48/49
When a visionary architect and his wife flee post-war Europe in 1947 to rebuild their legacy and witness the birth of modern United States, their lives are changed forever by a mysterious, wealthy client.. This movie has an intermission built into the actual 70mm film reel that counts down from fifteen minutes.. Harrison Lee Van Buren Sr.: When dogs get sick, they often bite the hand of those who fed them, until someone mercifully puts them down.. Featured in The 7PM Project: Episode dated 10 December 2024 (2024). A Hungarian-Jewish architect manages to narrowly escape to America from post-WWII Europe in the hopes of building a new life for his family. In his new country, his struggling career has some bumps and detours before he is taken under the wing of a watchful, prosperous industrialist in Pennsylvania, who admires his work and who ends up employing him to carry out part of his own vision.Adrien Brody gives one of his best performances ever as Laszlo Toth, the hard-working and determined immigrant who hopes to start a new chapter and rebuild his legacy, both literally and figuratively. But it is Guy Pearce who nearly steals the film with a ferocious and charismatic performance as the blue-blooded tycoon who gives Toth's work as an architect a second chance. He shifts from sympathy to vindictiveness with ease. Brody's protagonist is not a paragon of virtue, to be sure. He wrestles with drug addiction, sometimes doesn't respect the chain of command, teeters on the brink of madness and even turns on some of his closest friends in moments of high stress. In the end, he is sympathetic but complex.Director Brady Corbet provides a rich sense of historical context. The only criticism of the film is that it offers only a vague idea of what this pioneering architect did over the long term. Its focus is overwhelmingly on his first and most ambitious project for this mercurial employer and all the trouble that came with it. Nevertheless, it's one of the best epics in recent memory and enthusiastically recommended for the superb work all around.. From Alien: Romulus to Road House, take a look back at some of our favorite posters of 2024.