amounts of debauchery for our 275th episode covering Babylon (2022).

We’re swapping Chimera viruses for jazz-fueled chaos and slow-motion gunfights for full-blown cinematic mayhem as we discuss:

• How Babylon might be the most Damien Chazelle movie that ever Damien Chazelle’d.
• Does this film capture the magic and madness of early Hollywood—or is it just chaotic noise?
• Is Manny Torres a true dreamer… or just a wide-eyed bystander to Hollywood’s self-destruction... or is he a corrupted soul that we overlook?
• Apparently there's a rule about taking Class-A drugs with company (well, in Act I anyways)
• How large is the demand for sweeping, three-hour epics about the birth of movies?
• Which Babylon character we’d most likely be—and who’s definitely channeling peak "trainwreck energy" 
• Is this an underappreciated masterpiece—or an overindulgent fever dream of excess?
• Is Babylon a love letter to cinema or a cautionary tale wrapped in champagne and elephant dung?
• We’ve got questions about giant parties, sudden snake fights, drug-fueled breakdowns, and how much elephant content is too much.
• At what point is the film in on the joke it's making and at what point does that film become the joke?
• We're joined by BFF of the BFE: James DeGuzman who tells us why this film is so much more than the punchline film critics have mmade it out to be
• Whether Babylon is the Best Film Ever.