If you've seen Michael Shannon in Revolutionary Road or HBO's Boardwalk Empire, you know he's an actor who means business. In Take Shelter, a film that prides itself for the distance it keeps from multiplex formula, Shannon gives himself over completely to a complex role and leaves you shattered. He plays Curtis LaForche, a crew manager for an Ohio sand-mining company, husband to Samantha (Jessica Chastain) and father of their six-year-old daughter, Hannah (Tova Stewart), who is deaf. Lately, Curtis has been having visions of an impending apocalypse, disturbing visions that estrange him from his family and his co-workers. Chastain's quietly implosive performance breaks your heart as she searches Curtis' eyes for the man she married. Writer-director Jeff Nichols, who worked with Shannon on Shotgun Stories, seems to breathe as one with this gifted actor. That's all I'm going to say about Take Shelter, the better to let you get lost in its dark poetry and enveloping mystery. Nichols throws curveballs, but his film is unique and unforgettable.

Related
• Video: September's Worst Movies Get Tossed in the Scum Bucket
• Peter Travers' Fall Movie Preview

“Ambling Alp”

The "Ambling Alp" was the nickname of the six-and-a-half-foot-tall Primo Carnera. Though the song is named after the Italian-born 1930s heavyweight champion, Yeasayer are actually paying tribute to boxing legend Joe Louis with this first-person psychedelic dance-rock tune. “I was always interested in writing a song that had boxing mythology in it,” Yeasayer’s Chris Keating said. “It’s pretty fascinating: There were so many amazing characters, and it was so closely entwined with 20th century history.” Yeaseyer also invokes German champ Max Schmeling and hints at the historical significance placed on the historic bouts between the Nazi-era boxer and the African-American Louis.