film criticism by maryann johanson | since 1997
How very kind of Tom Hanks to lend his gravitas and inescapable likability to a bunch of WWII naval reenactors on their weekend-getaway “crossing the north Atlantic in 1942 dodging U-boats” campaign.
This gentle father-son(ish) tale about an expert surfer and his teen apprentice is a rare “family” movie that isn’t preachy or insipid.
Banal, lazy filmmaking that cannot even be bothered to be cheerfully cheap and cheesy. Jennifer Lawrence is trapped in something that is constitutionally unable to allow her to be the strong, competent young woman she arrived as.
What the hell? This cheesy end-of-summer, August-dumping-ground 3D horror movie is chock full of actors you’ve actually heard of…
Take a look back at an old trailer… Elisabeth Shue looks like an adult here, and Ralph Macchio looks like a kid, even though he was actually in his 20s and she was two years younger than him. That’s just weird. The Karate Kid is available on DVD in Region 1 from Amazon.com and from … more…
We know how it is: You’d like to go to the movies this weekend, except the apocalypse has arrived, and you’ll be busy protecting your books from rampaging hoards of desperate readers. But you can have a multiplex-like experience at home with a collection of the right DVDs. And when someone asks you on Monday, … more…
You could almost call it, *Where Do Dreams Go to Die?,* this satire that’s so insightful about art and hope and ambition and enthusiasm — and their flip sides of anger and frustration and embarrassment and derailment — that it’s actually painful at times.
