FF+ Bold 2023 Predictions Challenge

In this episode – Don Shanahan of Every Movie Has A Lesson, The Cinephile Hissy Fit Podcast, and Film Obsessive joins me for what we hope is the first of an annual challenge where we make six bold predictions each about the film industry and see who comes closest. We’re taking some big swings here, folks. Let us know what you think!

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Music: Upbeat Party – Scott Holmes Music

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FF+ Hidden Gem Streaming Picks for 2022

In this episode – Don Shanahan of Every Movie Has A Lesson, The Cinephile Hissy Fit Podcast, and Film Obsessive joins me to share some of our favorite underseen films of the year, all of which you can currently find on a streaming service of some kind.

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Aaron

  • The Fallout
  • Facing Monsters
  • My Father’s Dragon
  • Navalny
  • Emergency

Don

  • Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul.
  • Confess, Fletch
  • Foxhole
  • Press Play
  • Good Luck to You, Leo Grande

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Aaron

Patrick

Feelin’ Film

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Music: Upbeat Party – Scott Holmes Music

Rate/Review us on iTunes and on your podcast app of choice! It helps bring us exposure so that we can get more people involved in the conversation. Thank you!

If you like the show you can support us through Paypal. Select the link below and make your one-time or recurring contribution.

FF+ Best Director Future Draft

In this special episode, Aaron is joined by Don Shanahan, Patrick Beatty, and Zoë Rose Bryant for a unique draft. Acting as the fictional head of a new film studio, each competitor drafts a team of directors who they believe will bring their studio the best combination of both awards and box office success over the current decade (2020-2029). Much fun is had and some wild picks are made. Who do you think did the best job? Did we have any glaring omissions? Let us know on social media and be sure to vote in the poll when it goes up a couple of days after this episode releases.

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Feelin’ Film

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Music: Upbeat Party – Scott Holmes Music

Rate/Review us on iTunes and on your podcast app of choice! It helps bring us exposure so that we can get more people involved in the conversation. Thank you!

If you like the show you can support us through Paypal. Select the link below and make your one-time or recurring contribution.

FF+ Thor: Love and Thunder/Most Anticipated Movies for Jul-Dec 2022

On this week’s episode, thoughts on the next crazy adventure for the MCU’s Thor and the new 4K release of an excellent Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt led science fiction film. Also, Don Shanahan from Every Movie Has a Lesson, 25YL, and the Cinephile Hissy Fit Podcast joins me to preview the second half of 2022 and share which upcoming movies have us the most excited.

Thor: Love and Thunder – 0:54

Edge of Tomorrow 4K Disc & Digital – 14:04

Most Anticipated Movies for Jul-Dec 2022 – 19:44

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Aaron

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Feelin’ Film

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Music: Upbeat Party – Scott Holmes Music

Rate/Review us on iTunes and on your podcast app of choice! It helps bring us exposure so that we can get more people involved in the conversation. Thank you!

If you like the show you can support us through Paypal. Select the link below and make your one-time or recurring contribution.

FF+ Alternate Oscars 2016

In this extremely challenging special episode, Aaron, Don Shanahan of Every Movie Has a Lesson and Cinephile Hissy Fit Podcast, and Kevin Brackett of Reel Spoilers Podcast come together to try and “fix” the 89th Academy Awards. Plenty of hard decisions have to be made but great conversation gets us there in the end. Be sure to find us on social media and let us know what you think we got right or wrong.

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Aaron

Patrick

Feelin’ Film

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Music: Upbeat Party – Scott Holmes Music

Rate/Review us on iTunes and on your podcast app of choice! It helps bring us exposure so that we can get more people involved in the conversation. Thank you!

If you like the show you can support us through Paypal. Select the link below and make your one-time or recurring contribution.

FF+ Sports Movie Draft

We are joined by two very special guests, Don Shanahan of Every Movie Has a Lesson and Cinephile Hissy Fit Podcast and Paul Keelan of Cinematic Underdogs Podcast, for a cut throat draft of sports films between four lovers of the genre. Who had the best draft? Be sure to find us on social media or in the Feelin’ Film Facebook Discussion Group and let us know.

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Aaron

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Feelin’ Film

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Music: Upbeat Party – Scott Holmes Music

Rate/Review us on iTunes and on your podcast app of choice! It helps bring us exposure so that we can get more people involved in the conversation. Thank you!

If you like the show you can support us through Paypal. Select the link below and make your one-time or recurring contribution.

What We Learned This Week: November 9-15

LESSON #1: PEER PRESSURE CAN BE EFFECTIVE— With George Lucas long-retired and until James Cameron finally releases that next Avatar epic, the reigning King of Cinematic Hubris remains Christopher Nolan. His ardent activism for physical film will always be commendable, but he is not the “savior” the trades (and himself) tout him to be. Not if he can’t even properly tune his own films and has to hear about it from his peers and contemporaries. More than fans, fellow filmmakers have contacted Nolan about his messy sound mix from Tenet. To me, that’s when you know it’s bad, if you have buddies calling you it. Peer pressure is an effective motivator. Let’s see how it shifts the chip on the king’s shoulder below his self-made crown.

LESSON #2: WISE PEOPLE IN THIS BUSINESS CUT LONG-TERM DEALS— Back in the day, everyone from actors to filmmakers were on studio-exclusive contracts. If Paramount wanted to use a talent controlled by Warner Bros., they had to pay handsomely and vice versa. For the studios, it was winning bidding wars to secure top talent for multiple projects. For the actors, it was securing guaranteed work in an era before they made ungodly money. Somewhere along the way, the movies turned into looser free agency like you see today in baseball where everyone is a mercenary chasing paychecks. 

To see David Fincher sign a four-year deal with Netflix feels old school and a win-win, joining Patty Jenkins on the squad. Netflix nabs a big name for their digital marquees. The Mank filmmaker gets a shingle that pushes for Oscars, far more creative freedom on set, and more guaranteed upfront money than he would chasing box office receipts, especially during a pandemic choking the industry. Don’t believe me or Fincher? Just ask Martin Scorsese. No one else, and I mean no one, in town was going to give him $200+ million to make the geriatric steak buffet that was The Irishman. That epic may not have netted Oscars, but it brought in new subscribers and that’s Netflix’s bottom line.

Netflix is not alone in getting out their checkbook to sign top-shelf creators. Apple TV+ has first-look deals with Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and Alfonso Cuaron. Even if most of those are for TV projects, those are names worth marketing and bragging about for the up-and-coming streaming platform. Is this the death of cinema? No. This is job preservation and squeezing for artistic carte blanche that you normally can’t get.

LESSON #3: DON’T BEAT LIVE HORSES ANYMORE THAN DEAD HORSES— Speaking of David Fincher, he has a long-standing reputation of over-filming many scenes in his directorial career. He’ll go after 50 or more takes in some scenes, the polar opposite of Clint Eastwood being good after one or two. It’s a personal philosophy Fincher has gone on record to explain. Word from the set of Mank, by way of Amanda Seyfried and Gary Oldman, was that the director went for as many as 200 takes on a scene, something that supposedly “cracked” the latter Oscar winner. There is meticulousness and fastidiousness, and then there is exhausting punishment. Dude, I love you, David Fincher. It’s been too long since Gone Girl,but have some workplace efficiency and empathetic professionalism. 

LESSON #4: NOW IS THE TIME TO SEE CITIZEN KANE— Speaking of Mank which is releasing into limited theaters today before debuting on Netflix on December 4th, this week’s final lesson in the usual go-home recommendation slot promotes just a single movie and quite possibly the greatest movie of all-time. To fully absorb and appreciate Fincher’s new movie, you must see Citizen Kane before it, period. If you’ve been putting it off because of its stature or the silly fact it’s old or in black-and-white, swallow hard, pick a day, and get through it. If you call yourself any level of film buff, connossieur, or fan, Orson Welles’ 1941 tour-de-force is required viewing as a cornerstone of visual filmmaking and storytelling techniques that would become the exemplars for decades. Citizen Kane is available now (thank you, JustWatch app) as part of HBO Max or can be rented for $3-4 on most streaming storefronts. If you want to do one better, straight up buy it or borrow any disc version of it from your local library. Seek out the late Roger Ebert’s audio commentary track. That will educate you more on film greatness in two hours than any self-made YouTube ranter or snarky podcast. Rented or bought, the movie is worth every penny and you will thank me for it.


DON SHANAHAN is a Chicago-based and Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic writing on his website Every Movie Has a Lesson. His movie review work is also published on 25YL (25 Years Later), Horror Obsessive, and also on Medium.com for the MovieTime Guru publication.  As an educator by day, Don writes his movie reviews with life lessons in mind, from the serious to the farcical. He is a proud director and one of the founders of the Chicago Independent Film Critics Circle and a member of the nationally-recognized Online Film Critics Society.  As a contributor here on Feelin’ Film now for over two years, he’s going to expand those lessons to current movie news and trends while chipping in with guest spots and co-hosting duties, including the previous “Connecting with Classics” podcasts.  Find “Every Movie Has a Lesson” on Facebook, Twitter, and Medium to follow his work. (#145)