Chasing the Blues is a dark comedy through and through. Director Scott Smith and his co-writer Kevin Guifoile crafted an engaging yarn of hijinks and hilarity. Their narrative might feel like something out of a Coen brothers rough draft, but this film sides with a far less gonzo approach that suits its shrewder stature. Like the musical genre at its core, patient storytelling is at the forefront. Could it use a stiffer punch or two? Maybe, but then it wouldn’t be the blue and not everything has to be shock cinema. Waiting for the payoff in this tidy 77-minute film is an easy and worthwhile short hike to climb.

2017, 3 STARS, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, Chicago Film Festival, Film Festival, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEW, Video on DemandDon ShanahanOctober 18, 201753rd Chicago International Film Festival2017, U.S. Indies, Chicago International Film Festival, 53rd Chicago International Film Festival, CIFF, CIFCC, independent films, independent film, Chasing the Blues, Scott Smith, Jimmie Kane Baldwin, Cicero Records, Chicago, Chicago films, The Royal Tenenbaums, Grant Rosenmeyer, Chelsea Tavares, Anna Maria Horsford, Amen, Ronald L. Conner, Kevin Guilfoile, blues, blues music, movie review, film review, festival preview, film festival, Festival coverage, Festival review, movie commentary, film commentary, music, movie critic, film critic, AMC River East 21, press credentials, life lessons, life lessons from movies, life lessons from film, life lessons from films, Every Movie Has a Lesson, Donald Shanahan, Don ShanahanComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Marshall

Can you learn about a popular band by listening to their B-sides instead of their greatest hits? Can you get a sense of the brilliance within a writer from their early drafts and not their published masterpieces? Can you spot the traits of a future Hall of Fame sports legend solely by their work in college or the minor leagues before the professional ranks? The answer to each is quite likely the same: sometimes, but not always. Tally one in the sometimes column for Reginald Hudlin’s Marshall and its biographical podium choice.

4 STARS, 2017, Chicago Film Festival, Film Festival, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanOctober 12, 201753rd Chicago International Film Festival53rd Chicago International Film Festival, Chicago International Film Festival, CIFF, CIFCC, #StandUpForSomething, Marshall, Biopics, Biographical films, lawfare, NAACP, Reginald Hudlin, Hidden Figures, Serving Sara, Boomerang, dramatic license, drama, legal drama, courtroom drama, Supreme Court, U.S. Supreme Court, E-Man's Movie Reviews, Eman, Eman's Movie Reviews, Emmanuel Noisette, Chadwick Boseman, Black Panther, Mr. Biopic, Joseph Spell, State of Connecticut vs. Joseph Spell, White Savior, white savior, Josh Gad, Dan Stevens, James Cromwell, Sam Friedman, Sterling K. Brown, 42, Get On Up, Kate Hudson, Opening Night Film, Opening Night Gala, Brown vs. Board of EducationComment

MOVIE REVIEW: The Florida Project

The crucial emotional response The Florida Project demands of its viewers is empathy. If you can’t find that, if you turn your nose, close your eyes, and refuse to accept that this kind of American lifestyle exists, you are missing the hard truths, the teachable moments, and the larger points being presented. onvenient Hollywood endings don’t exist in the real life Baker’s film examines. Applaud a film that dares to push that stark reality.

MOVIE REVIEW: Our Souls at Night

Even from a different generation than the present day, you can’t get more Hollywood than Robert Redford and Jane Fonda. Both are emeritus stars of Tinseltown royalty on multiple levels, respected and celebrated as award-winning performers, icons of style, sex symbols, and vigilant political personas off-screen. To see the two of them together again, for the fifth time and the first time in 38 years in Our Souls at Night, is a revitalizing treat unto itself, but to see their shared film be staunchly non-Hollywood in stature is even more refreshing.

SHORT FILM REVIEW: Loyalty or Betrayal

By design and in the name of essential effectiveness, a good short film has to cut to the chase. Their tricks of cinematic shorthand in the exposition department are what make them entertaining. When the micro-budgeted Loyalty and Betrayal opens on the imagery of a man on his bedroom floor putting a gun to his forehead, a chase has certainly been cut. Writer/director Jonathan Vargas grabs us right there and locks our gaze.

MOVIE REVIEW: Lucky

In each winsome second, Lucky continuously unearths affecting ways of making cantankerous endearing. With grizzled resolve and humor as dry as the desert he walks in, the late Harry Dean Stanton personifies the charm culled from the crotchety put on display in John Carroll Lynch’s straight-shooting film. Far from any Grumpy Old Men folly and possessing a hidden heart twice the size of Alexander Payne’s Nebraska, meet a lovable unlovable asshole that flourishes to galvanize unexpected wholesomeness from the prickliest of cacti.

2017, 5 STARS, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, Chicago Film Festival, Film Festival, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanOctober 6, 2017Music Box TheatreComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Blade Runner 2049

To get people talking about a film, or better yet keep them talking about it, storytellers and filmmakers can choose one of two extremes to ensure conversation. The film can have everything to say, or it can have nothing to say. Either route creates captivating and immeasurable levels of ambiguity that are irresistible for near-infinite discourse. The vagueness, obscurity, and uncertainty were driving forces that made 1982’s Blade Runner an initially maligned vision that grew to become a revered science fiction classic. The power of ambiguity strikes again with its long-distance sequel.

2017, 4 STARS, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanOctober 6, 2017AMC River East 21Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: Te Ata

Not all actors and actresses are motivated by fame and profit. Some are in it for the performance and chance to share culture through an artistic medium. Before the hey-day of cinema, one such actress captured the fascination of an audience higher than any Hollywood premiere and did so as an ostracized minority. Better yourself with a slice of history to learn about Mary Frances Thompson, or, as she was called on stage, Te Ata.

2017, 4 STARS, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEW, Video on DemandDon ShanahanOctober 3, 20172017, independent film, indie film, historical drama, Te Ata, Mary Frances Thompson, Q'orianka Kilcher, Chickasaw, Oklahoma, The New World, Gil Birmingham, Wind River, Hell of High Water, Douglas Johnston, Dances With Wolves, Graham Greene, Three Arts Club, New York City, Broadway, Mackenzie Austin, Clyde Fisher, Eleanor Roosevely, Jeannie Barbour, Esther Luttrell, First Encounters, Lithium Springs, Nathan Frankowski, To Write Love on Her Arms, film critic, movie critic, film review, movie review, film commentary, movie commentary, life lessons, life lessons from films, life lessons from movues, life lessons from gilm, life lessons from film, VOD, Video on Demand, Video On Demand, Don Shanahan, Donald Shanahan, Every Movie Has a Lesson, CIFCC, Falco InkComment

MOVIE REVIEW: The Young Offenders

The banter and B.S. traded back and forth between Alex Murphy and Chris Walley is as hysterical as it is pleasurably uncouth. It’s an absolute wonder to realize that The Young Offenders is mutually their first on-camera film roles. Alex and Chris’s chemistry through sarcasm and shared shenanigans feels and looks effortless. Flabbergasted energy blasts out of both of them and it’s a hoot to watch. Seeing the two young actors operate these over-the-top losers with reckless abandon while still injecting a little coming-of-age heart for good measure, makes the film highly entertaining.

2017, 2016, 3 STARS, Chicago Film Festival, Foreign Film, Film Festival, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanOctober 3, 2017Gene Siskel Film Center2017, The Young Offenders, Children's Act of 2001, Urban Dictionary, Knacker, Alex Murphy, Chris Walley, hijinks, Dominic MacHale, Shane Casey, Hilary Rose, Trainspotting, Danny Boyle, Conor MacSweeney, Jock Murphy, Euro, Peter Foott, Irish, Ireland, Ireland films, films set in Ireland, Irish American Movie Hooley, Irish films, Irish-themed films, Irish American films, 2 Gingers Irish Whiskey, Hibernian Transmedia, Movie Hooley, Gene Siskel Film Center, Siskel Film Center, Mike Houlihan, CIFCC, Chicago Independent Film Critics Circle, 3rd annual Irish American Movie Hooley, movie critic, film critic, foreign film, independent film, independent films, heist films, coming of age, movie review, film review, movie commentary, film commentary, Festival coverage, festival preview, closing night, comedy, life lessons, life lessons from film, life lessons from movies, life lessons from films, life lessons from foreign films, Don Shanahan, Donald Shanahan, Every Movie Has a LessonComment

MOVIE REVIEW: The Dunning Man

Inspired by true events, which will cause a fun double take as the film transpires, The Dunning Man is adapted from the published short stories of producer Kevin Fortuna. Precariously, at times, balancing somewhere between an urban drama and paperback crime novel, the film presents a seedy slice of Atlantic City calmed by nostalgic scene transitions of vintage footage of the city in its decadent heyday.

2017, 3 STARS, Chicago Film Festival, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEW, Social MediaDon ShanahanSeptember 28, 2017Gene Siskel Film Center2016, 2017, The Dunning Man, Irish, Irish films, Irish-themed films, Irish American films, Irish American Movie Hooley, 2017 Irish American Movie Hooley, 3rd annual Irish American Movie Hooley, Ireland, Ireland films, 2 Gingers Irish Whiskey, Hibernian Transmedia, Movie Hooley, Gene Siskel Film Center, Siskel Film Center, Opening Night Film, Mike Houlihan, Atlantic City, Dun, James Carpinello, Gotham, Tom Kemp, Manchester by the Sea, Luke Cage, Queen Sugar, Green Zone, Nicoye Banks, Langston Fishburne, Dawn-Lyen Gardner, Matthew Rimmer, Scott Oakley, Kevin Fortuna, Michael Clayton, Petr Cikhart, San Jose Film Festival, Hoboken Film Festival, Emerald Loop Bar, film review, movie review, film commentary, movie commentary, film critic, movie critic, CIFCC, Chicago Independent Film Critics Circle, life lessons, life lessons from film, life lessons from films, life lessons from movies, Donald Shanahan, Don Shanahan, Every Movie Has a LessonComment

MOVIE REVIEW: American Made

You know the drill of the typical “so unbelievable it has to be true” cinematic crime biography of a roguish anti-hero. The self-narrated humble beginnings give way to the zeal of daring accomplishment leading to wealthy illegal success, a rise to power, a peak of over-inflation, and the long arm of the law catching up to cause a fall from grace and comeuppance. However, the propeller that makes this jet-set ride swoop with showmanship is the dashing presence of Tom Cruise.

2017, 4 STARS, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanSeptember 28, 2017Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: Stronger

Diametric to its title, the core of Stronger’s life after trauma chronicles a venerating angle applied to the “Boston Strong” nature with little melodrama. This is director David Gordon Green’s best film to date, easily surpassing the fad success of Pineapple Express. Stronger’s touching tone carries unmistakable courage and inspires an unshakeable stir of appreciation.

2017, 4 STARS, Film Festival, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanSeptember 22, 2017Comment