To Catch a Killer unravels to become one of those manhunt movies where the pursuit is better than the prize at the end. Wild Tales director Damien Szifron provides several platforms for the central law enforcement characters to pontificate the importance of what they are doing to stop the present public menace. The actors squeeze every bit of seriousness they can, and you believe their motivations and intentions. Yet, when To Catch a Killer reaches its climax and it becomes the hidden villain’s turn to reveal their intentions, the suspense shamefully evaporates.

MOVIE REVEW: Gringa

Fast-forward from Steve Zahn’s hey-day. Add a quarter-century of mileage to his bread-and-butter manchild buddy type and do what too few filmmakers have done over the years: Give Steve Zahn a lead part. Take his usual brand of rootless screw-up and give it central focus and real anchors. Then, let Steve’s charm radiate fully. Gringa rewards this actor’s worth with a real chance.

MOVIE REVIEW: One True Loves

One True Loves has one of those paperback novel premises that can only seem to work as a screwball farce or a serious melodrama when brought to the big screen. Wouldn’t you know it, the movie is based on a book from New York Times best-selling author Taylor Jenkins Reid (Daisy Jones and the Six). The novelist was lucky enough to have the opportunity to adapt her own novel with her TV screenwriter husband Alex J. Reid.

MOVIE REVIEW: Showing Up

To say Showing Up is watching paint dry or, in the case, clay dry is far too mean. Quiet is one thing and introspective is another. Do you relish the glacial anticipation and personal payoff of creative culmination or are you just showing up to the art show at the end, as characters do here, for the wine and cheese.

2 STARS, 2023, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanApril 13, 2023Showing Up, Kelly Reichardt, Michelle Williams, Hong ChauComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Mamma Mafia

Because the concept is inexplicable from the get-go, a movie like Mamma Mafia has two routes to pull the whole thing off. Play it hard and show the perceived violent world that exists or lean on the inexplicable and ham it up. The screenplay from Kevin from Work TV writers J. Michael Feldman and Debbie Jhoon– based on an original story from Madame’s Amanda Sthers– tries both and the results are messier than the botched murders in the movie itself.

1 STAR, 2023, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanApril 13, 2023Mamma Mafia, Toni ColletteComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Paint

There was a measure of true cleverness possible in inserting a throwback maverick character into the present day. Paint wanted to bend a vibe with fiction and flexed too far, to a place where its main character would not survive personally or professionally in the first place. The surrounding characters chipping away at the fraud underneath Carl Nargle– an arc amusingly not all that different from the esteemed Oscar-nominated TAR when you really think about it– exposed nothing we could not already see for ourselves.

2 STARS, 2023, Film Festival, Independent Film, Home Media, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanApril 7, 2023Paint, Owen Wilson, Michaela Watkins, Brit McAdamsComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Air

Director Ben Affleck received Michael Jordan’s blessing and allowed Air to be a whiff at breathing in that legend again, a draw that cannot be discounted. Likewise, folks are coming to see familiar and reliable movie stars like Affleck, Damon, Davis, and Bateman spar. Those curious and poised to watch composures rattled, zingers exchanged, balls busted, and dreams fulfilled get all that and then some in Air.

MOVIE REVIEW: Space Oddity

All at once, this introductory mindset of dedication and gallows humor is both plucky and fatalistic. Exposing both curiosity and anxiety, Space Oddity inelegantly wrestles with those two prevailing traits. The realistic science fiction of its premise and the sunny gaze of the Rhode Island setting swirl up the whimsy. Lo and behold, we find out that quaintness has a limit when it comes to fulfilling the human condition.

2023, 2 STARS, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEW, StreamingDon ShanahanMarch 31, 2023Space Oddity, Kyle Allen, Kevin Bacon, Alexandra Shipp, Kyra SedgwickComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Tetris

Early on in Tetris, Taron Egerton’s main character Henk Rogers shares an admission with his furious boss about why he put himself into greater financial debt to back an unknown video game from The Soviet Union he stumbled upon at a consumer electronics show in Las Vegas. Leaning over and speaking low with clear eyes relaying bewilderment, he talks about seeing those soon-to-be iconic blocks still falling in his dreams hours and days after playing the game. Memories fill Tetris viewers, and they immediately picture the exact same thing.

2023, 4 STARS, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, Home Media, MOVIE REVIEW, StreamingDon ShanahanMarch 31, 2023Tetris, Taron Egerton, Jon S. Baird, Apple TV+Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: Infinite Sea

In a scant 76 minutes, Infinite Sea bravely approaches contemplative science fiction with a tiny budget for VFX (also managed by Aramal himself) and an aim for abstract and cognitive obstacles of the human condition. Much can be complimented in those crisply stylish attempts at big ideas and even bigger questions. Yet, it is hard to fathom the so-called infinite as having something missing, but a penetrative punch is absent. The bridled chemistry of the leads is what you will put your finger on to blame.

MOVIE REVIEW: Boston Strangler

As a feature film, Boston Strangler finds itself buried in the massive snowbank of true crime content available. Eager viewers have a buffet of binge-able rabbit holes, available in long and short forms, on dozens of channels and platforms at home. Held up against that docu-drama marketplace, a traditional two-hour fictionalized yarn playing in theaters feels nearly trite and tame by comparison, even if it dabbles with and challenges a theory or two about who really perpetrated these murders.

2023, 3 STARS, MOVIE REVIEW, Home Media, StreamingDon ShanahanMarch 18, 2023Boston Strangler, Kiera Knightley, Matt Ruskin, Carrie CoonComment

SHORT FILM REVIEW: Herman

Like the GTFO fight-or-flight speed and freak happenstance of real-life, Herman delivers precisely that exhilarating sense of urgency. There are no shouted demands from a pursuing criminal that pretend to describe motive or what the encounter all means. Likewise, no wimpy and waffling “Wait a second. Can we talk about this?” pleads are attempted in return. Herman stays a mystery through the very end.

EVERY MOVIE HAS A LESSON

by Don Shanahan

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