It’s been 60 years since Ishiro Honda unleashed Godzilla, his cinematic metaphor for the dangers of nuclear weapons upon the world. As timescales for reboots go, two generations sounds about right. (We’re going to pretend that the 1998 remake did not happen.) And 2014’s simply and elegantly titled Godzilla goes about updating the King of All Monsters for the 21st century in ways […]
Mary Ann Johanson
Posted inCulture
Fifth Estate is One-Fifth Stinky
WikiLeaks film springs a leak in its storyline
When I arrived at the screening for The Fifth Estate, there was a small knot of wild-eyed people hovering around outside, pushing flyers that to convince me that the film is a propagandistic, anti-Assange, WikiLeaks-bashing hack job. I refrained from asking, “have you actually seen the film?” Because: The Fifth Estate is nothing of the […]
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Evil Dead Remake is Gory
But nothing cult-worthy here
In 1981, Evil Dead was released and capped a golden era of gore films, which had started eight years earlier with the release of Exorcist. It may be difficult to believe now—after those original films have been obscured by their ridiculous sequels—but The Exorcist was nominated for 10 Academy Awards in 1973, including Best Picture, […]
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Oz the Great and Powerful uninspired
Ready-made for the amusement park but not much else
What I keep hearing in my head is: Escape from Oz. I had no trouble keeping the title straight before I saw the film. But apparently the mere act of watching—and it was pretty mere—has infected me with a desire to be somewhere else, much like most movies that come out just after the Oscars. […]
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Not a Smart Movie
There will never be a good day to see the new Die Hard
This is the worst Jason Bourne movie yet. What were they thinking? Wait, what? This is supposed to be a Die Hard movie? That can’t be. It starts out all, like, CIA—shaky zooms on worried wonks in supertech control rooms on one side of the planet and an opening gambit that I swear is swiped […]
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America, F***, Yeah!
But Zero Dark Thirty Does Inspire My Patriotism
Too soon? Too soon for a kickass political action movie about the hunt for Osama bin Laden? It’s been less than two years since a black-ops team of elite American soldiers executed the purported mastermind of 9/11, without any sort of due process, on the sovereign soil of another nation. Or maybe it’s not too […]
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The Essence of Misery
New Les Mis is Raw
There is no possible way I can even pretend to be objective about this movie. Not that I ever do so, but this is an especially bad case of me being hopelessly—and as far as I’m concerned—wonderfully biased. I love Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil’s rock opera. And by love I mean adore. I’ve memorized it. I can sing it […]