film criticism by maryann johanson | celebrating 25 years: 1997–2022
The wacky-yet-heartfelt comedy just about works; the gibberish dialogue, not so much. But this could be the makings of a crowdsourced cult fave, if playful viewers end up creating their own subtitles.
This intense dramatization of the true story of a failed attempt to assassinate Hitler in 1939 is an unpleasant experience but a provocative one.
Transforms the beloved “People’s Princess” into a drippy, unappealing rom-com heroine, sort of like Bridget Jones with bodyguards.
I’ll watch Naomi Watts and Naveen Andrews in anything, though this does look a bit like a TV melodrama.
If you don’t care for Watts in the role, whom would you cast?
Most of the riffs on the UC Davis pepper-spraying are satirical: the cop has been Photoshopped pepper-spraying fallen colonial soldiers of the American Revolution, little children listening to Jesus, and so on. But not all are so pointed…
I can’t wait to see how Hitler reacts to “Let’s Kill Hitler”…
This is one of the best examples of the meme I’ve seen yet — watch it before it gets pulled from YouTube — with a killer punchline.
BBC News Magazine this week ran a thoughtful, if mystified essay on the popularity of those YouTube Hitler rants (perhaps to coincide with this month’s 65th anniversary of Hitler’s death and the end of the Nazi regime). You know the ones: they borrow a scene from the amazing but serious-as-a-heart-attack German film Downfall, about Hitler’s … more…
After a disastrous foray into Hollywood, German director Oliver Hirschbiegel returns to the realms of uneasy morality he explored in his portrait of Bunker Hitler in *Downfall*…
