MOVIE REVIEW: Easter Sunday

While Jo Koy and Chandrasekhar are amiable enough to keep the content inclusive, newbies to Filipino quirks may misread what and why something is the butt of a joke. They’re not going to laugh like those in the know or, more appropriately, those in the family. What was supposed to introduce and celebrate an under-represented culture may set it back a little bit too, in the name of trying to gain popularity. The same result may come to Easter Sunday and its star. The cursory introduction is now out of the way. Next time, let’s see Jo Koy play someone other than himself and see if he can unleash true chops.

2022, 2 STARS, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanAugust 5, 2022Easter Sunday, Jay Chandrasekhar, Jo KoyComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Thor: Love and Thunder

If, from here on out, the Thor series is going to stay in Taika Waititi’s control, so be it. Let him own it and be all things Thor. Hemsworth’s natural charisma and self-deprecating personality, put on blast in Thor: Love and Thunder (buns and all) more than it’s ever been in that shiny armor, match the zany route Waititi has taken with this character. Going back to the bold spirit of Branagh’s mythic origins seems difficult, if not damn near impossible, where Waititi and company would be better off sticking with the fluffy cheese and not even trying. For better or worse, this is Thor now. Maybe at least, even in sideshow comedy mode, this character will finally have consistency.

MOVIE REVIEW: The Forgiven

Pedigree meets purpose with The Forgiven, the newest film from notable director John Michael McDonagh. Throughout his career, the Englishman has switched back-and-forth with a specialty for embedding foreboding darkness within settings of comedy (The Guard, War on Everyone) and drama (Calvary, Ned Kelly). Contributing his first feature film in five years since the buddy cop comedy War on Everyone, it’s drama’s turn.

MOVIE REVIEW: Spiderhead

In both keen and ineffective ways, mood confusion is the slant of choice for Joseph Kosinski’s Spiderhead opening on Netflix this week. Targeting both the narrative characters and us in the voyeurs’ seats, purposeful choices are made to set a certain vibe. That curated atmosphere is meant to cloak and subvert a more impactful identity underneath. The clinchers for Spiderhead’s engagement as a thriller are how tantalizing the constructed mood is and how provocative is the hidden truth.

MOVIE REVIEW: Jurassic World Dominion

Much like the God-playing antagonist characters of the movie, no one has learned anything since 1993, both in the movies and in the Universal Pictures writing room. Scientists are still screwing with forces they cannot control, and the big corporation everyone thinks is well-meaning shows their true, greedy colors to earn a violent comeuppance in the denouement. No smart screenwriter has broken that narrative loop to do something daring or different.

2022, 2 STARS, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanJune 9, 2022Jurassic World, Jurassic Park, Jurassic World: Fallen KingdomComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

Put the atlas away and send the stenographer on vacation. For this one, you’re going to need a Ouija board, a witch doctor, a semester’s worth of Disney+ homework, and either a giant Ambian or the PASIV machine from Inception to join the dream party. OG Spider-Man trilogy director Sam Raimi stuffs this movie with all of his signature garish monstrosity that can fit under a PG-13 rating. Prepare to be dazzled and prepare to be dizzy as well.

MOVIE REVIEW: The Sound of Violet

When it comes to entertainment value versus artistic value, much can be forgiven about a film when its heart is in the right place. Beginning as a romantic comedy, The Sound of Violet has a beginning premise that veers very much into a cloying territory. Once the drama of its chosen realities thicken and the laughs no longer come easy, its sense of correction can feel quite heavy-handed. Normally, such an imbalance would be the death knell for a movie. Somehow, the openly hemorrhaging sweetness of The Sound of Violet grants a few critical pardons.

2 STARS, 2022, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEW, StreamingDon ShanahanApril 27, 2022The Sound of VioletComment

MOVIE REVIEW: The Desperate Hour

Instead of empathy leading to absorb the full breadth of such a possible tragedy, the conjured thrills selfishly serve only one side of the story and plead a hollow case by the end. By staying on Amy and her radical involvement in the climax, the movie forgets to consider the unseen characters in the story that do not fare as well. The movie is laser-focused on this one mom and her one kid with very little respect extended to the fullness of the event or larger issue. Even with the objective of making a claustrophobic and voyeuristic movie, that larger picture cannot responsibly be dismissed for selfish or singular gain.

MOVIE REVIEW: Uncharted

None of those interactions and traits do Tom Holland any favors in a big spot that he should have been allowed to outright own. By golly, it’s a good thing the kid (see, there I go doing it too) is an upper-level movie star athlete pulling off his own moves and an even better thing the high adventure that requires him to run, jump, leap, flip, and swing without his trusty Marvel webs is very entertaining. Still, what should be the second coming of Indiana Jones comes off more like a graduation and gender swap of Dora the Explorer.

2022, 2 STARS, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanFebruary 15, 2022Uncharted, Tom HollandComment

MOVIE REVIEW: I Want You Back

Charlie Day and Jenny Slate are both very calibrated when it comes to self-deprecating humor. He has his plucky fluster and she has her Debbie Downer magnetism and their mutual resumes before this movie are full of that specialty. When they’re together, the two best actors and characters are bouncing emotions off each other. Their comedic cadences click for their future foregone conclusion of “will they” or “won’t they.”

2022, 2 STARS, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEW, StreamingDon ShanahanFebruary 14, 2022Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: Rifkin's Festival

Even with a blindfold, an astute movie fan could play “Pin the Tail on the Proxy” with the films of Woody Allen from the past two decades. The likes of Timothee Chalamet, Justin Timberlake, Jesse Eisenberg, Colin Firth, Joaquin Phoenix, Owen Wilson and others have taken on the signature scripted blather of the male leading roles the writer-director used to play himself when he was younger than the 86 he is now. For his newest film, Rifkin’s Festival, cherished character actor Wallace Shawn assumes the short New Yorker vessel for this romantic comedy jaunt.

2 STARS, 2022, Independent Film, Film Festival, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanJanuary 26, 2022Woody Allen, Wallace Shawn, Rifkin's FestivalComment

MOVIE REVIEW: South of Heaven

Anyone who’s watched Sudeikis knows the Everyman archetype suits his charm and talent. The independent film South of Heaven from Big Bad Wolves director Aharon Keshales challenges Jason to take a podunk pariah that has been pushed into a corner and unravel him to commit violence to defend himself and the honor of the woman he loves against his better judgment and softhearted morals. It is indeed a very valiant turn within a movie that tailspins wide of the mark behind him.

2 STARS, 2021, Independent Film, Home Media, MOVIE REVIEW, StreamingDon ShanahanOctober 18, 2021Comment