GUEST CRITIC #29: Leon: The Professional

As busy I get from time to time, I find that I can't see every movie under the sun, leaving my friends and colleagues to fill in the blanks for me. As poetically as I think I wax about movies on this website as a wannabe critic, there are other experts out there. Sometimes, it inspires me to see the movie too and get back to being my circle's go-to movie guy. In a new review series, I'm opening my site to friend submissions for guest movie reviews. Today, meet fan and follower of the page Farnaz Nazari

2018, Foreign Film, Independent Film, GUEST CRITIC, MOVIE REVIEW, SPECIAL, Social Media, Vintage ReviewDon ShanahanDecember 26, 2018Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: If Beale Street Could Talk

All of these sumptuous and strenuous sways are the work of Barry Jenkins taking James Baldwin’s lengthy and verbose prose and shaping it into a carefully honed narrative fit for the visual storytelling of the motion picture art form. The power of Baldwin is in his words, combinations of asides and absolutes with both bountiful and poignant descriptive details in between. Every adapted word from Jenkins telegraphs that gravity and projects these historical scenarios with towering relevance and parallels to present society.

5 STARS, 2018, MOVIE REVIEW, Best Films, Independent FilmDon ShanahanDecember 26, 2018Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: Vice

With more dismissive scowls than joking winks, thinly veiled outrage outweighs the drink-clinking humor in Adam McKay’s film presenting a biography of one of the least favored men in American political history. Hazy in some moments, hasty in others, and always provocative, Vice is easily the most polarizing film of the year. The movie is not unlike Cheney’s own aim with a shotgun, hitting and missing plenty with occasional collateral damage.

2018, 3 STARS, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, Film Festival, MOVIE REVIEW, Independent FilmDon ShanahanDecember 23, 2018Dick Cheney, Christian BaleComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Bumblebee

Plenty of loud-and-dumb still comes out of Bumblebee, but at least the pompous hubris and sophomoric fixations that fuel it are exchanged for those three missing elements of tone, character, and heart. The charming zeal of this revisionist prequel stands as the beacon signal to welcome back those who wrote this series off (including this very writer) years ago.

MOVIE REVIEW: Aquaman

Bounding over land and sea across the oceanic globe, Aquaman is a bona fide comic book adventure with all the proper melodrama, pathos, heroics, and world-building amplified to a fantasy level of the highest order. James Wan’s crowd pleaser is a gushing rush of dazzling entertainment fully aware of its challenge to wash away decades of misplaced opinions and intentions. Enjoy bringing these action figures into a really big bathtub of flavored popcorn. For as fantastically cheesy as this movie is, its brassy and glossy pull is quite surprising.

2018, 4 STARS, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanDecember 18, 2018AMC Navy Pier IMAXAquaman, Jason MomoaComment

MOVIE REVIEW: When Jeff Tried to Save the World

Not only has writer-director Kendall Goldberg fleshed out this excellent main character, she guides it through this plot with a matching sense imagination and earnestness. The nuances win in a story where heart and pragmatic approachability outshine any need for shock value and raunch. The smart and spot-on tonal mix of such simplicities deserve to be appreciated.

2018, 4 STARS, Film Festival, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEW, Video on DemandDon ShanahanDecember 12, 2018Music Box TheatreComment

MOVIE REVIEW: The Favourite

The Favourite has a wider scope and warmer temperature than Lanthimos’ previous two films. His aim for deadpan delivery highly on display last year in The Killing of the Sacred Deer bends to occasionally include pulse-quickening emotions and diaphragm-shaking chuckles. The Favourite says that “love has limits.” The same can be said for Lanthimos. He is the exact definition of an acquired taste. The brilliance is there, with much to love and plenty still to rebuke.

2018, 3 STARS, Chicago Film Festival, Film Festival, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanDecember 11, 2018AMC River East 21Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: Roma

That unfortunate fate could not be farther away from a film like Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma. For all of those possible extrapolations of commitment and dedication taking place within the craft of filmmaking, you may never, not this year and maybe several more after, see a more intimate artistic expression than this powerful and personal film. To the man making Roma, this film is special. To those viewing it, this film is important. To the art it serves, this film could be a potential masterpiece.

MOVIE REVIEW: Rendezvous in Chicago

Michael Glover Smith’s third feature film channels Éric Rohmer to present three collisions of love occurring in the writer-director’s own beloved Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago. Smith’s canny talent to pen and juggle a triptych is not what impresses the most. Rather, what is greater, quite simply, is his sense of feel as a storyteller and filmmaker.

Independent Film, 2018, MOVIE REVIEW, 4 STARS, SPECIAL, Chicago Film FestivalDon ShanahanNovember 30, 2018Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: The Guilty

Played in nearly real-time, The Guilty jolts the audience with the fits and spurts of the received and dropped calls. Some are dangled snippets and others linger with impact. Their rising and falling tensions are shrewdly and sharply written by director Gustav Möller and TV writer Emil Nygaard Albertsen. Their unforgiving suspense create an engrossing and choking mood of unknown and mounting dread. The Guilty is as smooth and taut of a 85-minute feature as you’ll see, no matter the language.

2018, 4 STARS, Best Films, Foreign Film, Film Festival, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanNovember 27, 2018Music Box TheatreComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Creed II

Sylvester Stallone and debuting co-writer Juel Taylor have fleshed out more layers of storytelling sinew than most Rocky movies deserve. Beyond the ropes of the squared circle is where Creed II softens us up as armchair and popcorn ring partners. The heart may do the talking, but the fists still say plenty and find themselves pumped into the air with cheers just fine.

2018, 4 STARS, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanNovember 20, 2018AMC River East 21Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: Widows

Kicking something flaky and flimsy like Ocean’s 8 to the curb, the Shame and 12 Years a Slave Oscar winner has assembled a dauntless ensemble cast lead by dynamic females. Rooted in the thinly and sinfully fabricated dermal and subcutaneous layers of Chicago, Widows wields an effeminate brawn and sly intelligence working to stoke a masterful slow burn. The film’s bold gravity constricts us wonderfully for one of the most visceral crime films of recent memory and one of the best films of 2018.