CJ Johnson
Tomatometer-approved critic
CJ has been a Tomatometer-approved critic since November 2019. He is the resident film and television critic for ABC Radio (Australia?s) flagship national night-time radio show The Nightlife. His website Film Mafia has been one of Australia?s most popular film review sites since launching in 2008.
http://www.abc.net.au/nightlife/reviews/
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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Nope (2022) |
There’s obviously a lot of ideas going on, references, all that jazz, but it’s a frustrating experience, a film of diminishing interest as it plods along. - Film Mafia
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| Posted Aug 25, 2022
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Crimes of the Future (2022) |
Cronenberg’s dialogue here is typically ludicrous but once you get lulled into it, the film becomes a little like a perverse warm bath, sweeping you into its bonkers world. - Film Mafia
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| Posted Aug 25, 2022
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Emergency (2022) |
The central conceit – which I won’t spoil here – is treated matter-of-factly, which is itself the shocking thing. - Film Mafia
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| Posted Aug 09, 2022
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What Josiah Saw (2021) |
Pure, raw, undiluted American Gothic with all the trimmings. Here is a vibe, a voice, a style and a mood, all of a piece, managing to wear its influences proudly yet roll them into something original and fresh. - Film Mafia
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| Posted Aug 09, 2022
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Official Competition (2021) |
Cruz gives a great performance. - Film Mafia
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| Posted Jul 12, 2022
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Full Time (2021) |
One thing’s for sure: it’ll make you feel less bad about not living in Paris. - Film Mafia
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| Posted Jul 12, 2022
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Ali & Ava (2021) |
The screenplay doesn’t break new ground – this is highly trod territory, British regional social realism through and through – but the direction is intricate and thoughtful and the performances tremendous. - Film Mafia
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| Posted Jul 12, 2022
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Elvis (2022) |
You spend the first half in awe of Baz but the second in awe of Butler, and that’s a compliment to both. - Film Mafia
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| Posted Jun 23, 2022
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A Hero (2021) |
Farhadi’s typical themes of responsibility, morality, personal ethics and the law all get a full workout here. - Film Mafia
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| Posted Jun 07, 2022
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The Innocents (2021) |
To get performances like this from a cast this young is no small achievement ... strong on tone and vibe and features some genuinely creepy moments.
- Film Mafia
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| Posted May 16, 2022
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Petite Maman (2021) |
A perfect, gentle jewel, precise, concise, warm, heartfelt, witty, moving and ultimately profound. Sciamma’s direction is sublime and her writing heartfelt. In its modest ambition, Petite Maman achieves a kind of delicate monumentality. Do not miss it.
- Film Mafia
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| Posted May 05, 2022
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The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022) |
While Nicholas Cage and Pedro Pascal give amiable performances, the script consistently lets them down with references rather than honest jokes. - Film Mafia
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| Posted Apr 21, 2022
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Happening (2021) |
Joins the other movies of its kind on the tougher side of the ledger: more 4 Months, Three Weeks and Two Days than Never Rarely Sometimes Always. - Film Mafia
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| Posted Apr 10, 2022
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The Good Boss (2021) |
Javier Bardem, the good boss himself, is superb. In almost every scene of the movie, he displays enormous range while also presenting a highly specific character. Hes one of the most versatile - and, simply, one of the best - screen actors working today. - Film Mafia
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| Posted Apr 10, 2022
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Kimi (2022) |
The prolific auteur is in full neo-Roger Corman mode here, riffing on our fears but delivering, in this instance, an elevated B-Movie, clearly intended, and enjoyable, as such. - Film Mafia
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| Posted Feb 21, 2022
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Flee (2021) |
Beautiful, heartbreaking and eye-opening. This is the nuts and bolts of European human trafficking, finding the universal in the personal, and reminding you how lucky you have it. - Film Mafia
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| Posted Feb 21, 2022
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Aline (2021) |
Bizarre in conception and often bonkers in execution, its also truly compelling, partly as train wreck and partly as an honest-to-goodness offbeat oddity. - Film Mafia
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| Posted Feb 21, 2022
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Drive My Car (2021) |
Its a beautifully crafted, moving, elegant and at times drily funny tale, superbly acted. - Film Mafia
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| Posted Feb 10, 2022
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Benedetta (2021) |
They just tend not to make em like this anymore. - Film Mafia
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| Posted Feb 10, 2022
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The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021) |
Chastain declares her intentions (to be awesome!) in a single, long close-up that opens the film, and she doesn't disappoint ... but Garfield's portrayal of the deeply complicated Jim sneaks up on you, growing more intriguing, sly and effective as he ages. - Film Mafia
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| Posted Jan 25, 2022
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Spencer (2021) |
Stunning to look at and, with Jonny Greenwood's score, dreamy, evocative and haunting. At times it feels like a horror movie, a Polanski-like mental descent. Don't come for any kind of history lesson; come for the vibe. - Film Mafia
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| Posted Jan 25, 2022
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West Side Story (2021) |
Technically dazzling and musically delightful, if emotionally rather unengaging. - Film Mafia
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| Posted Dec 22, 2021
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Bergman Island (2021) |
The scenes with Krieps and Roth are terrific, and deeply chucklesome for cinephiles. - Film Mafia
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| Posted Dec 22, 2021
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The Worst Person in the World (2021) |
An international career-making performance by Renate Reinsve. - Film Mafia
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| Posted Dec 22, 2021
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Licorice Pizza (2021) |
It's a warm, warm movie, often very funny, thoroughly engaging and impeccably crafted, no less thematically rich than any of his films. For what themes are greater than love and friendship? - Film Mafia
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| Posted Dec 13, 2021
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The French Dispatch (2021) |
A gloriously cheerful celebration of The New Yorker, France, erudition, intellectualism and writing ... astonishingly crafted, full of exquisite detail, and very, very funny. - Film Mafia
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| Posted Dec 09, 2021
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Dune (2021) |
It's extremely gratifying to see this kind of massive entertainment being made with such inventiveness and intelligence. - Film Mafia
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| Posted Dec 03, 2021
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Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn (2021) |
Jude is shrewd: his film won't make Marvel Box Office, but it's precisely engineered for maximum festival marketability. Hopefully if you come for the porn, you'll stay for the social critique. - Film Mafia
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| Posted Nov 18, 2021
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The Power of the Dog (2021) |
Hums along on a single frequency of psychosexual tension without a huge amount of actual dramatic energy. - Film Mafia
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| Posted Nov 18, 2021
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Titane (2021) |
At its heart, this is that old chestnut: a tale of two lost, deeply damaged souls finding each other. - Film Mafia
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| Posted Nov 09, 2021
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No Time to Die (2021) |
Mature Bond for a mature audience; the love story is heartily and admirably committed to. - Film Mafia
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| Posted Nov 05, 2021
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The Many Saints of Newark (2021) |
Young Tony is in it, as a child and a teenager, but he really is an observer in Dickie's movie. And I enjoyed Dickie's movie. - Film Mafia
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| Posted Oct 29, 2021
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The Last Duel (2021) |
Filled with astonishing visuals, and perhaps saved by Comer's precise performance, the film succeeds despite itself, a ravishing relic. - Film Mafia
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| Posted Oct 15, 2021
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Nitram (2021) |
Impeccable craftsmanship and staggeringly effective performances ... a thorough, methodical, detailed, unsensational and sincere examination of mental illness. - Film Mafia
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| Posted Oct 11, 2021
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Annette (2021) |
Undeniably and thrillingly ecstatic, passionate, vibrant and highly personal cinema. Possibly, it's Carax's best; it certainly makes you think that previous films of his, especially Les Amants Du Pont-Neuf, really should have been sung-through musicals. - Film Mafia
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| Posted Aug 29, 2021
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Under the Volcano (2021) |
A celebration, not an elegy, and does everything it can to remain as upbeat as a track from side one of Brothers In Arms. I loved every minute. - Film Mafia
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| Posted Aug 24, 2021
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No Sudden Move (2021) |
This is Soderbergh very much en forme, and the film's pleasures are constant and rich ... there's a stingingly direct reference to a prison stabbing that, in the right cinema with the right audience, would elicit howls of self-satisfaction. - Film Mafia
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| Posted Aug 23, 2021
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My Zoe (2019) |
This deeply sad film really got its claws into me. Delpy's monastic constraint renders the sensational subject matter devoid of sensationalism; everything is austere, calm, precise ... I was entranced by the film's somber mood and its audacious honesty. - Film Mafia
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| Posted Jun 15, 2021
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In the Heights (2021) |
Ecstatic cinema, a huge, friendly, rabidly upbeat celebration of some pretty phenomenal music, mostly exceptionally sung and arranged. - Film Mafia
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| Posted Jun 10, 2021
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Mama Weed (2020) |
[The] conclusion that leaves you feeling, perhaps, that the film was better than it really was, and in a mood to overlook a few of its more ridiculous contrivances. - Film Mafia
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| Posted May 18, 2021
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Tina (2021) |
As Turner escapes Ike, the film, like her life and career, takes off, with a huge sense of release, into the stratosphere. - Film Mafia
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| Posted Apr 22, 2021
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Creation Stories (2021) |
The script is overly convoluted in that muddy second act and the film is so indebted to the styles of its antecedents that it has very little of its own. But, like Bremner, it's energetic, a bit wild, and, essentially, fun. - Film Mafia
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| Posted Apr 12, 2021
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My Donkey, My Lover & I (2020) |
Calamy nails every comedic beat but there are multiple moments of pathos and anguish which she also handles with seemingly effortless aplomb. She is a major screen presence. - Film Mafia
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| Posted Mar 25, 2021
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Golden Voices (2019) |
The milieu is the most fascinating element here; Ruman paints a vivid picture of a unique expat community that he was clearly a part of. - Film Mafia
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| Posted Mar 24, 2021
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Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal (2021) |
Grimy fun. - Film Mafia
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| Posted Mar 22, 2021
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The Painter and the Thief (2020) |
An almost uncomfortably intimate portrait of the strange vagaries of human need ... Like Kysilkova's paintings, The Painter and the Thief is photo-realistic but artfully constructed for maximum pathos, darkness and surprise. - Film Mafia
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| Posted Mar 21, 2021
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Collective (2019) |
A hundred and nine of the most compelling minutes of the cinematic year. - Film Mafia
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| Posted Mar 19, 2021
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Nomadland (2020) |
An exercise in extreme compassion. - Film Mafia
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| Posted Mar 17, 2021
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Coming 2 America (2021) |
Not enough Eddie, and not the Eddie we want. Murphy is just too generous in both these movies: he gives so much screen time away to his co-stars, he himself barely registers, yet he's the reason we're here. - Film Mafia
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| Posted Mar 13, 2021
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Judas and the Black Messiah (2021) |
Beautifully crafted and a superb history lesson. The production design and cinematography are particularly rewarding, all the performances are solid, and the score is phenomenal. - Film Mafia
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| Posted Mar 13, 2021
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