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FlickFilosopher.com

film criticism by maryann johanson | celebrating 25 years: 1997–2022

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film noir

The Batman movie review: to bat, or not to bat

Sun, Mar 06, 2022
7 comments

No snark, no spandex pantomime spectacle. Just noir mystery, Pattinson’s sad recluse a detective in a cesspit of corruption. Relentlessly grim, all darkness and despair, not escapist but of our time.

| 7 Comments

Reminiscence movie review: remembering it for you retail

Fri, Aug 20, 2021
no comments yet

A cautionary tale about getting mired in the past is itself hamstrung by what has come before: overplayed noir tropes and underbaked sci-fi ideas. The fab cast at least elevates this to the mediocre.

| Leave a comment

#Like movie review: teen feminist rage, muted

Fri, Jan 29, 2021
no comments yet

Sarah Pirozek weaves an elegant, noirish tragedy on a micro budget, but it’s far more effective as a portrait of the miserable discomposure of modern teen life than as a feminist vigilante thriller.

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Blow the Man Down movie review: redefining the femme fatale

Mon, Mar 23, 2020
1 comment

Quietly savage, weirdly funny, this feminist take on crime noir is ferocious in a way that only slowly reveals itself. Conflict and compassion wax and wane in a mystery that isn’t quite what it seems.

| 1 Comment

John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum movie review: symphony in order and chaos

Wed, May 15, 2019
no comments yet

Modern noir god Keanu Reeves again stalks a fantasy(ish) world of exhausting, inventive violence. But this time, the curtain is drawn back on the sham of seeming orderliness in its world (and ours).

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Pokémon: Detective Pikachu movie review: destined to be Legendary

Tue, May 07, 2019
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Designed to cash in on the popular mobile game, this kiddie noir nevertheless sparkles with charming originality. Gentle enough for tykes but with satirical bite for grownups, too. Downright adorable.

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Out of Blue movie review: murder most muted

Fri, Mar 22, 2019
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A limp noodle of a cinematic noir that drains Patricia Clarkson of her usual eccentric charisma. And where it aims for intriguingly oblique pseudoscientific philosophizing, it ends up merely obtuse.

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Serenity movie review: gonna need a bigger nope

Thu, Feb 28, 2019
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Accidental hilarity turns ugly in this baffling exercise in genre-hopping that thinks it justifies its Hollywood-typical adolescent-boy attitudes about women, sex, violence, and morality. It does not.

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Destroyer movie review: holding out for an antiheroine

Sat, Jan 19, 2019
no comments yet

Nicole Kidman’s pitiless performance completely upends genre expectations in Karyn Kusama’s tense, grim crime noir. Uncompromising and subtly challenging, like a cerebral itch you can’t quite scratch.

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Bad Times at the El Royale movie review: bad times indeed

Thu, Oct 11, 2018
25 comments

A self-indulgent, faux-woke mashup of noir crime, black comedy, and Tarantino-esque ultraviolence. Some great performances, including a spectacular feature debut from Cynthia Erivo; shame they’re so wasted.

| 25 Comments
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