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Do an A-List Director, Writer, and Cast Make The Counselor a Top-Notch Thriller?
Film dialogue needn’t be “realistic” to work. Think of the
distinct patter of an Aaron Sorkin script or the staccato
back-and-forth of two David Mamet characters. Both sing their own
kind of music, while neither resemble something you’re likely to
overhear in daily life. And yet it’s the dialogue — too often too
slick and speechifying — that I most fault for making director
Ridley Scott’s The Counselor merely a good
rather than a great film. Everybody talks like a philosopher. Drug
lords, jewelers, waste disposal workers, proprietors of rundown
restaurants, in the world according to first-time screenwriter (and
acclaimed novelist) Cormac McCarthy, all are full of wit and wisdom
regarding man’s place in this ugly and desperate world.
By Jason Heid
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Movie Review: Cut Adrift Without a Cast, Robert Redford’s Solo Performance In All Is Lost Is Superb
What does it say about the cultural zeitgeist that this Fall we get not one, but two films about individuals floating out in an unfathomable abyss, struggling for survival in a cruel, unforgiving cosmos?
By Peter Simek
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Movie Review: What Fuels Steve McQueen’s Raw, Honest, and Brilliant New Film, 12 Years a Slave?
Steve McQueen's charged and difficult adaptation of a memoir by a freeman kidnapped and sold into slavery in the 1840s offers timeless insight into the nature of justice, freedom, and suffering.
By Peter Simek