The most crucial dramatic trait for films about exploration is a drawing a strong reaction to the unknown from the audience. Whether it’s a historical story or a fantastical one of fiction, the film has to evoke awe, be that stirring swells of inspiration or jarring feelings of danger. It has to move you, not bore you. If a film can’t achieve that quickened pulse or heavy heart, it’s little better than a travelogue on cable television or a curriculum video they show soon-to-be-bored high school students in Social Studies class.

2 STARS, 2017, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanApril 20, 2017ShowPlace Icon X at Roosevelt Collections2017, 2017 Spring Movies, The Lost City of Z, Charlie Hunnam, Robert Pattinson, Sienna Miller, James Gray, Francis Ford Coppola, Apocalypse Now!, Anaconda, The Lost World, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Arthur Conan Doyle, Percy Fawcett, Darius Khondji, 35mm, Columbia, Christopher Spelman, American Sniper, Black Mass, Foxcatcher, Live by Night, High-Rise, Ian McDiarmid, Angus Macfayden, Harry Melling, Benedict Cumberbatch, Brad Pitt, Bleeker Street, Plan B, Guy Ritchie, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, Val Kilmer, Tom Holland, Mato Grosso, Brazil, Amazon River, Amazon, David Grann, bestseller, Royal Geographical Society, South America, films about exploration, exploration films, Biopics, Biographical films, movie review, film review, life lessons, life lessons from movies, life lessons from film, movie commentary, film commentary, Donald Shanahan, Don Shanahan, Every Movie Has a LessonComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Mine

Isolated survival films have an immense draw. Our self-preservation instincts kick in and we, as the audience, cannot help but hypothetically put ourselves in the same conundrum as the main character. Often these films delve into the preciousness of the life and dabble in the “what does it all mean” direction to pull even more thought and emotion. A few metaphors dipped in symbolism make for nice touches. Regrettably, the peril grinder of “Mine” pounds its not-so-thinly-veiled metaphors repeatedly and insufferably into the ground.

MOVIE REVIEW: Landline

If the Windy City can show us anything, it’s that die-hard Chicago Cub fans come in all shapes, sizes, and ages. More so, fans come from different walks of life, waving flags of different colors, including, best of all, the rainbow-colored variety. “Landline,” from local do-it-all filmmaker Matthew Aaron, is a fun-loving LGBTQ+ comedy merging ardent North Siders with snappy musings on our societal obsessions with technology, all in proximity to the heavenly palace that is Wrigley Field.

2017, 2 STARS, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEW, Video on DemandDon ShanahanMarch 26, 2017Music Box Theatre2017, Landline, Matthew Aaron, LGBT, LGBTQ+, LGBTQ, Chicago, Chicago films, Ryne Sandberg, Chicago Cubs, Hall of Fame, Jim O'Heir, Tom Arnold, Chicago premiere, VOD, Video on Demand, Video On Demand, Music Box Theatre, Nick Searcy, Parks and Recreation, Breaking Bad, Patrick Hartigan, Chad Michael Singer, Betsy Brandt, Justified, Castaway, Wrigley Field, Lagunitas, Garnier, film review, movie review, independent films, indie film, Chicago filmmakers, film commentary, movie commentary, life lessons, life lessons from film, life lessons from movies, Life lessons, Every Movie Has a Lesson, Facebook, Facebook page, Nina Metz, Chicago Tribune, Donald Shanahan, Don Shanahan Comments

MOVIE REVIEW: Life

You’ve seen bits and pieces of this human buffet and interstellar peril before in the likes of superior films like “Alien,” “Gravity,” and more. To its credit, the dour tone frames “Life” as a straight-shooting creature feature trading camp for tension and thrills, plenty of which elicit sly pleasures. Nonetheless, what separates the spectacular from the mediocre in this science fiction subgenre is the monster and the creative uses by which it is employed. This one goes derivative.

SHORT FILM REVIEW: Blackbird

2017 Chicago Irish Film Festival: Shorts Program I

Diverting from the other short films in this program at the Chicago Irish Film Festival, “Blackbird” leans to the existential and experimental. The abstract feel and weighty themes are in place to knock one’s socks off. However, in an ironic fashion, this is a short film that feels too short.

SHORT FILM REVIEW: Incoming Call

2017 Chicago Irish Film Festival: Shorts Program

“Incoming Call” has a dynamite premise that would make for a fascinating nugget of science fiction. The possible latitude one could take with the idea of warning the past about the future is endless. This film keenly distills and scales that down to microcosm level of a single person and the matter of picking up the phone.

CAPSULE REVIEWS: The Oscar nominees for Best Animated Short

This year’s Academy Award nominees for Best Animated Short are an eclectic bunch. One of them, “Borrowed Time,” I have previously reviewed in full on this website. Here are my collected capsule reviews of the slate of five, complete with my signature life lessons. Look for the theaters this month bundling these nominees together for public viewing and ticket opportunities.

2 STARS, 2016, 2017, 3 STARS, 4 STARS, Best Films, CAPSULE REVIEW, MOVIE REVIEW, Independent Film, SHORT FILMS, Video on DemandDon ShanahanFebruary 11, 2017Landmark Century Centre CinemaBest Animated Short Film, Best Animated Short, 2016, 2017, Borrowed Time, Pixar, Gustavo Santaolalla, Pearl, Piper, Finding Dory, Alan Barillaro, Marc Sondheimer, Best Short Film, Chicago Independent Film Critics Circle, Adrian Belew, Blind Vaysha, Georgi Gospodinov, Caroline Dhavernas, Theodore Ushev, Kottarashky, Pear Cider and Cigarettes, Uwe Rafael Braun, Mass Mental, Dave Nunez, Anitek, Robert Valley, life lessons, life lessons from animated shorts, life lessons from short films, life lessons from film, life lessons from films, movie review, short film review, Short Film, Short films, short film commentary, Every Movie Has a Lesson, Donald Shanahan, Don ShanahanComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Patriots Day

Where using a composite character gets dicey is when they are made the lead because their fictional presence can outweigh the history and accuracy around them. Too much can be skewed to suit a character that doesn’t exist. That is exactly what occurs in “Patriots Day,” Peter Berg’s third consecutive collaboration with Mark Wahlberg. The makings for a stocked and stacked ensemble drama are dismantled by the misplaced hero worship that becomes little more than a vanity project.

MOVIE REVIEW: Live by Night

Every winning streak has to end to some time. “Live by Night” will go down as the first “L” in the loss column for Ben Affleck as a film director. After climbing to the top of the mountain with the trio of “Gone Baby Gone,” “The Town,” and the Oscar parade of “Argo,” there was nowhere to go but down, but this newest film is a little more than down.

GUEST CRITIC #19: Office Christmas Party

Say hello to Mr. and Mrs. Jake and Kimberly Narens! Kim is a former co-worker of mine from back in the day. She was the art teacher and I was a fourth grade teacher at the Lloyd Bond campus of Chicago International Charter Schools during its inaugural school year in 2009-2010. We have both moved on to other jobs since then and also become first-time parents. While I am still in Chicago, she and her husband now call the sultry heat of Chandler, Arizona home. I'm guessing they don't miss shoveling snow.

MOVIE REVIEW: Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

There are commendable allegories bottled somewhere inside both Ben Fountain’s 2012 award-winning novel and Ang Lee’s adaptation of “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk.” However, knowing what we know now about “paid patriotism” since 2015, those morals, and any patriotic pride the fictional story’s grand setting can muster, have lost too much of their high ground to inspire. It is difficult to invest in a reflective film wrestling with disillusionment when too many current audiences already enter with the same feelings about the War on Terror. Disillusionment of disillusionment is a tough sell if the goal is the change minds.

MOVIE REVIEW: Hacksaw Ridge

It should come as no surprise to anyone who has followed the career path of Mel Gibson, either in front or behind the camera, that "Hacksaw Ridge" rings up the descriptor of "excessive" more than any film to date this year. "Hacksaw Ridge" is a war film of excessive violence operatically woven into a biopic screen story of excessive hero worship based on a true story of World War II Congressional Medal of Honor winner Desmond Doss. Both excesses are laid on very thick. Only half of one of them are worth it.

EVERY MOVIE HAS A LESSON

by Don Shanahan

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