film criticism by maryann johanson | since 1997
A marvel of a sequel that smartly avoids any attempt to recapture the original, instead expanding its world in every way possible. Brisk, crisp, efficient, and full of masterful sequences of suspense.
An apocalypse unlike any onscreen before. A film often almost unbearably tense, in part because it audaciously reconsiders the role sound plays in eliciting our emotional response.
Michael Bay propagandizes for a right-wing idea of “true America,” seething with disdain for anyone who isn’t a former elite soldier turned mercenary.
Visually ravishing, as you’d expect from Hayao Miyazaki, but there is, disappointingly, no drama and no conflict here.
At every turn, and via a simple narrative that is so effortless it barely feels constructed at all, nothing here is quite what it seems, and everything is even more than what it is.
You will want to see this…
A surprisingly pleasant dramatization of the true story told through the eyes of the TV news reporter who broke the story and the Greenpeace activist who worked tirelessly to embarrass the powers that be into helping free three whales stuck in Alaskan ice…
“The Hamptons are like a zombie movie directed by Ralph Lauren.” –Ethan (John Krasinski)
The genre always assumes we’ll sympathize with ugly, soulless, personality-free women doing terrible things to the people they supposedly care about in the pursuit of a wedding, because what is more important than landing Mr. Right, right? But even grading on that rom-com curve, this is a disgusting movie.
We know how it is: You’d like to go to the movies this weekend, but it’s the last weekend of the summer and the last chance to burn dead animals on the barbecue — yum! — before the cool weather sets in. But you can have a multiplex-like experience at home with a collection of … more…
