{"id":28932,"date":"2022-02-04T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-02-04T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=28932"},"modified":"2022-02-02T19:47:58","modified_gmt":"2022-02-03T00:47:58","slug":"nightmare-alley-2021-z-view","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=28932","title":{"rendered":"“Nightmare Alley” (2021) \/ Z-View"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Nightmare Alley<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0(2021)<\/p>\n

Director:\u00a0 Guillermo del Toro<\/strong><\/p>\n

Screenplay:\u00a0 Guillermo del Toro<\/strong>, Kim Morgan<\/strong> (based on the novel by William Lindsay Gresham<\/strong>)<\/p>\n

Starring:\u00a0 Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett, Toni Collette, Willem Dafoe, Richard Jenkins, Rooney Mara, Ron Perlman, Mary Steenburgen, David Strathairn, Holt McCallany <\/strong>and Jim Beaver.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tagline:\u00a0 None<\/p>\n

The Overview:\u00a0 Beware of Spoilers\u2026<\/p>\n

When we first see Stanton Carlisle (Cooper) he has set fire to a house containing a dead body.\u00a0 Carlisle gets a menial job with a traveling carnival\/freak show.\u00a0 It is there Carlisle learns he has the ability to read and manipulate people.\u00a0 Working with\u00a0 mentalist Madame<\/em> Zeena and her alcoholic husband, Pete, Carlisle learns the tricks of the trade.<\/p>\n

Realizing that he has the knowledge needed for a successful nightclub act, Carlisle talks Molly into leaving the carny.\u00a0 Two years later, Carlisle and Molly have hit the big time.\u00a0 She loves him and he says he loves her.\u00a0 All is roses until Dr. Lilith Ritter interrupts the act to prove Carlisle is a fraud.\u00a0 He is able to salvage the performance.<\/p>\n

Ritter invites Carlisle to her office where he learns that she’s a psychologist.\u00a0 Both realize that with the information Ritter could provide about her rich clients, a fortune could be made using Carlisle’s talents.\u00a0 Soon they are having an affair and working as partners to fleeces some rich and dangerous people.\u00a0 But is Carlisle conning Ritter or she playing him?<\/p>\n

Guillermo del Toro’s Nightmare Alley<\/em> takes us on a dark journey.\u00a0 His Nightmare Alley<\/em> provides more backstory than the 1947 film and doesn’t shy away from the horrific aspects of carnival life in the days before “freak shows” were outlawed.\u00a0 del Toro’s Nightmare Alley<\/em> is exceptionally well cast.\u00a0 Bradley, Blanchett, Dafoe and Mara are the main stars and they shine.\u00a0 What del Toro did by getting Collette, Jenkins, Perlman, Steenburgen, Strathairn, McCallany and Beaver in supporting roles is make every scene a winner.<\/p>\n

In a movie full of amazing performances, Bradley Cooper shines.\u00a0 Some of his standout scenes include manipulating the Sherriff who has come to shut down the carnival and arrest performers.\u00a0 This is when Carlisle discovers his gift of reading people.\u00a0 The surprise lie detector test scene and the final scene of the film (which I won’t spoil) are also memorable.<\/p>\n

Nightmare Alley<\/em> won’t appeal to everyone despite all that it has going for it.\u00a0 The lead characters are not good people and they make bad choices.\u00a0 There’s no upbeat ending.\u00a0 With that said, I loved Guillermo del Toro’s Nightmare Alley<\/em>.\u00a0 It took me to another time and place.\u00a0 I was hooked on the mystery; intrigued by the characters and impressed by the cast.\u00a0 Nightmare Alley<\/em> stayed with me long after the movie was over.\u00a0 I rate it 5 of 5 stars.<\/p>\n

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Nightmare Alley\u00a0(2021) Director:\u00a0 Guillermo del Toro Screenplay:\u00a0 Guillermo del Toro, Kim Morgan (based on the novel by William Lindsay Gresham)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":912,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[17,54,74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-celebs","category-movies","category-z-view"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/912"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28932"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28932\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28933,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28932\/revisions\/28933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}