Movie reviews of Don Shanahan

If anything, Trolls keeps growing and evolving with its audience. Review

Like the main character, The Killer and David Fincher unfurl a mercilessness honed of precision that is as impressive as it is disturbing. It is a movie that stalks its prey and you. Review

Thanks to heart-pumping peril and committed performances, Nyad evokes maximum inspiration possible. Review

Some of the greatest enjoyment of The Marvels comes from the three screenwriters playing wildly with an otherworldly version of the screwball body-swap movie plot device. Review

Priscilla is likely not trying to make apologies, sugarcoat, protect, sanitize, or hide the sordid truth from the matriarch’s own memoir, but maybe, just maybe, it was too soft. That likely falls on Sofia more than Priscilla herself. Review

Killers of the Flower Moon does not create sweep for its compelling history, lift a credible romance for an emotional anchor, or even formulate fearful evil to resonate with an audience. It breaks no new ground and settles on being an actor’s showcase for two titans who didn’t need the help. Review

There’s a creative slightness that does not escalate a trippy premise that needed some additional atmosphere. Review

The Burial merges these intersecting pushes and pulls into a tightly composed picture that checks all the boxes. Review

A film like Black White and the Greys shows that money doesn’t matter if passion and honesty exist for the story to tell. Thurman and Nelson have something truly special here that is as profound as it is painful. Review

About half of Saturday Night Inside Out is a simplistic quest towards the next drink or next joint. It’s living fairly in its moment and saving itself for the end. Yet, a movie like this could have used one more gear of energy akin to something like Swingers to raise the rooting interest and measurable excitement level for what the viewer feels could be coming. Review

Phoebe Dynevor, though, is the real find. Perfect for that prescribed mindset, Dynevor is unflinching to the task in just her third feature film. Keep an eye on her career. She’s going places. Review

This is a singular piece of original science fiction made for a manageable price with minority representation and solid world-building that is thankfully not interested in exhaustive sequels or franchises. Review

Even before it makes it to its “run through lightning with your dick out” metaphor, this pandemic time capsule stands tall as a sure-fire message movie for its time. Review

While the character evolution to lean on and bend stereotypes in Outlaw Johnny Black is admirable, that course saps the fun, satirical approach possible within Minns and White’s screenplay. Review

There’s not a second where this film’s heart is not in the right place, and this school teacher will take these submissions every chance he gets. Review

Any murder, at its garden variety face value, should be frightening enough, but A Haunting in Venice twists the knife further. Review

Matching Love and Mercy, Dreamin’ Wild celebrates private victories of redemption with a higher focus of importance than any adjacent public victories of fandom and popularity. Review

By walking past the more provocative potential tangents, The Pod Generation respectfully picks its intimate path and still melds a unifying empathy that only a new child can impose. Review

With this tug-of-war going on between downer failure and perky possibilities, Shortcomings is an stellar showcase for its cast of lively performers. Review

No matter where allegiances sway, the shell game of evidence disposal and blame-dodging in this ingenious flip-flopping character study is a gleeful little hoot to watch. Review

Even with all of its impressive pomp and noise, nothing dramatically radioactive is going to ping your internal Geiger counter higher than a nominal level. And that, like Dunkirk and Tenet before this, is another missed opportunity from one of the best filmmakers in the industry. Review

Max Gold does not put the same energy into the romance of it all when that should have the capability of speeding up the heart as much as the scares. Review

Whether it’s imperfection, ingrained inclusiveness, finding one’s independence, supporting feminism, or wavering imagination that comes with age, the life lessons flow out of Gerwig’s impressive and priceless film with unbridled creativity. Review

Removing mountains of fluff, it is highly appreciable to see the heavy emotions matched by bottomless empathy forged here in Tiger Within. Keep mentoring movies like this one coming. Review