GUEST CRITIC #60: Get On Up

by Lafronda Stumn

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. Sometimes, they save me $9 and you 800+ words of blathering. In a new review series, I'm opening my site to friend submissions for guest movie reviews.

GUEST CRITIC, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEW, Social Media, Foreign Film, 2021Don ShanahanMarch 7, 2021Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: Coming 2 America

The edge of the comedic machete harvesting all the low-hanging fruit planted by the six writers sharing story and screenwriter credit on this sequel is regrettably dulled from the R-rated coarseness of 1988 and its different time and temperament. But zingers still zing, thanks to the likable performers and characters. When they’re having fun, we’re having fun. To call back again to Jackie Wilson, the silly glee of this movie evokes the refrained lyric of “Oh what a feeling to be loved!” That’s all this movie is trying to do and that’s just fine.

2021, 3 STARS, MOVIE REVIEW, Streaming, Home MediaDon ShanahanMarch 6, 2021Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: Raya and the Last Dragon

But the “lies” work because memorable stories dazzle and impress eyes and hearts at the same time. Nestled in a completely foreign realm of magic and myth, the real-life parallels woven into the high fantasy of Disney’s Raya and the Last Dragon couldn’t ring louder or truer if it stole every bell in the record-holding Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin. The movie hits the premium tier of Disney+ on March 5th.

MOVIE REVIEW: Silk Road

When you read the source material coming from David Kushner’s 2014 long-form piece from Rolling Stone and then watch the movie, the character traits and tonal choices just don’t fit. Silk Road has an astounding and blistering story to tell that seems mishandled by those two filmmaker tools for dramatic effect. We too easily see the chopped scars from a machete and the lift of a weakly deflated Thanksgiving Day parade balloon from something that could have been as sharp and heady as The Social Network.

2021, 2 STARS, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEW, StreamingDon ShanahanFebruary 20, 2021Comment

GUEST CRITIC #59: Sound of Metal

by Lafronda Stumn

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. Sometimes, they save me $9 and you 800+ words of blathering. In a new review series, I'm opening my site to friend submissions for guest movie reviews.

GUEST CRITIC, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEW, Social Media, Foreign Film, 2021Don ShanahanFebruary 20, 2021Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: Flora & Ulysses

To borrow a term from the great Stan Lee, there are casual comic book fans and then there are “true believers.” The latter never miss an issue of their favorites and, even greater, walk through life inspired by the heroic pillars written in and drawn through those page-turning panels. In the new Disney+ film Flora & Ulysses, we are graced by one of those true believers in a film that has its cape hung up out of sight, tights put away in drawers, and heart smack dab in the right place. The film opens on Disney+ on February 19th.

2021, 3 STARS, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, CIC, MOVIE REVIEW, StreamingDon ShanahanFebruary 18, 2021Comment

GUEST CRITIC #58: Borat Subsequent Moviefilm

by Lafronda Stumn

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. Sometimes, they save me $9 and you 800+ words of blathering. In a new review series, I'm opening my site to friend submissions for guest movie reviews.

GUEST CRITIC, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEW, Social Media, Foreign Film, 2021Don ShanahanFebruary 13, 2021Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: The Map of Tiny Perfect Things

For the impressionable young woman and clearly smitten guy, played by Freaky’s outstanding Kathryn Newton and future West Side Story cast member Kyle Allen, all hope is far from lost after this first unified encounter. They get to do this all over again. Playing in the self-aware Groundhog Day and Palm Springs pond, their Mark and Margaret are stuck in a temporal loop, repeating the same sunny Alabama spring day that ends with the hints of a cleansing thunderstorm at midnight that never comes before the alarm clock awakens the restarted day.

2021, 4 STARS, Home Media, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEW, Streaming, Video on DemandDon ShanahanFebruary 12, 2021The Map of Tiny Perfect ThingsComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Judas and the Black Messiah

Director Shaka King and his co-writer Will Berson, both prior specialists of television, have penned and lensed an appropriately audacious feature film debut that deserves reverence and reaction. Through it all, there is tangible grizzled inspirational force to watching the agitators humanize and refine their plight. To hell with any “product of its era talk” because this is a crusade that many will cite as ongoing today with much of the same potency. Taking much deserved latitude, Judas and the Black Messiah does not beat around a single bush with where the antagonistic blame belongs.

2021, 4 STARS, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, Home Media, MOVIE REVIEW, StreamingDon ShanahanFebruary 12, 2021Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: The Mauritanian

The Mauritanian presents a compelling case in the opposite direction to all those oorah roars. Shedding cinematic light on a staunch case of injustice tangential to those fateful 2001 events, this film has the unenviable task of proving its story’s importance in spite of the egregious systemic flaws it chronicles and exposes. You don’t have to go as far back as slavery or colonization in national history to know how most triumphantly-inflated Americans don’t want their noses rubbed in their heinous mistakes. The treatment of Mohamedou Ould Salahi is one of them.

2021, 3 STARS, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanFebruary 10, 2021Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: Malcolm & Marie

Malcolm & Marie is nothing short of emotional pugilism. Not a hair is harmed on any head, mind you, yet hearts, feelings, and psyches are pummelled and destroyed over the tumultuous course of its 106 hard minutes on Netflix. It is a wringer of an experience that remarkably takes its loud and large volume of delicately vicious battery and orchestrates mesmerizing renewal that is downright captivating.

2020, 2021, 5 STARS, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEW, StreamingDon ShanahanFebruary 5, 2021Malcolm & MarieComment

GUEST CRITIC #57: One Night in Miami

by Lafronda Stumn

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. Sometimes, they save me $9 and you 800+ words of blathering. In a new review series, I'm opening my site to friend submissions for guest movie reviews.

GUEST CRITIC, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEW, Social Media, Foreign Film, 2021Don ShanahanFebruary 5, 2021Comment