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FlickFilosopher.com

film criticism by maryann johanson | celebrating 25 years: 1997–2022

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Sundance Film Festival

Navalny documentary review: celebrating the biggest pain in Putin’s ass

Thu, Apr 14, 2022
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Spectacularly entertaining. As gripping, as suspenseful as a finely wrought fictional thriller; a sheer delight as a portrait of the man himself. Films don’t get much more daring or crucial than this.

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Flee documentary review: home is when you don’t have to run away

Fri, Jan 28, 2022
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Impossibly, heartbreakingly poignant, rooted in tough emotion and hard realities. A deeply humane movie that makes an unspoken, effortless plea for compassion for refugees’ distress and desperation.

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Hale County This Morning, This Evening documentary review: a flow of time and hope

Fri, Jan 18, 2019
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Slice-of-life and stream-of-consciousness, this is unlike any documentary before about what it’s like to be poor and black in America. RaMell Ross is an important new voice in American cinema.

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Science Fair documentary review: these kids today, with their changing the world…

Fri, Sep 28, 2018
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Meet some of the most brilliant teenagers alive, high-school students from all over the world competing at the World Cup of genius geekery. Funny, sobering, and inspiring.

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The Miseducation of Cameron Post movie review: just as she is

Fri, Sep 07, 2018
5 comments

Like a black comedy from a dystopia, except the dystopia is real and we are living in it. Chloë Grace Moretz is better than ever as a teen who discovers she may not be able to pray her gay away.

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Sweet Country movie review: an essential confrontation with the ugly not-so-past past

Mon, Apr 23, 2018
4 comments

As harshly beautiful as its landscape, this is a stark corrective to the American western it echoes, and a pragmatic confrontation with the deep, tenacious roots of modern racism.

| 4 Comments

Icarus documentary review: on athletes’ compromised wings

Wed, Feb 28, 2018
1 comment

Perfectly illustrative of the serendipitous nature of documentary filmmaking as it pivots from a personal investigation of doping in sports into a thriller with global geopolitical ramifications.

| 1 Comment

Strad Style documentary review: a heart full of violins (Slamdance 2017)

Wed, Feb 08, 2017
2 comments

Wonderful; so funny and strange and human. An amazing portrait of a fascinating character, beautifully told with enormous suspense and tenderness.

| 2 Comments

Weiner documentary review: the unchecked narcissism of politics

Thu, Jul 07, 2016
3 comments

Hugely watchable cautionary tale of Shakespearean proportions about 21st-century politics. Beautifully, nastily perfect in its ironies and twists.

| 3 Comments

The Witch movie review: casts a good spell… and then a bad one

Mon, Feb 15, 2016
50 comments

Eerie and sinister, operating on a more psychologically incisive level than the typical horror flick… until it tosses it all with a cop-out of an ending.

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