With Nightmare Alley, virtuoso director Guillermo del Toro has added neo-noir, alongside gothic horror, fantasy, and science fiction, to the growing list of genres he’s proven mastery over. His fidelity to the gritty, nihilistic films noir, made popular after WWII and featuring broken protagonists who play fast and loose with society’s mores – and often get brutally punished for it – almost doesn’t need the “neo” qualifier. Nightmare Alley is the closest rendering of an actual film noir made in the 21st century thus far. At the same time, Del Toro puts his distinctive stamp on the film, blending in flourishes of straight horror and devastating morality tale.
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I think No Sudden Move might be great. Like, Chinatown great. I’m hedging with the “might be” – one of the worst sins a critic can commit, I suppose – because I’ve only seen Steven Soderbergh’s new noir-inflected heist movie once. As with Chinatown and The Big Sleep, the most famously convoluted noir plot in film history, No Sudden Move’s first half is so opaque as to be frustrating on first viewing. Once things started to click into place, though, especially in the climax and denouement, I began to suspect that a second viewing of the film would pay substantial dividends. Even if that’s not the case, what’s easy to see upon first viewing is Soderbergh’s masterful auteur cinematic style and the flawlessly calibrated performances from the brilliant ensemble cast.
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Writer and director Drew Goddard’s latest picture, the pulpy, ultraviolent Bad Times at the El Royale, entertains even as it loses its way with countless subplots and narrative red herrings. The movie’s flabby runtime of two hours and twenty-one minutes engenders a sense of interminability rather than rapturous suspense, the latter undoubtedly being Goddard’s goal. Royale’s bleak worldview – the movie’s happy ending feels like it’s going through the motions and rings a little hollow considering the nihilistic killing and suffering in its climax – makes me hesitate to call it fun. But in more than a few ways, it’s just that. Royale’s phenomenal production value, stellar cast, and creation of a heroic rooting interest (once it finally comes) make it more enjoyable than it otherwise would be.
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Early in You Were Never Really Here, Joaquin Phoenix’s character, Joe, takes a violent blow to the back of the head. Movie convention has programmed us to expect one single hit like this to knock a character out cold. You Were Never Really Here is no conventional movie. Joe stumbles for a second, then he turns and gives it right back to his assailant. Joe punches the man in the face and he goes down but is also not out. It’s a quick and brutal exchange that sets the tone for the next 90 minutes. Director Lynne Ramsay’s new film is a rescue/action movie like Taken, by way of the avant-garde experimentalism of Maya Deren. It’s by turns vicious, stomach-churning, elliptical, ethereal, and staggeringly beautiful. It’s a movie that will haunt me for a long time.
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When the original Blade Runner was released in the summer of 1982, it did respectable business at the box office. It wasn’t a smash like Star Wars, but it wasn’t a complete disaster, either. Mostly, it left a lot of people (critics and general moviegoers alike) scratching their heads. This slow paced, philosophical movie was sold as an action/adventure. The production design was meticulous, with dazzling special effects that still look great 35 years later. As critics began praising the movie after repeated viewings, Blade Runner also found a sizable cult following through home video release (a relatively new phenomenon itself at the time).
Director Denis Villeneuve, a filmmaker who has listed Blade Runner as a major influence on his own work, is imagining this intoxicating world anew in the sequel, Blade Runner 2049. The question is, since its predecessor’s vision is now the rule rather than the exception, will it have the same impact as the original?
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