Eagerly anticipating this week ... (5-24)

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7/12/2015

Take Shelter (2011) or, Madness in Ohio



1 Time Film Excess Nominee:

Best Digital Effects (lost to Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol)

A curiosity-inspiring poster for Jeff Nichols' Take Shelter

QUICK REVIEW:

In the middle of flat Ohio, our worker protagonist Curtis begins seeing storms and bird omens that no-one else sees. His mother's history of mental illness haunts, but he is very aware of it and attends treatments himself. - Still he starts building a storm cellar in the garden.

Michael Shannon (The Iceman (2012)) is an unusual actor with a keen ability for the psychologically unstable portrait. In Take Shelter, however, the portrait is naively written with more than one weak motivation. There's also simply too much to dislike about the characters here in the second feature by writer-director Jeff Nichols (Shotgun Stories (2007)).
The effects are dashing in an otherwise slightly dull apocalyptic scenario psychological drama.

Related reviews:

2012 in films - according to Film Exces (UPDATED I) 
Jeff NicholsMud (2012) - Career-defining, electric Americana
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]  





Watch the trailer for the film here

Cost: 5 mil. $
Box office: 3 mil. $
= Huge flop
[Take Shelter succeeded in becoming something of a critics' darling: Premiering in Sundance, it went on to win prizes in Cannes, Deauville American Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival and Zurich Film Festival. It was only released in the US in LA and NY, where it earned 1.7 mil. $ (57 % of the total gross). Roger Ebert awarded the film 4 out of 4 stars, and Nichols gained the respect and attention of enough of the American film community to launch his bigger, and much better, next film, Mud (2012).]

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