Summer Movie Smackdown: Babies

Director: Thomas Balmes

Starring: Bayar, Hattie, Mari, Ponijao

Plot? - Four babies. Four Countries. No dialogue, well technically the babies make baby noises. This is a documentary that whimsically follows four babies on four different continents as they grow up.

Reminds You Of?  -  Iron Man 2. Actually, I'm just kidding, babies reminds you of going to the park on a sunny afternoon, putting down a blanket, opening up an intellectually stimulating page turner, drinking some chilled lemonade that has a nice balance of sour and sweet, and munching on some cashews. Just a nice little time, that's all. Beautiful score, cute kids, nice scenery, 86 minutes, and that's all.

Ass Kicking Factor (AKF) - A baby takes a spill after going down a slide. A baby takes a motorcycle ride. A baby messes with a cat. 

Oh Shit Moments (OSM) - The babies poop on screen. I'll let you make your own jokes here.

Memorable Dialogue  - This is not "Look Who's Talking," this is real life. Of course I imagine this movie would be hilarious if the babies had voice over narration as they existed. My dream line up would be Alec Baldwin, Morgan Freeman, Ken Wantanabe, and John Cho.

MOM Factor - This is a movie about babies, I saw it on Mother's day. This is the ultimate MOM movie.

TPG Truth Drop - Babies is a french film that captured American audiences, with it's simple trailer of babies being cute. The credits aren't translated, it's like the filmakers know that people are there for the goods, aka the babies. However, the reason people are so excited about the film is because like all great stories, whether they are massive pictures like "Avatar" or small documentaries like "The Cove" we as people are fascinated by the unknown. And nothing is more unknown to us than ourselves as a baby. You can see pictures, watch videos, and hear stories, but no one remembers being one year old. Seeing babies on screen makes you think "I was like that once, who am I now?"

I enjoyed this film, it was very relaxing. I took a glorious 10 minute nap in the middle and woke up and felt I didn't miss anything. It's a classic Sunday movie.