Movie reviews of Don Shanahan

The sequel, even when it gets borderline over-the-top with its heroics, takes those personal stakes and adds off-the-charts courage and towering wisdom from cemented experience. Review

For all that, they stayed true to their personal soft spots while having the confidence to twist every amalgamation they could to make something alert, reverential, and most surprisingly, amusing. Review

The script has its set pieces of man-out-of-their-time gags of cringe comedy and big dance numbers set to a booming soundtrack, but underlays them with plenty of comparative character development moments that frame who enables and who evolves among the who and what of people and things that really matter. Review

Like a young Robert Rodriguez, for Jack Fessenden to write, edit, score, direct, and ferment this moral base into Foxhole as solid as it turns out is extremely impressive. Review

To its credit and nicely lifted by music by Beach House and a peppy soundtrack, Along for the Ride is a positive story for connections built on trust and friendship first and attraction second. Review

Sure, Feige’s hits will keep on coming, granted by the good graces earned as the czar of this expanding vision. However, at what point will these otherworldly paths, constructed in a funhouse made of more disposable buzz than intriguing mirrors, become more exhausting than exciting, especially considering this current entertainment marketplace where leaks, spoilers, and over-promotion reign supreme to reduce the surprises? Review

Trying to still paint a plucky love story with those problematic and preachy platforms looming, even if they are warranted, is borderline grueling at times. Review

The balance of unhinged fun and important personal destinies are well-blended in That Night and more than hold audience attention. Review

Tsang avoids those tropes and temptations. She keenly shows that the only fulfillment necessary is right there at the family level and the corresponding bonded friendships. No good graces are forced while still being entirely earned. Review

All of that artistry and curation steeps a hot pot of nostalgia that goes down easier than chamomile tea. Linklater is known for his “hang out” movies, and that is precisely the vibe he creates. Review

Through it all, Father Stu stays reasonably tight to the true story with some molding for dramatic license and condensement. Review

As overtly weird as Everything Everywhere All at Once looks and feels, there is certifiably something for everyone, confident or cautious, to love about this movie. Review

With no modern punch, his sluggishness shows. Composer Marco Beltrami, known for tension and injections of experimental instrumentation, mails in one of the most basic and uneventful scores of recent memory. Review

Fresh could have very easily devolved into a sloppy mess of body horror and ditzy damsels in distress, but Cave and Kahn’s exaggerated and sharpened appraisal of the modern dating scene led by tough femininity is what makes Fresh as noteworthy as it is surreal. Review

From these sensational emotions and the relatable wish fulfillment in the premise is where Ryan Reynolds brings himself to another place. His rapid fire humor was never going to be absent in The Adam Project, as evident by the ball-busting hot potato game of jokes he shares with Scobell and Ruffalo at many points in the movie. Review

In conceiving and crafting this journey thick with symbolism, they are expressing cultural viewpoints with confident mouthpieces and vibrant digital paint brushes. They represent many welcome female and ethnic firsts for Pixar while still matching the studio’s tried-and-true ability to create approachable, entertaining, and poignant analogies for hefty topics. Review

The nit-pickers and flag-planting loyalists will be missing a damn good movie. The Batman has the teeth to impress any of the opposition and eat their hearts out in the process. Review

While Family Squares is respectfully dedicated to all those who have lost someone during this awful pandemic, Laing’s movie allows us some much-needed, profanity-laced laughs. Playing out a dramedy fitting and formed by our current plight, the movie can be seen as a future time capsule for our shared mini-era. Not all the tangents work or are worthwhile, but the salute to collective solidarity is there. Review

The movie is laser-focused on this one mom and her one kid with very little respect extended to the fullness of the event or larger issue. Review

Even with that risky deviation, the fanciful softness makes it very easy to fall in love with the menagerie on display. Review

With the origin story out of the way, maybe they can unshackle their marquee star and get into some real danger. To do that, they need to start with spitting out all the bubble gum. Review

It’s not that the sideshow antics are overly mean-spirited from characters we’re set to like. They are just not as interesting or funny, wasting too much of Scott Eastwood’s handsomeness and Gina Rodriguez’s untapped hilarity. Review

Minamata barely scratched the surface of the voluminous possible details. Peripheral activity was condensed to give Depp the spotlight. Review

For the leads, their characters and performances are missing that next level of swoon. Charismatic as they may be tip-toeing closer to each other with earnest courtship, neither Lopez or Wilson in Marry Me produce a signature moment of attraction that destroys weakened knees or collapses captured hearts. Review