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- Jan 16, 2014
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Bummer...I was looking forward to this one...and I'm a Shannon fanboi...
I think it largely depends on how you feel about Del Toro's penchant for the weird. If you can get past a lady fucking a fishman (admittedly a tough ask though if you watch carefully, there's slightly more to it than that), it's a really well-crafted fairy tale. Michael Shannon is at peak Michael Shannon in this movie (perhaps only outdone by him eating whole chunks of scenery in Man of Steel).
I can definitely understand people bouncing off of it... the main conceit is one that makes people uncomfortable with good reason and there's a sequence towards the end (you'll know it when you see it) that borders on the ridiculous. However, if you look at it as a cold war fairy tale not unlike Pan's Labyrinth, it works super well. Frankly, I'm shocked it won Best Picture as it's not the prototypical Oscar bait movie (apart from perhaps that aforementioned ridiculous scene).