film criticism by maryann johanson | since 1997
Generously, this is a 15-minute short padded out to an unforgivable, patience-trying two hours, there’s so little in the way of fresh ideas or engaging characters. Kudos for making time travel boring.
A lazy treadmill of a sci-fi morality play that wastes a terrific cast. A numbingly dull game of mutant checkers that has no idea how to tell a woman’s story except filtered through the eyes of men.
The remarkable Ice Age setting is all that distinguishes — and not by much — a depressingly conventional boy-and-his-dog story.
About precisely nothing other than pure pulp comic-book soap-opera rigmarole, overshadowed by clichés, implausibilities, and missed opportunities.
Michael Fassbender is never not worth watching, and his unique blend of cynical smarts and weary humor is perfectly suited to this bitterly funny road trip.
A magnificent science fiction drama, and a beautiful one. Wonderfully radical for the simple fact that it is ruled by principled ideas.
Dismal, yet profound and pungent, ParaNorman makes its points in ways more sharp and brutal than other “children’s” films. This is a story about ostracism and bigotry taken to extremes, and about our own unspoken prejudices and assumptions.
In Let Me In, a child vampire (Chloe Grace Moretz) befriends a child nonvampire (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and violence and bloodshed ensues. This flick sprang from (among other films)…
It is a strange and curious thing that director Matt Reeves chose to follow up his uniquely distinctive Cloverfield with a film that is, if not precisely a shot for shot remake of the Swedish-language Let the Right One In, then at least a tonal copy.
We know how it is: You’d like to go to the movies this long holiday weekend, but you won’t be able to move off the sofa after all that turkey, plus: football! But you can have a multiplex-like experience at home with a collection of the right DVDs. And when someone asks you on Monday, … more…
