GUEST PROFILE: Mike Horvath

Meet Hungarian movie fan Mike Horvath. His hobby is transforming photos of himself into movie characters in Adobe Photoshop. He is also a musician, photo editor, and designer. Mike’s hobby started a couple of years ago while attending a sound engineering course. The interesting assignments of sound designing, dubbing, mixing, and more had studies intersect with movies while working as a trainee at a radio station. He began to like the themes of films and took on those characters roles himself as a way to learn and practice photo editing. The resulting tinkering of customization has lead to his fun work.

2020, Column, GUEST CRITIC, GUEST EDITORIAL, Social MediaDon ShanahanMay 13, 2020Comment

GUEST EDITORIAL: 3 Tools to Help You Write a Great Movie Review

by Daniela McVicker

You’d be surprised, but writing a movie review can be a daunting task. Not only you will need to research the movie itself, but you will also have to study the story and the intention behind it. And if a movie is a screen adaptation of a book, you’d also need to analyze the similarities and differences between the two, and whether these differences significantly impacted the plot of the movie.

2020, Column, Editorial, Essay, GUEST EDITORIAL, SPECIALDon ShanahanMay 12, 2020Daniela McVickerComment

GUEST COLUMN: Resources for Watching Hindi Movies Online Through Kodi

by Maria Jones

Kodi is a wonderful application through which you can not only view Hollywood movies and TV series but for the Bollywood movies enthusiasts, it is also possible to watch Hindi movies online now through Kodi. New, old, and all-time classic are available here. It is a fact that Bollywood movies have fans all across the globe as these movies feature a wide range of vibrant characters, action, melodic songs, colorful sceneries, and romance at best.

2020, Column, Editorial, Foreign Film, GUEST EDITORIAL, Home Media, Independent Film, Streaming, Video on DemandDon ShanahanMay 12, 2020Comment

MEDIA APPEARANCE: Guest on the "Kicking the Seat" podcast talking "Arkansas"

As I hope you have been following through this extended theater closure, Kicking the Seat’s Ian Simmons and I have found our share of streaming offerings to talk about. We move from his YouTube channel to his regular podcast platform to talk about the displace SXSW redneck crime entry Arkansas, the directorial debut of actor Clark Duke. Listen to us wax on about Vince Vaughn and The Flaming Lips for this indie available now on VOD platforms everywhere. Enjoy his show!

MOVIE REVIEW: Arkansas

Let’s just say it. The subgenre of redneck crime films is a messy place. The “black hat” is almost always a crazy SOB engaged with a less crazy SOV “white hat.” Slickness is replaced by stains. Dazzle is replaced by dinge. Calling any of them “sagas” is too much credit and heft. Unless you’re the Coen brothers (and even if you’re them too), spicing up this slow-and-low movie barbecue takes some of that absent slickness and dazzle injected into either the filmmaking or storytelling departments, or both.

2020, 3 STARS, Film Festival, Home Media, MOVIE REVIEW, StreamingDon ShanahanMay 10, 2020Arkansas, Clark Duke, Vince VaughnComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Working Man

Movies becoming timely is almost always an accident. They’re made months in advance and can never reliably predict the future they will enter when released. The right match of content and happenstance can elevate a film’s mystique, even that of a tiny little indie that normally wouldn’t carry much of one at all. The award-winning Working Man, filmed in and around Chicago last year, debuts on VOD services today to a sheltered public facing jobless claims that topped 30 million in two short quarantined months. The distinctive part about this movie is that it displays a sense of workplace fulfillment that would still work if that bellwether statistic was zero. Timeliness only makes it better.

2020, 4 STARS, Home Media, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEW, Streaming, Video on DemandDon ShanahanMay 5, 2020Working ManComment

MOVIE REVIEW: All Day and a Night

Reaching those bold heights of bracing social commentary, it is fair and complimentary to call Joe Robert Cole’s movie more important than entertaining. Mark that goal as accomplished. The Black Panther co-writer uses not a drop of sugarcoating in his first directorial effort in nine years. The brutality against the hearts in All Day and a Night hurts more than harm subjected to any flesh. In that regard, it is also fair to question the place and mentality of this movie’s bravery during a current civil climate where negative racial examples do not need more perpetuation. That is an uphill battle without a welcoming core to embrace.

2020, 3 STARS, Independent Film, Streaming, Video on DemandDon ShanahanMay 1, 2020Comment

GUEST COLUMN: 7 Best Romantic Comedies on Netflix

by Lillian O’Brien

Well, a romantic comedy is not a favorite genre for many people especially men, however, you can't deny that they are sweet and remind you how beautiful love is. I love watching romantic comedies because they always remind me how easy and wonderful life can be if we don't take things too seriously. The storylines of rom-coms are pretty similar still there are so many rom-coms come out every year and they do cuddle you when you watch them. Why I love watching them is because they create a cozy atmosphere and make you believe in a miracle...even if you are 30

2020, Column, Editorial, GUEST EDITORIAL, Home Media, LIST, SPECIAL, StreamingDon ShanahanApril 30, 2020Comment

GUEST COLUMN: Prop or Not? 7 Continuity Mistakes in Films & TV

by Tom Simpkins

The minds behind television and film often have to juggle hundreds of decisions, both creative and technical, and so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the odd mistake slips through the cracks here and there. These are often labelled continuity mistakes, cases where even if dozens of people give a scene the final thumbs up, any number of factors can cause even seemingly obvious errors to crop up.

2020, Column, Editorial, GUEST EDITORIAL, Home Media, SPECIALDon ShanahanApril 30, 2020Comment

INFOGRAPHIC: The Scariest Basements in Movies and TV

In horror films and TV shows, we’ve seen how basements have been the location of some truly scream-worthy scenes. We’ve watched as owners use their basements for horrible things. Sometimes the basement itself is evil. Other times, the basement has a paranormal problem like a portal to another world. In the real world, the scariest thing in your basement is probably unresolved foundation problems. However, in movies and on television, we’re usually scared of something else. Let’s review the scariest basements and crawl spaces in movies and television.

2020, Column, Editorial, GUEST EDITORIAL, Home Media, LIST, Infographic, Social Media, SPECIALDon ShanahanApril 27, 2020Comment

MEDIA APPEARANCE: Guest on the "Kicking the Seat" YouTube channel talking "Extraction"

Continuing down the media side stream with the digital Netflix lifeboat during this time of theatrical shutdown, 3/4 of Kicking the Seat’s “Earth’s Mightiest Critics” panel assemble to talk about the latest from one of the beefiest and burliest Avengers stars. Chris Hemsworth toplines Extraction, the feature film directorial debut of frequent MCU stunt coordinator Sam Hargrave based on a indie graphic novel written by Avengers and Captain American trilogy stewards Anthony and Joe Russo. The men and the action are ballsy and brawny. It’s debatable whether the three of us are talking about it. Enjoy Emmanuel Noisette of E-Man Movie Reviews and I joining Ian Simmons on his YouTube channel this week!

MOVIE REVIEW: Extraction

Call this a meandering musing, but it’s a tad quizzical how far apart the definitions of “mercy” and “mercenary” are despite their beginning spellings. There is not harming someone you have power over versus a soldier paid to fight for money. You won’t find those two words supporting the old “one hands washes the other” expression. Nonetheless, here in the new Netflix Chris Hemsworth vehicle Extraction one could wring a towel dripping with the unexpected mix of blood and suds. That makes for a messy and albeit entertaining proposition on the wiggle room to have mercy in a mercenary.

2020, 3 STARS, MOVIE REVIEW, StreamingDon ShanahanApril 24, 2020Extraction, Chris HemsworthComment