film criticism by maryann johanson | celebrating 25 years: 1997–2022
A moving and important portrait of legendary Times of London foreign correspondent Marie Colvin. We need more movies like this, about fearless, badass women this outrageously good at their vitally necessary work.
A romance and a real-life adventure, full of life-and-death peril and unexpected cheerful good humor, about a pioneer in disability rights and dignity.
The story of Charles Dickens and his secret mistress is no romance, and no modest costume drama, either.
My favorite of the five films is the British “The Voorman Problem,” starring Martin Freeman and Tom Hollander in a hilarious and provocative bit of speculative fantasy…
Arbitrary and inconsistent rules of time travel in aid of creepy romantic manipulation and temporal stalking. But hey, at least it’s got Bill Nighy!
It’s as if Jane Austen and Monty Python collaborated on an episode of *The West Wing*…
Oh, thank the gods. Thank crazy Walt Disney’s head in a cryogenic freezer. Thank the army of producers and FX geeks and writers and cast and studio execs and focus-group gurus and everyone else who made this prepackaged, ready-for-synergy-marketing, lowest-common-denominator junk cinema the most cheesalicious, escape-a-riffic it could be.
Is it ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ or ‘Highlander 2: The Quickening’?
This is what, the 18,562,012th film version of Jane Austen? How many times can Lizzie Bennet and Mr. Darcy misunderstand each other and yearn and burn and fail to see past their own snobbery and stubbornness until they finally do? Oh my god, do we really need another *Pride & Prejudice*?
