film criticism by maryann johanson | since 1997
Has a verve rare in big-budget movies at the moment. Fun and fresh and legitimately engages with its source material on the levels of story, visuals, and mythology all at once. It feels like discovering storytelling anew.
An extraordinarily intimate and perceptive new biography of the legendary actor and activist. Fonda reveals insecurities and anxieties that are achingly raw and very personal, but which many women will see themselves in.
Wonderfully, aggressively feminist, a rare crossgenerational portrait of two women getting to know each other amidst a crisis. Smart and acerbically funny.
Spotlight takes four awards, including Best Film…
In the 1970s, when Ernestine was linebacking for The Phone Company, it wasn’t a matter of life and death if she prevented a call from going through… Now the likes of she have the power to kill you. American progress at its finest.
I feel more and more like Lily Tomlin every day: No matter how cynical I get, I can’t keep up. Just like week I invented an imaginary supervillain for whom Play-Doh: The Motion Picture, Boggle: The Movie, and Trivial Pursuit: The Next Generation seemed beyond the pale, something only the depths of his depravity could … more…
You almost want to hug ‘Swing Vote,’ too, it’s so cute in how it thinks that it’s not too late for all that, that one-man-one-vote really is something akin to, well, maybe nine innings of baseball on a glorious summer’s day.
