film criticism by maryann johanson | since 1997
The deliciously entertaining Emma Thompson and Mindy Kaling take center stage in a comedy about women in a male-dominated world. Laugh-until-you-cry and witheringly funny, often even keenly skewering.
The slim charms of the previous movies have been tossed away in favor of cringe-inducing cattiness and a ridiculous plot. There’s barely even any music. Aca-palling.
Goes well beyond the typical mindless array of slapstick and humiliation to reach disgusting new depths of coarseness. Not just appalling, but actually dangerous.
So convoluted, confusing, and overly crammed that it’s overwhelming, and not in a pleasant way. But Ben Affleck’s autistic action hero is fascinating.
A brilliant, hilarious, exhilarating look at the Gore Vidal v. William F. Buckley paradigm-busting 1968 debates that changed TV journalism for the worse.
LFF is a veritable orgy of cinema, and I love it. It’s exhausting, but I love it.
Here are the few films coming in 2014 that are not sequels, remakes, reboots, or based on a stage show, the Bible, young-adult novels, comic books, cartoons, or — someone make it stop — toy lines.
Bitter, brutal, and — unfortunately for the hopes and dreams of the American people — very very pointedly funny.
I wish I could say I didn’t know why anyone would bother xeroxing a nearly 30-year-old movie, but I do know why. And it ain’t pretty.
Every week my browser gets cluttered up with tabs for stuff that I stumble across and figure I might be able to use as a Question of the Day or a WTF Thought for the Day or grist for some other post. And inevitably, I end the week with most of that material unused. But … more…
