The Catch-Up: Links While You Wait

The late winter dumping ground is filled with the desiccated corpses of many a delayed/flawed theatrical release.  Though I’ve managed to get out and review a few new films, curling up with a good DVD tends to be a better option this time of year.  But that doesn’t mean our Internet fun has to stop.  Here’s what I’ve been up to recently in non-Amblog related venues:

- The short film nominees for Academy Awards are criminally underseen, despite improved efforts in recent years to release them publicly in back-to-back, arthouse-friendly programs.  My Screen Invasion piece, Oscar Nominated Short Films: Predicting the Winners, should help you get a handle on some of the trickier categories in your Oscar pool...and hopefully inspire you to seek out the films!

- Screen Invasion also sends me DVD screeners to review from time to time.  Checking the mailbox has never been so scintillating.  My latest reviews for the inspiring Lithuanian basketball documentary The Other Dream Team and the Tyler Perry-as-tough-cop thriller Alex Cross are online now.  I liked one of them much more than the other...

- Attending the Stanley Kubrick exhibit at LACMA was a pleasantly surreal experience for many reasons, from forgetting that I had seen a similar installation at Paris’ Cinémathèque Française in 2011 to the sighting of noted cinephiles Josh Duhamel and Fergie.  If you’re a film buff in or near Los Angeles, you owe it to yourself to see it: far just dropping a bunch of movie props into a gallery, the curators have perfectly contexualized Kubrick’s work within the traditions of fine art.  (Bonus: Don’t miss the installation that’s just an excuse to put an awesome Hot Wheels track in an art museum...)

- Finally, a reminder to follow me on Twitter (@AmblerAmblog), which is more active now that I’m experimenting with more than just links to reviews.  A recent attempt to live-tweet a viewing of the Fatal Attraction-aping domestic potboiler Obsessed resulted in a half-dozen half-inebriated musings that I’m half-proud of!