Just like the first film that crescendo-ed with the Oscar-nominated “Can’t Stop The Feeling,” the high point of Trolls Band Together arrives with its signature song “Better Place.” It’s sung first by the combined cast during the plot while *NSYNC takes over for the full version over the closing credits. It’s an earworm of a pop ditty and siren’s song for the moms and dads. If “Better Place” were any catchier, it would be made of Velcro, require a multi-stage emergency vaccine, and required to be gloved by MLB All-Star J.T. Realmuto.

MOVIE REVIEW: The Killer

Among his peers and contemporaries, David Fincher conveys a commanding control of fluidity that few filmmakers can rival in this day and age. His stringent melding of staging, cinematography, performance outcomes, editing, and music rarely, if ever, stumble or loiter. Fincher’s mise-en-scène is an authority of total precision, arguably second to none. He simply doesn’t miss his marks, which makes The Killer and its propulsive narrative about a rare and fatal mistake so much more fascinating.

2023, 5 STARS, Home Media, MOVIE REVIEW, StreamingDon ShanahanNovember 11, 2023The Killer, David Fincher, Tilda Swinton, Netflix, Andrew Kevin WalkerComment

MOVIE REVIEW: The Marvels

For better or worse, “higher, further, faster” is exactly what you get with The Marvels. The sequel triples the space-faring swashbuckling beyond Earth, the weird and wacky possibilities of its galactic conundrum, and the character development pace of having three headlining leads. In an attempt to steer all the “higher, further, faster” going on, The Marvels adds “together” to the mantra (and soundtrack) and branches to a new one with “stand tall without standing alone.” The outcome is an electric blast of welcome, pure, and multiplied girl power.

3 STARS, 2023, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanNovember 8, 2023The Marvels, Captain MarvelComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Nyad

NYAD is the film adaptation of that incredible feat recounted in Diane’s autobiography Find a Way. Four-time Academy Award nominee Annette Bening is playing the title subject alongside two-time Oscar winner Jodie Foster as her friend and coach Bonnie Stoll. This true chronicle lends itself to a sports movie’s narrative flow and swell of dramatic license, yet NYAD was made by a pair of Oscar-winning documentarians– the Free Solo husband-and-wife directorial team of Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin– giving it a purposeful backbone of authenticity to push some of those tropes to the side.

2023, 4 STARS, Home Media, MOVIE REVIEW, StreamingDon ShanahanNovember 8, 2023Nyad, Annette Bening, Jodie FosterComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Priscilla

Matching the legend status branding and first-name-only titling of Baz Luhrmann, Coppola’s aim was to present the little-known side of the Presley story that happened under domestic lamplights instead of the flashbulbs of the public eye. The writer-director had to do so with a certain degree of difficulty similar to Ava DuVernay’s challenge on Selma nine years ago where the estate of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had granted licenses for King’s speeches to another studio and film project. Thanks to approval given to Luhrmann already, no Elvis Presley music is used in Priscilla.

2023, 3 STARS, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanNovember 2, 2023Priscilla, Jacob Elordi, Sofia Coppola, Cailee Spaeny, A24Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: Killers of the Flower Moon

For better or worse, that’s a microcosm of the entirety of Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon. As helpful as Robertson’s plucked metronome is to fill voids and create a foreboding cinematic heartbeat, your own pulse rate ends up matching that placidness. No matter what heinous deception, jarring murder, or well-appointed finery appears on screen, very little in the film intensifies or accelerates beyond that methodical drowning dirge.

MOVIE REVIEW: Foe

The linchpin of Foe becomes Saorise Ronan. With a strong and near-Method effort at being constantly jaded and exhausted, Paul Mescal impressively spends the majority of the film withering in the wringer he’s sent through by Terrence. He’s going for broke. Meanwhile, the real palpable depth of Foe comes from Hen’s female perspective. Since the beginning of the film opened on her crying in the shower, our perception of Hen has been the bigger question mark than the stranger Terrence.

2 STARS, 2023, MOVIE REVIEW, StreamingDon ShanahanOctober 14, 2023Iain Reid, Garth Davis, Saoirse Ronan, Paul Mescal, Foe, Amazon Prime VideoComment

MOVIE REVIEW: The Burial

For all of these reasons and more, we can be pleased and entertained that The Burial is here on Amazon Prime Video. Matching Lesson #2, it’s as stock and formulaic as it comes within the courtroom drama subgenre. Hot damn, that’s going to work every time. Within the formula, the heart and spine of the narrative will always be the two biggest ingredients. The backbone is a compelling case, and the beating pulse is the people embroiled in the affair.

MOVIE REVIEW: Black White and the Greys

How did this all happen? What can tear apart a marriage? Most folks go straight to the tawdry daytime talk show topics of money and infidelity, neither of which are anywhere close to the catalysts in Black White and the Greys and there’s zero crowd to watch it all go down. Rather, the frost seeping into the cracks of the Grey family lies in a growing divergence of intellectual contrasts and moral conflicts.

MOVIE REVIEW: Saturday Night Inside Out

Saturday Night Inside Out follows a 26-year-old Chicagoan as he navigates an emotionally arduous 24-hour span that may or may not become a turning point for the next five or ten years of his life. Step back from that one-sentence summary and ask yourself what kind of events, especially for an individual at that age, could possibly construct a defining moment on that level. If you’re thinking about friends, family, career and a love life, you would be right because all four of those–and then some– come into play in Saturday Night Inside Out.

2023, 3 STARS, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanOctober 4, 2023Saturday Night Inside Out, Connor McBride, Zach PapalasComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Fair Play

True to the sharp storytelling adage of “show, don’t tell,” Fair Play from writer-director Chloe Domont heightens its drama with these featured stares because you imagine the thoughts or predicted words before they are performed. Oftentimes, a viewer’s imagination can get riled up even worse than what is shown on-screen. The wallop of that effect is the characters will get their releases, retorts, and replies, but the audience members– short of shouting at the screen or clutching their armchair partner– do not. With sly effectiveness in hanging on every stare between the words, that’s how a movie like Fair Play gets you.

2023, 4 STARS, Home Media, MOVIE REVIEW, StreamingDon ShanahanOctober 3, 2023Fair Play, Phoebe Dynevor, Alden Ehrenreich, Chloe Domont, NetflixComment

MOVIE REVIEW: The Creator

With The Creator, Gareth Edwards becomes one of those peerless fuels. His film may have informal traits from other sci-fi places that folks will criticize, but it has an emphatic beating heart all its own that cannot be contained and is wondrous to behold. Combining the genre’s penchant for implausible creativity and a powerful emphasis on existential connection, The Creator explores and reaches a special place within science fiction films.