MOVIE REVIEW: Monkey Man

Most will come away from Monkey Man going on and on like that last paragraph to praise the carnality of this movie, and rightfully so. That strapping and blood-soaked athleticism is what is going to draw the hoots and hollers at public screenings and fire up future YouTube fight breakdowns. Sometimes action for action’s sake can come up empty for greater meaning and audience investment. Without anchors to care about, the fun of it all can be meaningless. This movie does not make that mistake. That’s why Monkey Man’s passionate heart should be praised as highly as its physicality.

2024, 4 STARS, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanApril 6, 2024Monkey Man, Dev PatelComment

MOVIE REVIEW: The Greatest Hits

Merging this kind of existential melodrama with the outlandish happenstance of time travel requires characters audiences will care about beyond pragmatics and a lush production that can sprinkle magic on the grains of salt required. With the three charismatic and emerging talents present, the human appeal is covered in The Greatest Hits.

MOVIE REVIEW: The Listener

Directing his fifth feature length film, Steve Buscemi had us at Tessa Thompson. That’s an immediate victory. Go ahead and close your eyes. Picture Tessa and hear her voice. If you’re hearing her approachable tone and timbre in softer roles like Passing or Sylvie’s Love before her heroic bellows in the Thor and Creed franchises, you’re the right kind of cinephile and have dialed in to the proper Tessa Thompson.

2022, 2024, 4 STARS, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanMarch 26, 2024The Listener, Tessa Thompson, Steve Buscemi, Alessandro CamonComment

MOVIE REVIEW: One Life

With a different approach, One Life could have very easily veered into horn-tooting hero worship or some kind of indulgent salve applied to reduce the horrors of the Holocaust. That’s not the case with the work of director James Hawes and screenwriters Lucinda Coxon and Nick Drake to depict this history with little to no extra flamboyance. The film’s style and attitude matches the central figure who never put the glory first. The history speaks for itself and needs no assistance for heft.

2024, 2023, 4 STARS, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanMarch 14, 2024One Life, Anthony HopkinsComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Ordinary Angels

Alas, potential viewers of the film are going to see the faith-centered creative team (The Case for Christ director Jon Gunn and notable producers Dave Matthews and the Erwin Brothers) highlighted by the marketing efforts and assume this is some kind of cinematic religious extortion. They would be way off. The presented cause to believe in greater than some fancy church in Ordinary Angels is a sick little girl. Nothing more is necessary.

2024, 2023, 4 STARS, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanFebruary 21, 2024Ordinary Angels, Hilary Swank, Alan Ritchson, Nancy Travis, Kelly Fremon CraigComment

MOVIE REVIEW: The Taste of Things

The moving experiences come from sharing the expressed gastronomical artistry. The art of those fears is in unique masterful cooking. The cooking comes from the two-decade partnership between Eugénie and Dodin. Their partnership has blossomed to a long-term love of understanding and freedom that has avoided the culminating step of marriage. Simply put, food is merely the setting of shared quality time for the rest of life.

MOVIE REVIEW: Adam the First

For Adam to approach these strangers with his “I’m looking for my father” story and burning questions, it takes a sit-down. That kind of talk can’t be rushed and Franco lets those opportunities fully breathe. Moreover, each of the important exchanges create their own emotional transitions for Adam. He needs every springboard he can get from these talks, and so does Oakes Fegley playing the character.

2024, 4 STARS, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanFebruary 14, 2024Adam the First, Oakes Fegley, David Duchovny, T.R. Knight, Irving FrancoComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Society of the Snow

Society of the Snow is what this writer calls a “thank your lucky stars” movie. It depicts the kind of true story experience that is frighteningly unfathomable to comprehend. You watch it constantly trying to determine what you would do in the characters’ places and reach an overwrought point where all you can do is, hence the nickname, “thank your lucky stars” you didn’t have to go through what you saw on-screen echoing history. The survival you watch fuels and trumps your own.

2023, 4 STARS, Home Media, MOVIE REVIEW, StreamingDon ShanahanDecember 28, 2023Society of the Snow, J.A. Bayona, Netflix, Michael GiacchinoComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Poor Things

For better or worse, Poor Things is a movie of unsavory urges and scratched itches that pull the viewer down a pernicious drain of unconscionable behavior. There is a dark comedy buried in the muck of Poor Things that curdles to the surface in the final third as our strong female becomes the master of her own fate, body, heart, and business. Stone sells it at every turn. Still, at many points, one will wonder whether all of the absurdity will amount to something exotic or vapid.

2023, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEW, 4 STARSDon ShanahanDecember 16, 2023Poor Things, Emma Stone, Yorgos Lanthimos, A24, A24 Films, Mark Ruffalo, Willem DafoeComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Wonka

This lovely approachability in a fabulous package should come as no surprise for a film directed by Paul King of two cherished Paddington films and co-written by his series partner Simon Farnaby. With little motif tingles of the old signature “Pure Imagination” melody percolating in Talbot’s score before the Chalamet’s rendition of the full song closes the film, Wonka builds a respectful and winsome bridge from the future to the past.

2023, 4 STARS, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanDecember 13, 2023Timothee Chalamet, Warner Bros. Pictures, WonkaComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Trolls Band Together

Just like the first film that crescendo-ed with the Oscar-nominated “Can’t Stop The Feeling,” the high point of Trolls Band Together arrives with its signature song “Better Place.” It’s sung first by the combined cast during the plot while *NSYNC takes over for the full version over the closing credits. It’s an earworm of a pop ditty and siren’s song for the moms and dads. If “Better Place” were any catchier, it would be made of Velcro, require a multi-stage emergency vaccine, and required to be gloved by MLB All-Star J.T. Realmuto.

MOVIE REVIEW: Nyad

NYAD is the film adaptation of that incredible feat recounted in Diane’s autobiography Find a Way. Four-time Academy Award nominee Annette Bening is playing the title subject alongside two-time Oscar winner Jodie Foster as her friend and coach Bonnie Stoll. This true chronicle lends itself to a sports movie’s narrative flow and swell of dramatic license, yet NYAD was made by a pair of Oscar-winning documentarians– the Free Solo husband-and-wife directorial team of Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin– giving it a purposeful backbone of authenticity to push some of those tropes to the side.