MOVIE REVIEW: Linoleum

Linoleum is a conversation-heavy film unafraid to talk honestly about trajectories and unfulfilled dreams. This multiple award winner from the indie festival circuit joins other small-scale science fiction diamonds-in-the-rough like Clara, I Kill Giants, Wonderstruck, The Time Capsule, and Safety Not Guaranteed that burrow heavy human emotion and the toll of one’s life into a premise floating in the realm of tangible fantasy. More heady and original efforts of this type are sorely needed on screens and streams.

2023, 4 STARS, Independent Film, Streaming, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanFebruary 28, 2023Linoleum, Colin West, Jim GaffiganComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Cocaine Bear

We’re all Dewey Cox because a good bit of cocaine and its effects sound amazing! Without ingesting a gram of the real Mexican Percocet, Cocaine Bear will forcefully stimulate each of those buzzy symptoms in its audience. This madcap movie from director Elizabeth Banks operates with a constant herky-jerky energy between humor and horror that slaps a skeleton of funny bones, rapid blood vessels, and other delicate nether regions of weakened constitution.

2023, 3 STARS, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanFebruary 24, 2023Cocaine Bear, Elizabeth Banks, Keri Russell, Australia, creature feature, O'Shea Jackson Jr., Ray LiottaComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Creed III

With confidence and integrity, Creed III has been created with outright strategy. This third entry has timed its moment to show that it has reached a maturation point to continue forward without Sylvester Stallone. Making his feature debut as a director, franchise star Michael B. Jordan represents and demonstrates a new level of command and authority. Moreover, rather than re-assembling and relying on more family trees, Creed III finds a very penetrating and personal singular focus for its choice of ominous opposition.

2023, 4 STARS, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanFebruary 23, 2023Creed, Creed III, Michael B. Jordan, Jonathan Majors, Tessa ThompsonComment

MOVIE REVIEW: 88

Many of those conspiracy theories are precisely outlandish enough for savvy Hollywood screenwriters to find pithy movie premises for an eternity. The truly fun part is that any single theory, with the right spin, could be crafted and played as a either comedic farce or a terrifying thriller with equal entertainment potential. With 88, filmmaker Thomas Ikimi, better known as Eromose, takes a rich conspiracy concept and runs with it.

MOVIE REVIEW: Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

So far, so good, right? Staying local and rooted in family dynamics would make for an ideal Ant-Man movie and an escalator out of the grief management arcs of Phase 4, no? Wrong. Unfortunately, with a cinematic universe spiraling in a zillion rudderless directions of multiverse lunacy, the Marvel machine will not stand for that. Enlisting awards show and Rick and Morty writer Jeff Loveness (bask in that pedigree), Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania reaches so poorly with attempted relevancy.

MOVIE REVIEW: Emily

Following in the transcending footsteps of Greta Gerwig’s Little Women, award-winning actress Frances O’Connor makes her feature debut as a writer and director with Emily to blend biographical notes with envisioned dramatic license. Before her acclaim on the printed page, Emily Brontë was a lover, a sister, a daughter, and an independent woman of turmoil and ache. Anchored by a stirring lead performance from Emma Mackay, O’Connor’s emotive film seeks to flesh out that very soul.

MOVIE REVIEW: Sharper

Frankly, a polished movie like this one, from the clean sets to the ominous Clint Mansell score, would have been relished in that fondly remembered mid-1990s marketplace of star-driven movies marketed for adults. Mature and malicious while skirting the line with a dash of kink, movies like Sharper don’t get made enough nowadays. Enjoy its casual boldness.

2023, 3 STARS, Home Media, MOVIE REVIEW, StreamingDon ShanahanFebruary 10, 2023Sharper, Benjamin Caron, Julianne Moore, Justice Smith, Sebastian StanComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Somebody I Used To Know

To a degree, Somebody I Used to Know carries a bit of the same vein of misaligned praise and creativity. We have two lifelong Southern Californians (Franco of Palo Alto and Brie of Hollywood) pretending to lay out a pre-midlife crisis scenario in a setting far from their own. That said, there is a range of characters and grasp of relatable poignancy in the film coming from David and Alison that show how setting matters little when you have interesting people.

MOVIE REVIEW: Maybe I Do

Familiar premises need a little wrinkle or twist to not be another retread. Thanks to Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Guess Who, the Meet the Parents franchise, and even the new You People, audiences have attended more than enough awkward meetings and dinners between contradictory parents trying to prevent a future marriage between their cherished children. Longtime Boy Meets World TV writer Michael Jacobs, making his feature directorial debut with a laudable cast, conjured an enticing sprinkle of spice towards this familiar setup with Maybe I Do.

2 STARS, 2023, MOVIE REVIEW, StreamingDon ShanahanJanuary 26, 2023Maybe I Do, Richard Gere, Diane Keaton, William H. Macy, Susan Sarandon, Luke Bracey, Emma RobertsComment

MOVIE REVIEW: You People

From Spencer Tracy and Sidney Poiter, forward to Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro, and even to the likes of Ashton Kutcher and Bernie Mac, you’ve seen the interesting proposition of You People and its kind of entertaining clash before. Though it was made in 2021 and bears the label of 2023, You People is about a decade late to its own civics rally. The topicality has come and gone. Kenya Barris’s film arrives almost immediately wrapped in a time capsule, one that few will meaningfully open in years to come without more significance to recognize and remember.

MOVIE REVIEW: When You Finish Saving the World

When You Finish Saving the World stops right when an interesting alignment of merits could possibly begin. That ambiguous final moment of discovered courage and acceptance ends the journey at the point it should have begun. What you’re left with is that same decision mentioned earlier of deciding between bearable and unbearable feelings about incensed and outspoken people. Too often, the latter impression wins out.

MOVIE REVIEW: Alice, Darling

The latitude was there in Alice, Darling to have characters become completely destroyed in more shocking and titillating fashions. Many movies circling abuse go straight to stiffer physical variety with bolder and wilder narratives. Mary Nighy and Alanna Francis took on a more unique challenge to expose the coercive side that lacks tawdry bloodshed. Their result hurts plenty in its own right and succeeds to seek higher healing.