film criticism by maryann johanson | celebrating 25 years: 1997–2022
Two brilliant dramas upend cinematic tropes of male vengeance with precision, patience, and grim humor. These are radical rethinks in emotional maturity surrounding men’s grief, remorse, and shame.
There’s genuine fun here, but the humor is cynical, the heroics are tinged with regret, and it’s all delivered with a cold smack of — yes — political relevance.
Busy with CGI to hide the emptiness where the emotional core should be. Even the mechanics of getting a man from mere mortal to demigod-in-a-cape are rote.
In the wake of Hannibal…
Strange and wonderful and unclassifiable in the best way, this is an unexpectedly touching and oddly funny platonic romance. Sort of.
Nearly Blazing Saddles without the jokes: all genre conventions with none of the fun, just your inescapable expectations met around every sun-blighted corner.
LFF is a veritable orgy of cinema, and I love it. It’s exhausting, but I love it.
Oh, this is torture. More! Now!
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