film criticism by maryann johanson | celebrating 25 years: 1997–2022
Ballerina turned whore-spy? This is like a cheap porn scenario, and the Hollywood gloss makes it worse. Risible yet tedious, yet another movie by men that thinks it’s critiquing misogyny yet is indistinguishable from it.
Ridiculously romantic in all the best ways, and more modern, more progressive, and even just plain more grownup that half the movies thrown at us today.
A devastating indictment of pop culture as propaganda — about its power and the limits of its powers — and an upending of the typical teen-girl romance movie.
Every once in a while, just as I’m about to succumb to Hollywood-stoked despair and ennui, a movie like The Hunger Games comes along to rescue me…
Just as how it’s easier to market movies that are part of a franchise or are sourced from material that audiences are already familiar with, so it is with books…
Yes, the protagonist is a teenaged girl. Yes, there are two teenaged boys who divide her affections and attentions. Yes, there is a movie adaptation of the first book coming next year. But no, this ain’t another Twilight.
