MOVIE REVIEW: Familiar Touch

Filming for Familiar Touch was done in collaboration with the residents and staff of Villa Gardens Continuing Care Retirement Community in New York. Backed by casting agent Betsy Fippinger (Eighth Grade and Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret), 67 residents, 13 staff members, and 12 caregiving and geriatrician consultants were credited for their involvement in making the movie, granting a tangible and uplifting authenticity that we’re being shown a positive standard of care and not an entirely sugarcoated movie version, just to perk up a plot with conflict.

MOVIE REVIEW: Thirsty

In the central performance of Thirsty, Jamie Neumann lays this character bare. In each scene representing a defining choice—whether it’s a buoyant stump moment impressing the gathered public or a privately tormented decision—the actress shows emotional mettle that is tangible, mature, and impressive. Harsher truths and consequences rightfully burn here.

MOVIE REVIEW: Nora

Amid all the pressures she puts on herself to be a responsible mom, flexing artistic muscles and sparking the creative synapses of music creates a new balance in Nora’s life. It’s safe to say every parent watching Nora needs to carve out some self-care time in their schedules to do their own just-for-you enrichment activity, whatever it may be.

2025, 3 STARS, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanMay 23, 2025Nora, Anna CampbellComment

MOVIE REVIEW: The Kiss

The Kiss (Kysset), the most recent film from Oscar-winning Danish director Bille August, a two-time Palme d’Or recipient, has finally arrived in limited theaters for North American audiences. Set during the onset of World War I in August’s native country of Denmark, The Kiss is adapted from novelist Stefan Zweig’s 1939 book Beware of Pity. Thematically, that titular emotion of pity from the source material courses through this film’s every vein.

MOVIE REVIEW: The Trouble With Jessica

There’s a compelling playfulness in The Trouble with Jessica where viewers’ rooting interests are worked like a seesaw. At certain junctures, we question who the true victim or victims are. We might even want our present party to get away with this dangerous little ruse. By the same token, other revelations tilt us to want to see their noses rubbed in shamefulness, guilt, and remorse. Like any sure-handed cinematic riddle, Matt Winn keeps pushing the teeter-totter at the right times, dropping question marks all the way until the end.

MOVIE REVIEW: The Legend of Ochi

To say it most simply, The Legend of Ochi is a go-out-and-get-dirty movie. It is a methodical trek of a self-reliant kid left to their own devices, though none of them are of the smart or touchscreen varieties. Emanating from its very foreign, rustic setting, seemingly light on modern amenities, this is a no-tech, rocky, mossy, and muddy fairy tale that most studios don’t make anymore. Go ahead and call it a lost art.

2025, MOVIE REVIEW, 4 STARS, Independent FilmDon ShanahanApril 26, 2025The Legend of Ochi, Willem Dafoe, Helena Zengel, Finn Wolfhard, A24, Fairy talesComment

MOVIE REVIEW: The Wedding Banquet

For a movie remake not to be seen as a sign of creative bankruptcy or lazy nostalgia bait, the new film has to offer something new. Do the borrowed themes and storylines fit the current times after the passing years since the original? That begs the more important question: Is there something substantive or new to say that’s worth updating? The new rendition of The Wedding Banquet adamantly answers those questions positively.

SHORT FILM REVIEW: Death is Business

As a short film, Death is Business dips its toe into the seedy underworld of murder-for-hire. For the specific and highly coordinated type of crime being committed on screen, the toe being dipped isn’t coming out explicitly bloody. It may even look stylishly clean, but make no mistake, there is an unchecked dirtiness clinging to the extremities. With an intellectual meticulousness matching its felonious acts, Dirty Business puts diabolic impetuses under an intriguing microscope.

MOVIE REVIEW: Darkest Miriam

Remember, there are no class or social delineations in public libraries. Libraries are shared spaces for a myriad of quirky topics and people. They’ll welcome everyone from a refined consumer of academic privilege to a homeless denizen trying to buy time out of the elements with an available bathroom for unmet basic needs. Manning their posts and maintaining the materials and facilities, imagine the odd stuff librarians see, encounter, circumvent, reconcile, and clean.

2025, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEW, 2 STARSDon ShanahanApril 14, 2025Darkest Miriam, Britt Lower, Tom MercierComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Sacramento

On the surface with this plight of male buddies, Sacramento may look like a poor man’s A Real Pain which just earned Kieran Culkin the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Happily, by staying stateside and smaller in its aims, Angarano’s film has an entirely zestier vibe. These are two men who, simply put, need to chill, and the stakes and environment reflect that.

JustWatch: Director Alex Garland Talks About "Warfare"

JustWatch connected with visionary director and screenwriter Alex Garland to discuss his powerful new film Warfare—a deeply personal and unflinching portrayal of modern conflict based on firsthand accounts from the Iraq War. The film, Garland’s latest collaboration with A24, hits U.S. theaters this Friday (April 11th) and stars Will Poulter (The Bear), D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai (Reservation Dogs), Joseph Quinn (Stranger Things, Gladiator II), and Cosmo Jarvis (Shōgun).

2025, Column, Independent Film, InterviewDon ShanahanApril 10, 2025JustWatch, Warfare, Alex GarlandComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Eric LaRue

True to a play’s performative spine, Eric LaRue rises to become an actor’s showcase building towards two important summits: the aforementioned collection of mothers and the first visit to Eric in prison. Each seated clash places Judy Greer in the unenviable position as the target of ire and the recipient of painful reactions, where no amount of contrition will be enough and immediate peace is impossible.

EVERY MOVIE HAS A LESSON

by Don Shanahan

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