Sifting through clues and contenders in this year's Oscar best picture race
LOS ANGELES — What do you do with a movie that begins with an elephant losing control of its bowels, torrentially defecating right into the camera lens, and then heads straight to a party where we're immediately greeted with an extended shot of a woman urinating on a reveler?
And that's just the first five minutes of "Babylon," Damien Chazelle's unconvincing, unhinged three-hour-plus spectacle centered on Hollywood depravity and debauchery and, OK, sure, the transition from silent movies to sound. Think "Singin' in the Rain" but with piles of cocaine. "Make 'em Laugh"? Forget it. Chazelle wants to beat you into submission. And the more he ramps up the movie's energy, the more miserable you become watching it. Anarchic excess is just not
