Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave is tense and unflinching. Its relentless intensity and graphic brutality has been the defining feature in the media, but it is also an essential part of the film and the primary reason it could become the most important portrait of American slavery yet on camera.
“In any case, it is left up to the viewer to not get too lost in the dazzling visual spectacle of the film, and be sure to consider that despite the immaculate attention to detail, some details might still have been rendered invisible.”
Finally tapping into the coveted “Action Movie-Goers Ages 55-64” demographic is _RED,_ the first movie to fully recognize that the bad-ass old guy is the most bad-ass bad-ass possible. For that matter, I think I am not exaggerating when I say that, by and large, the older the practitioner, the more raw the feat. I dare you to name one thing that’s not raw as hell when done by a dude or lady of years. Doing push-ups. Chopping firewood. Yelling at Koreans. Speaking to a nation. Chugging a beer.
In a filmmaking era when movies are increasingly designed, focus-tested, and audience-approved to please, “Bone Tomahawk” is strangely refreshing for refusing us our simple pleasures.
