MOVIE REVIEW: The Dig

It’s rare, as rare as the ancient treasure trove shown in the movie at hand, but sometimes you encounter a “based on a true story” movie that may have been more compelling and richly told as a documentary than a theatrical drama. The Netflix new release, The Dig, is one of those. Why? Call it subject matter versus character and the pendulum of revealed truths against manufactured melodrama. Sometimes, the dramatic licence amplifies the impact of the embedded facts, but in other instances the injected theatrics water down the truism. While bolstered by a fine cast, Simon Stone’s The Dig is too much of the latter.

2021, 2 STARS, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, Independent Film, Home Media, MOVIE REVIEW, StreamingDon ShanahanJanuary 28, 2021Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: The Ultimate Playlist of Noise

There is a small delight many viewers may share with Marcus, the main character of Hulu’s The Ultimate Playlist of Noise played by emerging actor Keean Johnson of Midway. This writer is one of them. Marcus’s narration brings up his enjoyment watching the facial expressions and body language of people hearing any array of sounds. Be it directly or voyeuristically, he’s astounded and inspired by the captivation seen among those listeners. He’s right. Try it yourself.

2021, 4 STARS, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, Independent Film, Video on Demand, Streaming, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanJanuary 15, 2021Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: Outside the Wire

The gulf between how good Anthony Mackie looks and everyone else in Outside the Wire is as wide as the Mississippi River delta the New Orleans-born actor hails from. Paired with a whiny and clunky younger partner and pitted against the mirage of a paper-thin, nondescript European villain, there’s so little complimentary muscle next to Anthony. The overwhelming majority of this futuristic army flick couldn’t arm wrestle a toddler.

2 STARS, 2021, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, MOVIE REVIEW, StreamingDon ShanahanJanuary 13, 2021Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: Pieces of a Woman

Nearly every artistic element of Pieces of a Woman holds a fixation with its lead Vanessa Kirby and rightfully so. Co-stars encircle her aura hoping to get closer. They are met by a lithe posture contorted in guarded torment that holds back their approaches. Her icy blue eyes, arched by her dark eyebrows, hold dry from tears, hang open while lost in thought, and project stares when attention is gained. Of all the points of focus captured by director Kornél Mundruczó, Kirby’s hands are purposefully watched the most. Historical quotes keenly remind us “idle hands are the devil’s workshop” and “nothing good comes from boredom.” Pieces of a Woman finds places to condone those vices.

MOVIE REVIEW: Shadow in the Cloud

At the tipping point in Shadow in the Cloud when action becomes necessary to confront mounting threats, it is a lone woman surrounded by chauvinistic men that doubtlessly steps up above all others. Pushed to fight or flight, she’s going nowhere and her battle cries are “You’ll see what I’m capable of!” and “You don’t understand how far I will go!” Fellas, be afraid. Don’t dare cross a determined woman, no matter their size, age, or profession. They have outright toughness most cannot fathom.

MOVIE REVIEW: One Night in Miami

Now, judging by storied perception of the “Louisville Lip” and his towering ego on the biggest night of his young career, one might expect One Night in Miami to set off a boastful barnburner of boozy partying and liberating frolic. The result is quite the contrary. There are no bars, no girls, no flashbulbs, and no hanger-on fans. It is just these four influential men and the hotel spaces before them as they wrestle with the gravity of the moment and share the ongoing bigotry they have experienced on different levels and from different sources. To celebrate here is the exhale and vent, not dance and prance.

2020, 5 STARS, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, Film Festival, Home Media, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEW, Streaming, Video on DemandDon ShanahanDecember 24, 2020Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: Wonder Woman 1984

Too much of this sequel’s accomplishments stop at that last prepositional phrase of “for the main character.” Everything crafted for Gal Gadot’s heroics works wonderfully to strengthen her and the character’s prominence. Good graces and affections are rightfully earned. Maybe it is enough of a victory that Wonder Woman is not the problem of a Wonder Woman movie. That said, the material and surroundings she is given do her very little favors.

2020, 3 STARS, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, Streaming, MOVIE REVIEW, Home MediaDon ShanahanDecember 23, 2020Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: Sylvie's Love

A skeptical label Sylvie’s Love might receive is being called anachronistic. Such a descriptor is a compliment not a hindrance. In fact, it would be disappointingly out of place if Sylvie’s Love was anything less than properly rooted right where it is as a pseudo-time capsule. Ashe isn’t trying to insert a progressive modern agenda with revisionist history for current appeasement. The desire was a period romance with sweep, ambiance, and gloss. The look of the era and the look of love are all there.

2020, 4 STARS, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEW, StreamingDon ShanahanDecember 19, 2020Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: Greenland

The trouble is Greenland still cannot resist overselling the unbelievable side of this whole ordeal. The former stunt coordinator director Waugh still needs silly thrills and spills. Rapid societal collapse would be far worse than a smattering of looted stores and some increased traffic here and there. For this movie to go that route, it had to commit more. While shooting for a more grounded perspective, the pitfalls and hurdles placed before Gerard Butler and company try to be harrowing, but they’re still too easy and light on risk. We still have an action hero getting lucky like an action hero too often does. When that happens, the repetitive disbelief smears the good graces of more tense intentions. The eye rolls take over.

2 STARS, 2020, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, Home Media, MOVIE REVIEW, StreamingDon ShanahanDecember 17, 2020Greenland, Gerard ButlerComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

The narrative scope of playwright August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is a setting of Black performers sharing their collective experiences in life that now go into their music. There is a precarious pendulum of friendly diatribes and combative challenges between the traveling band members of the titular “Mother of the Blues.” Their forum may be a lowly basement rehearsal room, but the expanse of their descriptive histories reaches generations farther than mere geography.

2020, 4 STARS, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, Home Media, MOVIE REVIEW, Streaming, Video on DemandDon ShanahanDecember 16, 2020Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: Promising Young Woman

There is a very good chance that “shocking” will be the first and most basic reactionary word to come out a viewer’s dropped jaw after seeing Promising Young Woman, the holy-f—king-shit movie of 2020. If someone isn’t shocked, there’s something wrong with them. If anything, the predicament of self-examination will be which condition of shock they’re carrying as they come down from the buzz of this movie.

2020, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, 5 STARS, Film Festival, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEW, StreamingDon ShanahanDecember 14, 2020 Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: Wander Darkly

Many existential movies that kick around the questions of life, death, and afterlife dangle the idea of revision. From It’s a Wonderful Life to The Tree of Life, characters alive, dead, or somewhere in-between are presented visions or exercises of how their lives could have been different with wholesale changes or tangential opportunities. Those musings often steer them to accepting their life as it was, pitfalls and all. The new drama Wander Darkly from Tara Miele working the festival circuit goes there not with an eraser, but with a red pen instead. Channeling my school teacher day job, Wander Darkly, in an interesting way, is about proofreading life more than revising it.

EVERY MOVIE HAS A LESSON

by Don Shanahan

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