film criticism by maryann johanson | celebrating 25 years: 1997–2022
The superhero movie we need, and also the one we karmically deserve. A riot of hilariously zippy animation that gleefully shreds the clichés of the genre while also lovingly embracing its self-referential geek experience.
Oh, the glorious awfulness!
The AWFJ is one of the critics’ groups I belong to; my input helped determine these nominees, and I will vote in the final balloting to narrow it down to the winners. I still have to watch a few of these nominees…
I’ve just come from enduring some truly cold and deeply unmoving CGI FX in The Last Airbender. Sterile, inorganic, lifeless… I haven’t seen anything so lackluster since Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. And Jonah Hex. And Clash of the Titans. And Alice in Wonderland. And — oh yeah — last night, when I … more…
It seems like it’s been bad-movies news all week, what with Syfy’s two big announcements: DIY bad Saturday Night Syfy Original and Tiffany vs. Debbie Gibson. And then I came across an article by Leor Galil at New City Film about the apparent “sudden resurgence” of bad movies, particularly as a midnight-movie phenomenon: Alongside “The … more…
The Hollywood Reporter blog Heat Vision has a few lessons Hollywood might want to consider when contemplating another film like Jonah Hex, which is destined to go down as one of the worst-performing movies of 2010. The lessons seem evident: Fanboys might not make or break a film, but they need to feel respected. Pick … more…
Take a break from work: watch a trailer… It just drives me crazy that this is relegated to arthouses and will be seen by so few people. Crap like Jonah Hex — which everyone involved knew was crap before it even started shooting — opens on thousands of screens. But a film like this one … more…
I’m not sure I understand Josh Brolin’s thinking here, but c’mon, this is how people end up working as nightwatch security at the local Vampire’s Choice Blood Bank franchise, right? The shoot was purportedly plagued with problems, not the least of which was star Josh Brolin telling MTV: “When I first read it I thought, … more…
This is Michael Fassbender looking good in a Nazi disguise in Inglourious Basterds. I couldn’t find a decent pic of him in Jonah Hex, in which he portrays the righthand man of John Malkovich’s villain. I’m posting a picture like this one every weekday, of a man who is attractive and desirable, because I like … more…
If Jonah Hex can talk to the dead, then he’s probably the only one (apart from Ned the Pie Man) who could have any meaningful interaction with this movie.
