This week marks the opening of the beautiful new Modern Wing at the Art Institute of Chicago, a multifaceted feast for the eyes that delivers on its high expectations as the new jewel of both the museum and Millennium/Grant Park. While the modern and contemporary galleries are lovely, the most exciting
part of the new space is the dedicated space for film, video, and new media within the photography collection. The inaugural work in the new exhibition space is Girls, Tricky, a deceptively exciting fifteen-minute video loop from Steve McQueen, the artist turned feature film director whose multiple award winning Hunger is currently touring American cinemas.
McQueen’s handheld camera occasionally pans, but the frame is predominately fixed on recording artist Tricky in a darkened recording studio as he prepares for, works up to, rehearses, and records the song “Girls,” building to a frenzy and back again. The experience of watching this process provides a fascinating examination of the line between control and release, transcendentalism and artifice, life and performance. And while museum video exhibited on a loop may often seem frustrating (because you rarely walk into the space at the beginning), here the loop adds to the expression, by defying our expectations that Tricky’s mental and physical state is linear experience.
Here are this morning’s Oscar-nominated films, alphabetically. The nominees for foreign language film and documentary feature are compiled at the end of the list. (Short format nominees are listed in a 
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