MOVIE REVIEW: Extraction

Call this a meandering musing, but it’s a tad quizzical how far apart the definitions of “mercy” and “mercenary” are despite their beginning spellings. There is not harming someone you have power over versus a soldier paid to fight for money. You won’t find those two words supporting the old “one hands washes the other” expression. Nonetheless, here in the new Netflix Chris Hemsworth vehicle Extraction one could wring a towel dripping with the unexpected mix of blood and suds. That makes for a messy and albeit entertaining proposition on the wiggle room to have mercy in a mercenary.

2020, 3 STARS, MOVIE REVIEW, StreamingDon ShanahanApril 24, 2020Extraction, Chris HemsworthComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Love Wedding Repeat

I am starting to become convinced that there will never be a movie wedding that goes off without a hitch, as they say. It’s cinematically impossible not to have something, anything, or everything go wrong. But, that’s the fun of all those movies, including the new Netflix film Love Wedding Repeat. There is always comedy to be had when a springboard event of enduring love can survive in every cringe, surprise, fumble, flub, and fail executed by the doting newlyweds on down to the drunk ne'er-do-wells.

REWIND REVIEW: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

Big as a billboard in some places and as small as a mobile ad in others, the marketing imagery of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker touts the tagline “The Saga Will End.” There’s something to be said for finality, especially with a 42-year-old franchise as venerated and cherished as this one. The virtues of remembrance, culmination, gratification, and other such lofty notions loom so much larger when an entity is billed to be the last of something important. The movie in disc form hits store shelves everywhere today.

2019, Home Media, MOVIE REVIEW, Video on Demand, VIDEO REVIEW, DISC REVIEW, 2 STARS, 2020, 3 STARS, StreamingDon ShanahanMarch 31, 2020Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: Run This Town

Behind every political monster has a staff of underlings who have stories to tell and permanent stains on their resumes. More often than not, unless they are a featured mouthpiece or the eventual public whistle-blower, we don’t really see these people, even when we know they are there. Across the guarded podiums, pushy microphones, and invasive cameras are also the faceless by-lines of cub reporters trying to break stories and make a name for themselves. They too are dependent on the grinding political machine. Run This Town gives faces and voices to unfortunate minions and nobodies tied to the late and former mayor of Toronto mayor Rob Ford.

2020, 3 STARS, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEW, Video on DemandDon ShanahanMarch 8, 2020Run This TownComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Burden

It is very relevant and very opportune how the true-to-life main character’s last name fittingly became a perfect title for this kind of movie. Call it telling. Call it fate even. One could also call it a warning. Burden is as dramatic and uncomfortable as the many layers of the namesake word itself. The winner of the U.S. Dramatic Audience Award at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival finally makes its theatrical bow nearly two years after its praised debut.

MOVIE REVIEW: The Night Clerk

Like it or not, there’s something carnal and entirely compelling about voyeurism. From trainwrecks to Peeping Toms, gazes can be easily fixated by the energy of those moments. There is an addictive draw that can be interest, mystery, surprise, titillation, or all of the above. The invasive level of wrongness in watching something you are likely not meant to see is measured by what one is doing or getting out of these observations. That’s a bit of the hook of The Night Clerk which allows a little gray hue on that potential wrongness.

2020, 3 STARS, Home Media, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanFebruary 21, 2020 Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

Diving deeper beyond the basic “something that is final” meaning, the dictionary of this galaxy describes “finality” as “conclusiveness,” “decisiveness,” or “an ultimate act, utterance, or belief.” J.J. Abrams’ massive space opera follows his own The Force Awakens and Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi to aim so very badly for those traits. In many peaks of scope and emotion, his movie achieves such finality. In others, overindulgence and disarray put question marks on the value or vindication of all this promised fulfillment.

MOVIE REVIEW: The Irishman

By the time the exhalation of the final minute of those 210 is reached, Frank remains in that same setting. Age has done its job on him and us in the audience. The sizzle has been squelched and the thrill is gone. The exquisite ruminations on display for over three hours build The Irishman into what feels like a conclusive coda for all of the veteran artists involved. Yet, the meandering pace of what all transpires reverberates with a slender essence no better than a hospice bedtime story.

MOVIE REVIEW: Playing With Fire

Anyone who has seen John Cena hamming it up, getting slimed, or both at his hosting gigs or talk show appearances knows he has the capacity to be the ripped glute of many a joke. Anyone who has followed his massive work with The Make-A-Wish Foundation knows he’s got a genuine and gigantic heart. John Cena is cut with cuteness and has all the charm necessary for Playing With Fire. The fact Cena can squeeze heartfelt smiles and laughs, whether covered in some mess or wearing a My Little Pony half-shirt, is more than good enough for a family-friendly movie option for the upcoming holiday season.

2019, 3 STARS, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanNovember 7, 2019AMC River East 21Playing With Fire, John CenaComment

VINTAGE REVIEW: Simply Irresistible

The raunch-less love scenes of cooking, kissing, and dancing can initially seem to come from a different movie than a ’90s-era romantic comedy in the same year as American Pie. But then, with the dedication for the glossy showmanship never shrinking, you realize you’re exactly in a throwback. With a tweak of two of period adjustment and pacing, Simply Irresistible would fit either in the Pillow Talk genre of farces or the It Happened One Night-level screwball comedies.

2019, 3 STARS, Home Media, MOVIE REVIEW, Vintage ReviewDon ShanahanSeptember 22, 2019Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: Official Secrets

Most cinematic eras have their overuse of dramatic varnish in historical retellings as a means of painted shine for grabbing attention and producing supposedly heightened value. This writer will always contend that if a chosen story needs too much of that glitz, where it cannot compel or entertain with its own facts, it should not be made into a movie in the first place. Gavin Hood’s Official Secrets gives righteous treatment to such a worthy story and builds a stoic thriller by layering its merits with an eye for accuracy.

2019, 3 STARS, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanSeptember 6, 2019Arclight Chicago Comment

SHORT FILM REVIEW: A Sisterhood of Signatures

One does not need millions of dollars to create an expression of personal passion. They need patience to see their vision through, a dedication to the project shared all involved, and the courage to put their work and themselves out there. Filmmaker Okema “Seven” Gunn harnessed all three of those values to make her short film A Sisterhood of Signatures and put them right back into the finished piece. She will proudly display her effort alongside the works of her inspirations and contemporaries as part of Chicago’s 25th Black Harvest Film Festival hosted by the Gene Siskel Film Center.

EVERY MOVIE HAS A LESSON

by Don Shanahan

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