MOVIE REVIEW: Breaking

It would be really easy for a movie like Breaking, tip-toeing in the Dog Day Afternoon direction, to turn up the brightness of the pariah spotlights and crank up the volume on the injustice pulpit loudspeakers. That’s not so here. Director Abi Damaris Corbin resists the temptations to pound messages and shout showy monologues. He and his screenwriting partner Kwame Kwei-Armah uphold the simple and poignant principles that were at hand with this true story and on the central figure’s mind during a fateful July day in 2017.

2022, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEW, Streaming, 4 STARSDon ShanahanAugust 25, 2022John Boyega, Breaking, Nicole Beharie, Michael K. WilliamsComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Detroit

For a film like Detroit with difficult content thrust upon audiences to endure, this is not a place to seek entertainment or joy. Instead, Detroit is a challenge of cementing respect and achieving an empathy deeper than basic sympathy. Step into a beyond-cautionary tale of history that school books skipped or have forgotten. Let Detroit stir and inspire conversations. Let the emotions, good and bad, come and talk about them.

2017, 4 STARS, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanJuly 28, 2017ShowPlace ICON X at Roosevelt Collections2017, 2017 Summer Movies, Detroit, Kathryn Bigelow, Mark Boal, The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty, Long Hot Summer of 1967, Jackson State, Los Angeles, Ferguson, Baltimore, blind pig, George Romney, Algiers Motel, The Algiers Motel incident, Jason Mitchell, Algee Smith, Jacob Latimore, Hannah Moore, Kaitlyn Dever, Anthony Mackie, Will Poulter, Jack Reynor, Ben O'Tooel, Austin Hebert, John Boyega, Barry Ackroyd, Captain Phillips, Unbroken, Jacob Lawrence, Migration series, cautionary tale, race relations, Life Lessons, life lessons from film, life lessons from movies, historical drama, real-life events, real-life people, 1967, movie review, film review, movie commentary, film commentary, film critic, movie critic, Don Shanahan, Donald Shanahan, Every Movie Has a Lesson, Chicago Independent Film Critics Circle, CIFCCComment

MOVIE REVIEW: The Circle

100% of you right now are reading this review via the internet on either a computer or a mobile device. Like it or not, you and I leave digital footprints everywhere we go. The new pseudo-dystopian thriller “The Circle” incites the over-obvious social media and data-mining fears of our present surveillance society of sharing and shines them up into a shiny and engrossing yarn of mainstream entertainment. Fiction or not, it’s the kind of film that may or may not irk you enough to take that Facebook sabbatical you keep saying you’ll do.

MOVIE REVIEW: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

No matter where today's "Star Wars" fans come from, all of them want the same thing out of "Star Wars: The Force Awakens." Everyone wants an inspired, entertaining, and compelling fantasy adventure. They want a return of the emotions, wonder, and heartstrings that stirred and inspired their souls when they first encountered these science fiction fantasies. With great pleasure and a nearly pitch perfect blend of innovation and reminiscence, J.J. Abrams promised, and now has delivered, all that anyone could hope for with "Star Wars: The Force Awakens."