Mulling over the many layers and events of Destin Daniel Cretton’s film adaptation of Jeanette Wells’ memoirs The Glass Castle, I keep coming back to the same essential question: "Who am I to judge someone else's life story or life choices?" If the real Jeanette Wells is able to make peace with the events of her childhood, how can I, or anyone, tell her she's wrong? The answer is we can’t (and shouldn’t) and that’s a hurdle not everyone has shown to be prepared for or able to separate from critique.

DOCUMENTARY REVIEW: An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power

Asking someone if they subscribe to the science of climate change might as well be as tenuous as asking a person if they believe in God. Climate change has become a divisive firebrand topic like few others in the decade since the Oscar-winning and punctually motivating documentary An Inconvenient Truth. In several ways, the topic has come a long way in some places only to slip backward in other measures. An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power is a persuasive update on the matter.

MOVIE REVIEW: Menashe

Weinstein writes and directs what constitutes as a love letter to a culture, a community, and to the essence of fatherhood. The lead’s personal plight is a compelling one done with grace and admiration for attaching the right layer of empathy. It’s not overly heavy in any particular way, but Menashe carries enough honesty, enough will, and enough power to break any father’s heart. There’s strength to be found in that.

Chicago Film Festival, Film Festival, Independent Film, 2017, 3 STARS, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanAugust 3, 2017foreign langugage film, Yiddish, Festival coverage, podcasting, Podcast, fathers, CIFCC, Menashe Lustig, Feelin' Film Podcast, Borough Park, Don Shanahan, podcast, Torah, film festival, life lessons, Sundance Film Festival, movie fathers, A24, Mr. Mom, podcast guest, 5th Chicago Critics Film Festival, 2017, Brooklyn, Every Movie Has a Lesson, 2017 Sundance Film Festival, Donald Shanahan, podcast discussion, film fathers, movie dads, Hasidic Jews, Ruben Niborski, film dads, A24 Films, Menashe, Yoel Weisshaus, life lessons from movies, Feelin' Film, life lessons from film, Meyer Schwartz, films about fatherhood, life lessons from foreign films, Festival review, fathers in film, CFCA, independent film, Joshua Z. Weinstein, movies about fatherhood, Chicago Critics Film FestivalComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Atomic Blonde

The best cinematic sales job in the world goes to Charlize Theron, performing 98% of her own stunts and playing the flaxen viper with every drop of convincing venom necessary, which is always a razz because she can be an absolute ham off-screen. She prefers the hard stuff, just like her character’s taste in booze.

2017, 3 STARS, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanJuly 29, 2017Kerasote ShowPlace ICON XComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Dunkirk

As technically proficient and respectful to history as Dunkirk is, no substantial human anchors of emotion emerge in this film that wants to be seen as an inspiring rescue saga before a war film or historical epic. The totems of fear and survival are ever-present, but there are no magnetic characters to carry those existential burdens. It is a critical flaw in an otherwise astounding dramatic thriller.

2017, 3 STARS, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanJuly 18, 2017Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: The Little Hours

The phrase “nuns behaving badly” sounds like a bad porno title or a silly hashtag. Alas, that’s the low-hanging fruit and chicanery afoot in The Little Hours. Tracing inspiration to a yarn from one of Giovanni Boccaccio’s collected 14th century novellas in The Decameron, the new ensemble film from Jeff Baena wraps it religious habit up with wit, erotica, and practical jokes from Italian prose translated into a modern vernacular.

2017, 3 STARS, Film Festival, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEW, Video on DemandDon ShanahanJuly 14, 2017Music Box TheatreThe Little Hours, Jeff Baena, Looking, Lauren Weedman, Life After Beth, Joshy, Masetto da Lamporecchio, The Mila Kunis Effect, The Decameron, Giovanni Boccaccio, Chicago Critics Film Festival, 5th Chicago Critics Film Festival, 2017 Chicago Critics Film Festival, CFCA, CIFCC, Fred Armisen, John C. Reilly, Molly Shannon, Alison Brie, Aubrey Plaza, Kate Micucci, Nick Offerman, David Franco, film review, movie review, film commentary, movie commentary, life lessons, independent film, independent films, Music Box Theatre, life lessons from film, life lessons from movies, social commentary, Sex comedies, Donald Shanahan, Don Shanahan, Every Movie Has a Lesson Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: A Ghost Story

Welcome to the polarizing gamut of engagement, acceptance, and disquiet of A Ghost Story. This is a wholly original film that takes preparation, patience, absorption, and reflection that some, or even many, may not be ready for. Presented in the rounded and claustrophobic corners of a centered 1.33:1 aspect ratio, it is safe to say, you will see nothing like this all year and maybe several more.

2017, 3 STARS, Film Festival, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanJuly 12, 2017Music Box Theatre2017, 2017 Chicago Critics Film Festival, 5th Chicago Critics Film Festival, David Lowery, A Ghost Story, Sundance Film Festival, 2017 Sundance Film Festival, Casey Affleck, Rooney Mara, Andrew Droz Palermo, Terrence Malick, Emmanuel Lubezki, Daniel Hart, Dark Rooms, I Get Overwhelmed, Annell Brodeur, Ain't Them Bodies Saints, aspect ratio, polarizing, CIFCC, Music Box Theatre, Virginia Woolf, A Haunted House, patience, ghost stories, life lessons, independent film, A24 Films, A24, life lessons from movies, life lessons from film, film review, movie review, film commentary, movie commentary, Donald Shanahan, Don Shanahan, Every Movie Has a Lesson, Pete's Dragon, social commentary, film critics, film critic, movie critic, movie critics, Chicago Film Critics Association, film festival, Festival coverage, Festival reviewComment

MOVIE REVIEW: The Beguiled

The transitive verb “beguile,” as defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, means “to engage the interest of” or “lead by deception.” Hoodwink and divert are synonyms. Director Sofia Coppola’s remake of The Beguiled means to charm our corsets and britches off right in line with its title’s root definition. Methodically and dastardly, the film wishes to seduce us with a heightened intrigue of challenged sexual repression.

2017, 3 STARS, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, Film Festival, MOVIE REVIEW, Independent FilmDon ShanahanJune 25, 20172017, 2017 Summer Movies, 2017 Cannes Film Festival, Cannes winners, Cannes Film Festival, Cannes, Festival de Cannes, Best Director, Sofia Coppola, beguile, Merriam-Webster Dictionary, Don Siegel, Clint Eastwood, Nicole Kidman, Colin Farrell, Kirsten Dunst, Elle Fanning, Angourie Rice, Oona Laurence, Emma Howard, Addison Riecke, Thomas Cullinan, Phillip Le Sourd, Sarah Flack, Stacey Battat, Anne Ross, Phoenix, movie review, film review, movie commentary, film commentary, film festival, Festival review, festival preview, remakes, movie remake, life lessons, life lessons from movies, life lessons from film, Life lessons, Donald Shanahan, advance movie review, Don Shanahan, Every Movie Has a Lesson, CIFCC, independent film, independent films, indie filmComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Churchill

Brian Cox one of the most underappreciated character actors in the business today. He has been an accomplished and terrifically versatile mainstay through all levels and genres of film for over thirty years since turning our heads as cinema’s first Hannibal Lecktor in Michael Mann’s Manhunter. Cox is a consummate performer, brimming with fervid screen presence. From Braveheart to Super Troopers, he is never the weak link to any picture. Churchill offers a rare lead performance from Cox and, like the chameleon he’s always been, he reminds us of his indomitable intensity.

2017, 3 STARS, Foreign Film, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEW, Video on DemandDon ShanahanJune 4, 20172017, 2017 Summer Movies, Churchill, Jonathan Teplitzky, Alex von Tunzelmann, Brian Cox, John Slattery, Miranda Richardson, Gary Oldman, Darkest Hour, Joe Wright, Winston Churchill, Sir Winston Churchill, The Railway Man, Burning Man, British Bulldog, Operation Overlord, D-Day, World War II, World War II movies, Julian Wadham, James Purefoy, Bernard Montgomery, King George VI, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Eisenhower, Clementine Churchill, David Higgs, Lorne Balfe, Care Hall, prosthetics, Michael Mann, Manhunter, Hannibal Lecktor, Braveheart, Super Troppers, leaders, Prime Minister, movie review, film review, movie commentary, film commentary, historical drama, Biopics, war films, anti-war films, life lessons, life lessons from film, life lessons from movies, foreign film, independent films, independent film, Every Movie Has a Lesson, Don Shanahan, Donald ShanahanComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Baywatch

Contrary to how well the Mythbusters pulled it off, you can't shine sh-t, not turds of the TV or film variety. Terrible TV shows make terrible movies. Asking for anything more is asking too much, and there's nothing wrong with that. All of the zing and jiggle audiences enjoyed in eleven seasons and 242 episodes of Baywatch get the amplified and gaudy movie treatment an entertaining guilty pleasure deserves. Enjoy what you enjoy and don't be ashamed of it.

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: Free Fire

I don't know about you, but I get a kick out of bad gunshot wound acting in all ages of films. It’s either hilariously drawn out with overacting or it’s unrealistically rapid in fatality. The brutal facts of getting shot enough to cause death rarely check out in the movies. That never stops filmmakers from trying new and creative ways to shoot people with varying degrees of entertainment success. “Free Fire” is one such film daring to blast anything and everything with ammunition encased with twisted zeal.

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by Don Shanahan

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