COLUMN: New Year's Resolutions for the Movie Industry for 2021

Plenty of regular everyday people make New Year’s Resolutions, but I think bigger entities, namely movie makers and movie moguls, need to make them too. Annually, including this tenth edition, I have fun taking the movie industry to task for things they need to change. I have no false internet courage to be a Twitter troll. As always, some resolutions come true while others get mentioned and reiterated every year. Boy, was this a turd of a year for the movies, eh? There’s so much to say about so little that transpired with a predominantly locked-down marketplace.

Column, Editorial, LIST, Social Media, SPECIAL, 2021Don ShanahanJanuary 1, 2021Comment

GUEST EDITORIAL: Do Movies Predict the Future or Influence It?

By Kevin Gardner

It is always strange when you are watching an old movie and see a far-fetched scenario that has since played out in the real world. Did the movie writers have privileged information about some new gadget? Maybe a child who watched that movie was inspired and grew up to design something similar. Either could be possible. On the other hand, there are some movies that predict social issues and world events that nobody could have imagined.

2020, Column, Editorial, GUEST EDITORIAL, Home Media, SPECIALDon ShanahanDecember 30, 2020Comment

SPECIAL: Nominations for the fifth annual Chicago Indie Critics Awards

Leading all films with an impressive nine nominations is Netflix’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom helmed by Best Director nominee George C. Wolfe and starring acting nominees Chadwick Boseman and Viola Davis. Following next with seven nominations each was David Fincher’s Mank and Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7, both also hailing from Netflix. In all, 45 different films are represented with nominations for the 2020 CIC Awards.

2020, CIC, Column, EVENT, LIST, SPECIAL, Social MediaDon ShanahanDecember 28, 2020Comment

10 YEAR RETROSPECTIVE: The 10 Best Films of 2010

Despite the overall crappiness of this year, 2020 has been the 10th anniversary of this website Every Movie Has a Lesson. I didn’t start this endeavor until May of 2010 and, when the end of the year rolled around, I didn’t have a complete “sample size” or body of work, so to speak, to write a proper “10 Best” list. Missing that chance has always bothered the completist in me. I’ve been meaning to fix that and this little anniversary seemed like the right time, especially after charting a “best of the decade” list a year ago at the close of the 10s. So, turning back the clock a decade, here are my “10 Best Films of 2010.”

Best Films, Column, Editorial, LIST, Retrospective, SPECIAL, 2020, 2010Don ShanahanDecember 28, 2020Saint Joseph's College2010 Comment

GUEST COLUMN: The Top 10 Indispensable "Expendables" Action Star Film List

by Christopher D. Childs

In 2010, 63-year-old Sylvester Stallone had a brilliant idea: throw a bunch of veteran action stars all into one movie and then crank up the testosterone. Thus The Expendables was born. The film pulled in more than $220 million worldwide and spawned a sequel, The Expendables 2, which allows the franchise to pull in even more action stars. Some of these guys are heading into senior citizen territory but so far none is using a walker to kick some ass. So here's a list of the most indispensable films representing each of these iconic Expendables action stars.

2020, Column, Editorial, GUEST EDITORIAL, Home MediaDon ShanahanDecember 27, 2020Comment

GUEST COLUMN: The Top 10 Most Successful Action Franchises of All Time

by Daniel T. Anderson

What would you guess to be the most profitable action movie franchise of all time? If you had to choose one, which would it be? Mission Impossible? The Pirates of the Caribbean? The Matrix films? Reporting on these sorts of box office results is typically pretty simplistic. We're told the amount of money a film made domestically (and sometimes internationally) and how much the film cost to make. The difference is supposed to be the profitability. However, determining real-life profitability is much more complex.

2020, Column, Editorial, GUEST EDITORIAL, Home Media, LISTDon ShanahanDecember 27, 2020Comment

GUEST COLUMN: Top 10 Movies Based on TV Shows

by David Hoang

Adapting TV shows to movies hasn't always been popular. Hollywood initially looked at TV as competition fearing it would keep people at home and away from the theater, so studios weren't eager to suggest that there were small screen shows worthy of big screen attention. But TV didn't bring the demise of movies and studios eventually came to realize that TV audiences were worth tapping into. So here are the best of the films based on TV shows.

2020, Column, Editorial, GUEST EDITORIAL, Home MediaDon ShanahanDecember 27, 2020Comment

GUEST COLUMN: 7 Iconic Early Movie Monsters

by Gloria A. Adams

The action may move slowly, the special effects may be crude - yet there's reason to watch the early classic movie monsters. They established enduring legends with great black-and-white camera work. Instead of sophisticated special effects, many had terrific performances by actors under layers of makeup. Some can still cause a chill, and some can make you laugh out loud. Either way, these are the big, bad boys who provided the DNA for all the great movie monsters who followed.

2020, Column, Editorial, GUEST EDITORIAL, Home MediaDon ShanahanDecember 27, 2020Comment

GUEST COLUMN: Top Films About eSport

by Joshua Sherman

With multi-million dollar grand prizes on the line, eSports is a huge industry where the stakes have never been higher. Here are the best eSports films that put you in the action and show the highs and lows for the players. Sport has always made for compelling filmmaking, and eSports films are no different. The mixture of nerve-shredding tension and conflict keeps us on the edge of our seats until the final whistle has blown. While traditionally audiences and directors have gravitated to athletic sports, we’re seeing a golden age for eSports films emerging as the value of the competitive video game market continues to blossom.

2020, Column, Editorial, GUEST EDITORIAL, Home MediaDon ShanahanDecember 27, 2020Comment

COLUMN: The Best TV Shows about Students and University Life

As first-year students are about to join the universities and colleges in their enormous numbers, it is highly the time to step back and look at some of the television shows that channel their focus on students. Some of these shows can be used for both entertainment and as a material to do my thesis in the future. Here are some of the shows that detail the life of a student in university.

2020, Column, Editorial, LISTDon ShanahanDecember 27, 2020Comment

GUEST COLUMN: Lessons We Can Learn from Disaster Movies

by Adrian Johansen

Movies are more than mere entertainment. They’re a release. An escape. A two-hour reprieve from the worries of your ordinary life. But movies do more than entertain. They also instruct. They can show audiences what to do in times of crisis — as well as what not to do. And there’s maybe no better genre for this than the disaster movie. Aside from the cheap thrills, emotional melodrama, and spectacular special effects, you may well just take away some valuable lessons that you’ll find yourself using in your own life!

2020, Column, Editorial, Home MediaDon ShanahanDecember 27, 2020Comment

20 YEAR RETROSPECTIVE: The best of the rest of 2000

In an annual series, Every Movie Has a Lesson is going to look back twenty years to revisit, relearn, and reexamine a year of cinema history to share favorites, lists, and experiences from the films of that year. When measuring back as far as twenty years or more, I feel like “favorites” that have stood the test of time have aged to become some level of “best.” I feel like a bunch of those populate my reflective look back at the best of the rest of 2000.