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Archive for Matthew Libby
(‘17, Symbolic Systems, Film & TV Editor) is from Los Angeles, California. He does theater and writes screenplays, and if you ever need someone who knows a weird amount of Academy Awards trivia, he’s your guy.
In the Blink of an Eye: A Review of ‘Boyhood’
“Time’s going by,” says one character in the early scenes of Boyhood, the extraordinary latest film from Texan auteur Richard Linklater. It’s a throwaway line, and an obvious one at that, but those three words serve as a simple guideline for the movie as a whole: time’s always going by.
#emmyformaslany, or The 2014 Emmy Nominations
The nominees are in for this year’s Emmy Awards, and they are the usual cocktail of brilliantly inspired, boringly obvious, and mind numbingly confounding. While the nominees get their tuxes pressed and select the episode they will submit to the voting body for consideration, here are my opinionated rants and wild speculations as to the potential victors of TV’s most anticipated awards. Although I’m not bothering with the miniseries and TV movie categories. Because basically expect The Normal Heart and Fargo to steamroll.
War of the Worlds: A Review of ‘Neighbors’
Plastered all over the promotion for Nicholas Stoller’s latest film Neighbors is the endorsement: “From the guys who brought you This is the End.” While there are obvious economic and creative reasons for this marketing tactic, it could be misleading. This is the End, while one of the funniest films I’ve seen in a long time, was all about mayhem on a literally apocalyptic scale. Neighbors, while too being one of the funnier films in recent years, deals with a very different kind of mayhem.
Everything is Awesome, or The Lego Movie
You owe it to your inner 10-year-old to see this movie. You know who I’m talking about: that kid who would come back from school and, no matter how tired they were, pull out their Legos or Barbies or whatever those crazy kids played with.
Throwback Thursday: The Ghost of Valentine’s Past
Oh man. Oh geez. It’s Valentine’s Eve. Either you forgot to get a significant other or you forgot to get something for your significant other. Plus midterms, and that bomb scare. It’s been a rough week. Uncork some wine, buy some overpriced chocolates, and listen/watch/read what a bunch of old dudes have said about love and other Hallmark’s card bullshit.
“Choke Me With That Dead Cat” or 2013, A Year in Movies
According to my log, I saw 106 movies from 2013 last year. I don’t know how that happened. I really don’t. That’s about 25 more than I saw any year since I started logging all of my viewings.
Beyond Baby Blue and The Red Wedding: The Best Television of 2013
2013 will be seen as a banner year for television. Not only did we say goodbye to beloved shows such as Breaking Bad, The Office, 30 Rock, and more, but Netflix took over and changed the game in major ways, by introducing ideas about the medium itself that have TV executives everywhere going back to the drawing board.
‘Lone Survivor,’ or a Bright Sunny Day in Hell
The opening credits of director Peter Berg’s latest film Lone Survivor are an eccentrically-edited extended montage of still images and video, all building towards a crucial point: Navy boot-camp is Hell. It trains you to be pushed through the fires of Hell by creating that Hell around you.
The Alex DeLarge Effect: A Review of ’12 Years A Slave’
The scene is iconic even to those who haven’t read the book or seen the movie: Alex DeLarge, wrapped in a straightjacket and bound to a chair, eyelids held open by metal clips, forced to watch horrifying images with no means of escape, nothing to do but confront them. He wants to look away, but he physically cannot.