film criticism by maryann johanson | handcrafted since 1997
Woodyn’t You Know It My relationship with Woody Allen, which has been love/hate of late — emphasis on the hate — is taking an uptick. His last few films — Scoop, Match Point, Cassandra’s Dream — couldn’t hold a light to, say, Manhattan, but at least they didn’t make me want to claw my eyes … more…
Here’s the thing about Joel and Ethan Coen: they can make anything, absolutely anything, intensely profound and deeply weird — and weirdly deep — and cruelly magnificent all at the same time.
BEST ACTOR Don Cheadle, Hotel Rwanda It’s a role that, in the hands of even another very competent actor, could have descended into pathos and sentimentality, but Cheadle’s performance goes way beyond mere competence: As an Oskar Schindler-type figure in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide, he approaches incomprehensible horrors in a way that makes us intimate partners … more…
