MOVIE REVIEW: One Life

With a different approach, One Life could have very easily veered into horn-tooting hero worship or some kind of indulgent salve applied to reduce the horrors of the Holocaust. That’s not the case with the work of director James Hawes and screenwriters Lucinda Coxon and Nick Drake to depict this history with little to no extra flamboyance. The film’s style and attitude matches the central figure who never put the glory first. The history speaks for itself and needs no assistance for heft.

2024, 2023, 4 STARS, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanMarch 14, 2024One Life, Anthony HopkinsComment

MOVIE REVIEW: The Two Popes

They may “play for the same team,” if you will, yet there is a rhetorical battle of divine wills and egos. Sizing each other up, there is zero agreement between the two, who could not be farther apart philosophically, politically, or personally. But, to see the respect, oh my, the respect, being shared is like a balm of hopeful covenant all its own. Powered by two impeccable performances, there is truly something marvelous to see these powerful men reach a true “meeting of the minds.” The Two Popes is available now streaming on Netflix after a brief theatrical run.

2019, 4 STARS, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEW, StreamingDon ShanahanDecember 23, 201955th Chicago International Film FestivalThe Two Popes, Anthony Hopkins, Jonathan PryceComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Thor: Ragnarok

Paired perfectly as a double-feature follow-up to this summer’s spacefaring Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Taika Waititi’s Thor: Ragnarok is a raucously rad roller coaster that shoots rainbows out of every digitally-rendered pore. Blasting with energetic pace in the complete opposite direction from the dreary and grayish Game of Thrones Lite tone of Thor: The Dark World, this new chapter is a cinematic box of Crayola crayons laced with dynamite.