The End Is Here! "Approaching The End" Now In Stores

This week sees the release of Approaching The End: Imagining Apocalypse In American Film, better known as my book. I couldn't be more excited to share this essentially three-year-in-the-works project with you. First things first: you can buy the book right now here from the website! Please put in an order!

Need to be convinced? How about an excerpt. Read part of the section I wrote about John Carpenter's awesome Reagan-era satire They Live, and why living in doom is the best option possible.

How about another excerpt? Over at RogerEbert.Com, I go backwards in time to examine how Days of Heaven turns noir's urban anxiety into a universal one.

How about something more contemporary? I wrote about the Liam Neeson thriller A Walk Among The Tombstones, which turns out to be the best apocalyptic movie of the year

How about a review of the book? Scott Von Doviak writes, "Idiosyncratic choices make for engaging film criticism, and Labuza’s arguments are generally persuasive."

How about a video essay? Here's a new video essay on re-thinking film noir, written and narrated by yours truly and edited together by Jason Elrod!

More to come later this week! Keep watching this space for writing, event announcements, and more!

Updates from the Beyond

I was honored to be invited by Paul Clark and Steve Carlson to participate in this year's Muriel Awards. A sort of alternative to the mostly boring Critics Circle Awards (as well as the certainly not boring Skandies), the Muriels includes a number of cinephiles voting in categories of 2012 film that range from the simple (acting, writing, editing) to the esoteric (Best film of 1987, Body of Work, Scene). I'll be writing about two of the winners, so look for that soon, and follow the awards here!

If you check out the latest issue of Film Matters, I review the very strange and wonderful book on John Carpenter's They Live by Jonathan Lethem. It's good!

I also have a couple of reviews out there: a longer piece on Like Someone in Love and a new piece on Night Across the Street. Read those at their respective locations here and here.

If you haven't been following The Cinephiliacs, check out episodes with Keith Phipps, Kevin B. Lee, and C. Mason Wells.

I have a long piece on Soderbergh's Side Effects and his relationship with Scott Z. Burns that I really hope to have published soon, but it currently sits in editing limbo.

You can follow my haikus on Letterboxd, which is now open to the public.

I usually tend to post my favorite "filmic discoveries" of each month on Twitter. I totally forgot to do January, so I'm listing them here in order (excluding 2013 releases):
1. Hi, Mom! (De Palma, USA, 1970)
2. The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums (Mizoguchi, Japan, 1939)
3. The Ceremony (Oshima, Japan, 1970)
4. Sunday Too Far Away (Hannam, Australia, 1975)
5. Petulia (Lester, USA, 1968)
6. Blast of Silence (Baron, USA, 1961)
7. King Lear (Godard, France/Switzerland, 1987)
8. Face/Off (Woo, USA, 1997)
9. They're a Weird Mob (Powell, Australia, 1966)
10. Three on a Match (LeRoy, USA, 1932)

Also of note: Cairo Station (Chahine, Egypt, 1959), Greetings (De Palma, USA, 1968), The Tarnished Angels (Sirk, USA, 1957), In the Shadows (Arlsan, Germany, 2010), Slacker (Linklater, USA, 1991), and The Moderns (Rudolph, USA, 1988).