MOVIE REVIEW: Dean

When standup comedians come to the big screen, they tend to stay with what works, extending their personas and bits into feature-length material within their comfort zones. Most lack creativity to make something unique out of their individuality. That is not the case with Demetri Martin making his impressive feature writing and directing debut with Dean. In 87 breezy minutes pushing against the grief of its characters, his film squeezes earnest sweetness out of bleak material that would never play on his comedy club stages.

CAPSULE REVIEWS: Short films of the 5th Chicago Critics Film Festival

Over 40 feature-length and short films, many of which making their Chicago premieres, graced the main screen of the Music Box Theatre this past week-and-change as part of the fifth annual Chicago Critics Film Festival. It was an honor and pleasure to be be granted press credentials to cover the event. Here are my collected capsule reviews of the short film programs.

2017, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, CAPSULE REVIEW, Chicago Film Festival, Film Festival, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEW, Social Media, SHORT FILMS, Video on DemandDon ShanahanMay 21, 2017Music Box Theatre2017, 5th Chicago Critics Film Festival, CCFF, Chicago Film Critics Association, CFCA, CIFCC, Collin Souter, The Dundee Project, Kaiju Bunraku, Drawn and Recorded, Drawn and Recorded: Teen Spirit, Teen Spirit, T-Bone Burnett, Nirvana, Bunraku Bay Puppet Theater, Mark Borchardt, Bill Benson, UFO Daze, Fry Day, Ted Bundy, Jordyn DiNatale, Tough, Chinese, Kieran Culkin, Mae Whitman, Approaching a Breakthrough, Hell You Talmbout, Janelle Monae, Civil Rights Movement, Northwest Tap Connection, Shakiah Danielson, Ten Meter Tower, short film, short films, short film review, Short films, short film commentary, Kurt Cobain, Kathleen Hanna, Bikini Kill, Smells Like Teen Spirit Comment

CAPSULE REVIEWS: Feature films of the 5th Chicago Critics Film Festival

Over 40 feature-length and short films, many of which making their Chicago premieres, graced the main screen of the Music Box Theatre this past week-and-change as part of the fifth annual Chicago Critics Film Festival. It was an honor and pleasure to be be granted press credentials to cover the event. Here are my collected capsule reviews of the feature-length films.

SHORT FILM REVIEW: Jack & Amelia

The key strength of “Jack and Amelia” is the focused narrative that sketches a telling and accurate microcosm example of Chicago. It blends lifestyles for people feeling the city’s stresses in their own unique ways. Just when you think you these four central characters are random and will stay random, the short-order shifts and twists of “Jack and Amelia” push their destinies forward in engaging and cunning ways. This really was a blossoming treat.

MOVIE REVIEW: The Dinner

More often than not, the label of “private family matter” spells doom and gloom. A good time is not going to be had. That’s the unfortunate impetus that brings two disunified brothers and their wives together for “The Dinner.” Compressing layers of familial discontent and rancor thinly-masked by the repulsive worst of white privilege, the tightly-wound urgency and shattering purpose of this titular meeting reveals itself over the film’s two hours.

MOVIE REVIEW: Love, Lies

“Love, Lies” plays upon the decaying dichotomy orbiting the two women as they vie for love and validation against dignity and betrayal. It’s impossible not to feel the emotions imbued into the punctuating moments of expression through song that fully embody the conflict and romantic encumbrances weighing on the characters. The music is the vital and resonating fiber that unites the period atmosphere with the stirring portrayals of talent.

2017, 4 STARS, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, Film Festival, Foreign Film, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEW, Social MediaDon ShanahanMay 4, 2017AMC River East 212017, 2016, 2017 Asian Pop-Up Cinema, Asian Pop-Up Cinema, Love Lies, Seoul, Gyeongseong, Jo Eun-soo, Lee Byung-hoo, Korea, South Korea, Park Sung-woong, Yoo Yeon-seok, Reply 1994, Cold Eyes, The Wailing, New World, Japan, Park Heung-sik, Foreign films, foreign films, foreign film, life lessons from foreign films, life lessons from film, life lessons from movies, life lessons, melodramas, movie melodramas, film review, movie review, film commentary, movie commentary, Donald Shanahan, Don Shanahan, Chicago premiere, Danielle Garnier, Garnier Public Relations, Sophia's Choice, Sophia's Choice Presents Comments

MOVIE REVIEW: My Egg Boy

The trappings of “My Egg Boy” are firmly entrenched in melodrama, yet kissed with delightful fancy. The strength is in the dynamic writing to weave practical magic with fertile imagination. The romantic and symbolistic peaks and valleys built by Tien-Yu Fu are endlessly relatable even when characterized. What begins as whimsy evolves quite affectingly to something rapturously heartfelt.

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: Sand Castle

Wars transform the soldiers that participate in them. Men and women in combat can be broken down, built up, or both in positive and negative ways. Because the young tend to serve, their stories, and the films that tell them, can mirror a late-term version of the “coming-of-age” archetype. The fingerprints of forced maturity appear all over the likes of “The Deer Hunter,” “Platoon,” “Jarhead,” and dozens of other films. In all honesty, the trope is overused and over-familiar and that’s the first mistake of “Sand Castle.”

MOVIE REVIEW: The Sex Addict

“The Sex Addict” is tailor-made to serve comedy fans that soak up humor akin to “The Office” and “Parks and Recreation.” The humor is naturally vulgar and dark, which isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. The crowd that will be repulsed can be replaced by those rolling on the floor laughing. “The Sex Addict” is a ways away from the supreme mockumentary exemplars of Christopher Guest, but that’s the perfect plane for Amir Mo and company to aspire to.

DOCUMENTARY REVIEW: Faith in the Big House

No matter what faith (or absence of faith) you carry into this film’s experience, you will respect the positive efforts of the real-life ministries featured in “Faith in the Big House.” Lives are changed before your eyes and it’s not all Bible-thumping. To that end, it is wholly refreshing to observe a Christian point-of-view that holds its peers of different denominations and, more importantly, itself strictly accountable for this kind of communal service.

MOVIE REVIEW: The Lost City of Z

The most crucial dramatic trait for films about exploration is a drawing a strong reaction to the unknown from the audience. Whether it’s a historical story or a fantastical one of fiction, the film has to evoke awe, be that stirring swells of inspiration or jarring feelings of danger. It has to move you, not bore you. If a film can’t achieve that quickened pulse or heavy heart, it’s little better than a travelogue on cable television or a curriculum video they show soon-to-be-bored high school students in Social Studies class.