film criticism by maryann johanson | 25 years: 1997–2022
Everything about this astonishing, just-plain-satisfying film feels like a revelation. Bone-deep subversive yet universal, dripping with a quiet dread yet also beautiful and beautifully wise.
I laughed a lot while also feeling sick to my stomach. As subtle as a sledgehammer, almost obnoxious… and yet it might as well be a documentary. Is it elegant? Is it art? Who the fuck cares?
Apocalyptically sorta-satirical, bone-deep terrifying slap in the face that humanity has properly earned. Formidable, intense… and funny, in a very dry way that is nevertheless difficult to laugh at.
An electrifying work of high-wire cinematic theater, a one-take, one-location wonder. Documentary-esque but even more immediate, simultaneously intimate and explosive. Stephen Graham is glorious.
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.
Monumental. Villeneuve tells a familiar story with uncommon elegance and pensiveness, even dreaminess, on a breathtaking scale. A stunningly gorgeous, supremely dignified movie about ugly things.
In the era of COVID and Brexit, much of this overstuffed adventure feels redundant, farcical, inconsequential, and desperate. But Ana de Armas and Lashana Lynch show us the way to a future for 007.
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.
The performances are terrific, the evocation of the period striking, but it feels redundant, more GoodFellas-lite than The Sopranos, and with several TV seasons’ worth of story crammed in.
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.
