Skip to content
  • weekly digest email
  • join my Patreon
  • join my Substack
  • my books
  • about/contact
  • twitter
  • rotten tomatoes
  • letterboxd
  • goodreads
  • pinterest
  • rss
FlickFilosopher.com

film criticism by maryann johanson | handcrafted since 1997

  • on Netflix
  • movies for the resistance
  • classic film virgin
  • directed by women
    • Where Are the Women? project
  • cinemas
    • US and Canada
    • UK and Ireland
  • dvd/vod
    • US and Canada
    • UK and Ireland
  • 2023’s films ranked
    • 2022’s films ranked
    • 2021’s films ranked
    • 2020’s films ranked
  • all recent posts
    • archives by month
  • all reviews
    • A–M
    • N–Z
    • Oscars Best Pix
    • Oscars Best Animated Pix
  • new comments

Toronto Film Festival

The Current War movie review: fathers of invention, in conflict

Thu, Oct 24, 2019
no comments yet

An electrifying style lights up this geek adventure of the intersections between science, culture, and capitalism in the 19th-century battle to power our world. Cumberbatch and Shannon are brilliant.

| Leave a comment

The Predator movie review: pointless retro junk

Thu, Sep 13, 2018
20 comments

Garbage. A bad excuse for a movie, even for the pulpy disposable popcorn nonsense it wants to be. Incoherent and illogical, cheap and shoddy. Wannabe sci-fi action horror that can’t pull off any of it.

| 20 Comments

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

Black movie review: tragically bad

Fri, Aug 19, 2016
9 comments

A facile riff on Romeo & Juliet amongst Brussels gangs. Banal, clichéd, and treats its teenage-girl protagonist in a spectacularly disgusting way.

| 9 Comments

The Dressmaker movie review: haute couture as a tragicomic weapon

Fri, Nov 20, 2015
6 comments

So entertaining, so unexpected, so wonderfully oddball, so damn good. Witty genre-busting simmering with pathos, humor, and calamity.

| 6 Comments

women! if they don’t get you with their knives, they’ll get you with their vaginas

Mon, Sep 30, 2013
46 comments

I’m starting to get it. Men are simply so piss-in-their-pants terrified of women that they must reduce us to bits and pieces in order to even begin to cope with the horror.

| 46 Comments

You’re Next review: the lack of suspense is killing me

Thu, Aug 22, 2013
10 comments

Oh, it’s horrific, all right: wooden performances and stilted exposition, punctuated by bouts of random bloody sadism.

| 10 Comments

question of the day: What movie are you most looking forward to in Autumn 2011?

Mon, Sep 12, 2011
no comments yet

Okay, this is it. Summer is over. Back to school. Back to work. Put on a sweater and get serious.

| Leave a comment

trailer break: ‘The King’s Speech’

Mon, Sep 27, 2010
no comments yet

I’m so looking forward to this…

| Leave a comment

question of the day: Is hearing news and reviews from film festivals torture for you, too?

Fri, Sep 10, 2010
6 comments

Sheesh, you could do a solid two solid months of film-festivaling, traveling from Venice to Toronto to New York to London for these carnivals of cinemania, an odyssey that sounds to me as wonderful as it does exhausting.

| 6 Comments
Older posts
Page1 Page2 Next →

sf/f/h flash fiction by me

Cultural Artifacts cover
now on Kindle Unlimited!

try KU for free:
US Amazon
Can Amazon
UK Amazon

please help keep truly independent film criticism alive!
support my work at Patreon  support my work at Substack
Pledge your support now at Patreon or Substack.
FREE weekly digest and daily streaming recommendations via Substack.
Or make a one-time donation via Paypal.

shop to support




Watch on Apple TV

FlickFilosopher.com does not accept ads, guest posts, link placements, or sponsored content.

As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Amazon and the Amazon logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.

member
Online Film Critics Society


member
Alliance of Women Film Journalists

Tomatometer-approved critic on
Rotten Tomatoes



top critic
Movie Review Query Engine

Amazon US author page
Amazon UK author page


executive member
International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences
Copyright © 1997–2023 MaryAnn Johanson. All rights reserved.
No content appearing on this site may be reproduced, reposted, or reused in any manner without express written permission.
privacy policy | hosted by Fused