The centerpiece scene is a climactic living room sitdown where old wounds are aired out and cried over with bracing lucidity. By the end of that scene (and later after the entire movie), an engrossed and impressed viewer could fill a clipboard or two tally-marking the scoring balance between earnest apologies against attempted and failed compromises. These exposed fractures in His Three Daughters are fascinating in their complication and frankness beyond the typical grief management narratives. No one ever said catharsis was easy to acquire, and that is the case here.

MOVIE REVIEW: Wolfs

Reunited for the first time since 2008’s Coen Brothers romp Burn After Reading, George and Brad are the perfect men to play these bristled rogues and turn them into winning studs to root for and follow. Between the two of them, it starts with their matinee idol mugs radiating body language. Both Supporting Actor Academy Award winners can act with their eyes better than most of their peers and contemporaries can with their entire bodies and voices.

2024, 4 STARS, Home Media, Streaming, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanSeptember 20, 2024Wolfs, Jon Watts, George Clooney, Brad PittComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

When it comes to legacy sequels, as we’ve come to call them, interested audiences often pose the question of whether or not enough was enough the first time around? They ponder if a sequel blowing the dust off of old stories and characters is going to beat a dead horse with embarrassment or uncork a finely aged wine. Matching the same hefty 36 years the Top Gun films savored between installments, time has only added to the legend for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Generations have now stacked together to enjoy the “Ghost with the Most” to the point where unexpected family feels sweeten and soften the pockmarks of the movie’s gnarly surface.

MOVIE REVIEW: Rally Caps

Fans of sports movies know Hollywood loves inflating unknown underdog stories. For example, most folks never heard of the likes of Rudy Ruettiger or Lane Frost before movies like Rudy or 8 Seconds came along to draw cheers and tears. Their success proves it’s not always the size of the legend that always counts. Even so, the grand style of lionizing hero worship is the farthest thing from director Lee Cipolla’s mind.

MOVIE REVIEW: Good Bad Things

The lead actor of Good Bad Things making his feature film debut is Danny Kurtzman. He lives with muscular dystrophy which diminishes most of his physical capabilities. His weakened legs and limited arm strength calls for outside assistance and the required use of a motorized scooter to get around. To say this his and, by extension, his character’s life has challenges is an understatement. Rather than entirely dwell on or define a man by those debilitations, Good Bad Things pleasingly creates a narrative where success and vivacity are not only desirable, but deservedly attainable.

DOCUMENTARY REVIEW: War Game

Sometimes documentaries require homework, where a deeper dive into sources and background information is needed to grasp the chosen subject. On other occasions, the documentaries are precisely the curated homework one needs to get a fuller picture of a topic at hand. Springboarding from the alarming and infamous historical events of January 6, 2021 with an eye towards improvement, the new documentary film War Game can fit both of those inquires characterizing homework.

2024, 4 STARS, DOCUMENTARY REVIEW, Documentary, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanAugust 8, 2024War Game, documentaryComment

MOVIE REVIEW: The Instigators

Consequently, The Insitigators comes off like an unbalanced buddy comedy trying to chirp jokes during a grizzled crime thriller. Sure enough, it’s wonderful seeing Casey Affleck shuck the morose persona he’s been leaning on for the last decade across films to play the loquacious rascal. Unfortunately, he’s all by himself. With known charisma and ability in either of those aforementioned subgenres, Matt Damon feels like a waste of talent to play the unlaughing and tame Rory next to Casey’s Cobby.

2 STARS, 2024, Home Media, MOVIE REVIEW, StreamingDon ShanahanAugust 1, 2024The Instigators, Apple, Apple TV+, Matt Damon, Casey Affleck, Hong ChauComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Peak Season

Underneath all of Peak Season’s natural grandeur is an existential simplicity spun by the two fetching leads. The scenarios and dialogue shared between Restrepo and DeBlasis play out in an unrushed and principled fashion. The kinship between them fleshes itself out sweetly and reverently. In different hands, the Peak Season narrative is a lusty paperback romance. Instead, a cooling and appreciable reality keenly replaces any preposterous whimsy or the temptation to ratchet up unearned or unnecessary torrid passion.

MOVIE REVIEW: Sing Sing

That personal effect achieved through casting is a hell of a thing and one expanded throughout Sing Sing’s storyline. Unlike outside actors trying on characters they’ve researched for a few months in hope of doing them justice, Sing Sing laminates its dramatic license with layer of authentic courage. We’re watching formerly incarcerated men relive experiences from painful years with invigorated expression. By sharing them with the world now through a tribute film, their honor and liberation is multiplied.

2024, 5 STARS, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanJuly 30, 2024Sing Sing, Colman DomingoComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Deadpool & Wolverine

But, here’s the craziest part with that Hollywood hubris and wounded pride. Marvel addresses their overall commercial arrogance and vanity by–get this–using the most arrogant and vain character in their library as a means to go against just about everything they’ve ever done with their branded image. Miraculously, they found their jolt with the gloriously gaudy Deadpool & Wolverine.

MOVIE REVIEW: Before Dawn

In Before Dawn “c’est la guerre” constitutes defeatism because, more often than not, war cannot be helped by the grunts in the dirt holding or pushing a line. These young men who are uttering the phrase halfway around the world from their homes and families have learned the futility of their actions. They say it knowing they are trapped in what they thought would be a heroic quest and a patriotic cause.

MOVIE REVIEW: Twisters

The first-rate visual effects are what folks are paying to see, and they look sharp and incredible with a quarter-century’s advancements in digital capacity. Even greater, the audio mix is what really pins you back, nailing the personified growl and howl given to these fingers of God. Taken together, the swagger and bluster of Twisters returns us back to that sense of stamina and vigor for enduring all things windy. The exhilaration is there if you can take it.