film criticism by maryann johanson | celebrating 25 years: 1997–2022
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Wonderful; so funny and strange and human. An amazing portrait of a fascinating character, beautifully told with enormous suspense and tenderness.
Hugely watchable cautionary tale of Shakespearean proportions about 21st-century politics. Beautifully, nastily perfect in its ironies and twists.
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.
