film criticism by maryann johanson | since 1997
An anxious moan, a looming disquiet of a reckoning coming for America. This is horror as weird, funny, damning, and more disconcerting the more you think about it, finding fear right in front of us.
The devastating cultural experience Spielberg’s masterpiece presented to us 25 years ago felt then like a piece of history. Today, from the bowels of 2018, it feels like a warning, a premonition, a harbinger.
Hollywood finds a way. To keep telling the same stories over and over again, that is. There’s too much going on in Fallen Kingdom, and yet somehow not enough, either. Still: dinosaurs!
A nightmare of nothingness, of empty, soulless wankery, that serves only to reassure male dorks that their pop-culture obsessions make them special, and will make cute girls like them.
I finished up my reread of Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline — soon to be released as a major motion picture by Steven Spielberg — today on Twitter. Here’s my commentary.
My reread of Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline — soon to be released as a major motion picture by Steven Spielberg — commenced today on Twitter. (I’ll finish tomorrow.) Here’s how it’s gone down so far.
Crackles with life and energy, depicting a grand adventure in journalism from almost half a century ago with vigor, suspense, and an urgent relevance for today.
More plot holes than plot, this overly convoluted, deeply stupid Fast and Furious wannabe is crammed with clichés and memorable only when it’s laughable.
A startling portrait of girls at risk, with a magnificent performance by gonna-be-a-star Letitia Wright. Lovely, moving, utterly unsentimental.
Fantasy meandering twists into something more action-oriented, and there’s little magic in it. This is not what we expect from a master cinematic fantasist.
