Editorial Review:

Product Description:
Tragedy strikes a married couple on vacation in the moroccan desert touching off an interlocking story involving six different families. Studio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 08/21/2007 Starring: Brad Pitt Cate Blanchett Run time: 143 minutes Rating: R

Amazon.com:
Brilliantly conceived, superbly directed, and beautifully acted, Babel is inarguably one of the best films of 2006. Director Alejandro González Iñárritu and his co-writer, Guillermo Arriaga (the two also collaborated on Amores Perros and 21 Grams) weave together the disparate strands of their story into a finely hewn fabric by focusing on what appear to be several equally incongruent characters: an American (Brad Pitt) touring Morocco with his wife (Cate Blanchett) become the focus of an international incident also involving a hardscrabble Moroccan farmer (Mustapha Rachidi) struggling to keep his two young sons in line and his family together. A San Diego nanny (Adriana Barraza), her employers absent, makes the disastrous decision to take their kids with her to a wedding in Mexico. And a deaf-mute Japanese teen (the extraordinary Rinko Kikuchi) deals with a relationship with her father (Koji Yakusho) and the world in general that's been upended by the death of her mother. It is perhaps not surprising, or particularly original, that a gun is the device that ties these people together. Yet Babel isn't merely about violence and its tragic consequences. It's about communication, and especially the lack of it--both intercultural, raising issues like terrorism and immigration, and intracultural, as basic as husbands talking to their wives and parents understanding their children. Iñárritu's command of his medium, sound and visual alike, is extraordinary; the camera work is by turns kinetic and restrained, the music always well matched to the scenes, the editing deft but not confusing, and the film (which clocks in at a lengthy 143 minutes) is filled with indelible moments. Many of those moments are also pretty stark and grim, and no will claim that all of this leads to a "happy" ending, but there is a sense of reconciliation, perhaps even resolution. "If You Want to be Understood... Listen," goes the tagline. And if you want a movie that will leave you thinking, Babel is it. --Sam Graham

Beyond Babel

Other Interweaving Storylines on DVD

Other DVDs by Director Alejandro González Iñárritu

Why We Love Cate Blanchett

Stills from Babel (click for larger image)

These guys make astounding films. It is amazing how everything links and is not forced at all. It is too bad that the writer and director had a falling out after this film came out. Hopefully they resolve their differences because they mae such incredible films. It shows that great films can be made in Hollywood.

Average Rating:

Rating: - Another Gem from the guys that made Amores Perros and 21 Grams.
These guys make astounding films. It is amazing how everything links and is not forced at all. It is too bad that the writer and director had a falling out after this film came out. Hopefully they resolve their differences because they mae such incredible films. It shows that great films can be made in Hollywood.

Rating: - A suprisingly good movie
The biggest surprise for me is that Brad Pitt gave such an excellent performance, I am not one of his fans and find his acting rather flat, but in this one he comes alive and really shines. The story is an excellent self-examination of just how ignorant most of us are about the other.

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Rating: - Babel - Blu-ray vs HD DVD
Version: U.S.A / Region A, B, C
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1

Format: Blu-ray
MPEG-2 BD-50
Average video bit rate: 32.66 Mbps
Running time: 2:23:30
Movie size: 38,40 GB
Disc size: 39,30 GB
DD AC3 5.1 640Kbps English / French
Subtitles: English / English SDH / French
Extras: Theatrical Trailer

Format: HD DVD
MPEG-4 AVC HD-30
Running time: 2:23:21
Movie size; 27,70 GB
Disc size: 28,70 GB
Average video bit rate: 22.26 Mbps
DDPlus 5.1 1536Kbps
Extras: Theatrical Trailer

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Rating: - A long movie about nothing
This is a very art house liberal coffee house movie about very little. I am sure there are all kinds of clever messages in it about current geopolitics and whatnot, but I simply don't care. There are four separate stories in this movie, not weaved seamlessly as one would expect, but disjointed and tenuous. Only have the smallest type of connection. It actually reminds me very much of the movie Syriana (another horrible disjointed waste of time, though with the separate plots having even less in common. If this is your type of movie you probably already know it. I certainly wouldn't recommend it for a casual viewing though. And I have already asked and there is not way to get the two hours you spend watching this movie back.

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Rating: - If you like stupid movies about stupid people, watch this one.
The storylines are stupid and the characters are stupid. What a waste of time.

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