GUEST CRITIC #23: Snatched

For his debut GUEST CRITIC appearance on Every Movie Has a Lesson, please welcome Steve Pulaski, a fellow member of the Chicago Independent Film Critics Circle. This young man has been a film critic since 2009, self-taught and reviewing films throughout his academic career. Steve Pulaski currently writes for his personal forum, The Steve Pulaski Message Board, as well as Influx Magazine, where he serves as the lead film critic of the website. The guy cranks out 300 reviews a year, which is an insane pace and triple what I do over here in the same amount of time.

SHORT FILM REVIEW: Jack & Amelia

The key strength of “Jack and Amelia” is the focused narrative that sketches a telling and accurate microcosm example of Chicago. It blends lifestyles for people feeling the city’s stresses in their own unique ways. Just when you think you these four central characters are random and will stay random, the short-order shifts and twists of “Jack and Amelia” push their destinies forward in engaging and cunning ways. This really was a blossoming treat.

MOVIE REVIEW: The Dinner

More often than not, the label of “private family matter” spells doom and gloom. A good time is not going to be had. That’s the unfortunate impetus that brings two disunified brothers and their wives together for “The Dinner.” Compressing layers of familial discontent and rancor thinly-masked by the repulsive worst of white privilege, the tightly-wound urgency and shattering purpose of this titular meeting reveals itself over the film’s two hours.

MOVIE REVIEW: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2” is an brazen explosion of Crayola-sheened special effects wonder mixed with invisible grays of magnetic character growth and depth. Just as with the first film, Marvel and company have taken a D-list roster of obscure also-rans and created new superstars and household names that you actually care about. True to the unwritten rules of sequels, the core is bolstered and improvements have been made.

4 STARS, 2017, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanMay 4, 2017AMC River East 212017 Summer Movies, Disney/Marvel, Visual Effects, life lessons from movies, comic book films, Bradley Cooper, movie commentary, Groot, film commentary, James Gunn, The Avengers: Infinity War, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Dave Bautista, life lessons from films, Marvel, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, 2017, Don Shanahan, Donald Shanahan, movie review, 2017 Summer Movie Challenge, Marvel Entertainment, life lessons, comic book movie, Zoe Saldana, Star Lord, Marvel Comics, Karen Gillan, film review, Guardians of the Galaxy, Thanos, Kurt Russell, The Avengers, Nebula, Glenn Close, soundtrack, Michael Rooker, Chris Pratt, Rocket Raccoon, Drax, Thor: Ragonark, Marvel Films, Peter Quill, life lessons from film, Dave Jordan, Sean Gunn, Star Trek Into Darkness, Elizabeth Debicki, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Sylvester Stallone, Starhawk, Stakar Ogord, Taserface, Chris Sullivan, Star-Lord, Yondo, MTV Pop-Up Video, Wham Bam, Silver, Father & Son, Cat Stevens, Oprah Winfrey, Oprah Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: Love, Lies

“Love, Lies” plays upon the decaying dichotomy orbiting the two women as they vie for love and validation against dignity and betrayal. It’s impossible not to feel the emotions imbued into the punctuating moments of expression through song that fully embody the conflict and romantic encumbrances weighing on the characters. The music is the vital and resonating fiber that unites the period atmosphere with the stirring portrayals of talent.

2017, 4 STARS, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, Film Festival, Foreign Film, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEW, Social MediaDon ShanahanMay 4, 2017AMC River East 212017, 2016, 2017 Asian Pop-Up Cinema, Asian Pop-Up Cinema, Love Lies, Seoul, Gyeongseong, Jo Eun-soo, Lee Byung-hoo, Korea, South Korea, Park Sung-woong, Yoo Yeon-seok, Reply 1994, Cold Eyes, The Wailing, New World, Japan, Park Heung-sik, Foreign films, foreign films, foreign film, life lessons from foreign films, life lessons from film, life lessons from movies, life lessons, melodramas, movie melodramas, film review, movie review, film commentary, movie commentary, Donald Shanahan, Don Shanahan, Chicago premiere, Danielle Garnier, Garnier Public Relations, Sophia's Choice, Sophia's Choice Presents Comments

MOVIE REVIEW: My Egg Boy

The trappings of “My Egg Boy” are firmly entrenched in melodrama, yet kissed with delightful fancy. The strength is in the dynamic writing to weave practical magic with fertile imagination. The romantic and symbolistic peaks and valleys built by Tien-Yu Fu are endlessly relatable even when characterized. What begins as whimsy evolves quite affectingly to something rapturously heartfelt.

MOVIE REVIEW: The Circle

100% of you right now are reading this review via the internet on either a computer or a mobile device. Like it or not, you and I leave digital footprints everywhere we go. The new pseudo-dystopian thriller “The Circle” incites the over-obvious social media and data-mining fears of our present surveillance society of sharing and shines them up into a shiny and engrossing yarn of mainstream entertainment. Fiction or not, it’s the kind of film that may or may not irk you enough to take that Facebook sabbatical you keep saying you’ll do.

MOVIE REVIEW: Sand Castle

Wars transform the soldiers that participate in them. Men and women in combat can be broken down, built up, or both in positive and negative ways. Because the young tend to serve, their stories, and the films that tell them, can mirror a late-term version of the “coming-of-age” archetype. The fingerprints of forced maturity appear all over the likes of “The Deer Hunter,” “Platoon,” “Jarhead,” and dozens of other films. In all honesty, the trope is overused and over-familiar and that’s the first mistake of “Sand Castle.”

MOVIE REVIEW: The Sex Addict

“The Sex Addict” is tailor-made to serve comedy fans that soak up humor akin to “The Office” and “Parks and Recreation.” The humor is naturally vulgar and dark, which isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. The crowd that will be repulsed can be replaced by those rolling on the floor laughing. “The Sex Addict” is a ways away from the supreme mockumentary exemplars of Christopher Guest, but that’s the perfect plane for Amir Mo and company to aspire to.

DOCUMENTARY REVIEW: Faith in the Big House

No matter what faith (or absence of faith) you carry into this film’s experience, you will respect the positive efforts of the real-life ministries featured in “Faith in the Big House.” Lives are changed before your eyes and it’s not all Bible-thumping. To that end, it is wholly refreshing to observe a Christian point-of-view that holds its peers of different denominations and, more importantly, itself strictly accountable for this kind of communal service.

MEDIA APPEARANCE: "Feelin' Film" Summer Movie Challenge

Aaron White and Patrick Hicks, the podcasters of Feelin' Film, have invited me to join a box office throwdown. As the eventual winner, they don't know what hit them. Joined by fellow Feelin' Film contributor, Steve Clifton of Popcorn Confessional, the four of us are aiming to predict which summer movies will rake at the box office in the second annual Feelin' Film Summer Movie Challenge.

Don ShanahanApril 24, 20172017, 2017 Summer Movies, 2017 Summer Movie Challenge, box office results, Box Office Mojo, SMC, SMC Scoreboard, Every Movie Has a Lesson, Don Shanahan, Steve Clifton, Popcorn ConfessionalComment

MOVIE REVIEW: The Lost City of Z

The most crucial dramatic trait for films about exploration is a drawing a strong reaction to the unknown from the audience. Whether it’s a historical story or a fantastical one of fiction, the film has to evoke awe, be that stirring swells of inspiration or jarring feelings of danger. It has to move you, not bore you. If a film can’t achieve that quickened pulse or heavy heart, it’s little better than a travelogue on cable television or a curriculum video they show soon-to-be-bored high school students in Social Studies class.