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25 August 2024

Film: CLOSE YOUR EYES (dir. Víctor Erice, 2023, Spain-Argentina)

Forum: Gene Siskel Film Center   Format: DCP

Observations: Gosh, it took long enough, but here's Victor Erice's latest (and only third) feature fiction film. It resembles, in story and heft, last year's TRENQUE LAUQUEN (dir. Laura Citeralla, 2022, Argentina-Germany), also co-produced with Argentine money. An actor disappears in mid-shoot and is unseen for decades. The director of the unfinished film picks up the cold search. Unfortunately, the movie screened in Theater 2 (the main auditorium was set up for a film festival) and attendance was small, though I saw at least a few folks I know and throughly enjoyed the evening.

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21 August 2024

Film: DÌDI (dir. Sean Wang, 2024, USA)

Forum: AMC NewCity  Format: DCP

Observations: Maybe a dozen folks for this sceening, but they made up in enthusiasm what they lacked in numbers. Folks laughed (appropraitely) at the travails of a middle-schooler struggling socially and internally during the summer of 2008, as his successful sister readies to go college. Just a nice, pleasant film with a lean running time that hops nicely from beat to beat. Reminscent of (though a bit quicker paced than) EIGHTH GRADE (d. Bo Burnham, 2018, USA).

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8 August 2024

Film: KNEECAP (dir. Rich Peppiatt, 2024, Ireland-UK)

Forum: AMC NewCity  Format: DCP

Observations: This film, an embellished telling of the rise of the Irish hip-hop act Kneecap (played by the real-life artists) arrived without promotion or fanfare; I just happened to spot it in the movie sheet. It works very nicely, a lively telling with plenty of music and animation (that only occasionally condescends to sentiment). Despite the lack of publicity, it attracted a pretty sizable audience, albeit in NewCity's smallest auditorium.

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2 August 2024

Film: TRAP (dir. M. Night Shyamalan, USA, 2024)

Forum: AMC Sauk Valley, Sterling, Ill.   Format: DCP

Observations: We saw this opening night in rural Northwest Illinois, where maybe only a dozen folks attended the evening screening. (It's really a marvel that these theaters still exist, to be honest.) Overwhelmingly, until the film began wearing its welcome in Act III, this was a taut, well-plotted cat-and-mouse game with two especially well-cast leads, Josh Hartnett and young Australian Ariel Donoghue. The long first act takes place at a music arena, and recalls (and compares favorably to) the memorable killer-at-a-stadium genre of BLACK SUNDAY (dir. John Frankenheimer, USA, 1977) and TWO-MINUTE WARNING (dir. Larry Peerce, USA, 1976).

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29 July 2024

Film: MADE IN ENGLAND: THE FILMS OF POWELL AND PRESSBURGER (dir. David Hinton, 2024, USA)

Forum: Gene Siskel Film Center   Format: DCP

Observations: Susan and I have a special attachment to filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. In 1986, new BFI prints of many of their films were screened at the old Film Center for the Art Institute of Chicago at their Columbus Street auditorium. The week after our wedding, we went to see I KNOW WHERE I'M GOING! and were utterly entranced. Over the decades, we eventually saw screenings of all of their 1938-57 features (we went to Facets shortly after our oldest was born in 1992, newborn in tow, to watch THE TALES OF HOFFMAN). So there was probably no way we were going to miss this documentary. It takes the form of an essay narrated by Martin Scorsese about the artistry of the team's films and also the impact on his own work. (Maybe a more accurate title would have been MARTIN SCORSESE'S POWELL AND PRESSBURGER - indeed, clips of RAGING BULL get more screen time than a few of P+P's early movies.) The benefit of this approach is a singular and informed vision of what this body of work means to cinema. A distinct drawback, though, is by following a strict chronology, the viewer has to suffer through their decade-long decline for the second half of the film: flops, ill-conceived projects, half-hearted adaptations. (The movie has the partnership ending definitively in 1957, disregarding their last two projects together.) Maybe a wiser approach would have been to organize the material thematically in some way (e.g., men and women at war, British life, romance, dance) that could have afforded a more sympathetic comparison between their peak and lesser works. The film also unfortunately makes their greatest films look ponderous, omitting the light moments and comedy so key to their success. Yet there's no denying the hour or so in the middle when you're bombarded by clips from their acknowledged classics, with Scorsese's smart commentary, and you just want to see them for the first time all over again.

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27 July 2024

Film: PRINCE OF THE CITY (dir. Sidney Lumet, 1981, USA)

Forum: Gene Siskel Film Center   Format: 16mm

Observations: We eagerly anticipated this film shown as part of a Sidney Lumet centennial program. It was a print on loan from the Film Society of Montreal, formatted for TV (cropped on the edges, profanity dubbed out) and with a reported 19 minutes of additional footage. Two short breaks and a ten-minute intermission were necessary to project it. Though a bit faded and worn, this was absolutely the way to see one of the crowning achievements of 1980s Hollywood (and one of Lumet's masterpieces). The audience, filling about 40% of the large theater, appropriately oohed and aahed with every plot turn. One of my favorite film moments on 2024.

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26 July 2024

Film: TWISTERS (dir. Lee Isaac Chung. 2024, USA)

Forum: AMC NewCity  Format: DCP

Observations: Lee Isaac Chung earned a shot a making a summer blockbuster from his 2020 Oscar-nominated MINARI. This is more of a remake than a direct sequel, reconceiving the 1990s hit in 2024 terms. Regrettably, the screenplay seemed content just to barely sketch in the characters, leaving the viewer mostly rewatching situations from the original (e.g., the tornado hits a rodeo rather than a drive-in). Chung appreciates the wide-open spaces - the location shooting was done in rural Oklahoma - and the contemporary country-music soundtrack is a novelty. But this movie is otherwise aleady slipping from my memory.

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20 July 2024

Film: PROVINCIAL ACTORS (dir. Agnieszka Holland, 1979, Poland)

Forum: Doc Films   Format: DCP

Observations: Doc Films is screening several Polish films from Agnieszka Holland. This film, her feature debut from 46 years ago (seldom screened), is a drama about a local production of the play "Liberation" by Stanisław Wyspiański. The star sees the play as a way to launch himself to Warsaw, until his own demons slowly consume him. Holland's dramatic themes were already present in this early production. A strong start! About 25 in the audience.

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11 July 2024

Film: LAST SUMMER (dir. Catherine Breillat, 2023, France-Norway) and CABARET (dir. Bob Fosse, 1972, USA)

Forum: Gene Siskel Film Center   Format: DCP/35mm

Observations: It's taken a while, but the new Breillat finally landed in Chicago for a couple of weeks. It's a typically unsettling fable by the director about a delicate marriage blown apart when the husband's estranged teenage son come to live with them. The little theater was practically empty for this show. A late screening of CABARET in a good if slightly battered 35mm print drew a much better audience. Oddly, I'd never seen this classic and while I thought it was absorbing and musically captivating, from a 2024 perspective it shows little interest in the queer characters beyond simply being decorative.

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7 July 2024

Film: MAXXXINE (dir. Ti West, 2024, USA)

Forum: AMC NewCity  Format: DCP

Observations: MAXXXINE is in its second week at the show. We seldom go to horror/slasher films, but we had a third-degree-of separation relationship to a cast member and wanted to check the film out. (The actor had a couple of scenes and a few lines of dialog!) The theater was pretty full for this one. It was fun, full of spark, and short enough not to wear out its welcome.

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3 July 2024

Film: SMART MONEY (dir. Alfred E. Green, 1931, USA)

Forum: Doc Films   Format: 35mm

Observations: Here's some nice hot weather viewing - the only teaming of Warner Bros. stars Edward G. Robinson and James Cagney as partners in a gambling operation. This is being programmed as part of a summer of Cagney films and was projected in a LoC print (which bizarrely was missing the opening credits). Maybe 20 in attendance.

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29 June 2024

Film: JANET PLANET (dir. Annie Baker, 2024, USA)

Forum: Regal Webster Place   Format: DCP

Observations: What a delicate and well-balanced debut feature. Fine screenplay, exquisite casting, and a quiet visual style. If this were from Europe, it would play to raptuous reviews. Six other people in attendance.

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25 June 2024

Film: GHOSTLIGHT (dir. Kelly O'Sullivan and Alex Thompson, 2024, USA)

Forum: AMC River East  Format: DCP

Observations: We enjoyed this one, a locally-shot indie cast with Chicago-area actors. (A couple of scenes, filmed in Lincolnwood, feature Adventure Golf and the Bunny Hutch.) We regular attend Chicago theaters, including the storefront variety portrayed here. Several of the cast were familiar to us already from their stage work. If the story was a bit pat (even corny), I was moved despite that. It felt authentic to what I see on stage here. (But as a lawyer, I'd give the legal part a C-minus.) Six others in attendance.

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8 June 2024

Film: I SAW THE T.V. GLOW (dir. Jane Schoenbrun, 2024, USA)

Forum: Movieland at Boulevard Square, Richmond, VA   Format: DCP

Observations: Out of town and with an evening to kill, I caught up with this highly regarded title, a fantasy about two outsiders who - beginning in the 1990s - bond over a Nickelodeon/Disney-type show for tweens, freakishly blending with the show's heroes. It completely worked for me, especially as characters age and disappear over the twenty years of the story. Looks and sounds beautiful, too. Even though it's at the end of its run, the theater was about half-full, meaning that folks are still connecting with the seeing this at the show.

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16 May 2024

Film: LOVE UNDER THE CRUCIFIX (dir. Kinuyo Tanaka, 1962, Japan) and BLACK CHARIOT (dir. Robert L. Goodwin, 1971, USA)

Forum: Doc Films   Format: DCP/35mm

Observations: The end of Doc Films for me this academic year, and a knock-out accidental double bill. LOVE UNDER THE CRUCIFIX is the sixth and final film directed by actress Kinuyo Tanaka, a tale of doomed love in the 16th Century; about 35 people in attendance. BLACK CHARIOT (print courtesy of the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the National Film Preservation Foundation) was added at the last minute. Robert L. Goodwin was a TV director for whom this was a sole theatrical movie credit; he also wrote and produced the film, reportedly funded by individual donors. It's a story, told in flashback, of a Black revolutionary cell's hunt for a police informer and the tragic consequences. Because most of the 35mm images are evidently lost or unrecoverable, the restoration mainly uses a 2" video kinescope (some of it in B&W) as its source. The result is jarring and a bit sad, because the brief segments actually seen in 35mm are gripping. Still, the film is dramatically arresting (it's an early showcase for actor Bernie Casey) and it sounds great. I have to suppose it will eventually become available for home video. Because it was scheduled at the last minute - and perversely at 9:30pm on a Thursday, the week before UChicago finals - attendance was way too low, maybe twenty folks including the Doc Films volunteers who staffed the show.

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15 May 2024

Film: EVIL DOES NOT EXIST (dir. Ryusuke Hamaguchi, 2023, Japan)

Forum: Landmark Century   Format: DCP

Observations: This film is having a brief run on a couple of screens in town. The story is situated in the Japanese countryside, where local residents push back on a Tokyo developer's plans to build a 'glamping' site, so shoddily planned that the runoff will contaminate the surface water. The story goes off in multiple directions, including a supernatural finale, that forces the viewer to do the work. In the small screening room, maybe a dozen folks in attendance.

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11 May 2024

Film: PEPPERMINT CANDY (dir. Lee Chang-Dong, 1999, S. Korea)

Forum: Gene Siskel Film Center   Format: DCP

Observations: The Gene Siskel Film Center featured five Lee Chang-Dong films this month; this one I was most eager to see and it did not disappoint. It's a backwards narrative starting with main character's violent death and tacking back over decades to see how he arrived there. Compared to POETRY, it feels like journeyman work. Still, everything about it pops: well-plotted, well-paced and convincingly cast. It was shown in the small theater, which was more than half-full.