Movie reviews of Don Shanahan

Fighting with My Family greatly succeeds in showcasing how good success stories like hers are everywhere on the WWE roster and woven into the history of its not-so-little-anymore cottage industry. Review

Peter Hutchings’ comedy Then Came You presents romance entangled by terminal illness. That topic seeped in gallows humor is far from new territory, meaning this is not a very deep film. Review

A parade of entertaining animation surprises to go with all the underlying human complexion construction at work. Review

Somewhere along the way, this lavish project needed some course correction before finishing. Review

The languishing pace of Glass keeps the Samuel L. Jackson burn down to mere smolders and the Bruce Willis fortitude stuck in placid ponds for too long until business picks up. Review

The winsome and touching delights spreading from the remembrances and respect found here in Stan & Ollie make for amiable and meaningful engagement. Review

Swells to include multiple layers of love that even become titles for tracks on Britell’s soundtrack. Spreading against many contexts, the religious agape, sensual eros, and brotherly philia all merge with Baldwin’s optimistic sensibilities for themes that go deeper and wider than simplistic other sagas. Review

His mumbles rumble as Bale takes the groused character movements and creates a searing performance. Review

The charming zeal of this revisionist prequel stands as the beacon signal to welcome back those who wrote this series off (including this very writer) years ago. Review

A bona fide comic book adventure with all the proper melodrama, pathos, heroics, and world-building amplified to a fantasy level of the highest order. Review

A love letter to bowling alleys. Review

In the end, the boredom and dryness still dominate to blast away chances for connection like buckshot through a targeted pigeon’s feathers and flesh. Review

Viscerally and emotionally, this cinematic exercise of harrowing gratitude is a transcendent experience... Review

Each of the three story chapters glow with the many tints of diversity and affluence in Rogers Park. The vibes of every talk and every walk feel genuine and absorbing. Review

Their rising and falling tensions are shrewdly and sharply written by Möller and TV writer Emil Nygaard Albertsen. Their unforgiving suspense create an engrossing and choking mood of unknown and mounting dread. The Guilty is as smooth and taut of a 85-minute feature as you’ll see, no matter the language. Review

Soaked in pugilistic blood, fervent sweat, and warranted tears, Creed II is comfortably ingrained big screen entertainment. Review

Wields an effeminate brawn and sly intelligence working to stoke a masterful slow burn. The film’s bold gravity constricts us wonderfully for one of the most visceral crime films of recent memory and one of the best films of 2018. Review

A phenomenal and ferocious lead performance from Rosamund Pike... Review

Rami Malek and the film thrive when the volume is turned up and the microphones are on. It withers when it stifles that provocative heat. Allowing something this hot to go lukewarm is a cinematic crime. Review

Featuring a fabulous performance of floundering from Melissa McCarthy, Can You Ever Forgive Me? is a cheeky yet contemplative biopic of a struggling artist... Review

You will be racking your brain on these notions. You will also end up valuing the time and challenge of this film. Review

A salaciously scathing and hilarious black comedy for the #NotMyPresident era of thumb-biting insults we Americans sling to choose sides around here. Review

Bracingly honest with its turns and barriers built by emotional wallop. The remarkable performances of Carell and Chalamet deserve the credit for that impact. Review

To its great credit, the merciless edge of Loving Pablo rejects forced cinematic sugar-coating overused in other crime films to romanticize its leviathans. Review