OSCAR PREDICTIONS 2018: The race for Best Picture

Throughout the awards season, I’ve been tallying the minor and lead-up award winners in all of the Oscar categories on the 2018 Awards Tracker as a big source of my prognostication data. In this seventh post, we look at the race for Best Picture. As I say every year, stick with me and I will win you your Oscar pool!

2017, 2018, Best Films, Column, Editorial, SPECIALDon ShanahanFebruary 28, 2018Best Picture, The race for Best Picture, Best Motion Picture of the Year, Academy Award hopeful, Academy Award nominee, Awards Talk, Academy Award, Academy Award winner, Academy Award nominees, Awards Tracker, Awards seasons, Award Prediction, Awards, Awards Predictions, Awards bait, Oscar Predictions, Oscar nominee, Oscar nominations, Oscar winners, Oscar snubs, Oscar hopefuls, Oscars, Oscar talks, Oscar contenders, Oscar Checklist, Oscar, Oscar surprises, Oscar bait, #OscarsSoWhite, Oscar race, 90th Oscars, 90th Academy Awards, 2018 Academy Awards, 2018, 2018 Oscars, 2017 films, Academy Awards, Academy Award nominations, Best Director, Call Me By Your Name, Darkest Hour, Dunkirk, Get Out, Lady Bird, Phantom Thread, The Post, The Shape of Water, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing MissouriComment

COLUMN: New Year's Resolutions for the Movie Industry in 2018

Plenty of regular everyday people make New Year's Resolutions, but I think bigger entities, namely movie makers and movie moguls, need to make them too. Annually, including this seventh edition, this is my absolute favorite editorial to write every year. I have fun taking the movie industry to task for things they need to change. You would hope Hollywood would learn from those lessons going forward. Alas, here we go again! Enjoy!

COLUMN: The 10 Best Films of 2017

The end of the year brings grading and reflection points for both the school teacher in me and the film critic. Looking at the online Trapper Keeper portfolio called Every Movie has a Lesson, I published 126 full film reviews in 2017, topping last year’s 114 and setting a new high mark. Here’s my definitive list of the "10 Best" films of 2017. True to this website’s specialty, each film will be paired with its best life lesson. Enjoy!

MOVIE REVIEW: Lady Bird

In her solo feature directorial debut, Greta Gerwig has stepped in and pushed this cinematic species tremendously forward with the dramedy Lady Bird. The film destroys any notion of the “manic pixie dream girl” fakery. Lady Bird is a cornucopia woven with striking candor and filled with delightful oxymorons artfully composed to challenge taboos and stereotypes. Let’s give each oxymoron a life lesson and a paragraph or two along the way.

2017, 5 STARS, Chicago Film Festival, Film Festival, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanNovember 10, 2017AMC River East 212017, 2017 Fall Movies, Lady Bird, Now and Then, Welcome to the Dollhouse, Thirteen, Catherine Hardwicke, Kelly Fremon Craig, The Edge of Seventeen, John Hughes, Sixteen Candles, manic pixie dream girl, Greta Gerwig, oxymoron, Atonement, Brooklyn, Saoirse Ronan, Sacramento, Dave Matthews Band, Beanie Feldstein, Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising, Lucas Hedges, Manchester by the Sea, Goosebumps, Odeya Rush, Timothee Chalamet, Interstellar, Tracy Letts, Laurie Metcalf, Jon Brion, movie review, film review, life lessons, life lessons from film, life lessons from movies, life lessons from films, Coming of Age films, Coming of Age movies, coming of age, Boyhood, movie critic, film critic, Chicago International Film Festival, 53rd Chicago International Film Festival, Festival Centerpiece, Festival review, festival preview, film festival, CIFF, Donald Shanahan, Don Shanahan, Every Movie Has a LessonComment

CAPSULE REVIEWS: The 53rd Chicago International Film Festival

The 53rd Chicago International FIlm Festival brings over 1,000 films of all genres and sizes to our fair city. There are premieres aplenty, between those making their world, North American, or Chicago debuts. Opening with a red carpet premiere of Marshall, peaking with the centerpiece of Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird, and closing with the Oscar contender The Shape of Water from Guillermo del Toro, the 53rd CIFF fills the AMC River East 21 for two weeks. For the fourth year in a row, Every Movie Has a Lesson has been granted press credentials to cover the CIFF and here are my capsule reviews.