MOVIE REVIEW: Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning

From “living manifestation of destiny” to “mind-reading, shape-shifting incarnation of chaos,” the pedestal positioning of Ethan Hunt—and therefore Tom Cruise—playing him has only gotten taller and taller, much like the heights the actor scales with his stunts. Here, at the announced finishing chapter of Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning of the now-iconic character enduring nearly thirty years in our cinematic lives, we’ve witnessed the progression of him as a top spy with more lives than a litter of cats to something far more starry and radiant.

MOVIE REVIEW: Nonnas

Yet, all the while, we find ourselves pining to spend more time with the venerable ladies in Nonnas. They deserve a happy ending as much as Joe, and both history and the movie grant them a lovely one. With a marinade of humor and a dash of spiritual Catholic contrition, Chbosky and Maccie find the meaningful meat behind the fluff for a welcome crowd pleaser. Come hungry and leave full, with Billy Joel appropriately sending you out.

2025, MOVIE REVIEW, StreamingDon ShanahanMay 8, 2025Nonnas, Vince VaughnComment

MOVIE REVIEW: The Trouble With Jessica

There’s a compelling playfulness in The Trouble with Jessica where viewers’ rooting interests are worked like a seesaw. At certain junctures, we question who the true victim or victims are. We might even want our present party to get away with this dangerous little ruse. By the same token, other revelations tilt us to want to see their noses rubbed in shamefulness, guilt, and remorse. Like any sure-handed cinematic riddle, Matt Winn keeps pushing the teeter-totter at the right times, dropping question marks all the way until the end.

MOVIE REVIEW: Thunderbolts*

Even if there are fleeting bits of decent togetherness from the losers, Thunderbolts* is a meta image reclamation project going for no more than light applause, and it shows. By embracing the jokes of being jokes themselves, it all too often still becomes or stays a joke. Thunderbolts* goes to show that when you make something about cheap heroes, you get a cheap return.

2025, 2 STARS, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanApril 29, 2025Thunderbolts, Marvel Cinematic UniverseComment

MOVIE REVIEW: The Legend of Ochi

To say it most simply, The Legend of Ochi is a go-out-and-get-dirty movie. It is a methodical trek of a self-reliant kid left to their own devices, though none of them are of the smart or touchscreen varieties. Emanating from its very foreign, rustic setting, seemingly light on modern amenities, this is a no-tech, rocky, mossy, and muddy fairy tale that most studios don’t make anymore. Go ahead and call it a lost art.

2025, MOVIE REVIEW, 4 STARS, Independent FilmDon ShanahanApril 26, 2025The Legend of Ochi, Willem Dafoe, Helena Zengel, Finn Wolfhard, A24, Fairy talesComment

MOVIE REVIEW: On Swift Horses

Normally, one confidential love affair is all a movie needs to emphasize and feature to get that desired effect. Based on Shannon Pufahl’s 2019 page-turner, On Swift Horses dangles as many as four. While promiscuity or parallel threads do not have to be frowned upon from a movie standpoint, four dangling possibilities prove too many for veteran television director Daniel Minahan stepping up to feature films.

2024, 2025, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanApril 24, 2025On Swift Horses, Daisy Edgar-Jones, Jacob Elordi, Diego Calva, Sasha Calle, Will PoulterComment

MOVIE REVIEW: The Wedding Banquet

For a movie remake not to be seen as a sign of creative bankruptcy or lazy nostalgia bait, the new film has to offer something new. Do the borrowed themes and storylines fit the current times after the passing years since the original? That begs the more important question: Is there something substantive or new to say that’s worth updating? The new rendition of The Wedding Banquet adamantly answers those questions positively.

SHORT FILM REVIEW: Death is Business

As a short film, Death is Business dips its toe into the seedy underworld of murder-for-hire. For the specific and highly coordinated type of crime being committed on screen, the toe being dipped isn’t coming out explicitly bloody. It may even look stylishly clean, but make no mistake, there is an unchecked dirtiness clinging to the extremities. With an intellectual meticulousness matching its felonious acts, Dirty Business puts diabolic impetuses under an intriguing microscope.

MOVIE REVIEW: Sinners

Ryan Coogler gives everything an important story, and, in the end, that concentration matters most. Steeped in all of these mythos and even more unmentioned sublayers of symbolism and imagery curated by a fleet of hired cultural consultants and their seals of approval, Sinners becomes grander and more profound than simply a sandbox genre experiment answering silly Hollywood pitches like “Black people versus vampires.” This filmmaker is above that nonsense

MOVIE REVIEW: Darkest Miriam

Remember, there are no class or social delineations in public libraries. Libraries are shared spaces for a myriad of quirky topics and people. They’ll welcome everyone from a refined consumer of academic privilege to a homeless denizen trying to buy time out of the elements with an available bathroom for unmet basic needs. Manning their posts and maintaining the materials and facilities, imagine the odd stuff librarians see, encounter, circumvent, reconcile, and clean.

2025, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEW, 2 STARSDon ShanahanApril 14, 2025Darkest Miriam, Britt Lower, Tom MercierComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Sacramento

On the surface with this plight of male buddies, Sacramento may look like a poor man’s A Real Pain which just earned Kieran Culkin the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Happily, by staying stateside and smaller in its aims, Angarano’s film has an entirely zestier vibe. These are two men who, simply put, need to chill, and the stakes and environment reflect that.

MOVIE REVIEW: Warfare

When a movie like Warfare enters a concluded historical period, such as the Iraqi front of the War on Terror from nearly 20 years ago, some viewers will curiously require the film to have a “stance” on said war. Those captious people—looking down their noses with 20/20 hindsight to relitigate the past—are going to be disappointed with Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland, and falsely so.