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serranoeric
Reviews
The Irishman (2019)
An old man gangster movie just feels old...
With all of its violent pageantry, watching a Scorsese film always feels like there's something larger at stake, but The Irishman just felt insincere to this Scorsese standard; the B-Side of Scorsese. I'm not sure what we can get out of The Irishman that we haven't already seen before, and at 3 and a half hours, it's quite the chore to find the answer to that question. A movie centered around an "Irishman" who couldn't feel less Irish as the least interesting of the three main characters. Al, Bobby and Joe turn in matter-of-fact performances that rest on their most easily recognized mannerisms; Joe handing in the clearest attempt at something new. Would it have been a worse movie to get guys in there who can play their age for 70% of the movie? There are no memorables here, as a movie about old men gangsters just comes across as an old man gangster movie. As the "Irishman" says, "It is what it is."
Joker (2019)
The make-up of a madman
The backdrop to what has previously been a bleek and empty landscape of Gotham has never felt more real. A city of its people, Gotham corrodes into an environment that is complimentary to the makeup of its mad clown, as it is the perfect foil for its eventual caped crusader. Hildur Guonadottir--who developed as eerie a score in the Chernobyl miniseries-- develops a score as beautiful as it is haunting. Phoenix not only holds his own among other greats to down the white paint, but stands apart in his rendition of a Joker who had never been more crisply defined. His is the most compelling of origin stories, one that provides us with not only the "how," but the "why" behind the Joker's madness. Compelling and thought-provoking. A sign that the comic book genre can offer more beyond it's colorful source material.
The Laundromat (2019)
The Laundromat takes capitalism to the cleaners...
The Laundromat's true weight in gold is in how the absurdity of our financial system can be written about in such simple terms, and how simple ane priceless dialogue can be performed better your our highest paid actors. Whereas Netflix previously broke the bank on A-Listers, big idea films with little depth, and heavy marketing, they really cash in with movies like The Laundromat. Meryl Streep herself is worth the price of admission.
The Two Popes (2019)
A godblessed great performance by Anthony Hopkins...
The Two Popes praises the humanity in the divine, making us all want to believe in people again, if not faith. A godblessed great performance by Anthony Hopkins; oftenly type-casted as the wise sage, Hopkins dons the robe of a fallible pope who has lost everything, even God, but finds him and himself again, in the act of giving. Jonathan Pryce shines with an aura fitting of the new pope, and Fernando Mierelles' directorial verse offers up the separation between royalty and poverty, rebellion and state-hood, dogma and faith.