handcrafted film criticism by maryann johanson | since 1997
Fight the future. Change the future. Watch the future reset itself so that everything ends up much the same way anyway. Repeat. This time-travelling franchise is, ironically, stuck in the past.
An action masterpiece newly remastered in gorgeous 4K (and rejiggered for superfluous 3D) reveals how fresh it remains not only technically but thematically.
Shockingly not terrible, and says some things that need to be said more often, like how dads do not own their teenaged daughters…
Gangster Squad! In color! This is blustery postwar mythologizing about the violent birth of the modern metropolis, all pulpy-bright even when it’s night…
While much of the rest of the NYC critical community will be attending a screening of Race to Witch Mountain tonight (here’s why I won’t), I’ll be seeing Severed Ways: The Norse Discovery of America (opens in New York City on March 13; no U.K. release date has been announced), an ultralow-budget epic about two … more…
Take a break from work: watch a movie trailer… A little late today, but hey, it’s still time to take a break from work on the West Coast… Ooo, a pastiche of 1950s science fiction! Excellent! And tricky, too. It has to have just the right tone to work. If it’s not bad enough — … more…
(previous: “Dungeons & Dragons”) Oh boy. People are talking Biblical apocalypse and robots are learning to dance. We’re doomed. We gotta be doomed if this is how it’s all going down. Man, this is a particularly grim episode — the whole ethos of the series is pretty grim, actually. Maybe not so much on the … more…
