Nick Johnston

Tomatometer-approved critic

Biography:

Nick Johnston is the Film Editor and Critic for the Boston-based online magazine Vanyaland.

Publications: Vanyaland

Movie Reviews Only

Movies
TV

T-Meter	Title \| Year	Review
97%	Us (2019)	Us is a tremendous accomplishment. - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Mar 8, 2019
79%	Captain Marvel (2019)	Captain Marvel is light, funny and quite satisfying, though it may leave you craving something a bit more substantive. - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Mar 5, 2019
76%	Late Night (2019)	Late Night is a movie made wholly for the people who enjoy falling asleep to episodes of The Office and need something new for them to get the job done for them... - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 19, 2019
71%	Troop Zero (2019)	...suffocatingly twee, designed to be a cute and warm hug of both empowerment and acceptance, and for many, it'll succeed at doing just that. - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 19, 2019
64%	Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile (2019)	It's not a bad way to spend two hours, and, once again, Efron doesn't disappoint. - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 19, 2019
87%	The Hole in the Ground (2019)	Lee Cronin's creepy kid movie will scare and move you... - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 19, 2019
63%	Mary Queen of Scots (2018)	Mary Queen of Scots fails as cinema and as revolutionary tract. - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 19, 2019
100%	Honey Boy (2019)	Honey Boy is an utterly harrowing and moving story about how the parents we're given are, for better or for worse, a part of us... - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 19, 2019
76%	The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley (2019)	In terms of food for thought, The Inventor is close to a buffet, chock-full of fascinating information, intelligently told through a compelling story of one company's disaster. - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 19, 2019
37%	Glass (2019)	It is one weird and difficult film, one that is sure to drive audiences crazy and inspire a whole new round of not-wholly-undeserved frustration towards the director... - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 19, 2019
96%	Roma (2018)	There'll be plenty to write about Roma in the days to come aside from this brief reaction, but I'm so excited for you to get to see this film: It's truly astonishing. - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 19, 2019
40%	The Girl in the Spider's Web (2018)	As soon as the title sequence of Fede Alvarez' The Girl in the Spider's Web unfurls over two thunderingly dull minutes at the start of the film, it's becomes crystal-clear just how much of a bad idea this endeavor was for everybody. - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 19, 2019
66%	Suspiria (2018)	This Suspiria is beautifully enigmatic in its processes and vast in its delights, and for those willing to follow along and vibe along with it, its rewards are plentiful. - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 19, 2019
60%	Alita: Battle Angel (2019)	The film still has its issues - some more glaring than others - but overall, it's a feast for the eyes [well] worth your time and attention. - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 14, 2019
68%	Happy Death Day 2U (2019)	The most strident slasher fans will be disappointed, but this Blumhouse joint is pure fun for everybody else. - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 13, 2019
67%	Native Son (2019)	It could have been so much more, but what we have here isn't as dire as, say, HBO's Fahrenheit 451 from last year. - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 12, 2019
58%	After the Wedding (2019)	It's an exhausting and frustrating movie, convinced of its own greatness and meaning, which only amplifies how bad everything is. - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 12, 2019
64%	Velvet Buzzsaw (2019)	This is... a film made for about 20 or 30 people that will frustrate those not specifically attuned to its wavelength with its obliqueness and how broad or banal it is. - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 12, 2019
100%	Greener Grass (2019)	Adult Swim fans will love this bongwater-soaked absurdist nightmare. - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 12, 2019
57%	Wounds (2019)	Babak Anvari's latest never comes together despite a fun Armie Hammer performance. - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 12, 2019
87%	The Nightingale (2019)	[F]or those willing to endure, there is a lot to love here, from the blunt elegance of Kent's craft [to] the work of her wonderful leads. - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 12, 2019
94%	Sweetheart (2019)	This monster flick boasts [both] great practical effects and [a fantastic performance] by Kiersey Clemons. - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 12, 2019
62%	Paradise Hills (2019)	This sci-fi tale can't find much of an identity outside of its great visuals. - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 12, 2019
91%	Little Monsters (2019)	[A]s Little Monsters heads towards its wonderful and very-much-earned ending, you'll be surprised by how genuinely you'll be smiling at its resolution... - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 12, 2019
36%	Corporate Animals (2019)	Despite a strong performance from Demi Moore, [Brice] can't really figure out what he wants his movie to be. - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 12, 2019
80%	The Lodge (2019)	The new film from the Goodnight Mommy directors frustrates more than it unnerves. - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 12, 2019
100%	The Farewell (2019)	What results is a masterfully executed and earnestly-felt look at a complicated and painful situation for this family. - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 12, 2019
90%	The Souvenir (2019)	This is, most definitely, not to be missed. - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 12, 2019
44%	The Prodigy (2019)	It's not particularly memorable. - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 12, 2019
92%	Fighting with My Family (2019)	There's a lot of fun to be had within Fighting With My Family's runtime for wrestling adherents and non-fans alike. - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 12, 2019
86%	The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part (2019)	Some secret ingredient is missing from this Lego Movie's attempt to recapture the spirit of the original. - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 12, 2019
48%	Escape Room (2019)	It's an incredibly watchable and mostly satisfying experience, although it's one that you'll probably forget about four or five hours after you leave the theater. - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 11, 2019
41%	The Upside (2019)	This movie should have remained on a shelf somewhere. - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 11, 2019
65%	Aquaman (2018)	[A]s soon as [James] Wan's able to free the beast at ... the film's midway point, Aquaman realizes its potential as a show-stopping blockbuster oddity. - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 20, 2018
79%	Mary Poppins Returns (2018)	Mary Poppins Returns [won't] taint the memory of the incandescent original: it's just crushingly mediocre, and, in its own way, that may very well be worse. - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 20, 2018
27%	Mortal Engines (2018)	The Peter Jackson-produced sci-fi movie isn't great, but it's fun where it counts. - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 18, 2018
70%	Galveston (2018)	Galveston is a neo-noir model of narrative efficiency anchored by excellent work by two of our finest actors, and a film that will hopefully serve as Laurent's introduction to the world of English-language cinema as something other than an actress. - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 12, 2018
97%	Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)	[Be it] 'Spectacular' or 'Amazing' or 'Astonishing' or 'Sensational' or 'Ultimate': No matter your Spider-Descriptor, the movie's still great. - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 12, 2018
84%	The Captain (Der Hauptmann) (2018)	[It's] an engrossing horror-drama about the mask - or, well, the uniform - of sanity and what happens when it's given the legal authority to slip. - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 10, 2018
100%	Wolfman's Got Nards (2018)	Despite the bevy of interesting information scattered throughout, the film drags its feet quite a bit, and it feels oddly shaggy. - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 10, 2018
94%	The Bill Murray Stories: Life Lessons Learned from a Mythical Man (2018)	Even if the documentary is content with [mediocrity] , it's ... powerful to see how he's changed [people's lives] just by the virtue of showing up and listening to them. - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 10, 2018
77%	The Devil's Doorway (2018)	Clarke's skillful direction and palpable sympathy for these women prevents The Devil's Doorway from falling down an exploitation black hole. - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 10, 2018
83%	The Night Eats the World (La nuit a dévoré le monde) (2018)	It's an engaging and pretty little film, one that fits comfortably in the ranks of other "Last Man on Earth" stories like The Quiet Earth or Z for Zachariah. - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 10, 2018
75%	The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot (2019)	The brilliance of this particular work is how it uses its genre trappings to strip away so much of the [stuff] that throttles films about older actors. - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 10, 2018
81%	Overlord (2018)	Avery and company manage to maintain [an] E.C. Comics luridness in the tone ... and thanks to this, Overlord manages to [hit] that perfect sweet spot. - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 10, 2018
93%	The Favourite (2018)	It's The Madness of King George filtered through the alienating wealth of Roeg's Man Who Fell to Earth. - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 10, 2018
58%	The House That Jack Built (2018)	The House that Jack Built, despite the panic that arose in its wake, is pretty much von Trier's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, a reckoning between a public persona and the person beneath it. - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 10, 2018
93%	Bumblebee (2018)	[Knight] replaces Bay's occasionally enticing flair with a series of ... uninteresting visual and storytelling choices that have been seemingly dictated by ... focus groups. - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 10, 2018
94%	CAM (2018)	Cam is as much a respectful portrait of a section of an [much-maligned] industry as it is a horror film. - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 9, 2018
80%	Alpha (2018)	Yes, it's Old Yeller meets Hell in the Pacific, and I wish the movie were half as good as that logline suggests it would be. - Vanyaland EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 9, 2018