film criticism by maryann johanson | celebrating 25 years: 1997–2022
Hollywood finds a way. To keep telling the same stories over and over again, that is. There’s too much going on in Fallen Kingdom, and yet somehow not enough, either. Still: dinosaurs!
Absolutely delightful and utterly original, with its lovingly crafted stop-motion animation bursting with sweetness but also with a winking mockery. I have just a few caveats…
Breezy, jokey, crammed with clever sci-fi ideas; the funniest MCU flick yet. Director Taika Waititi brings a new geeky verve we didn’t realize the series needed.
Moonlight leads, with seven awards…
The it’s-about-damn-time true story that puts paid to the notion that only white men had the Right Stuff. Often funny, ultimately feel-good, hugely exhilarating.
[This post is not behind the paywall.]
The Invitation Committee fears that this fictional popular entertainment reflects Human tendencies to illogic, lack of imagination, and rank sentimentality.
I am the prime demographic for this movie, and I found it only sort of inoffensively blah. Chris Pratt: He’s no Jeff Goldblum.
A marvelous little unpacking of the meaning of happiness, precisely what constitutes it, and how to know whether you’ve found it.
Ah, Jeff Goldblum! Ah, Jim Broadbent and Lindsay Duncan!
