film criticism by maryann johanson | celebrating 25 years: 1997–2022
Lovely, gentle look at an artwork honoring the marginalized. A compassionate challenge to cultural assumptions, including those that decenter the poor and insist that art is a luxury, not a necessity.
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.
A snappy, snarky, never-ever sentimental concoction of cartoon chaos meets hip heist flick. Its breezy swagger extends to the delightful animation, organic and mellow, hot and cool at the same time.
A screaming deluge of metal and rubber devoid of drama, suspense, and elegance. Instead it’s random vehicular chaos enacted with the same energy of a four-year-old smashing his toys into one another.
Poignant, pointed drama about a teenage Ukrainian gymnast fuses the personal and the political in a portrait of the spirit of Ukraine that is now being tested in the worst way. Incredibly affecting.
In a dry, dusty, desperate landscape, Zac Efron goes full grunge, effectively underplaying physical and psychological implosion. But there’s nothing unexpected in this brutal open-air chamber piece.
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.
Not terribly disastrous… until it is. Then movie-movie melodrama gives way to eco-cataclysm and new realms of planetary existential nightmare. I cannot recall a movie’s ending haunting me this much.
Wounded veterans in reluctant-buddy road trip. Allegedly a comedy, but I don’t see much evidence for that. The schmaltz may be slightly more convincing than the comedy, but it’s a low bar to get over.
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.
