Nightmare Alley (Guillermo del Toro, 2021) Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett, Toni Collette, Willem Dafoe, Richard Jenkins, Rooney Mara, Ron Perlman, Mary Steenburgen, David Strathairn
This is a helluva good film, with a bit of everything, and something for everyone, as the carny folk in it might say. There's a intriguing story to start with. Then, it has excellent casting, acting, editing, cinematography, design, and of course direction, and should earn Guillermo del Toro his second Oscars for best film and direction (instead of that silly horse opera set in Montana but shot in Aotearoa about chaps and what's going on underneath them).
IMDb page.
Wikipedia page. Excerpt:
Rotten Tomatoes' critical consensus reads, "While it may not hit quite as hard as the original, Guillermo del Toro's Nightmare Alley is a modern noir thriller with a pleasantly pulpy spin." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 69 out of 100 based on 53 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale, while those at PostTrak gave it a 72% positive score, with 49% saying they would definitely recommend it.
Martin Scorsese authored an essay in the Los Angeles Times urging readers to seek out the film, crediting Del Toro's films as being "lovingly and passionately crafted" and arguing that Nightmare Alley is "truer to the animating spirit of film noir than the many 'homages' that have been made over the years and are still being made now."
Garry Gillard | New: 6 February, 2022 | Now: 13 March, 2022