film criticism by maryann johanson | since 1997
Honest, compassionate, and very necessary, this is a provocation, a challenge to our individual and cultural preconceived notions about and neurotic relationships to food, weight, and body image.
Dishearteningly less concerned with giving Natasha Romanoff her own story than with setting up her MCU replacement. Superfluous, backward-looking, its bit of feminism belabored. She deserved better.
A deliciously badass style — part 70s grindhouse, part verité pseudo-documentary — and all-in performances are undermined by an exploitive gaze, and a combination of failed caper and failed satire.
An intriguing story with engaging performances about a compelling real-life character, but oddly inert, and can’t quite make all its many aspects gel into a wholly satisfying or wholly coherent story.
Quietly chilling. A condemnation of supposed propriety over genuine decency, and the sacrifice of children to the illusion of communal cohesion. There are no easy answers here, and no pat resolutions.
Two new documentaries — one a shrewdly incisive work of journalism, the other a delicately elegant tale of injustice and friendship — tell all-but-forgotten histories of Black America. Of America.
Brilliantly tantalizing, bursting with creative enthusiasm and bouncy energy, this cheeky work of artistic activism is out to subvert our debt-driven economy. Who says smashing injustice can’t be fun?
This otherwise gorgeous nature documentary is marred by the banal self-therapy of its human protagonist… and he is nowhere near as interesting as the manic pixie dream octopus who changes his life.
I bawled my eyes out in aching nostalgia with this absolutely delightful dive into the creation of the educational TV show and its carefully crafted chaos that had an outsized impact on Generation X.
Come on down for a gen-u-ine American dystopia at the crossroads of end-of-empire and late-stage capitalism. Chloé Zhao’s outsider’s eye is hugely sympathetic but unhindered by knee-jerk patriotism.
