film criticism by maryann johanson | since 1997
Pointless adaptation of the beloved children’s novel soaked in a gothic spookiness that seems to deliberately misunderstand the story. Neither literal enough nor magical enough. My heart was unmoved.
Writer, director, and star Rupert Everett’s labor of cinematic love, about the last years of Oscar Wilde, is a small wonder of contradictions: nightmarish yet sanguine, a bit sordid yet full of grace.
An unsettling true story smartly told, from a moment in time at once uniquely its own and a harbinger of things to come. Colin Firth is subtle, unflinching, extraordinary.
Colin Firth has taken Italian citizenship.
Save us from male artists who think they are dangerously, uniquely innovative. This stew of toxic masculinity and CGI-cartoon violence is nothing but tediously mundane.
The desperation, the neuroticism, and the idiocy of Bridget Jones continues to be appalling, not appealing. She is not the everywoman she is meant to be.
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I cannot recall a film that left me with such a sour taste in my mouth by its end. Does the movie deliberately defy itself with obnoxious intent?
The Alliance of Women Film Journalists is one of the orgs for which I help choose year-end best-ofs.
A flimsy trifle, but a diverting one. Colin Firth is absolutely hilarious, and the re-creation of the 1920s French Riviera is gorgeous.
