Audrey’s Children chisels an important story into an extremely well-meaning film. Not all life-saving feats are glamorous and marked with crowds and cheers. Sometimes, all they are is a stabilized vital signs, hopeful test results to live longer, or a family that walks out the door of a hospital intact instead of grieving a loss. To enjoy and appreciate this film is to watch an uncompromising woman taking risks to put in the diligent work to make a difference for, once again, “her kids.”

MOVIE REVIEW: Queen of the Ring

The movie is entertaining and engaging evidence the genre’s stand-up-and-cheer formula does not always need reinvention or recalibration, just more diverse and meaningful stories for new spotlights. When it’s all said and done, Queen of the Ring nailed the big fight feel in its 1954 climax that bookends the film, and they put on a barnburner.

3 STARS, 2025, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanMarch 8, 2025Emily Bett Rickards, Francesca Eastwood, Josh Lucas, Queen of the RingComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Millers in Marriage

Assembling this esteemed cast of respected performers, Millers in Marriage pervades more and more audacious questions. While everyone has their share of golden parachutes compared to commoners, the inquiries of who’s jealous, curious, sad, or happy—and with whom—carry plenty of pertinence. Each relationship reaches crucial decision points with those feelings, and the movie unveils who makes the right ones and who makes the wrong ones

MOVIE REVIEW: The Gorge

Deeper though, what compels us for certain heroic movies beyond these dreamboats with best-of-the-best skill sets? First, it depends on the stars chosen. Radiant charisma and a touch of romance sure help when it comes to letting the beautiful people win. An interesting opponent, or predicament would help even more. Luckily, The Gorge offers enough of those enhancers to give us a good time with marquee names.

2025, 3 STARS, Home Media, Streaming, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanFebruary 13, 2025The Gorge, Miles Teller, Anya Taylor-Joy, Apple, Apple TV+Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: When I'm Ready

Moral challenges and splits involving personal truths increase as the days and hours dwindle to do something about them. Depending on the viewer’s acceptance and temperament, When I’m Ready is a complicated blend of the morbid and the soulful. Cynics will call it soft and over-convenient. They’ll be missing the attempted love letter-level poetry championing companionship. Instead, those who lean to and shine with the positive latter will be rewarded with a lovely odyssey of warmth fighting back bleakness.

MOVIE REVIEW: Green and Gold

With its idyllic morals and rural accoutrements, Green and Gold champions hopeful and wholesome vibes. Green and Gold embraces that soft touch without thumping Bibles to support and celebrate the challenges and resilience found in the endangered American farmer. There’s an under-filled soft spot place for quaint family fare tipping a hat like this.

2025, 3 STARS, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanJanuary 31, 2025Green and Gold, Craig T. NelsonComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Somewhere in Montana

Count Somewhere in Montana writer-director Brandon Smith as a wiser gentleman who avoided, for the most part, reaching for those types of low-hanging fruit. These featured men are surprisingly deeper than their outward tropes, and their qualities thicken, ever so slightly, what could have been a narrow movie.

MOVIE REVIEW: Nightbitch

Continuing the immense commitment-to-the-bit she has demonstrated her entire career in both comedic and dramatic roles, Amy Adams runs with every one of Nightbitch’s surreal twists and turns in an incredible physical and emotional performance, worthy of another ticket to the Oscar soiree. Through enormous effort, she balances the fierce intensity of Heller’s narrative with the draw of underlying sensitivity that generates tangible empathy. No angle is too outlandish and no risk is too great to try.

2024, 3 STARS, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanDecember 1, 2024Marielle Heller, Scoot McNary, Amy AdamsComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Bonhoeffer

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a man who wouldn’t see his 40th birthday and played by The Golden Glove’s Jonas Dassler, was many things that the movie’s marketing campaign wants to emphasize by using the extra titling of Pastor. Spy. Assassin. However, the more apt descriptor for him would be a dissident. Resistance starts with disagreement before action. Bonhoeffer chronicles how Deitrich Bonhoeffer came to his dissident positions and how he would put those principles into service to honor of his beliefs and the greater good.

2023, 2024, 3 STARS, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanNovember 23, 2024Bonhoeffer, Jonas Dassler, August Diehl, Todd KomarnickiComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Gladiator II

At the same time as they contorted historical accuracy, Craig and Scarpa pile on a greater amount of revelations, double crosses, and ancient paternity tests that would make Maury Povich blush on syndicated daytime television. Those overbaked and confounded conveniences were not necessary to dramatically revisit a successful legend such as this one, which already had adrenaline and spectacle on its side on its face value alone.

2024, 3 STARS, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanNovember 21, 2024Gladiator, Gladiator II, Paul Mescal, Denzel WashingtonComment

MOVIE REVIEW: You & I

Altogether, Summer Shelton has composed a pungent expanse of reflective maturity with You & I that puts honesty on the “what if” sliding doors many viewers may feel when comparing their own histories of love. The entirety of this film’s course exudes thoughtful reflection and a wise restraint borne from the romantic predicament on screen. You & I is passionate without being overtly explicit, yet the reverberating echoes of those instinctual feelings are intense and even morose in their own way.

2023, 2024, 3 STARS, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanNovember 16, 2024You & I, Summer Shelton, Clayne CrawfordComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Here

In spite of this, some of us will crack our shells of disenchantment, swell with whimsy, and make the most of the cathartic reflection that comes from this grand journey. They will see the holes and seek to fill them with goals of betterment for themselves and, hopefully, others, especially after watching plenty of aspirations in Here not turn out positively for all involved. Here may not be the fully judicious beacon it fashions itself to be, but the thoughtfulness and plenty of poignant care it attempts with its lyrical finesse is still worth welcoming and appreciating.