Wonderful whenever it's just fucking demented and fully dedicated to its operatic madness, which is thankfully a lot of the time. But ultimately loses to convention in a way that is deeply disappointing. Stil a ripping good time for at least half of its runtime.
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Argo 2012
I give up. I just don't get it.
Yes, Affleck and his art department load the movie with historical detail. Yes, Affleck is a competent enough director. But the resulting movie is safe and bloodless, never settles on a character, an image or a narrative strand, clumsily shifts tone, neither lingers and observes, nor escalates. The latter at least not until the final minutes of the final act, when it starts to work down a contrived and predictable suspense checklist,…
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City of God 2002
An overreliance on style bordering on camp (not always without its charms) and the incessant voice over narration nearly suffocate the movie's narrative drive. Rather than shocking or provocative I found large parts of it to be exploitative and predictable. The super stylized, cynical machine gun storytelling is certainly effective to an extent, but to what end? You can't deny the movie's celebratory, showy orchestration of gang violence against and among children and teenagers. It's a questionable match at best…
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