film criticism by maryann johanson | celebrating 25 years: 1997–2022
Like all Frazetta fantasy posters came to life all at once. A masterpiece of cinema that truly speaks to the interests of white male teenage nerds from 1987.
Authentically female in how it gets inside a lifelong friendship between two women, and as wisely funny as it is sharply poignant.
A solid action fantasy more elemental and visceral than I expected, thanks to the potent presence of Luke Evans.
Thinks it’s poetical and epic, and the more dramatic it thinks it’s being, the more hilariously histrionic it all is.
The best thing about this pile-on of pulpy historical pseudo revisionism: it works. Timur Bekmambetov treats it sincerely, but cheerfully so: the film isn’t without a subversively gentle sense of humor, yet it’s never so earnest that it stumbles over into cheese.
This looks more silly than anything else. I didn’t know that parkour was a thing in the 19th century.
Hoorah! Time to start mythologizing the reign of Saddam Hussein!
It’s now a tossup whether the best comic-book superhero movie of 2011 is X-Men: First Class or Captain America: First Avenger… But I’m leaning toward Captain America.
Someone once said that perfect movies are boring and only flawed movies intriguing, and then along comes a movie like *An Education,* about which the number of things that are absolutely perfect is impossible to measure… and it’s thrilling and captivating anyway.
