For their 79th episode, our two divided film critics, force-sensitive dads, and working school teachers Will Johnson and Don Shanahan present the second of two special in-person collaboration episodes coming from Will's recent visit to Chicago. He and Don assembled a group of Chicago film critic friends to put some content together. Mike Crowley of 25YL and "You'll Probably Agree" again set up recordings at The Laugh Factory with us, himself, Cati Glidewell of "The Blonde in Front" and Collider freelancer Hayden Mears. For this show, the dais goes to battle on the much-debated merit of "Star Wars: The Last Jedi."
Read MoreDiving deeper beyond the basic “something that is final” meaning, the dictionary of this galaxy describes “finality” as “conclusiveness,” “decisiveness,” or “an ultimate act, utterance, or belief.” J.J. Abrams’ massive space opera follows his own The Force Awakens and Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi to aim so very badly for those traits. In many peaks of scope and emotion, his movie achieves such finality. In others, overindulgence and disarray put question marks on the value or vindication of all this promised fulfillment.
Read MorePlenty 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!
Read MoreFor the second time in a month, the hard-working host of the "Kicking the Seat" podcast, Ian Simmons, invited Every Movie Has a Lesson to join the barstool daius for his 100th show of 2017. Fitting for the milestone century number is the central film of the discussion: Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Ian was joined by his regular partner-in-crime David J. Fowlie of Keeping it Reel and Emmanuel Noisette of E-Man's Movie Reviews. The four us go deeply into SPOILERS, so buyer beware.
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