MOVIE REVIEW: The Last Suit

Making its Chicago premiere this weekend playing for a run at the Gene Siskel Film Center, Pablo Solarz’s film earns every measure of its stirring dedication. The Last Suit has an approachable and undeniable warmth beneath that thorny senior center masterfully played by Miguel Ángel Solá. The writer and director himself will join audience discussion on the Friday and Saturday evening showings. Keen audiences looking for an empathetic elixir would do well to absorb and appreciate this film at the Siskel.

2017, 2018, 4 STARS, Foreign Film, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanJune 8, 2018Gene Siskel Film CenterComment

MOVIE REVIEW: First Reformed

With First Reformed from A24, veteran writer-director Paul Schrader has crafted another startling and fascinating cinematic gem on his favored topic of self-destruction. The escalating tension is phenomenal, guiding heavy lessons and postures, all led by quite possibly the best performance to date from Ethan Hawke. Discerning audiences will find much to dissect and discuss as they process First Reformed.

2018, 4 STARS, Chicago Film Festival, Film Festival, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanMay 23, 2018Music Box TheatreComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Deadpool 2

No matter what, all of Deadpool 2 is nonsensical, of course, and there was no way this movie wasn’t going to be exactly what it is: FUN. That part doesn't go away. Folks can try to champion the first film and this one as anti-comic-book-movie movies, but, make no mistake, both of these blockbusters end up becoming comic book movies anyway just with more willingness and success to subvert the formula. However, that ridiculous energy is precisely the charm people are flocking and paying to see over in this

2018, 4 STARS, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanMay 14, 2018AMC River East 21Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: Tully

Academy Award-winning writer Diablo Cody has an unparalleled gift for the sardonic. She knows just the right rhythm of mockery and skepticism to twist mundane circumstances into something both witty and affecting. When combined with director Jason Reitman (Juno and Young Adult) and his sensibilities wired to much the same wavelength, the results are gleefully glorious. With their latest collaboration Tully, the writer-and-director duo have done it again.

MOVIE REVIEW: The Rider

This man is a cowboy. Normally, that’s all you have to say and the portrait of toughness is painted, but therein lies the mystery within the mundane of The Rider. Populated by untrained actors and inspired by true events of these rookie performers, Chloé Zhao’s sophomore feature film stands on that determination only to slowly reveal the internal aches underneath the grizzled exteriors of hat brims, denim, and vices.

2017, 2018, 4 STARS, Film Festival, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEW, Video on DemandDon ShanahanMay 2, 2018Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: Disobedience

The intensity of the torrid on-screen affair in Disobedience is as strong as the rhetoric of oppression that simmers under the surface of the characters and the community they occupy. Sebastián Lelio’s follow-up to his Academy Award-winning foreign language film A Fantastic Woman teems with deeply stirring passion. Performed to a level of high commitment by Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams, the film repeatedly demonstrates that one of the best ways to build passion in a film is to present the implicit unspoken in a manor to outweigh explicit expression.

2017, 2018, 4 STARS, Film Festival, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanApril 25, 2018Landmark Century Centre CinemasComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Ghost Stories

Their expansion plan was very sharp and forgoes the thirst to hack and slay mindlessly like most current horror offerings. The shrewd focus of Ghost Stories is scarce on spectacle and firmly rooted in sinister nuance. The over-caffeinated and desensitized segment of genre fans might call it boring, while the veterans who remember effective minimalism will be squeezed by the twisted nerve leading to solid suspense.

2017, 2018, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEW, Video on Demand, 4 STARSDon ShanahanApril 19, 2018Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: Big Fish & Begonia

These narrative and aesthetic combinations make for a dynamic and sincere film from first-time writers and directors Liang Xuan and Zhang Chun. Big Fish & Begonia is an excellent place for teens to soak in some much-needed empathy against the more mindless American animated offerings. Give them an experience to absorb resonating truths on the powers of faith and love told from a different yet timeless light. They might just be better people for it.

Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEW, 2017, 4 STARS, Video on Demand, 2018Don ShanahanApril 17, 2018Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: You Were Never Really Here

The weapon of choice of Joe, the gruff contract killer of You Were Never Really Here played by Joaquin Phoenix, is an industrial ball peen hammer from his trusty local hardware store in New York. The film matches the qualities of this repurposed tool as an armament. The instrument and the art prefer the mauling nature of cold steel. Frozen by disturbing memories, the blunt object that is Lynne Ramsay’s award-winning potboiler is far more hulking than a quick death by bullet.

2017, 2018, 4 STARS, Film Festival, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEW, Video on DemandDon ShanahanApril 17, 2018AMC River East 21Comment

SHORT FILM REVIEW: The Prince

n concisely thematic way, the award-winning short film The Prince, written and directed by Kyra Zagorsky, is a moving artistic interpretation of one of those such moments. It indeed has a thought-provoking story to tell, and the result creates a resonating effect in short order, the chief goal of a good short film. The Prince’s key to accomplishing its depth is the twin layers it uses to portray and describe its moment.

2018, 4 STARS, 2017, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEW, SHORT FILMS, Social Media, Video on DemandDon ShanahanApril 10, 2018Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: A Quiet Place

The finest horror films have concepts that tap into elemental fears not just in shocking ways, but in engaging ones as well. They find entertainment value in the gripping suspense and provoked panic that tingle our inseparable fight-or-flight human instincts wired to our senses. Surprises are easy, but building lasting reverberation from those sensations is the challenge. John Krasinski’s directorial debut, A Quiet Place, chooses to strike our sense of hearing, combining a slick creature-feature with a chamber piece of deadly silence that immerses the audience in compelling thrills.

2018, 4 STARS, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanApril 4, 2018Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: Cold War

In Cold War, Jon and Maggie’s misery is our delight and played for side-splitting laughs. The level of vomit in the film is as voluminous as the dark humor. This comedy is the brainchild of writer J. Wilder Konschak making his feature-length screenplay and co-directing debut with Stirling MacLaughlin. His created scenarios and pitfalls are bracingly honest for both their entertaining embarrassment and sinister believability.