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timespace coordinates: 2010’s Denmark
The Guilty (Danish: Den skyldige) is a 2018 Danish thriller film co-written and directed by Gustav Möller. The film stars Jakob Cedergren, Jessica Dinnage, Omar Shargawi and Johan Olsen.
“Sleek, well-acted, and intelligently crafted, The Guilty is a high-concept thriller that wrings maximum impact out of a handful of basic – and effective – ingredients.” Rotten Tomatoes
timespace coordinates: Oregon and California in 1851
The Sisters Brothers is a 2018 revisionist western directed by Jacques Audiard from a screenplay he co-wrote with Thomas Bidegain, based on the novel of the same name by Patrick deWitt. The film stars John C. Reilly and Joaquin Phoenix as the two notorious assassin brothers Eli and Charlie Sisters, and together they get caught up in the California Gold Rush. (wiki)
timespace coordinates: 1984 – 1987 Detroit
Set during the heyday of the decadent Reagan era, White Boy Rick is the story of an ambitious teenage boy exploited by Uncle Sam, a once-great city in decay, and a nation in the midst of change–a tale of race, class, crime, corruption, and lost innocence that resonates today. (book)
White Boy Rick is a 2018 American biographical crime drama film directed by Yann Demange and written by Andy Weiss, and Logan and Noah Miller. Based on a true story, the film stars Richie Merritt as Richard Wershe Jr., who in the 1980s became the youngest FBI informant ever at the age of 14. Matthew McConaughey, Bel Powley, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Brian Tyree Henry, Rory Cochrane, RJ Cyler, Jonathan Majors, Eddie Marsan, Bruce Dern, and Piper Laurie also star. (wiki)
timespace coordinates: 1981 Texas
The Old Man & the Gun is a 2018 American biographical film written and directed by David Lowery, based on the true-life story of Forrest Tucker, a career criminal and prison escape artist. The script is based on David Grann‘s 2003 article in The New Yorker titled “The Old Man and the Gun”, which was later collected in Grann’s 2010 book The Devil and Sherlock Holmes. It stars Robert Redford, Casey Affleck, Danny Glover, Tika Sumpter, Tom Waits and Sissy Spacek. It is Redford’s final role, as he announced his intent to retire from acting in August 2018 (wiki)
According to David Lowery, the final montage of Forrest Tucker is like a summary of Robert Redford’s career. It is as if “all those escapes almost feel like it’s like you’re listing the movies he’s made”. (imdb)
timespace coordinates: 2010s Brooklyn
The Drop is a 2014 American crime film directed by Michaël R. Roskam, from a screenplay written by Dennis Lehane. The film is based on Lehane’s 2009 short story “Animal Rescue”. Lehane also adapted the script into a 2014 novel of The Drop. The film stars Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace and James Gandolfini (in his final film role), with Matthias Schoenaerts, John Ortiz and James Frecheville in supporting roles. (wiki)
timespace coordinates: 2011 Los Angeles
Under the Silver Lake is a 2018 American neo-noir mystery film written, produced and directed by David Robert Mitchell. Set in Los Angeles, it stars Andrew Garfield as a young man who sets out on a quest to investigate the sudden disappearance of his neighbour (Riley Keough), only to stumble upon an elusive and dangerous large-scale conspiracy.
Joshua Rothkopf of Time Out gave the film a perfect five rating, calling it “Hypnotic, spiraling and deliriously high” and stating “the ambition of Under the Silver Lake is worth cherishing. It will either evaporate into nothingness or cohere into something you’ll want to hug for being so wonderfully weird.” Eric Kohn of IndieWire gave a positive review, calling it “a bizarre and outrageous drama grounded in the consistency of Garfield’s astonishment at every turn. […] Aided by cinematographer Mike Gioloukas’ sunny visuals and a searching Disasterpiece score, the movie becomes a bittersweet ode to wanting answers from an indifferent world overwhelmed by superficial distractions. The homage can be irritating and some of the transitions work better than others across an unwieldy running time — but even the flaws speak to the movie’s beguiling raison d’être. It’s fascinating to watch Mitchell grasp for a bigger picture with the wild ambition of his scruffy protagonist.”
Owen Gleiberman of Variety gave a positive review, calling it “a down-the-rabbit-hole movie, at once gripping and baffling, fueled by erotic passion and dread but also by the code-fixated opacity of conspiracy theory. The movie is impeccably shot and staged, with an insanely lush soundtrack that’s like Bernard Herrmann-meets-Angelo-Badalamenti-on-opioids. When it’s over, though, you feel like you’ve seen a meta-mystery made by someone who spent too much time scrawling notes in the margins of his frayed copy of Infinite Jest. (wiki)
timespace coordinates: 1969, a shady hotel on the California–Nevada border
Bad Times at the El Royale is a 2018 American neo-noir thriller film written, produced and directed by Drew Goddard. (wiki)
Seven strangers, each with a secret to bury, meet at Lake Tahoe‘s El Royale, a rundown hotel with a dark past. Over the course of one fateful night, everyone will have a last shot at redemption… before everything goes to hell. Jeff Bridges, Chris Hemsworth, Jon Hamm, Dakota Johnson and Cynthia Erivo lead an all-star cast in BAD TIMES AT THE EL ROYALE. (rt)
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