film criticism by maryann johanson | since 1997
Two very different films, replete with emotionally engaging performances, examine the impact of the American death penalty from the large-scale legal and political to that of intimate personal grief.
This looks potentially interesting — Saoirse Ronan is always fascinating to watch, for one — but the fact that it’s been sitting around since 2011 perhaps isn’t a great sign.
UPDATED: Winners are indicated with ♦s. I made informed guesses in 20 of the 24 categories; of those, I guessed 12 correctly. (Well, 13, really, except that in the animated short category in the original version of this page, I had both “The Lady and the Reaper (La Dama y la Muerte)” and “Logorama” checked … more…
I’m not sure how a story like the one that unfolds in *Precious* can be anything other than the harrowing, painful, heartbreaking, explicit work that it is.
