CAPSULE REVIEWS: Playing catch-up on December awards contenders

Though the day job work was no longer in the way, good times with family and friends was the better thing to do than lock myself in a room on a laptop and write. Three of these films are cracking my Top 20 of 2017 and possibly even my final “10 Best” list. A year-end bang like that deserves to be talked about, and I couldn’t keep sitting on them without getting something out to you. To get the good word out there, here are some quick hot take capsules of the films with full reviews in the works.

MOVIE REVIEW: The Shape of Water

Soaringly endearing elements of romance enrapture with a heading spoonful of the perverse for good measure. Fantastical triumphs of mortal spirit over evil forces are applied to inhuman oddities with jarringly violent consequences. This is a film of stark peculiarity that challenges your safe zones and clashes with your sense of normalcy for the themes at play. It asks you to relish in an abnormal spectacle that dazzles with vintage style and extraordinary boldness.

2017, 4 STARS, Chicago Film Festival, Film Festival, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanDecember 4, 201753rd Chicago International Film FestivalComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Martin McDonagh’s new film puts prickly in the pastoral glazing its country charm with absolute acid every chance it gets. Part stern crime drama and part small-town chicanery, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri displays the next level of McDonagh’s talent and potential. Always the sharp storyteller since his roots on the Irish stage, McDonagh’s writing prowess elevates a premise that would fall flat as pure farce in other hands

MOVIE REVIEW: Mercury in Retrograde

Michael Glover Smith’s words of mounting depth and weight turn idle chatter into soapboxes that eventually become proverbial fortifications built around questioned principles and shattered wills. The ensemble of performers delivers on the required heavy lifting from the director to make the multitude of human flaws believable yet still approachable. Mercury in Retrograde is a hidden gem.

2017, 4 STARS, Film Festival, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEW, Social MediaDon ShanahanNovember 27, 20174th Annual Oakton Pop-Up Film Festival2017, independent films, micro-budget film, Mercury in Retrograde, Best Narrative Feature, Full Bloom Film Festival, 2017 Full Bloom Film Festival, 4th annual Oakton Pop-Up Film Festival, Oakton Pop-Up Film Festival, Michael Glover Smith, Michael Smith, Najarra Townsend, Alana Arenas, Jack C. Newell, Rubber, Contracted, Open Tables, Pam Powell, Pamela Powell, Reel Honest Reviews, The Daily Journal, Oakton Community College, Gene Siskel Film Center, Mercury retrograde, Charles-Camille Saint-Saens, The Carnival of Animals, Wolfgang Strutz, Jason Chiu, Roxane Mesquida, Cool Apocalypse, Dashiell Hammett, Ned Beaumont, The Glass Key, Fennville, Saugatuck, southwest Michigan, Chicago, Kevin Wehby, Shane Simmons, Mercury, movie review, film review, film critic, movie critic, film commentary, movie commentary, life lessons, life lessons from film, life lessons from movies, life lessons from independent films, Don Shanahan, Donald Shanahan, Every Movie Has a LessonComment

STUDENT-FRIENDLY MOVIE REVIEW: Wonder

I do my best to write professional grade film criticism fit for a formal audience, becoming best friends with a thesaurus and using my big boy words. By day, I'm an elementary school educator. At work this year, I've been organizing a special field trip for 5th graders to see Wonder after they've been reading the novel all fall. This second "student-friendly" movie review is for them and other younger readers. Revised, this review scales down my review down from an 11.6 Flesch Kincaid readability level to a comfy 4.4 average.

MOVIE REVIEW: Lady Bird

In her solo feature directorial debut, Greta Gerwig has stepped in and pushed this cinematic species tremendously forward with the dramedy Lady Bird. The film destroys any notion of the “manic pixie dream girl” fakery. Lady Bird is a cornucopia woven with striking candor and filled with delightful oxymorons artfully composed to challenge taboos and stereotypes. Let’s give each oxymoron a life lesson and a paragraph or two along the way.

2017, 5 STARS, Chicago Film Festival, Film Festival, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanNovember 10, 2017AMC River East 212017, 2017 Fall Movies, Lady Bird, Now and Then, Welcome to the Dollhouse, Thirteen, Catherine Hardwicke, Kelly Fremon Craig, The Edge of Seventeen, John Hughes, Sixteen Candles, manic pixie dream girl, Greta Gerwig, oxymoron, Atonement, Brooklyn, Saoirse Ronan, Sacramento, Dave Matthews Band, Beanie Feldstein, Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising, Lucas Hedges, Manchester by the Sea, Goosebumps, Odeya Rush, Timothee Chalamet, Interstellar, Tracy Letts, Laurie Metcalf, Jon Brion, movie review, film review, life lessons, life lessons from film, life lessons from movies, life lessons from films, Coming of Age films, Coming of Age movies, coming of age, Boyhood, movie critic, film critic, Chicago International Film Festival, 53rd Chicago International Film Festival, Festival Centerpiece, Festival review, festival preview, film festival, CIFF, Donald Shanahan, Don Shanahan, Every Movie Has a LessonComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Last Flag Flying

Richard Linklater operates between free-wheeling fun and poignant realism with little middle ground. No matter which parallel, the quality of his romps on one side or his character studies on the other are equally and rightfully celebrated. It has reached the point where you have to ask if we’re getting "Party Linklater" or "Serious Linklater." Contrary to the little middle ground previously mentioned, Last Flag Flying tries both.

2017, 3 STARS, MOVIE REVIEW, Independent FilmDon ShanahanNovember 10, 2017AMC River East 21Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: Princess Cyd

Bright as the summer is sunny, thoughtful as the literature being referenced, and raw as the emotions running through it, Princess Cyd is a pertinent and inspiring triumph from writer and director Stephen Cone. We are privy to private moments, yet welcomed in for sake of common ground and personal growth. The sublime polish and volume of empathy amid this film’s themes is utterly magnetic.

2017, 4 STARS, Chicago Film Festival, Film Festival, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanNovember 7, 2017Gene Siskel Film CenterComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Mr. Roosevelt

This entire film is a head-turning and striking first impression if you missed Noel’s single season on Saturday Night Live four years ago. As aforementioned with a passion project like this, you beg and wonder how autobiographical a wild story like this has to be. No matter if it’s true or entirely created, the appreciation measures the heavily positive same. The jokes come from all angles and hit with every effect from belly laugh to full cringe.

2017, 4 STARS, Chicago Film Festival, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanNovember 3, 2017Comment

CAPSULE REVIEWS: The 53rd Chicago International Film Festival

The 53rd Chicago International FIlm Festival brings over 1,000 films of all genres and sizes to our fair city. There are premieres aplenty, between those making their world, North American, or Chicago debuts. Opening with a red carpet premiere of Marshall, peaking with the centerpiece of Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird, and closing with the Oscar contender The Shape of Water from Guillermo del Toro, the 53rd CIFF fills the AMC River East 21 for two weeks. For the fourth year in a row, Every Movie Has a Lesson has been granted press credentials to cover the CIFF and here are my capsule reviews.

2017, CAPSULE REVIEW, Chicago Film Festival, Film Festival, Foreign Film, Independent Film, Social Media, SPECIALDon ShanahanOctober 24, 2017The 53rd Chicago International Film Festival2017, Chicago Independent Film Critics Circle, Chicago International Film Festival, 53rd Chicago International Film Festival, 53rd CIFF, CIFF, #CIFCCattheCIFF, Opening Night Gala, Opening Night Film, Special Presentations, U.S. Indies, City and State, World Cinema, Cinema of the Americas, Shorts, Marshall, Eman's Movie Reviews, Emmanuel Noisette, Chadwick Boseman, Sterling K. Brown, Jussie Smollett, Marina Squerciati, Reginald Hudlin, red carpet, red carpet coverage, MovieMob, Goodbye Christopher Robin, Simon Curtis, Blueprint, Daryl Wein, Jerod Haynes, Chasing the Blues, Scott Smith, Kevin Guilfoile, Liquid Truth, The Shape of Water, Lady Bird, Caroline Jabor, Daniel de Oliviera, Night Shift, Tunde Adebimpe, Gold Hugo, Gold Hugo AwardComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Liquid Truth

The discolored and dingy tile grout at the bottom of a swimming pool and the imagery effect of rippling water seen under the surface bending the images above perspective starkly symbolize the many warped dimensions of Liquid Truth. The truth in the title is as slippery as the water in director Caroline Jabor’s simmering social commentary. The film may be foreign from Brazil, but it typifies all too many social media ills that would explode in a parallel fashion here in this country.

2017, 4 STARS, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, Chicago Film Festival, Film Festival, Foreign Film, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEW, Social MediaDon ShanahanOctober 23, 2017The 53rd Chicago International Film Festival2017, Brazil, Liquid Truth, helicopter parenting, WeAreTeachers, Dr. Carolyn Daitch, Lucas Paraizo, Best Narrative Film, Rio International Film Festival, Aos Teus Olhos, Audience Award, Malu Galli, Stella Rabello, Luiz Felipe Mello, Marco Ricca, Facebook, Instagram, Luisa Arraes, Daniel de Oliviera, 53rd Chicago International Film Festival, Chicago International Film Festival, World Cinema, Cinema of the Americas, Caroline Jabor, film review, movie review, foreign film, Foreign films, foreign langugage film, foreign films, life lessons from foreign films, movie critic, film critic, CIFCC, CIFF, #CIFCCattheCIFF, social commentary, social media platform, social media, life lessons, life lessons from movies, independent film, independent films, films of Brazil, film festival, Festival review, Festival coverage, festival preview, movie reviews, movie commentary, film commentary, Donald Shanahan, Don Shanahan, Every Movie Has a Lesson, Lisa TrifoneComment

SHORT FILM REVIEW: Not Yet

For a while now, I have long wondered how someone could bottle that signature Pixar-level lightness for dramatic heft and pour it into a live-action piece with the same welcome whimsy. Pixar's animated feature films and shorts consistently have a special way with conveying humor within the most difficult emotions I might have found the closest attempt yet in Chad Hamilton’s lovely short film Not Yet.

EVERY MOVIE HAS A LESSON

by Don Shanahan

BRINGING YOU MOVIE REVIEWS AND MORE SINCE 2010

CRYPTOCASINOS

TheVore.com Streaming options

Brilliantly

Content & Links