GUEST COLUMN: 7 Iconic Early Movie Monsters

by Gloria A. Adams

The action may move slowly, the special effects may be crude - yet there's reason to watch the early classic movie monsters. They established enduring legends with great black-and-white camera work. Instead of sophisticated special effects, many had terrific performances by actors under layers of makeup. Some can still cause a chill, and some can make you laugh out loud. Either way, these are the big, bad boys who provided the DNA for all the great movie monsters who followed.

2020, Column, Editorial, GUEST EDITORIAL, Home MediaDon ShanahanDecember 27, 2020Comment

GUEST COLUMN: Top Films About eSport

by Joshua Sherman

With multi-million dollar grand prizes on the line, eSports is a huge industry where the stakes have never been higher. Here are the best eSports films that put you in the action and show the highs and lows for the players. Sport has always made for compelling filmmaking, and eSports films are no different. The mixture of nerve-shredding tension and conflict keeps us on the edge of our seats until the final whistle has blown. While traditionally audiences and directors have gravitated to athletic sports, we’re seeing a golden age for eSports films emerging as the value of the competitive video game market continues to blossom.

2020, Column, Editorial, GUEST EDITORIAL, Home MediaDon ShanahanDecember 27, 2020Comment

COLUMN: The Best TV Shows about Students and University Life

As first-year students are about to join the universities and colleges in their enormous numbers, it is highly the time to step back and look at some of the television shows that channel their focus on students. Some of these shows can be used for both entertainment and as a material to do my thesis in the future. Here are some of the shows that detail the life of a student in university.

2020, Column, Editorial, LISTDon ShanahanDecember 27, 2020Comment

GUEST COLUMN: Lessons We Can Learn from Disaster Movies

by Adrian Johansen

Movies are more than mere entertainment. They’re a release. An escape. A two-hour reprieve from the worries of your ordinary life. But movies do more than entertain. They also instruct. They can show audiences what to do in times of crisis — as well as what not to do. And there’s maybe no better genre for this than the disaster movie. Aside from the cheap thrills, emotional melodrama, and spectacular special effects, you may well just take away some valuable lessons that you’ll find yourself using in your own life!

2020, Column, Editorial, Home MediaDon ShanahanDecember 27, 2020Comment

GUEST CRITIC #51: Y Ti Mama Tambien

by Lafronda Stumn

As busy I get from time to time, I find that I can't see every movie under the sun, leaving my friends and colleagues to fill in the blanks for me. As poetically as I think I wax about movies on this website as a wannabe critic, there are other experts out there. Sometimes, it inspires me to see the movie too and get back to being my circle's go-to movie guy. Sometimes, they save me $9 and you 800+ words of blathering. In a new review series, I'm opening my site to friend submissions for guest movie reviews.

2020, GUEST CRITIC, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEW, Social Media, Foreign FilmDon ShanahanDecember 27, 2020Comment

GUEST CRITIC #50: Us

by Lafronda Stumn

As busy I get from time to time, I find that I can't see every movie under the sun, leaving my friends and colleagues to fill in the blanks for me. As poetically as I think I wax about movies on this website as a wannabe critic, there are other experts out there. Sometimes, it inspires me to see the movie too and get back to being my circle's go-to movie guy. Sometimes, they save me $9 and you 800+ words of blathering. In a new review series, I'm opening my site to friend submissions for guest movie reviews.

2020, GUEST CRITIC, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEW, Social MediaDon ShanahanDecember 27, 2020Comment

20 YEAR RETROSPECTIVE: The best of the rest of 2000

In an annual series, Every Movie Has a Lesson is going to look back twenty years to revisit, relearn, and reexamine a year of cinema history to share favorites, lists, and experiences from the films of that year. When measuring back as far as twenty years or more, I feel like “favorites” that have stood the test of time have aged to become some level of “best.” I feel like a bunch of those populate my reflective look back at the best of the rest of 2000.

Best Films, Column, Editorial, Retrospective, SPECIAL, 2020Don ShanahanDecember 25, 20202000, 2000 moviesComment

20 YEAR RETROSPECTIVE: The 10 Best Films of 2000

In an annual series, Every Movie Has a Lesson is going to look back twenty years to revisit, relearn, and reexamine a year of cinema history to share favorites, lists, and experiences from the films of that year. When measuring back as far as twenty years or more, I feel like “favorites” that have stood the test of time have aged to become some level of “best.” I feel like a bunch of those populate my reflective look back at the best of 2000.

Best Films, Column, Editorial, LIST, Retrospective, SPECIAL, 2020Don ShanahanDecember 25, 2020Saint Joseph's College2000 Comments

MOVIE REVIEW: One Night in Miami

Now, judging by storied perception of the “Louisville Lip” and his towering ego on the biggest night of his young career, one might expect One Night in Miami to set off a boastful barnburner of boozy partying and liberating frolic. The result is quite the contrary. There are no bars, no girls, no flashbulbs, and no hanger-on fans. It is just these four influential men and the hotel spaces before them as they wrestle with the gravity of the moment and share the ongoing bigotry they have experienced on different levels and from different sources. To celebrate here is the exhale and vent, not dance and prance.

2020, 5 STARS, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, Film Festival, Home Media, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEW, Streaming, Video on DemandDon ShanahanDecember 24, 2020Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: Wonder Woman 1984

Too much of this sequel’s accomplishments stop at that last prepositional phrase of “for the main character.” Everything crafted for Gal Gadot’s heroics works wonderfully to strengthen her and the character’s prominence. Good graces and affections are rightfully earned. Maybe it is enough of a victory that Wonder Woman is not the problem of a Wonder Woman movie. That said, the material and surroundings she is given do her very little favors.

2020, 3 STARS, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, Streaming, MOVIE REVIEW, Home MediaDon ShanahanDecember 23, 2020Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: Soul

Since Monsters, Inc., Up and Inside Out director Pete Docter doesn’t directly hide his envoys of empathy anymore. Honest-to-goodness people are once again front-and-center in his newest film, Soul, coming to Disney+ on Christmas Day. Its people may get magically spun into spectral vessels moving through a very uniquely manufactured system of the heavens, but they’re still humans being human. That said, with Soul, Pixar finally goes all the way with its streak. They evoke existentialism head on.

2020, 4 STARS, Animated Film, Home Media, MOVIE REVIEW, StreamingDon ShanahanDecember 22, 2020 Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: Sylvie's Love

A skeptical label Sylvie’s Love might receive is being called anachronistic. Such a descriptor is a compliment not a hindrance. In fact, it would be disappointingly out of place if Sylvie’s Love was anything less than properly rooted right where it is as a pseudo-time capsule. Ashe isn’t trying to insert a progressive modern agenda with revisionist history for current appeasement. The desire was a period romance with sweep, ambiance, and gloss. The look of the era and the look of love are all there.

2020, 4 STARS, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEW, StreamingDon ShanahanDecember 19, 2020Comment