Movie reviews of Don Shanahan

Blame the script for too many clunker scenes like these. Review

Marcel the Shell With Shoes On is emphatically wholesome to no end. Revealing so much wonderment in plain domesticity, this movie decorates the micro-ordinary in wildly unique ways worth celebrating. Review

The desired shift towards what the film’s title calls for and the pound of flesh required to fill it is inadequate and unmoving, especially from the filmmaker that crushed us with similar goals in Calvary. Review

Without the peppy energy and alluring vibe of these songs, the draw of the movie’s romance goes nowhere. Take a chance on this one. You will find something for your eyes and ears to love. Review

Go ahead, Baz. Keep on singing your loud and ostentatious filmmaking songs with all their pizazz. From mediocre to great, Elvis’s songs live on. So will Luhrmann’s. Review

Playing like an intimate single-set stage production, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande is built on the comfort and discomfort that come from conversation. The romantic circumstances that bring the two main characters of this film together color its tone and move the sliding scale of easement. Review

When you read the thumbnail summary of Saunders’ short story and get hints at the stakes and bleakness of this creative puzzle, the feelings of missed opportunities grow. Review

Lightyear is better off burning its own engines to be taut and unique. The movie stands tall as a valuable universe expansion that certainly beats another Disney “reimagining” or unnecessary legacy sequel (yeah, I’m talking to you, Toy Story 4). For old and new Toy Story and family adventure fans alike, this is worthwhile dream fulfillment and highly exciting entertainment. Review

When they flirt close to trying, or at least consider the notion of better paper towels, these scripts devolve back to the same spills and thrills we’ve seen over and over. Ian Malcolm said it best. It’s all unchecked avarice. Review

As softly as it does, The Time Capsule successfully conveys that level of contemplation in a wholly endearing way. Review

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