film criticism by maryann johanson | celebrating 25 years: 1997–2022
Nascent celebrity culture and the myth of the artist’s muse are skewered by the tale of Johnny Cash’s first wife, Vivian Liberto, told by her daughters and a trove of vintage photos and love letters.
A winning (if overearnest) depiction of manly friendship, with some pretty thrilling (if only technically so) racing stuff. But it doesn’t see its potential to be actually culturally significant.
Joyful and rowdy, self-deprecating and vulnerable, absolutely electrifying as it deconstructs the sex-drugs-and-rock’n’-roll story. Taron Egerton is chills-inducingly good. Sheer cinematic magic.
*Knight and Day* may have generic characters doing generic things in generic situations, but it’s got Movie Stars with huge white smiles looking pretty and being blandly inoffensive in exotic foreign locales. What’s that? You need more than that? Why do you hate Hollywood?
We know how it is: You’d like to go to the movies this weekend, but you really hate those 3D glasses– oh, who are we kidding: you’re gonna see Avatar this weekend if you have to knock over someone’s granny for a ticket. But just in case you’re feeling the slightest bit guilty about having … more…
This is inventive and exciting, a grip-the-armrests, hold-your-breath reinvigorating of the Western movie…
I cannot stop listening to the *Walk the Line* soundtrack. No, seriously. I’ll play ‘Ring of Fire,’ like, half a dozen times over and over before I start to worry about my sanity and then let the CD continue… and then a few tracks later it’ll be ‘Folsom Prison Blues’ half a dozen times. I’m not well. I left the screening room on Monday afternoon with Johnny Cash’s voice– no, with Joaquin Phoenix’s where’d-he-get-*that*-from baritone echoing in my head, and I ran to Tower Records to snatch up the CD only to be thwarted: it would not be released until the next day. Torture, I tell you, to wait 24 hours for the thing, and it’s gonna be worn out before Christmas.
