DOCUMENTARY REVIEW: Score: A Film Music Documentary

This writer is an unabashed film music lover. I owned more film score CDs than ones of popular music back in the day and that ratio hasn’t changed with digital media. Hell, I wrote a long-form editorial three years ago proclaiming film music as an improvement of the Mozart Effect for babies and children which led to a playlist afterwards that I still use to this day. I am a mark for what Score: A Film Music Documentary was selling and many of the names and talents featured in the film are found on that personal playlist.

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MOVIE REVIEW: I, Daniel Blake

I, Daniel Blake is unabashedly a “bleeding heart” film on literal and figurative levels. If this was a Hollywood film, it would be overrun with shouted speeches and orchestrational swells trying to manufacture emotional peaks. Fluff like that is unnecessary if you have the right poetic realism, For Loach, that’s second hand and he picks the right soapbox placement and thickness.

CAPSULE REVIEWS: Short films of the 5th Chicago Critics Film Festival

Over 40 feature-length and short films, many of which making their Chicago premieres, graced the main screen of the Music Box Theatre this past week-and-change as part of the fifth annual Chicago Critics Film Festival. It was an honor and pleasure to be be granted press credentials to cover the event. Here are my collected capsule reviews of the short film programs.

2017, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, CAPSULE REVIEW, Chicago Film Festival, Film Festival, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEW, Social Media, SHORT FILMS, Video on DemandDon ShanahanMay 21, 2017Music Box Theatre2017, 5th Chicago Critics Film Festival, CCFF, Chicago Film Critics Association, CFCA, CIFCC, Collin Souter, The Dundee Project, Kaiju Bunraku, Drawn and Recorded, Drawn and Recorded: Teen Spirit, Teen Spirit, T-Bone Burnett, Nirvana, Bunraku Bay Puppet Theater, Mark Borchardt, Bill Benson, UFO Daze, Fry Day, Ted Bundy, Jordyn DiNatale, Tough, Chinese, Kieran Culkin, Mae Whitman, Approaching a Breakthrough, Hell You Talmbout, Janelle Monae, Civil Rights Movement, Northwest Tap Connection, Shakiah Danielson, Ten Meter Tower, short film, short films, short film review, Short films, short film commentary, Kurt Cobain, Kathleen Hanna, Bikini Kill, Smells Like Teen Spirit Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: The Blackcoat's Daughter

Being “in the dark” is a savory place to be for a film like this. Keenly and decisively, “The Blackcoat’s Daughter” carries a nearly strict reliance on suggestion and atmosphere over exploitation. For that, Perkins and company get it and do not need a “throwback” label to prove it. They know that our mental guessing is always more frightening than showing every little thing.

SHORT FILM REVIEW: The Debt

2017 Chicago Irish Film Festival: Short Program II

Kids not only say the darndest things, but do the darndest things too. “The Debt” is a highly charming short film illustrating a child’s view of courtship and love. The romantic ways of the world are foreign to the young, so they make up their own ideas. Engaging and well-acted by youth performers, this short film will charm you to pieces.

2017, 4 STARS, Chicago Film Festival, Film Festival, Foreign Film, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEW, SHORT FILMSDon ShanahanMarch 19, 2017The Logan Theatre2017, 2017 Chicago Irish Film Festival, Chicago Irish Film Festival, film festival, Festival review, Festival coverage, The Debt, Susie Power, Lee O'Donaghue, Eabha Last, Helen Flanagan, Denis Clohessy, Short Film, short film commentary, short film review, short films, Short films, Ireland, Irish-themed films, Irish, Irish films, Irish American films, independent films, foreign film, foreign films, Foreign films, life lessons from film, life lessons, life lessons from movies, life lessons from short films, life lessons from foreign films, life lessons from films, film review, movie review, film commentary, movie commentary, Donald Shanahan, Don Shanahan, Every Movie Has a LessonComment

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?

SHORT FILM REVIEW: Blackbird

2017 Chicago Irish Film Festival: Shorts Program I

Diverting from the other short films in this program at the Chicago Irish Film Festival, “Blackbird” leans to the existential and experimental. The abstract feel and weighty themes are in place to knock one’s socks off. However, in an ironic fashion, this is a short film that feels too short.

MOVIE REVIEW: Trespass Against Us

When it comes to crime families in movies, any contenders and pretenders that want to be taken seriously are kissing the Corleone ring of “The Godfather” trilogy. That’s not happening with the Cutler clan in Adam Smith’s “Trespass Against Us.” As a mishmash of trailer park trash puffing their chests to operate with supposed principles, they occupy the polar opposite end of the glamorous spectrum of organized crime. Call them an “Irish fugazi,” if you will, complete with their own membership rings and cracks in the hierarchy.

MOVIE REVIEW: Lion

In a tonal shift from the trumpeted and showy norm of Oscar bait, “Lion” is yet another performance-driven dramatic film of 2016 entering this holiday season favoring prudence over theatrics. The feature film debut of award-winning commercial director Garth Davis, is a love letter instead of a power ballad that delivers genuine emotional heft all on its own, without the need to manufacture it for the sake of a movie.

MOVIE REVIEW: La La Land

In front of and behind the camera, you will find creative people that deftly understand and properly tap into the spirit and flavor of the classic genres and eras they are blending. Breathing jazzy life into a Hollywood musical set in the present day of Priuses and iPhones, Damien Chazelle’s follow-up to “Whiplash” is a modern cinematic masterpiece. It is the kind of film where you will remember where you were when you first saw it. You will not find a more jubilant, romanticized, or flat-out entertaining film this year.

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MOVIE REVIEW: Jackie

Mesmerizing describes the film as a whole and its incomparable lead performance from Academy Award winner Natalie Portman playing First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy in the immediate hours and days following her husband's 1963 assassination. Far from a biopic and more of a psychological examination, Portman and Larrain sear the screen with emotion and imagery that is as captivating as it is difficult. It is astonishing that it takes a foreign director to create the most empowering portrait of American history put to film in years.

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MOVIE REVIEW: Hunter Gatherer

The micro-budgeted indie film “Hunter Gatherer” is the directorial debut of art director Josh Locy. The filmmaker has cut his teeth creating the visual palettes of independent fare such as an art director on David Gordon Green’s “Prince Avalanche” and Peter Sattler’s “Camp X-Ray.” His film, led by a charismatic performance from Andre Royo, shows the egotistical plight of a recently released con trying to reinsert himself in his old South Central Los Angeles neighborhood.