
movies by or about women opening UK/Ire from Fri Sep 28
Crystal Moselle’s coming-of-age drama Skate Kitchen and Kate Novack’s documentary The Gospel According to André hit the screens…
handcrafted film criticism by maryann johanson | since 1997
Crystal Moselle’s coming-of-age drama Skate Kitchen and Kate Novack’s documentary The Gospel According to André hit the screens…
Forget about magical creatures: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them could use some help finding itself, and in figuring out who its protagonist is.
Whatever you do, don’t look at the Weeping Vashta Nerada under the bed at the end of the universe.
Honestly, I’m not entirely sure what David Cronenberg’s point is here…
A time travel plot can feel like a huge narrative swindle if not handled correctly. But there’s no big do-over button hovering over this tale. Nope: the timey-wimey stuff here is clever, funny, thrilling, even poignant.
This dreary Disneyfied inconsequence features all the bigotries of century-old pulp fiction and none of the romance, neither the sexual nor the adventurous kind…
Rodrigo Garcia’s latest film, Mother and Child, opening tomorrow in the U.S. and Canada, is that rarest of rarities these days: a serious film about motherhood that does not resort to clichés and stereotypes but explores what is for many women the central experience of their lives without either denigrating it or dismissing it. The … more…
It was Charlie Kaufman, at the multiplex, with a mindfrak.
All this week! 5 movies I’m psyched for in October, and 5 reasons why. No. 1: Synecdoche, New York [opens limited October 24]. 1. Gonzo screenwriter Charlie Kaufman makes his debut as a director, working from his own script. Will that make this even more deliciously bizarre than the movies he merely wrote — such … more…
Damn, but I had a good time at the movies this year. I sat through a lot of cinematic toxic waste, it’s true, but I also had a tough time winnowing down my best-of list to only ten films: the top 25 or 30 films in my annual ranking delighted me, made me laugh, moved … more…