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The Critic: S&N’s 2019 Oscar Picks

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By Spencer Davis. At this year’s Oscars, it seems like the focus will be less on the awards and more on the half-assed, throw-shit-at-the-wall-and-hope-something-sticks approach that the Academy and ABC have taken to stave off their ever-spiraling decline in viewers. Now I’ve already spent plenty of word count suggesting one novel approach the Oscars might take—nominating movies that people have actually fucking seen—and apparently the Academy listened, nominating blockbusters like A Star Is Born, Black Panther, and Bohemian Rhapsody for the top prize (along with more accessible fare like BlacKkKlansman, Green Book, and Vice, which—while not box office hits in dollar terms—are at least the kind of movies you can enjoy even if you lack a film history degree from USC or a subscription to Cahiers du Cinema).

Unable to just leave a good thing the fuck alone, though, the Academy has also clumsily ushered in a slew of changes to the telecast in an effort to woo back disinterested viewers with a leaner, three hour show. They’ve axed the host (in part because they couldn’t find anyone who wanted the job). They flirted with having only two of the Best Original Song nominees perform (before Lady Gaga threatened to walk, forcing them to recant or lose their biggest star). And perhaps worst of all, they tried to relegate “less important” categories like Cinematography, Editing, Makeup & Hairstyling, and Live Action Short to the commercial breaks, only to backtrack on that too when the all-too-predictable backlash ensured.

All this in a quixotic effort to attract people who have never liked watching the Oscars, at the expense of those of us who actually do. If that sounds a little bit like one of those formulaic 90s rom-coms where the girl spends the entire movie desperately chasing after some self-absorbed douchebag who treats her like shit, while all the time overlooking the faithful best friend who loves her just the way she is … then congratulations, you’re smarter than anyone who runs the Academy these days. With that said, if the Oscars are really so insistent upon “fixing” things, here’s a few more sensible ideas from someone who’s watched every Oscars ceremony since 1980. Continue reading →

The Year In Movies 2018: Spencer’s Picks

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By Spencer Davis. While I introduced my 2018 Year In Music picks by contemplating why today’s songwriters have mostly failed to tap into the political pulse of this extraordinary moment in history in which we live, I can’t at all say the same thing about the world of film. From the racial divisions tearing apart our elections and our borders to the tectonic shifts still shaking our long-stagnant perceptions of the treatment of women, this year’s best movies seemed utterly oxygenated by the hashtag social movements that have dominated our discourse—and they burned all the more brightly for it. Of course, hovering over all of this has been the constant specter of the Trump Administration, and it should be no surprise that liberal Hollywood chose to challenge this presidency—and everything it means for the life of our democracy—head-on. No film better captured the complete insanity of living in the shadow of rising authoritarianism than The Death Of Stalin. Continue reading →

The Year In Music 2018: Spencer’s Picks

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By Spencer Davis. Typically, great art is borne of terrible times. So in these days when hate is rising everywhere, days when some are questioning the decline of democracy itself, you’d expect that “serious” music—particularly music with a strongly political bent—would be experiencing a renaissance. Yet it’s confounding that two years into this critical juncture in history, we’re seeing so little music that speaks to the moment, that provides a vital commentary on the state of our union comparable to the creative explosion of the 1960s or the literary revolution of the interwar period. Music is still searching for a way to do something new, and the best answer anyone’s come up with so far is to cross-pollinate genres or historical influences in a way that aspires to accomplish a seamless new blend—hopefully obscuring the fact that there’s nothing truly new or original about it.

But while my 2017 list bemoaned a particularly weak crop, I’m happy to say that in 2018, the road is curving back in the right direction. And there are even signs that maybe, just maybe, this historical moment of ours could be on the cusp of sparking the next great creative explosion. My hope begins with this year’s brilliant new evolutionary leap from Leon Bridges. Continue reading →

The Projects: Still More Horror Flicks That Don’t Suck

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By Spencer Davis. Every year, I give you a new batch of overlooked Halloween movies to get you through the night—or if I’ve done my job properly, keep you awake through it—and this year, we go in some new directions. Some might say the world we live in right now is scary enough! And yet it’s perhaps no coincidence that the past two years have brought horror into a new era of acclaim, with hits like Get Out and A Quiet Place being named as serious awards contenders. Even the remake business is being taken a lot more seriously, with bold new visions of Halloween and Suspiria taking over the theaters and proving themselves to be more than cheap cash grabs. But if, like me, you think the best place to seek out your scares is in the darkness of your own living room, then enjoy these under-the-radar film frights. Continue reading →

The Contrarian: An Ingenious Solution To The Oscars’ Popular Film Problem

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By Spencer Davis. I can trace the exact moment I fell in love with the Fast & Furious franchise to a particular scene in Fast Five. A friend of mine, already indoctrinated in the idiotic joys of the series, suggested we catch the midnight showing on opening night. It was an idea just stupid enough to be brilliant! About half an hour in, there’s a chase scene that culminates in Paul Walker and Vin Diesel going over the edge of a cliff in a Corvette convertible, climbing onto the trunk of the car in midair … and with perfect timing, leaping safely into a river just before impact. As this all unfolded in glorious slow-motion, someone in the audience shouted, “Academy Award!!!!” and the entire theater erupted in laughter. I was sold for life.

If you heard yesterday’s announcement that the Oscars will be unveiling a new category, Best Popular Film, then you probably know why I bring this up. Everyone knows the impetus for this is the telecast’s spiraling ratings, and the best and the brightest minds at the Academy have apparently decided that the way to pull viewers back in is with a shorter, 3-hour show and a new category dedicated to the shitty blockbusters that make all the money.

I have a modest counter-proposal: NOMINATE BETTER FUCKING MOVIES. Continue reading →

The Year In Movies 2017: Spencer’s Picks

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By Spencer Davis. In the four years since Shadows & Noise launched, my year-end film picks have been all over the map: a heartfelt coming-of-age drama, a sci-fi think piece, a classic Hollywood musical. That kind of schizophrenia isn’t just a function of diverse tastes; it’s a sign of the scattershot directions in which film has been evolving in the past half-decade. With streaming supplanting the theater as our preferred way of watching, with Netflix and Amazon now acting as movie studios in their own right, and with the quality line between television and movies so blurred now that we might as well just call it all “film,” we’re at an inflection point in the history of the moving picture. Indeed, in 2017, we’re finally seeing film critics include shows like The Handmaid’s Tale, Twin Peaks: The Return, and even Ken Burns’s The Vietnam War on their year-end movie lists. But while I could easily list the likes of Legion or Mr. Robot here—shows that are every bit as cinematic and structurally innovative as anything on the big screen—I’m still limiting my picks to movies for just one reason: the difficulty of making meaningful comparisons between a finite film and a television show that is still an ongoing work in progress. It wouldn’t seem fair to list a show here that might, before it’s all over, take a major nose dive. But make no mistake, film and TV now bear equal claim to the mantle of creative greatness. So without losing sight of that, here are the twelve movies that defined my 2017. Continue reading →