Does Digger strike black gold, or is it more of a Deepwater Horizon (the ecological disaster, not the film)? For the first two thirds, I thought I knew what I was getting; it fits the bill of a pretentious, swing-for-the-fences film that will irritate or confuse most of its audience, and charm the few that are left. But there’s a key speech from a character played by Jesse Plemons, near the end, that helped win me over a bit and counterbalance some of the earlier frustration.
Read MoreIf Bugonia is more of a thriller with a particularly mordant edge, is it satisfying? There are undeniably some images here I’ll never forget, especially from the amazing ending, which I won’t spoil. Everything leading up to that ending, unfortunately, resembled a somewhat low-energy stage play, punctuated by the aforementioned bursts of action.
Read MoreAs a Canadian, I live close enough to the United States that I feel somewhat invested in what happens there, given how similar our cultures are. But I also don’t feel the sort of dread that would come with something like this happening in my backyard. I’m able to dissociate and view a theoretical conflict from a remove. Maybe that’s why American reactions to Civil War are as polarized as the events in the movie itself.
Read MoreIt turns out that observing how time withers men who believe they’re impervious to everything, especially the law, is an essential add-on to Scorsese’s body of work. Appropriately, it’s a movie about the ravages of time that would have been impossible to make without the hundreds of years of collective experience of the cast and crew.
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