film criticism by maryann johanson | celebrating 25 years: 1997–2022
Two new documentaries — one a shrewdly incisive work of journalism, the other a delicately elegant tale of injustice and friendship — tell all-but-forgotten histories of Black America. Of America.
Just because a tale is science fiction doesn’t mean that plausibility and cohesion are not required. Yet we can see the narrative strings pulling along the puppet-characters, and in an ugly direction.
Nice Guy garbage man Josh Lucas negs sad sack Katie Holmes. Based on the pernicious self-help philosophy that insists that everything wrong with your life is your fault. You know: feel-good romance!
The hugely appealing Issa Rae and Kumail Nanjiani share terrific comic and romantic chemistry and work their everywoman and -man charm to the max. Go-to goofy escapism for, say, a pandemic lockdown.
A limp noodle of a cinematic noir that drains Patricia Clarkson of her usual eccentric charisma. And where it aims for intriguingly oblique pseudoscientific philosophizing, it ends up merely obtuse.
Susanna Fogel directs a comedy about a spy’s girlfriend; Renee Edwards directs a documentary about New Orleans musicians; more…
Two movies about women at crossroads in their lives explore the sort of personal crisis — lost mojo! — typically reserved for men onscreen.
A compelling character study of two intriguingly flawed people, the sort of richly observed drama that has gotten all but pushed out of mainstream cinema.
Unpleasant, humor free, and contrary to accepted codes of movie morality. And that’s before it shows its hand as a pile of implausible sentimental mush.
Jason Statham teams up with another badass little girl… which makes him almost warm and charming as he kicks the crap out of villains.
