film criticism by maryann johanson | celebrating 25 years: 1997–2022
There are no new movies opening in wide release in the US today that are written or directed by women, and none about women. In limited release, Juliette Binoche, Rachel Weisz, Rachel McAdams, and Alia Shawkat are looking for love, with varying degrees of success.
This high-school comedy avoids the worst clichés of the genre and resists rather than indulges the worst tendencies of adolescence. Which is a rare thing.
At the behest of several readers who appear to believe they know my taste better than I know it, and also in an attempt to figure out just what the hell M. Night Shyamalan was thinking with his The Last Airbender, I watched the entire first season of Nickelodeon’s pseudo-anime series Avatar: The Last Airbender.
