MOVIE REVIEW: Churchill

Brian Cox one of the most underappreciated character actors in the business today. He has been an accomplished and terrifically versatile mainstay through all levels and genres of film for over thirty years since turning our heads as cinema’s first Hannibal Lecktor in Michael Mann’s Manhunter. Cox is a consummate performer, brimming with fervid screen presence. From Braveheart to Super Troopers, he is never the weak link to any picture. Churchill offers a rare lead performance from Cox and, like the chameleon he’s always been, he reminds us of his indomitable intensity.

MOVIE REVIEW: Baywatch

Contrary to how well the Mythbusters pulled it off, you can't shine sh-t, not turds of the TV or film variety. Terrible TV shows make terrible movies. Asking for anything more is asking too much, and there's nothing wrong with that. All of the zing and jiggle audiences enjoyed in eleven seasons and 242 episodes of Baywatch get the amplified and gaudy movie treatment an entertaining guilty pleasure deserves. Enjoy what you enjoy and don't be ashamed of it.

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: Free Fire

I don't know about you, but I get a kick out of bad gunshot wound acting in all ages of films. It’s either hilariously drawn out with overacting or it’s unrealistically rapid in fatality. The brutal facts of getting shot enough to cause death rarely check out in the movies. That never stops filmmakers from trying new and creative ways to shoot people with varying degrees of entertainment success. “Free Fire” is one such film daring to blast anything and everything with ammunition encased with twisted zeal.

MOVIE REVIEW: Gifted

Aside from any cinematic cliches present, there is an exemplary central message the new film “Gifted” gets utterly and perfectly right in both its actions and its words. As an elementary school educator, it is one I equally and personally champion every single day. The notion is worth leading with one of this website’s signature life lessons: LET KIDS BE KIDS

MOVIE REVIEW: T2 Trainspotting

To everyone who has seen “Trainspotting,” let’s ask the most obvious question right up front. How are these characters still alive?! One drub rehab website tells me rampant heroin addicts like “Rent Boy,” “Spud,” “Sick Boy,” and “Franco” should be dead by now. Not a chance of that in “T2 Trainspotting” with those tough bastards. Academy Award-winning director Danny Boyle brings us back to our favorite non-gentrified parts of Edinburgh for a spirited sequel to his landmark sophomore feature.

SHORT FILM REVIEW: More Than a Barbershop

2017 Chicago Irish Film Festival: Shorts Program II

In the world of poker, they say all you need is a chip and a chair to play and be a factor. For a musician, all you need is a time and a place. Your voice and instruments can do the rest. Not every concert needs to be in front of hundreds or thousands of adoring fans powered by a stadium’s worth of light and speakers. A singer and a microphone can fit just about anywhere. Well, how about a barbershop, and not the quartet variety?

MOVIE REVIEW: Lift

Six very different people are stuck in an elevator, or “lift” if you will, as it is called across the Atlantic in Dublin. One of the occupants just beat lumps into a security guard and the rest are stuck fearing for their safety. This isn’t the most ideal place to find comedy, yet “Lift” fires a few quips at the expense of this predicament.

MOVIE REVIEW: The Great Wall

"The Great Wall" is an imposing creature feature that stands as a three-headed glamour project. You have an A-list star venturing overseas for international credibility and a splashy director landing his official English-language debut. Aiming higher in aspiration is a production company hoping to open a new and profitable pipeline of investment between Hollywood and China. Visually splendid from top to bottom, this epic adventure squeaks by on its looks and spares no expense to make sure of that.

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.

MOVIE REVIEW: The Space Between Us

Call me a softy or a sunny optimist, but I will take "The Space Between Us" over the next "Percy Jackson and the Hunger Maze Runner City of Bones Games with the 5th Wave of Divergent Mortal Instruments." The YA movie marketplace is overfilled with militarized kid-on-kid peril in the science fiction department. “The Space Between Us” is cheesy, corny, and pretends to be better than it really is, but, gosh darnit, the film has a charming and positive core that is hard to ignore.

MOVIE REVIEW: Go North

All too often, the recent young adult wave of big studio dystopian fiction films contain three root faults. First, they shoot off preposterous peril for the sake of peril like a pyromaniac loose in a fireworks warehouse. Secondly, within the peril is the overused trope of militarizing teens and children. Finally, the screenwriters feel the need to over-explain every little thing about its created universe as if the audience can’t think for themselves or be challenged to draw an inference or two. For the most part, the small budget independent film “Go North” successfully and thankfully operates above those three traps.

EVERY MOVIE HAS A LESSON

by Don Shanahan

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