WE LOVE YOU GET UP

"Television gives us teenage lust exercised or teenage lust repressed but rarely does it evoke the way young people translate their carnal urges into something they understand as a deeper abiding affection. My So-Called Life is essentially a study of a young mind processing desire into something less terrifying and more easily justified — substantiating it with false hopes — and in that regard it is more than a good TV show, it is a good TV show that attains the dimension and complexity of literature. The great postwar novels of adolescence deal with innocence lost; My So-Called Life deals with innocence sustained, but it offers a no-less-illuminating view of what it is to be young because of it."

Lost in Space

Smog Power

The general public does not know who Michael Shannon is. And only because she was in virtually every movie in 2011, do they know about Jessica Chastain. Shannon is the driving force behind Jeff Nichols' Take Shelter, a film that received some coverage last year, but not nearly enough. It's been on my to-see list for sometime now and just last night did I get around to it. And boy, it was nearly two hours of brilliant panic.

Shannon plays Curtis, a construction worker plagued by visions of doom. We see his slow decline play out daily through apocalyptic images of an impending storm but it is left to the viewer to decide whether Curtis is falling into the grasp of paranoid schizophrenia, or if there is truth to these visions. He has it all: a job, a wife, a little girl, a dog, a house, a yard. But what happens when this perfect life is disrupted? The idea of loss is obvious throughout most of the film and to believe Curtis is genuinely provident rather than mentally ill is not so far-fetched. He is a calm and practical character and there are moments (and it's so true to say it!) when it is he who appears sane while those who surround him play the fools.