film criticism by maryann johanson | handcrafted since 1997
An intense, intimate tale of historical illegal abortion, with a central performance of focused terror; a harrowing body horror that looms again. I cannot overstate the absolute urgency of this film.
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.
Transforms a straightforward story of domestic violence into something like a horror movie, and it’s so harrowing and so incredibly tense that I’m not sure that it’s not exploitive.
A significant new retrospective of the legendary and hugely influential Russian filmmaker is a fresh opportunity to see some gorgeous films on a big screen.
Deeply unnerving, yet it borders on a salacious exploitation of the everyday horrors it means to condemn.
Almost instantly on the heels of the news of Coppola’s win came grumblings that she only won because the jury president was Quentin Tarantino. Whom she once dated.
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.
It’s hard to imagine that the people involved with this endeavor are failing to see what’s really going on here. But on the off chance that they don’t, I’ll explain. As an introduction, The Hollywood Reporter offered us this exclusive scoop earlier this week: The war against movie piracy is getting downright explosive. We’ve learned … more…
It’s almost impossible to watch this 1983 Robert Altman film today with the mindset of the time in which it was created. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing…
