Nick's Flick Picks: The Blog

A film blog under the influence

    NICK DAVIS
    CHICAGO, IL
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The 2012 Chicago Film Festival
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    The Movies of 2012:
  • ★ = Click for my review
  • 136
    Amour A
    Anna Karenina C
    Argo C+
    Barbara B
    The Central Park Five B
    Detropia B
    Django Unchained C
    End of Watch B–
    Flight B–
    Girl Walk // All Day B
    The Guilt Trip C
    Hitchcock D
    The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey C–
    Holy Motors A–
    How to Survive a Plague A–
    Hyde Park on Hudson F
    The Impossible C+
    Life of Pi B+
    Lincoln B+
    The Loneliest Planet B
    The Master B
    Middle of Nowhere B+
    Les Misérables D–
    On the Road C+
    The Perks of Being a Wallflower B+
    Rust and Bone B–
    The Sessions C+
    Silver Linings Playbook C+
    Sister B+
    Skyfall C+
    Starlet A–
    This Is 40 D+
    Zero Dark Thirty B

    Coming Attractions:
    ETA
    Any Day Now Landed
    Promised Land Landed

    Feature Films: 19
    Antiviral B+
    The Bella Vista A–
    Beyond the Hills B–
    Clip B–
    The Final Member B
    Hemel C–
    Holy Motors A–
    Keep the Lights On B
    Like Someone in Love B+
    Mekong Hotel B
    Once Upon a Time Was I, Verônica B–
    Out in the Dark C
    Paradise: Love B+
    Reality B–
    The Repentant B–
    Room 237 D+
    The Three Disappearances of Soad Hosni B
    War Witch B+
    Westerland C–

    More thoughts & info on this fest








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    Most recent screenings in each race;
    multiple nominees appear wherever they scored their most prestigious nod... and yes, that means Actress trumps Actor!

    * Denotes a recent reappraisal

  • Picture Noms % Seen:
  • 85%
  • Crossfire
  • B
  • The Country Girl
  • B–
  • The Emigrants
  • A


  • Director Noms % Seen:
  • 90%
  • Sabrina
  • B–
  • I Want to Live!
  • C
  • The Divine Lady
  • B–


  • Actress Noms % Seen:
  • 100%
  • A Star Is Born ('54)
  • A
  • The Letter ('29)
  • B
  • Splendor in the Grass
  • B+


  • Actor Noms % Seen:
  • 81%
  • Thunderbolt
  • C+
  • When My Baby Smiles at Me
  • B–
  • Life with Father
  • C


  • Sup Actress Noms % Seen:
  • 89%
  • Gaby: A True Story
  • C+
  • The Mating Season
  • B–
  • Ragtime
  • C+


  • Sup Actor Noms % Seen:
  • 80%
  • Trial
  • B–
  • The Luck of the Irish
  • C–
  • The Story of G.I. Joe
  • B+


  • Cinematography Noms % Seen:
  • 60%
  • Earthquake
  • D+
  • The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
  • C+
  • ★ The Abyss
  • B+


  • Screenplay Noms % Seen:
  • 68%
  • The Strange Love of Martha Ivers
  • D
  • The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer*
  • B
  • Boomerang!
  • C+

    Watch this space! Chicago has a new, exciting, important, and totally accessible cadre of queer film critics who are joining forces to bring screenings, special events, and good, queer-focused movie chats to our fair city. Read our mission! Stay tuned for events! Cruise the website, and help get this great new group off the ground by enrolling as a friend (it's free!) and by asking how you can help.


Hot Off the Presses!


Fifty Key American Films ($27/pbk), new from Routledge, edited by Sabine Haenni and John White. Includes my essays on The Wild Party, The Incredibles, and Brokeback Mountain. Intended as both a newcomer's guide to the terrain and a series of short, exploratory essays about such influential works as The Birth of a Nation, His Girl Friday, Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, Taxi Driver, Blade Runner, Daughters of the Dust, and Se7en.


The Cinema of Todd Haynes: All That Heaven Allows ($25/pbk), new from Wallflower Press, and distributed in the USA by Columbia University Press. Includes the essay "'The Invention of a People': Velvet Goldmine and the Unburying of Queer Desire" by Nick Davis. More, too, on Poison, Safe, Far From Heaven, and all the rest of Haynes' films by Alexandra Juhasz, Marcia Landy, Todd McGowan, James Morrison (ed.), Anat Pick, and other scholars. "A collection as intellectually and emotionally generous as Haynes' films" —Patricia White, Swarthmore College


Film Studies: The Basics ($14/pbk), new from Routledge. Award-winning film scholar and teacher Amy Villarejo finally gives us the quick, smart, reader-friendly guide to film vocabulary that every teacher, student, and movie enthusiast has been waiting for, as well as a one-stop primer in the past, present, and future of film production, exhibition, circulation, and theory. Great glossary, wide-ranging examples, and utterly unpretentious prose that is nonetheless rigorous in its analysis; the book commits itself at every turn to the artistry, politics, and accessibility of cinema.



    Previous Posts

  • Birthday Invite to Matthew Eng
  • Please, Please Judge This Book By Its Cover
  • Live-Blogging the 2012 Academy Awards
  • Picking Favorites: An Oscar Retrospective
  • 2012 Oscar Class: When I Loved Them Best
  • Live-Blogging the 2012 Golden Globes
  • 2012 Oscar Nomination Predictions (Updated, Again)...
  • Making a List, Checking It Obsessively
  • A Sit-Down with Saint Joan
  • Love Will Never Do (Without These): Fall and Winte...

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