Media Junkie

AMC Best Picture Showcase 2012 - Day One Recap

It's that time of year again!  The time when film fanatics quibble over Oscar nominations and gather at their local AMC Theater for their annual Best Picture Showcase, a two-day event that gives attendees a chance to see all the films nominated by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for Best Picture.

Last year's event was the first time I'd attended, and despite a few problems with the quality of the prints shown, it was such a blast that it is now a yearly tradition for my friend Chris and I.  The AMCBPS is an awesome event for movie buffs, even if we don't agree with the Academy's choices. 

Unlike last year, I hadn't seen a single one of the nine pictures nominated for Best Picture.  This not only made me more anxious to see everything for the first time, but it levels the playing field a bit since I haven't had weeks or months to digest a particular film and develop a bias towards it. Sadly, part of the reason I haven't seen any of the films nominated is that I had no interest in half of them to begin with, but you never know when a surprise - good or bad - might be in store when it comes to movies.

Required Viewing: Take Shelter

Take Shelter
Sony Pictures Classics
121 minutes
2011
R

Oscar nominations are always controversial.  There are always films, directors, actors, and actresses that get snubbed.  It comes with the territory when there are so many films that come out in a given year.  There is, perhaps, no greater injustice at this year's Oscars than overlooking Michael Shannon for his performance in Take Shelter.  Probably best known for his work as Agent Nelson van Alden in HBO's Boardwalk Empire, Shannon gives a tour de force performance as psychologically troubled everyman, Curtis LaForche, in this gripping character drama.
 
Take Shelter is only the second feature film from director Jeff Nichols, but it has garnered much critical acclaim.  It's an odd film in many ways, being both incredibly slow but also incredibly interesting.  Not a moment passed where I found myself anything less than completely invested.  It defies many genre classifications.  It's most certainly a drama, but there are elements of horror and psychological thriller films.  There's a strong family element, and an apocalyptic theme.  I'll spare myself the trouble of identifying it by genre and simply call it spellbinding.

Required Viewing: We Need To Talk About Kevin

We Need To Talk About Kevin
Artifical Eye
112 minutes
2011 (Cannes Premiere)/2012 (Limited Release)
R

Upon concluding my first viewing of director Lynne Ramsay's We Need To Talk About Kevin, based on the book of the same name, there was only one thought in my head: What in the world is wrong with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences?!  How this film did not get nominated for Best Picture is beyond all logic and comprehension.  I understand that all art and entertainment is subjective, and I may not be a professional film critic - just a guy who has seen a lot of movies - but my knowledge of what it takes to make a good film is, I like to think, not inconsiderable.
 
How can it be that a picture with such amazingly haunting performances, incredible cinematography, and even brilliant use of licensed music went completely unnoticed?  I understand how the Academy works when it votes on Best Picture.  I know the logistics of how the nominees are chosen, but what I don't understand is how the hell this movie didn't make it on more members' lists.  Was Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close that much better in the eyes of the people who vote, despite the fact it received a lukewarm response from professional critics?
 
What we have here is a travesty.  We Need To Talk About Kevin is one of the most disturbing, gut-wrenching films I've ever seen.  It's a horror film for people who don't like horror films - not loaded with blood and gore or supernatural entities, but a truly terrifying, cold-blooded monster with seemingly no remorse: a teenage boy.

Required Viewing: The Ides of March

The Ides of March
Columbia Pictures
R
101 minutes
2011

It's not uncommon for political thrillers to come out around election season.  With politics and a potential shift in leadership on the minds of the American people, it makes films like The Ides of March that much more relevant.

The Ides of March is a film about the dirty game that is politics, and what it requires to play.  It mainly follows the story of campaign managers working for prospective Presidential candidates and features an ensemble cast, comprised of some of the most supremely talented veterans in the business, any of whom are capable of carrying a picture on their own. 

Required Viewing: Drive

Drive
FilmDistrict
R
100 minutes
2011

Now that this year's Oscar nominations are out, the dissenting can begin.  The discussion over which films were snubbed is in full swing, and if there's one film that deserves to be on every list, it's Drive.
 
Originally imagined as a blockbuster, Drive is instead an indepedent, extremely stylish noir picture that borrows elements of classic heist films, car chase flicks, violent action movies, and character-driven dramas and melds them together into something completely unique.  Drive is a deceptively complex film with multi-layered characters, and a technical marvel in the hands of director Nicolas Winding Refn and cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel.  An equal amount of credit must be doled out to screenwriter Hossein Amini, and of course, the cast who bring the characters to life.

In Print: Magician: The Author's Preferred Edition

Magician: The Author's Preferred Edition
by Raymond E. Feist
Doubleday
681 pages
First Published: 1992 (this edition)

In 1993, Sierra On-line subsidiary Dynamix released a game based on Raymond E. Feist's popular fantasy novels set in the fictional world of Midkemia.  This game, the computer RPG Betrayal at Krondor, was critically hailed for its unique gameplay, large world, and most of all, its enthralling story.  Though Feist himself had little hand in writing the game's story, it was later canonized in the novel Krondor: The Betrayal, while the game itself remains one of the best examples of the genre, as well as one of my all-time personal favorites.
 
Because of my devotion and love for Betrayal at Krondor, I purchased the first two books in Feist's Riftwar Saga, Magician: Apprentice and Magician: Master in my early teens, at the height of my interest in fantasy books and Dungeons & Dragons campaigning.  I must admit, I failed at grasping Magician.  While Feist's Midkemia had been built as an alternative, thus was obviously somewhat inspired by, Dungeons & Dragons-based worlds, it was vastly different in style to the beloved Dragonlance books I had been weened on.
 
Instead of the action-packed high fantasy of Dragonlance was a more subdued work, heavily infused with politics.  Despite the book's title, its main character, the young squire Pug, only used his magical abilities once during my time with Apprentice.  It wasn't long before the long-winded political discussions and overall lethargic pace of the novel bored me and I put it on my shelf, thinking perhaps I'd revisit it someday.

Much like Tolkien's seminal Lord of the Rings, Feist's publisher had insisted on splitting the extremely large novel into two smaller books.  After they proved financially and critically successful, Feist revisited Magician many years later, adding in some deleted text that appeared in the European editions, but was excised in the United States, and making it a singular work once more.  It may have seemed a self-defeating prophecy to attempt to read an even longer version of a book I couldn't finish years earlier, but this Author's Preferred Edition sparked my interest in Feist anew and I finally decided to give Magician a second chance.

Movie Review: The House of the Devil

The House of the Devil
Dark Sky Films/Glass Eye Pix
R
95 Minutes
2009

As a product of the eighties, I have a special appreciation for writer/director Ti West's The House of the Devil.  Here is an independent horror film that is made to look and feel like the slow-burn/big-payoff horror films of decades past, and it succeeds admirably.  It's ironic that by going back several decades makes the movie feel fresher than the modern schlock that passes for horror these days.  It's not for everyone, but those who grew up in the early days of John Carpenter will likely find themselves reminiscing about the good old days by the time it's through.

 

Required Viewing: The Grey

The Grey
Open Road Films
R
117 Minutes
2012

The wonderful thing about art is that it speaks to everyone differently.  Songs, films, paintings, poems - what may be solely entertaining, or not at all, to some could be profound to someone else.  Such was the case when I saw The Grey.

The trailers make it seem like an edge-of-your-seat thriller about men trapped in the Alaskan wilderness, fighting to stay alive against deadly cold and even more deadly ravenous wolves, and it certainly is that at times.  However, The Grey is so much more than an action-adventure film.  In truth, it has more in common with horror films and character-based dramas that elevates it to something transcendant for me.

CD Review: The Envy Corps - It Culls You

The Envy Corps
It Culls You
Self-Released
2011

Buy This Album

It was a long time coming - three years since their last full-length, with only one EP in between - but Iowa's The Envy Corps have finally returned with their third LP, It Culls You, available digitally now with physical releases in October. 

The good news is the band has used the long hiatus to craft a worthy successor to 2008's Dwell, one of my favorite records of that year.  It Culls You is generally more atmospheric, more electronic, and moodier than Dwell, but it's almost as impressive.

In Print: Bioshock: Rapture

Bioshock: Rapture
by John Shirley
Tor Books
432 Pages
First Published: 2011

2K Games' Bioshock is one of the strongest examples of how the medium of video games can be used to tell intriguing, meaningful stories.  Creative director Ken Levine's tale of the dangers of objectivism, a self-serving philosophy outlined by the controversial and polarizing author Ayn Rand in novels such as Atlas Shrugged, in a city built under the sea is original and provocative, and deals with complex moral dilemmas seldom found in the medium. 

Rapture, the undersea would-be utopia built by industrial mogul Andrew Ryan, is a fascinating place, and the game's breathtaking visuals bring it to life even in its declining state.  Noted author John Shirley attempts to capture the rise and fall of Rapture in this prequel, but it doesn't entirely survive the shift in mediums.