film criticism by maryann johanson | since 1997
Filmmaker Amy Seimetz evokes a taut, cursed mundanity, an allegorical contemplation of culture at its most basic level: when it fails and everyone is hopeless. Accidentally hits our pandemic mood.
Two very different films, replete with emotionally engaging performances, examine the impact of the American death penalty from the large-scale legal and political to that of intimate personal grief.
Tali Shalom-Ezer directs romantic drama My Days of Mercy, starring Ellen Page and Kate Mara; more… [This post is for Patreon patrons only for the first month.]
Like Drunk History but sober, a lively, arch, dryly comedic corrective to the traditional, heteronormative, patriarchal image of Emily Dickinson. Incredibly audacious and utterly delightful.
A lazy adaptation of the Stephen King novel, manipulatively cheap when it isn’t provoking eye-rolls at its genre banalities. Why can’t someone find the right role for the charismatic Jason Clarke?
A confounding intellectual mystery, an enigmatic philosophical science fantasy that’s like a cinematic Moebius strip.
