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FlickFilosopher.com

handcrafted film criticism by maryann johanson | since 1997

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2022 releases

A Man Called Otto movie review: a rare misfire for Tom Hanks

Sat, Jan 21, 2023
3 comments

With cowardly mildness, this white-bread mush misuses its star’s likability. Tom Hanks trying to be grumpy yet endearing has the opposite impact. He’s somehow less endearing than he’s been before.

| 3 Comments

Turn Every Page: The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb documentary review: slow journalism

Sat, Jan 07, 2023
3 comments

The crisp, congenial charms of this intimate exploration of a decades-long working partnership overlay an unsentimental elegy for an era in journalism and publishing that has all but disappeared.

| 3 Comments

Violent Night movie review: ho ho holy shit

Sat, Dec 24, 2022
1 comment

Many movies have attempted to replicate the festive insouciant brutality of Die Hard. No movie has come closer to this lofty goal than this dementedly delicious nightmare before Christmas.

| 1 Comment

Avatar: The Way of Water movie review: blueface on a blue planet

Fri, Dec 23, 2022
3 comments

The filmmaking craft may be (mostly) astonishing. But the craft must always — always — be in aid of a compelling story populated by compelling characters… and that’s not so much the case here.

| 3 Comments

Harry & Meghan: Vol I television review: royal rumble counterpunch

Fri, Dec 09, 2022
2 comments

There is little here we did not already know, but this is nevertheless a fascinating counterpoint to royal propaganda. Kudos to Harry’s audacity at being unwilling to perpetuate a noxious paradigm.

| 2 Comments

Blackbird movie review: Michael “Riverdance” Flatley flatfoots his way into filmmaking

Wed, Sep 07, 2022
7 comments

Long rumored — long threatened? — writer-director-producer-star Flatley’s self-financed pabulum opus is baffling and hilariously awful. It exists only because an incredibly rich man has money to burn.

| 7 Comments

Beast (2022) movie review: he fights the lion

Thu, Sep 01, 2022
5 comments

Idris Elba fights a lion. This is what we are promised and this is what we get. The purity is sort of beautiful. But is it a failure of the movie, or a success, that it treats such nonsense earnestly?

| 5 Comments

Black Mail movie review: no reason to give in to it

Sat, Aug 27, 2022
no comments yet

Limp thriller is both overly earnest and naively preposterous. A mess of retro ideas about marriage and men, with a protagonist who lacks agency. There’s no suspense but plenty of misplaced moralizing.

| Leave a comment

Nope movie review: are we not entertained?

Fri, Aug 26, 2022
5 comments

There are delicious popcorn-movie vibes and horrors galore, both funny-suspenseful and stone-cold bone-chilling. But most intriguing is the twistiness of how the movie grapples with its own existence.

| 5 Comments

Orphan: First Kill movie review: not-so-little girl lost

Wed, Aug 17, 2022
no comments yet

The rare sequel better than the original, but that’s not saying much. Takes too long to get to its surprises, its adult star is unconvincing as a child, and its minimal cleverness feels like a cheat.

| Leave a comment
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