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FlickFilosopher.com

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

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mystery

Navalny documentary review: celebrating the biggest pain in Putin’s ass

Thu, Apr 14, 2022
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Spectacularly entertaining. As gripping, as suspenseful as a finely wrought fictional thriller; a sheer delight as a portrait of the man himself. Films don’t get much more daring or crucial than this.

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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.

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Death on the Nile movie review: Kenneth Branagh steps in the same river twice

Wed, Feb 16, 2022
7 comments

This should be salacious! We should revel in the seething jealousy and simmering resentments! But there’s not much suspense or engagement in waiting for someone to die, nor in finding out whodunnit.

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Shepherd movie review: gothic shaggy dog

Fri, Nov 26, 2021
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Elegantly gloomy but ultimately unsatisfying gothic rural horror that is all too-static mood. Tom Hughes makes a valiant go of a descent into madness, but the character is little more than his misery.

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Censor movie review: the horror of the persistence of memory

Fri, Oct 01, 2021
4 comments

Ambiguous, introspective, thoughtful. As weirdly uncomfortable as horror should be, and rarely is, as it examines how these movies can infect us. Niamh Algar is terrific, and deeply empathetic.

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The Card Counter movie review: unnatural stillness at the center of the storm

Fri, Sep 17, 2021
2 comments

Grim, mysterious, and unsettling, never more so than when it is quiet and still. But a brutality lurks below its calm, slick surface. Oscar Isaac’s performance is a work of astonishing minimalism.

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Reminiscence movie review: remembering it for you retail

Fri, Aug 20, 2021
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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.

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A Perfect Enemy movie review: terminal rage

Thu, Jul 15, 2021
2 comments

Ridiculous excuse for a thriller — obvious, preposterous, ultimately banal — piles on psychological absurdities as it builds from a maddening middle to an enraging crescendo of misogynist nonsense.

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The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It review: possessed innocent?

Fri, Jun 04, 2021
7 comments

As credulous — or con-artist cheaty — as its demon-hunter protagonists, but lacking their charm. Worse, it can’t even be bothered to justify and satisfy the procedural approach to its mystery.

| 7 Comments
Oscar Nominated Animated Shorts 2021 green light

Oscar Nominated Animated Shorts 2021 (93rd Academy Awards) review

Thu, Apr 15, 2021
2 comments

I don’t see how the astonishing “Opera,” by Erick Oh, doesn’t win the Oscar for Best Animated Short. This is a stupendous achievement, a cartoon clockwork depicting life, the universe, and everything.

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