film criticism by maryann johanson, not an AI | since 1997
Ballerina turned whore-spy? This is like a cheap porn scenario, and the Hollywood gloss makes it worse. Risible yet tedious, yet another movie by men that thinks it’s critiquing misogyny yet is indistinguishable from it.
One of the smartest and most enthralling SF film series ever breaks more new ground as it ends on notes as emotional and provocative as they are explosive.
One of the best SF series ever deepens its critique of the power of propaganda in ways complicated, intriguingly contradictory, and a little bit horrifying.
A devastating indictment of pop culture as propaganda — about its power and the limits of its powers — and an upending of the typical teen-girl romance movie.
As cornball goes, there’s nothing cornier than running away to join the circus. And that’s why Water for Elephants works so beautifully: It doesn’t pretend to be anything other than an old-fashioned melodrama yarn-spun for as much emotion and tragedy and romance as possible.
Fifteen years ago Bill and Ted took a seriously silly journey to the underworld, and this one is seriously freakishly disturbing. Imagine if Bosch and Dante were 21st-century geeks and they collaborated on a graphic novel (and maybe that’s a good description of Jamie Delano and Garth Ennis’s book *Hellblazer,* upon which this is based, but I don’t know cuz I’ve never seen it).
