Novelist Nick Antosca (“Fires“) has penned “a breathless, extemporaneous appreciation” of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford on the Huffington Post and called it “a majestic accomplishment….a film had me so deeply in its reality” that he’s found it hard to remember when it last happened.

“I experienced Assassination in my skin and my blood and my bones. It’s such a powerful piece of art… spooky, absolutely beautiful, and so richly put together.

“From the trailer and early reviews I expected a tone poem, something lovely to look at but not necessarily affecting in any profound sense — like Terrence Malick‘s The New World, with its mumbling and utterly inscrutable characters framed by gorgeous forest — so what initially startled me was the genuine humor and deftness of Andrew Dominik‘s script (and of Ron Hansen‘s dialogue — Hansen wrote the novel). Every character is achingly human and distinguished with care, given dignity and pettiness and strange quirks and spotlit moments.”