News of the World feeds off those carefully selected extra points of emphasis. You have Tom Hanks in his first western, and playing his true mid-60s age no less, for a change. He portrays a character who speaks with a keen sense of dramatic effect for his listeners. The actor and character occupy a movie that strives well to stay natural with believable aesthetics that are never gaudy. It’s grit without grittiness, and there’s a place for that in the western genre where not everything has to kick like 100-proof frontier whiskey.

2020, 4 STARS, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, Home Media, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanDecember 11, 2020Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: Wild Mountain Thyme

Unfortunately, this moment of the borrowed title song getting its proper spotlight is the rustic crest of this movie. Wild Mountain Thyme tries so hard to climb higher. Its romance is constantly saddled with blindness that misses the point of the lyrics. It’s as if the refrain of “will ye go” in the song is stuck by the living embodiment of “s--t or get off the pot” instead. There’s real beauty there, it’s a shame the movie didn’t have it other than the scenery. In the words of one of Ireland’s ancient language, dia ár sábháil!

1 STAR, 2020, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, Home Media, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEW, Streaming, Video on DemandDon ShanahanDecember 9, 2020Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: The Midnight Sky

Humanity rightly becomes the beautiful and ruminative zenith of The Midnight Sky. It occupies a reality that could match the here-and-now as much as it defines its fictional future when addressing the helpful and harmful effects of both minute and broad human actions. Clooney’s combined work on this drama is forthright with its altruism and free of forced villainy. True to the earlier introduction, this experience to be cherished rises to be about character more than crisis, which is where poignant performances take over. Their benevolence is mesmerizing and their endurance beyond is moving.

2020, 5 STARS, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, Home Media, MOVIE REVIEW, Streaming, Video on DemandDon ShanahanDecember 9, 2020 Comments

MOVIE REVIEW: Black Bear

Much to her flexible power for sardonic comedy or reckless abandon, actress Aubrey Plaza has a look. It’s not entirely a scowl. It’s not entirely a cynical grin. Deeming it a case of “resting bitch face” would be a dismissal to grander notions going on behind those eyes and curved lips. No, it’s more than that. It feels like all of the possible come-hither coyness mixed with all of the possible perilous threat her presence can express. She’s a puzzle, and it’s quite alright to love that about her.

2 STARS, 2020, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, Independent Film, Home Media, MOVIE REVIEW, Streaming, Video on DemandDon ShanahanDecember 4, 2020Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: Wander

What folks are going to find with the escalating thriller Wander is a screwy little movie saved by committed performances. The trouble comes when the committed performance comes from the character that should be (and ends up) committed in the clinical sense. Be ready to question everything in Wander because the audience lens and main character is a rooting-tooting conspiracy theorist, yarn-and-tape boards with newspaper clippings and all, who makes his scratch as a private investigator. The unreliable narrator energy is strong, but that’s the entertainment when you make it to the finish.

MOVIE REVIEW: Luxor

There’s another great line in Luxor that says this is “a place that whispers to you if you listen.” It’s an effect threaded into the soundscape of the film by sound designer Frédéric Le Louet (The Informer) wafting in and out of the score from documentary composer Nascuy Linares (Embrace of the Serpent). The tourists around Hana hear tales of reincarnation and the passionate myths of polytheistic demigods. Whether she believes them or not does not compare to where her conflicted self esteem hangs precariously during this short holiday.

2020, 3 STARS, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, Foreign Film, Independent Film, Home Media, MOVIE REVIEW, Streaming, Video on DemandDon ShanahanNovember 30, 2020Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: Mank

Sports fans like to say “game recognizes game” when youngblood contemporaries hat-tip the greats in their presence or those that came before them. Thanks to The Social Network ten years ago diving into the not-so-nice history of Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook, David Fincher knows this Welles-Mankiewicz territory all too well. He put a bullseye on an emerging institution and enlisted the wily Aaron Sorkin to help him light the fuse. The masterful director returns with a stylish tribute to courage that came before him. He gets it. Call Mank “balls recognizing balls.”

2020, 4 STARS, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, Home Media, MOVIE REVIEW, Streaming, Video on DemandDon ShanahanNovember 29, 2020Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: Nomadland

That said, this odyssey has highs and lows for Fern living among the saguaros, grasslands, or rocks across the American West. No matter how much she has learned to take care of herself, painful solitude creeps in. Self-reliance only fulfills so much enterprising spirit. Courage can only stave off so many endangering risks faced by a woman her age alone. In many ways, Chloe Zhao’s film, her follow-up to The Rider before going Marvel with The Eternals, has the same range of stamina and lethargy. Unvarnished prestige too has its limits.

MOVIE REVIEW: Sound of Metal

With rock-heavy undertones replaced by the dramatic struggles of silence, Sound of Metal can personify every one of those questions. This labor-of-love and festival darling debuts in limited release and Amazon Prime on December 4th. Led by a sensational, internalized performance from Riz Ahmed, read here, see on the screen, and hear anyway you can how this stands as one of the best films of the year.

MOVIE REVIEW: Superintelligence

As dippy as all of this in Superintelligence may sound and transpire, there are undeniable streaks of kindness bigger than terabytes. Not all that far removed from the likes of George Bailey or Walter Mitty, the imagination to root for hope and love in people with laughs along the way feels good. Such a sincere sweetness cannot be discounted or denied. Once again, simplicity earns that kind of vibe. Welcome that to your viewing coach this season. We could use it this year.

2020, 4 STARS, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, Home Media, MOVIE REVIEW, Streaming, Video on DemandDon ShanahanNovember 25, 2020Melissa McCarthy, SuperintelligenceComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Fatman

You know what? I hear you. How can Fatman remotely be good? You watch that grim trailer that looks like something intentionally fake right out of Saturday Night Live’s penchant for such parody and shake your head. You consider the violent premise and think Fatman is going to all be schlocky pulp. And then, what to my wondering eyes did appear, this flick turned into something wholly unexpected, yet still with the meaty side of the lurid. Ring those f’n sleigh bells!

2020, 3 STARS, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEW, Streaming, Video on DemandDon ShanahanNovember 17, 2020Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: Borat Subsequent Moviefilm

Sacha Baron Cohen, and a team of nine (yes, 9) other writers, resurrected his most successful and audacious disguise and snuck a production through the COVID-19 pandemic just in time for Election Day. His mocking aim matches Lesson #1. Through his hedonistic character once again gracing the U.S. of A., Cohen and company expose the problematic silliness of lies being lived to their fullest by fine people on both sides.