film criticism by maryann johanson | since 1997
Wonderfully escapist, dripping with magnificently congenial charm thanks to the comic chemistry of Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt. Plus it’s sure to enrage people who use “woke” as an insult. Yay!
A marvel of a sequel that smartly avoids any attempt to recapture the original, instead expanding its world in every way possible. Brisk, crisp, efficient, and full of masterful sequences of suspense.
It’s Christmas for movies about women! Women-centered Mary Queen of Scots, The Favourite, Second Act, and Bumblebee all open wide over the holidays. Amazing.
Women get wide releases! Christina Hodson writes and Hailee Steinfeld stars in sci-fi action-adventure Bumblebee; Deborah Davis cowrites and Olivia Colman, Emma Stone, and Rachel Weisz star in historical dramedy The Favourite; more…
A flimsy treasure-hunt plot, a sexy song-and-dance number, and more of the same Elton John songs deployed with trite, lazy tedium. They mean to keep cranking out these dumb, dull movies, don’t they?
Kay Cannon and Lynne Ramsay direct two very different movies about adults trying to protect children, and more…
Emily Blunt and Millicent Simmonds versus real monsters, Madison Wolfe versus (possibly) invented monsters, Maggie Grace versus armed robbers, and more…
An apocalypse unlike any onscreen before. A film often almost unbearably tense, in part because it audaciously reconsiders the role sound plays in eliciting our emotional response.
An imperfect adaptation of an uncinematic novel is nevertheless a challenging portrait of a woman as deeply screwed up as usually only men get to be onscreen.
It’s a prequel and a sequel! It’s got girl powerrr and lady-hating! It’s a mashup of Lord of the Rings and Frozen! It’s all these things, and less.
