Movie News: Chicago Film Critics Announce Nominees And It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Culkin

By Steven Pate in Arts & Entertainment on Dec 14, 2012 10:05PM

It's that time of year again. The movie calendar is, as usual, chock full through the end of December. You've got your Patented Holiday Blockbuster (The Hobbit: An Unexpected Threequel has already made more money than Cloud Atlas) fattening bottom lines, your Sudden Academy Award Juggernaut, Zero Dark Thirty, opening stylishly late in the year, your critics' darling Amour at last screening somewhere besides a film festival and the outsiders' insider himself, Quentin Tarantino, offering up his newest revisionary cinematic confection Django Unchained for the fanboys and fangirls to argue about. Best-of lists are springing up like potholes all over the information superhighway. But it's not officially the beginning of the end of the 2012 movie season until the Chicago Film Critics Association announces its nominees for the year.

Enigmatic buzz-magnet The Master took ten nominations, with a not-too-shabby nine offered to the lyrical, low-budget Beasts of the Southern Wild (including two for the now-10-year-old star Quvenzhane Wallis). Lincoln and Zero Dark Thirty each snagged eight nominations as well, with Argo rounding out the Best Picture nominees and garnering five nominations for itself. The winners will be announced next Monday, December 17, though the ceremony won't take place until February.

Elsewhere in the Chicago filmscape:

• One happy story on the Northwest side continues to be the rejuvenation of the Patio Theater, which will be holding onto its 35mm projectors even after completing the installation of a Kickstarter-funded digital projection system. Owner Demetri Kouvalis hopes to make the restored 1927 a go-to spot for premieres and festivals. The future continues to look less certain for the beloved-by-us Portage Theater, where a Save The Portage Theater As We Know It rally is being held on Monday.


• The Toronto International Film Festival's Higher Learning program just released put online a couple of videos that are bound to interest local cinephiles. A Q and A with Hoop Dreams director Steve James, taped after a screening of that film, is an interesting look at the acclaimed documentarian's process for creating socially engaged documentaries. In another video, longtime Reader critic Jonathan Rosenbaum discusses the evolution of film criticism as part of a panel convened to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Cannes' Critics Week.


• Chicago is one of ten cities getting a sneak peak at films on offer at next year's Sundance Film Festival. Touchy Feely, starring Ellen Page and Scoot McNairy, will screen on January 31 at the Music Box.


• We're not sure there's ever been a weekend like this for fans of Macaulay Carson Culkin. This Saturday and Sunday at noon, the classic John Hughes Christmas comedy Home Alone will be shown at the Logan Theater, while Sunday evening offers the opportunity to also see its sequel, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York at Cinema Borealis. We're not sure if this is a good thing, or a sure sign that those Mayan Apocalypse predictors were onto something all along.