handcrafted by maryann johanson (human) | 100% free of AIs and algorithms
A great American filmmaker on a memory-holed chapter of American history at the intersection of colonialism and toxic masculinity. Massive, epic, and essential. Scorches the earth of our complacency.
Plus a teenage con artist, a skewering of late-night comedy, and more… (First published September 18th, 2022, on Substack and Patreon.)
Plus adventures in drinking, hanging out in bars, and murder. (First published August 7th, 2022, on Substack and Patreon.)
Feels less like a movie than it does a hostage video. Poor Liam Neeson isn’t trying to hide how exhausted and trapped he is in his cinematic hamster wheel of cheap, violent revenge thrillers. It’s sad.
Beautiful in its style, enraging in its substance, this skewering of the FBI’s surveillance of the civil-rights icon is essential for understanding the near-term roots of white supremacy in America.
French New Wave icon Jean Seberg plays an unwitting game of cat-and-mouse with the FBI in a strangled blend of biopic and paranoid thriller. Not even always fascinating Kristen Stewart can save this.
Cluelessly simplistic rendering of a 1990s media injustice ignores all the context in which it happened and demonizes the one journalist who acted professionally. Fails even as a conservative screed.
A sad retread of The Fugitive. Dumb, pointless, confused, full of contempt for its audience, and laughably unable to convince us that Gerard Butler is an acceptable stand-in for Harrison Ford.
Nicole Kidman’s pitiless performance completely upends genre expectations in Karyn Kusama’s tense, grim crime noir. Uncompromising and subtly challenging, like a cerebral itch you can’t quite scratch.
Embarrassingly bad CGI; pratfalls; genital humor; denigration of cat ladies; horrible clichés and stereotypes. This is the cinematic equivalent of stepping in dog poop. You know, for kids!
