Don Shanahan

Chicago

Film Critic, Content Supervisor, and Host, Cinephile Hissy Fit Podcast at 25YL

Founder and Writer at Every Movie Has a Lesson

🍅-approved Critic and Editor-in-Chief at @FilmObsessive_ HOST: @CinephileFit; VOTER: @CriticsChicago @CriticsChoice @NAFilmCritic @ofcs

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Articles

Nora Dances and Inspires in Its Daydreams

1 week ago | filmobsessive.com | Don Shanahan

The title character in Nora, played by writer-director Anna Campbell of You, Me & Her, is a middle-aged mother who finds herself needing to step up to fuller parental responsibilities. Her daughter, Sadie, is beginning kindergarten. Even though she gets a little bit of empty nest, “treat yourself” freedom while the kid is at school, Nora is still overwhelmed and out of her element.
Sinners Sends the Cinephile Hissy Fit to Church

2 weeks ago | filmobsessive.com | Don Shanahan

The hosts of the Cinephile Hissy Fit podcast, sponsored and supported by the Ruminations Radio Network, have often encountered greatness as its happening. The new works of special filmmakers find ways to stand out and announce their presence as burgeoning or established masters. Those directors create the reputation to become necessary appointment viewing whenever a new film is released, hype be damned or not.
Fountain of Youth Finds a Dry Well for Adventure

2 weeks ago | filmobsessive.com | Don Shanahan

At the center of the new Apple Studios streaming film, Fountain of Youth, is a pair of argumentative siblings played by the headlining duo of John Krasinski and Natalie Portman. A union between People magazine’s reigning “Sexiest Man Alive” and the Black Swan Academy Award winner—aging wonderfully in their mid-40s—boasts an intriguing charisma match.
The Kiss Is a Melodrama of Pity

2 weeks ago | filmobsessive.com | Don Shanahan

The Kiss (Kysset), the most recent film from Oscar-winning Danish director Bille August, a two-time Palme d’Or recipient, has finally arrived in limited theaters for North American audiences. Set during the onset of World War I in August’s native country of Denmark, The Kiss is adapted from novelist Stefan Zweig’s 1939 book Beware of Pity. Thematically, that titular emotion of pity from the source material courses through this film’s every vein.
Ghost Casts Its Spell Over the Cinephile Hissy Fit

3 weeks ago | filmobsessive.com | Don Shanahan

The hosts of the Cinephile Hissy Fit podcast, sponsored and supported by the Ruminations Radio Network, talk often in sidebars on their episodes how much they wholeheartedly miss the film scene of the 1990s. Movie tickets were cheaps, budgets were manageable, new hits were fun to discover, and originality across all sorts of film genres was everywhere.
Mission: Impossible -- The Final Reckoning Explodes with Action

3 weeks ago | filmobsessive.com | Don Shanahan

With each new escalating entry in the Mission: Impossible franchise, the orotund and descriptive words used by supporting characters to describe Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt get better and more severe every time.
Nonnas Feeds Your Heart With Endearing Talent

4 weeks ago | filmobsessive.com | Don Shanahan

Most folks scrolling by Nonnas on Netflix this weekend will see Vince Vaughn front and center as the headliner and have a moment of memory to ask themselves, “Gosh, when was the last time I’ve seen Vince Vaughn in a movie?” For most who keep their pulse on cinema, the answer is probably five years ago with his surprise 2020 horror-comedy hit Freaky alongside rising star Kathryn Newton. They might tap on his bio next, see that Vince is now 55 years old, and then ask what does he have left?
The Iron Giant Moves the Cinephile Hissy Fit Podcast

1 month ago | filmobsessive.com | Don Shanahan

The hosts of the Cinephile Hissy Fit podcast, sponsored and supported by the Ruminations Radio Network, are two school teachers who appreciate animated films that have meaningful value to the students and families they serve. There’s a lot of mindless fluff out there, where sometimes quality is hard to find.
The Trouble With Jessica Rubs Our Noses in Question Marks

1 month ago | filmobsessive.com | Don Shanahan

While The Trouble with Jessica opens on the middle-aged married London couple Sarah and Tom, played by Bridget Jones series mainstay Shirley Henderson and voice actor supreme Alan Tudyk, and their well-appointed home that will stand as the setting for most of the film, the intrigue does not begin until the arrival of the title character. Longtime TV star Indira Varma plays Jessica, a successful author of mild repute.
Thunderbolts* Is a Cheap Return of Castoffs

1 month ago | filmobsessive.com | Don Shanahan

The treat and conceit of the new Marvel movie Thunderbolts* and its source late 1990s comic book is watching villains trying to go straight and come together as a team. They’re being thrust into service because of the silly asterisk included in the film’s title indicating that “.” So, what does it look like to see born losers and ne’er-do-wells dripping with anti-hero egos used in this way?