Pun not intended, but Ant-Man and the Wasp is where Marvel goes to get small, and not in the obvious sense of the heroes’ sizes. The narrative and scope gets smaller. Amid the mega-powered showdowns and high stakes elsewhere, it is encouraging to know that Marvel can still make local-level superhero stories and not make everything so overpopulated, globe-trotting, and cataclysmic in importance. Smaller is what the source comic books used to be. Smaller is still fully-formed and, most of all, smaller is welcome.

2018, 3 STARS, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanJune 27, 2018AMC River East 21Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: Sicario: Day of Soldado

Luckily, this cinematic cactus retains the nectar at its core underneath the lesser spiny exterior. Sicario: Day of Soldado still has dynamic screenwriter Taylor Sheridan scripting the suspense and the twin returning brutes of Benicio del Toro and Josh Brolin to shoot and punch the lights out. Following his Oscar nomination for Hell or High Water and his superior directorial debut of Wind River, Sheridan is on a hot streak and pens a worthy follow-up to what should have been his first Oscar nomination a year prior to the one he received.

2018, 3 STARS, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanJune 26, 2018Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: Ocean's 8

After you shuck needless gender label temptations, feel free to call Ocean’s 8 a well-garnished cinematic martini. Plenty clever and cool in its own right, the summer tentpole is a highly enjoyable little diversion of escapism, true to its intent and design. Like the classic cocktail, this very entertaining romp combines the strong and the sweet with plenty of little twists.

2018, 3 STARS, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanJune 5, 2018AMC River East 21Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: Sunset

The looming threat of nuclear war presented within the independent film Sunset thrusts a heavy-hearted ordeal on a small cross-section of everyday people living near New York City. Any blockbuster portending, ticking clocks, or manufactured heroics are decidedly off-screen, Periodic news bulletins keep the score, so to speak, but Sunset stays keenly personal. This is about the people, their homes, and the fitting resolve to stay where one feels is right.

3 STARS, 2018, Film Festival, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEW, Video on DemandDon ShanahanJune 1, 2018Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: On Chesil Beach

Original On Chesil Beach writer Ian McEwan was able to write his own screenplay and select his own places to deviate and condense. The denouement in the film is shortened from the deeper explorations made by the novel. It’s a hell of a turn that hits like a ton of brick but feels very rushed. The additional heft and scope do elevate the film from the comedic beginning into something more poignant, albeit it is a mismatched and difficult experience to approach and accept, much like the maligned central couple.

2018, 3 STARS, 2017, Chicago Film Festival, Film Festival, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanMay 23, 2018Music Box TheatreComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Book Club

Viewers of Book Club are coming for the assembled legendary talent and the chance to watch Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen, and Mary Steenburgen prance with punchlines. All that banter! All the innuendos! All the metaphors! All the “lethargic pussy” zingers! All of it is an easy treat of summer counter-programming and a little more.

2018, 3 STARS, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanMay 17, 2018AMC River East 21Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: Solo: A Star Wars Story

Succeeding frequently with several exciting and well-conceived action sequences and a bevy of rich supporting characters to enjoy, Solo: A Star Wars Story still has an inescapable ceiling. Directed by a respected safe veteran in Ron Howard, rescuing this film from loudly reported production woes, this prequel seeks to chronicle a background of how our favorite smuggler, thief, and scoundrel came to be. On this writer’s ledger, the first two of those three traits register emphatically from the movie.

2018, 3 STARS, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, Film Festival, MOVIE REVIEW, SPECIALDon ShanahanMay 15, 2018AMC River East 21Comment

DOCUMENTARY SHORT FILM REVIEW: Donald in Mathmagic Land

Frees’s voiceover goal is to change Donald’s mind about math, to ruffle his feathers of antiquated ideas, false concepts, superstitions, confusion, and general bungling (all revealed in pseudo-analog-Inside Out fashion). Whether the knowledge of these “boundless treasures of science” stick in his bird brain remains to be seen. Spirited and pristinely stylish animation, dancing shapes, and moveable manipulatives fill the screen backed by music from Buddy Baker, a veteran of 26 Disney films of the era.

2018, DOCUMENTARY REVIEW, MOVIE REVIEW, SHORT FILMS, Social Media, SPECIAL, 3 STARSDon ShanahanApril 25, 2018 Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: 1945

The end of a large war is always a turning point that trickles down from the front lines and the soldiers at arms to the home front with those that maintained their respective communities when their fighters were away. Wars benefit some community members while tragically redefining others. 1945 is a small and intense microcosm of that dichotomy demonstrated over the course of one fateful day in the aftermath of World War II. Shot in bracing black-and-white, this film exudes strong themes of guilt across several points of view.

MOVIE REVIEW: Paul, Apostle of Christ

Removing the religious marrow from the bones of Paul, Apostle of Christ will not weaken the story being told by the film. At its core, the reverent desire to document an enlightened jailed man’s life story before his pending death is a respectful measure of learning and commitment anyone from any walk of life can appreciate. Moreover, when the purpose of recording is to carry on the prisoner’s mission, the sense of regard grows. Once the spiritual gravity of the “who” and the “what” is applied, the importance of this chronicle increases even further.

2018, 3 STARS, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanMarch 25, 2018Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: Journey's End

Journey’s End recounts the British side of a climactic four-day span from March 18-21, 1918 in the stalemate “No Man’s Land” trenches of Aisne in northern France in the lead-up to Operation Michael. Every month, each British company is required to serve six days on the front line where casualties are gravely high. Gambling with death sentences, both trooper and officer alike pray that their six days are not the ones where an offensive is being amassed or defended.

MOVIE REVIEW: Submission

Stanley Tucci is a cinematic treasure of sarcasm. What that man can shell out in a throwaway line, a raised eyebrow, or a pause of bated breath is on another level to most of his peers and contemporaries. When Stanley cranks that mockery up with profanity, it only gets sharper. It would take quite the rug pull to disrupt that man’s mojo. Tucci meets that tumultuous turmoil in Submission