CRUCIAL VIEWING
John Smith x 3 (Experimental/Documentary)
Block Cinema (Northwestern University) - Wednesday, 7pm
Conversations at the Edge at the Gene Siskel Film Center - Thursday, 6pm
Film Studies Center (Logan Center, 915 E. 60th St., University of Chicago) - Friday, October 17, 7pm
(Free admission at Block and the Film Studies Center)
London-based filmmaker John Smith has been a staple of the experimental film world for decades and thanks to the collaborative programming Block Cinema/NU's Dept. of Art Theory & Practice, SAIC's Conversations at the Edge series, and the U of C's Film Studies Center, Chicago will soon enjoy a generous slate of his work. The three evenings' programs will include work spanning almost Smith's entire career, from the seminal THE GIRL CHEWING GUM (1976) to the the Chicago premiere of his most recent piece, DARK LIGHT (2014). Smith's work gleefully destabilizes traditional cinema's formal elements. Often invoking a wry humor and ample political wit, Smith interrogates how the moving image dictates our perception. He practices an absurdist engagement with the quotidian and a love of language play. Often providing his own voice-over and using his immediate environment as a background, his work can be understood as a droll form of diary films/documentary. While his work will most likely appeal to the experimental insider, the humor present in Smith's work is available for anyone to enjoy and it is unlikely that we in Chicago will get the chance to see him in person or this much of his work again anytime soon. Check the venue websites for a complete list of titles showing. John Smith in person at all events. CL
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More info at www.blockmuseum.northwestern.edu, blogs.saic.edu/cate/fall-2014-season, and filmstudiescenter.uchicago.edu.
Music Box of Horrors (Horror Film Marathon)
Music Box Theatre - Saturday, Noon - Sunday, Noon
The tenth annual Music Box horror movie marathon returns this weekend with a stellar lineup of creepy masterpieces, half-forgotten treasures, and schlocky excitement. This year's festival begins with a bang at noon with Victor Sjöström's THE PHANTOM CARRIAGE (1921, 104 min, 35mm; live accompaniment by Dennis Scott), a moody, brilliant meditation on life, loss, and memory told in a Dickensian mode and awash in groundbreaking special effects. In the lead role, Sjöström gives a stunningly effective performance as an alcoholic in danger of losing his soul, pursued by his past and haunted by his homicidal urges. The theme of the past haunting the present returns at 2pm in the next film, the bargain-basement Karloff vehicle THE MAN THEY COULD NOT HANG (Nick Grinde, 1939, 65 min, 35mm), in which a crazed surgeon (Karloff, naturally) conquers death only to be killed himself. Soon, Dr. Savaard is returning from the dead with righteous, if unbridled, revenge on his mind. Stylish and as nutty as its doctor-protagonist, this is a criminally-underseen delight. Screening at 3:20pm, Jacques Tourneur's CAT PEOPLE (1942, 73 min, 35mm) is a moody and deeply uncomfortable excursion into inner monstrousness. Tourneur pulls no punches, filling every frame with lurking menace and just-around-the-corner savagery. The narrative follows a woman, Irena (Simone Simon) who believes she turns into a panther when physically aroused. Is she right? The dead bodies around her seem to suggest so... No such ambiguities for the nest feature, though, Terence Fisher's THE CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF (1961, 90 min, 35mm), showing at 5pm, one of the more absurd of the Hammer horror films, following a weird, twisting narrative through multiple generations of lycanthropy in a particularly unenlightened Enlightenment Spain. Well-shot and almost totally incomprehensible, the film's standout section features Oliver Reed as a stupid, horny young man trying to keep his wits while love and his wolf nature battle within him. 7pm brings the event's special guests, local director John McNaughton, presenting his 1991 cult favorite, THE BORROWER (90 min, LASERDISC!), with producer Steve Jones, set designer Rick Paul, and composer Ken Hale all in attendance. An absurd romp through the glories of sci-fi horror, THE BORROWER stars Rae Dawn Chong as a cop tracking down a serial killer from outer space afflicted with periodically exploding heads. Fortunately, Earth is just filled with chumps with heads, all lined up for claw-handed E.T.'s to decapitate! The tone changes radically for the next film, 9:30pm's NOSFERATU THE VAMPYRE (1979, 107 min., 35mm), Werner Herzog's homage to F. W. Murnau. As the vampire, Klaus Kinski is rat-like, vile, a thing too loathsome to be borne by nature; and as Lucy and Jonathan Harker, Isabelle Adjani and Bruno Ganz deliver perhaps the most melancholy and haunting version of true love ever filmed. Herzog's film, to be shown in a new restoration of its German-language version, finds hidden loveliness in the evils drenching every movement of the monster, every creeping shadow, every pale sunbeam, coalescing its horrifying vision of rot, disease, and undying malevolence into astonishing visual power and beauty. After the daylight nightmares of Herzog's vampire, 11:45pm brings a welcome relief with the silliest movie of the event, DEAD SNOW 2: RED VS DEAD (2014, 100 min, DCP Digital), Tommy Wirkola's follow-up to his own DEAD SNOW, from 2009. Your basic Nazi zombie movie, it makes no sense, and tries to make no sense, though Wirkola's higher budget and much better actors (including a very welcome Martin Starr) make this a much more enjoyable movie than the original, funnier than it really out to be able to be. NIGHTMARE (Romano Scavolini, 1981, 97 min, 35mm) comes next, at 1:50am, one of the original Video Nasties and one of the more effective of the early 80s slasher films, and SHAKMA (Tom Logan, 1990, 100 min, 35mm), at 3:55am, a LARP-gone-wrong tale featuring Roddy McDowall and a killer baboon. 6am's feature, DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT (1973, 90 min, 35mm) is a micro-budgeted revelation by S. F. Brownrigg, Texas's answer to Herschell Gordon Lewis, in which a group of homicidal lunatics terrorize a young psychiatric nurse after taking over their asylum. Continuing on the regional filmmaking theme, this is followed at 8am by JUST BEFORE DAWN (Jeff Lieberman, 1981, 102 min, 35mm), which follows a small group of city folk traveling in Oregon being hunted by merciless locals who don't take kindly to strangers claiming to own their land. Less a slasher film than an exercise in white-knuckled outdoor suspense, this will wake you right up, just in time for the final film, 10am's AUDITION (1999, 115 min, 35mm), Miike Takashi's breakthrough film, showing in a special 15th anniversary print. Miike's protean style is ideally suited for this devilish and terrifying boy meets girl, boy loves girl, girl destroys boy's life story. After a widower is convinced by his son that he should start dating again, he comes up with a creepy, misogynistic way to jump back into the swing of things, but the woman he ends up with isn't in any way what she seems to be, resulting in a concluding 20 minutes or so that will stick in your mind like a bee-sting splinter, throbbing away until your dying day. KB
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More info at www.musicboxtheatre.com.
John Coney's SPACE IS THE PLACE (American Revival)
Block Cinema (Northwestern University) - Thursday, 7pm (Free Admission)
In what would have been the former Herman Poole Blount's 100th year on earth, the Chicago area has seen a wealth of celebrations of the brilliant composer slash prophet from space who was better known as Sun Ra. Over the summer, jazz musician David Boykin summoned one hundred saxophone players to Washington Park for a musical ceremony, and experimental filmmaker Cauleen Smith continues her multimedia exploration of Ra's legacy. Now, Block Cinema presents this very odd film that Sun Ra wrote and starred in. The main plot is basically that of Sun Ra's own reinvention as an interstellar prophet: he plays Sun Ra, who finds enlightenment on another planet and returns to Earth to save his African American brethren from a supernatural pimp-overlord, using his music to spread his message. Ra intended it as a lighthearted homage to cheap 1950s science fiction, but a lengthy subplot involving pimps and prostitutes clashed with Ra's scenes and placed it firmly in the blaxploitation genre. Ra decided that these elements were unnecessary pandering that detracted from his message (and he was right), and for decades the film was available only in a shortened 63-minute version that stuck more closely to his vision. The suppressed footage was restored for the 2003 DVD release, but this rare 35mm presentation is reportedly from an older but still complete print ("complete" in that it reflects the director's wishes, not Sun Ra's). Genre digressions aside, SPACE IS THE PLACE is a unique creation, a foggy window into one of the most creative minds of the twentieth century: equal parts maddening and enlightening, off-putting in its sometimes-amateurish construction but hypnotizing nonetheless. (1974, 85 min, 35mm) MWP
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More info at www.blockmuseum.northwestern.edu.
Nagisa Oshima's MERRY CHRISTMAS, MR. LAWRENCE (Japanese Revival)
Gene Siskel Film Center - Friday, 6pm and Saturday, 5pm
At the MCA's 'David Bowie Is' exhibit, there's a small room that holds various artifacts from the British superstar's disparate acting career. It leads to another small room in which several of his performances are projected in a loop; included is the scene from Nagisa Oshima's MERRY CHRISTMAS, MR. LAWRENCE where Bowie, as Major Jack Celliers, a South African soldier sentenced to death for participating in guerrilla warfare, mimes his way through some final "actions" leading up to his execution (which he inexplicably survives). Though Bowie studied miming under the great Lindsay Kemp, the scene is no mere shoutout to one of his (and subsequently Oshima's) more obscure influences; instead, Celliers' disaffected wit is a concise summation of the film's central theme, that of willfulness and Japanese repression of will through order and tradition. Plotwise, the film is about the dynamic among a group of men in a Javanese prisoner of war camp during World War II. More specifically, it's about the dynamic between two Allied prisoners of war and two Japanese prison camp workers. Next to Bowie, Tom Conti plays the titular Mr. Lawrence, a British POW who speaks Japanese and expresses a general understanding of the complex culture that's imprisoned him. The camp workers are Japanese soldiers Sgt. Hara and Capt. Yonoi, the former a brutal guard who nonetheless makes friends with Lawrence and the latter a tradition-bound commandant who develops a fixation on the fair-haired Celliers. Much like Bowie the performer, MERRY CHRISTMAS, MR. LAWRENCE is often cited for its homoerotic undercurrent, an assessment heightened by the casting of Japanese electronic music star Ryuichi Sakamoto, whose androgynous beauty mirrors that of Bowie, as Capt. Yonoi. (In one scene, Sgt. Hara remarks that he had just been awoken from a dream featuring Marlene Dietrich, another high-cheekboned babe known for her transgressive sex appeal.) But just as Bowie's sexuality is often mistakenly taken at face value, so too is the film's homoerotic undercurrent often mistaken as its central theme. As Oshima himself has written, "homosexuality is the synthesis of friendship and violence: military men are attracted by their enemies, as men, in compensation for their frustration." Despite Oshima's problematic view towards homosexuality, and sexual violence (rape is common in his films), it's evident that Yonoi's violent tendencies are brought about by the repression of his attraction to Celliers, which is an attraction that has as much to do with Celliers' willfulness as it does his physical beauty. Yonoi had been part of a coup to assassinate leading government officials and take control of the palace, but was spared his life and restored to military standing, albeit at a low level, because he was out of the country during the actual attack. Thus, his repression of will extends beyond sexuality and relates to the oppression of his militarist ideology and the guilt he feels over not having been present at the uprising. The film is widely considered to be one of Oshima's more accessible works owing to the cast, its similarities with other popular POW films (most notably David Lean's 1957 film BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI) and Oshima's uncharacteristic use of long shots and symmetrical framing. Based on Sir Laurens Jan van der Post's novel The Seed and the Sower, it differs from other similarly acclaimed POW films in that it's a film made by the "other," reflecting the wartime cruelty of his own people. And even Oshima's use of traditional filmmaking devices lends itself to his alternative viewpoint; long shots allow for all the characters to be equally represented and thus equally contradicted, an element of craft mirrored by Lawrence's assertion that "we are all wrong," and the symmetrical framing in many scenes is meant to reflect the traditionalism that Oshima challenges throughout. The film's score is another aspect that enhances its subtle unconventionality. Composed almost entirely by Sakamoto, it's a delicate blend of traditional-sounding melodies and his own synth-pop sensibility. Bowie sings a bit in the film, but ironically enough, it's his Strafer Jack who's most off tune. (1983, 122 min, 35mm) KS
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More info at www.siskelfilmcenter.org.
Robert Wiene's THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI (Silent German Revival)
Music Box Theatre - Friday and Thursday, 5pm; Wednesday, 6pm
[Showing in a new 4K digital restoration that is considered definitive] This classic film begins with a young man named Francis (Friedrich Feher) telling the story of the eerie Dr. Caligari (Werner Krauss) to his friend. One day, Caligari (similar to Fritz Lang's Dr. Mabuse) arrives in the small town of Holstenwall to present his somnambulist Cesare (Conrad Veidt), who sleeps in a coffin-like cabinet, at their fair. When the fair ends, the first in a series of mysterious crimes occurs with the murder of the town clerk, and Francis determines to find the culprit. Not only is THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI the first feature horror film, but also it is the earliest key example in cinema of German Expressionism, deeply influential in the development of film noir. Designed by the exceptionally talented Hermann Warm, Walter Reimann, and Walter Rohrig, the film's studio sets, comprised of painted canvas backdrops, distort one's sense of space to heighten the fear and anxiety experienced by both the characters and audience. Wiene favors the iris shot in capturing the actors and their exaggerated actions, but he uses rectangles and diamonds in addition to circles, mirroring the fundamental shapes seen in the fantastical sets and costumes; these same shapes or combinations thereof appear in the images that the intertitles are set against. Also, the sets inform the stylization of acting, particularly by Krauss and Veidt who previously worked in Expressionist theater. In The Haunted Screen, film critic and historian Lotte Eisner perfectly described the greatness of THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI and the first films of Richard Oswald, "These works blithely married a morbid Freudianism and an Expressionistic exaltation to the romantic fantasies of Hoffmann and Eichendorff, and to the tortured soul of contemporary Germany seemed, with their overtones of death, horror and nightmare, the reflection of its own grimacing image, offering a kind of release." (1920, 75 min, DCP Digital) CW
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More info at www.musicboxtheatre.com.
ALSO RECOMMENDED
Nagisa Oshima's BOY (Japanese Revival)
Gene Siskel Film Center - Saturday, 3pm and Wednesday, 8pm
BOY is a sort-of anti-fable derived from true events, in which a 10-year-old is trained by his parents to feign trauma so they can extort money from reckless drivers. In an essay for Strictly Film School, Acquarello writes that BOY was a breakthrough work for Oshima, who used the story to "expound on his recurring themes of rootless materialism, alienation and victimization that were endemic within the culture of Japanese postwar society. Shooting the characters predominantly in medium and long shots from the peripheral margins of the camera frame, Oshima reflects not only the family's marginalization within contemporary society, but also the intrinsic rupture of the very notion of Japanese tradition--in particular, the support system of the extended family..." (1969, 105 min, (New 35mm Print) BS
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More info at www.siskelfilmcenter.org.
Robert Moore's MURDER BY DEATH (American Revival)
Doc Films (University of Chicago) - Tuesday, 7pm
NOTE: Big Spoilers! -- Yes, Eileen Brennan was really funny in CLUE. But nearly a decade before playing Miss Peacock she was equally hilarious as Tess Skeffington, private eye Sam Diamond's leggy legwoman, in MURDER BY DEATH. In a movie crammed with zingy one-liners she gets some of the best, delivered with her trademark weary growl, including: "I'll tell you later. It's disgusting." Like most parodies, MURDER BY DEATH is a lot funnier if you're familiar with the original target. In this case, Neil Simon takes aim at fiction's most famous detectives, sleuths who (annoyingly) always seem to be two steps ahead of the audience when it comes to solving a crime. Thus, by the end of the film, when it's revealed that wealthy eccentric Lionel Twain (played by Truman Capote!) has not in fact been murdered but is alive and well and is actually Yetta, the cook (Nancy Walker!), Simon's point has been made: whodunits are horseshit. Really, the movie is just an excuse to watch James Coco, Peter Falk, Alec Guinness, Elsa Lanchester, David Niven, Peter Sellers, Maggie Smith, James Cromwell, and Estelle Winwood say some very funny things while interacting with Stephen Grimes' fantastic sets. (1976, 94 min, 35mm) RC
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More info at www.docfilms.uchicago.edu.
Akira Kurosawa's RASHOMON (Japanese Revival)
Doc Films (University of Chicago) - Wednesday, 7 and 9pm
So where does RASHOMON stand today? More than sixty years after the "opening of the West" to Japanese cinema, and after the publication of innumerable treatises and interpretations as to the meaning of this film, it seems almost as if RASHOMON has become some kind of be-all exemplar of "international cinema." This is what we know: a priest, a woodcutter, and a foul-mouthed wanderer take shelter from a punishing rainstorm in the ruins of an ancient temple--Rashomon--and try to find some truth in the vagaries and apocryphal testimonies of a petty murder trial they have just witnessed. Despite the undeniable sentimentality of the closing scenes--the same sentimentality that makes other Kurosawa films of the period (namely IKIRU) almost unwatchable--RASHOMON's images (the woodcutter in the forest, Toshiro Mifune snarling and flailing as the bandit Tojomaru, the severe mysteries and rites of the medium who speaks for the murdered husband, and the rain at Rashomon Temple) have become iconic and the film has become, for better or worse, an ingrained masterpiece--even for those who have not seen it. (1950, 88 min, 35mm) LN
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More info at www.docfilms.uchicago.edu.
Errol Morris' TABLOID (Contemporary Documentary)
Doc Films (University of Chicago) - Thursday, 7pm
Errol Morris at his most Errol Morris-esque, with a narrative structure that slowly reveals secrets about its subjects, then slyly urges you to doubt their veracity; a fleet sense of momentum that can feel like running furiously in a circle; old photographs and newspaper ads presented as fetish objects; and eccentric talking heads that come to seem (like the creations of Joel and Ethan Coen) like parodies of themselves. Should the film become a hit, it will likely be as a result of that final attribute: at a Northwestern University preview screening prior to the film's release, the audience often howled with derisive laughter. Yet Morris advertised this as a "love story," and it might be best to experience the film, unironically, as such. His chief subject, a former beauty queen named Joyce McKinney, becomes a sympathetic, perhaps even noble figure if you take her at her word. It's best not to learn too much of her story before seeing the film; suffice it to say, it's her unwavering belief that she acts out of true love that makes her outrageous behavior so extraordinary. In Morris' eye, she's a Donna Quixote, a woman who's internalized the logic of the movie romance and brought it violently into the real world. (2010, 87 min, 35mm) BS
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More info at www.docfilms.uchicago.edu.
Martin Scorsese's THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST (American Revival)
Doc Films (University of Chicago) - Thursday, 9pm
A very personal adaptation by Martin Scorsese of Niko Kazantzakis' novel, which imagines the life of Jesus in human, rather than divine, terms. In the book-length interview Scorsese on Scorsese, the director admits to rewriting almost all of the dialogue in Paul Schrader's screenplay following late-night bull sessions with his collaborator Jay Cocks. The result, as Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote, is "a religious film informed by some of the cadences, intonations, and attitudes of [modern] New York." This is a singular combination, and certainly not for religious purists; but as an attempt to dramatize a private response to religious subject matter, it is often as daring as the crucifixion sequence of ANDREI RUBLEV. The most daring, of course, is the film's controversial final chapter, in which Jesus is tempted by Satan with images of the life he could have led had he not accepted his role as the Messiah. Many practitioners have likely imagined these sequences when reading the Bible, yet few artists have dared to recreate their vision in all its idiosyncratic detail. (Just as every reader conceives of a novel differently, every practitioner conceives of scripture after his or her own idiom; this seems perfectly natural, and yet it remains taboo to deviate from the lifeless presentation epitomized by Cecil B. DeMille.) In taking this risk, Scorsese faced the greatest controversy of his career; today, the film stands as one of his masterworks. The radical vision is filled out with a passionate and highly mannered cast that includes Willem Dafoe as Jesus, Harvey Keitel as Judas, and Harry Dean Stanton, Victor Argo and John Lurie as apostles; an eerie score by Peter Gabriel; and some imaginative, highly flexible camera work by the great Michael Ballhaus. (1988, 164 min, 35mm) BS
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More info at www.docfilms.uchicago.edu.
Roberto Rossellini's JOURNEY TO ITALY (Italian Revival)
Block Cinema (Northwestern University) - Friday, 7pm
This perplexing film, the fourth of six collaborations between Rossellini and lover Ingrid Bergman, catches a British husband and wife (Bergman and George Sanders) on a trip to Naples at the brink of their marriage's collapse. Alex (Sanders) defines cruel logic with his complete lack of sentimentality and constant cutting words while Katherine (Bergman), sympathetic only by comparison, spends much of the trip muttering discontentedly to herself on lonely tours through museums, catacombs, and volcanoes. Where other films about failed marriages let us grow attached to the characters before rending them apart, JOURNEY TO ITALY thrusts us into the dysfunction practically from the beginning, forcing us to accept the direness of the situation at face value, or be left behind. The marriage seems so thoroughly beyond hope that, for much of the film, there is a disquieting lack of drama, until the coldness and the cruelties finally reach a critical mass and the sadness and pain behind them begin to appear like the secret picture in a magic eye. Panned on its original release, the film was subsequently championed by Truffaut, Rivette, and other members of the New Wave. Showing in a new digitally-restored version. (1954, 86 min, DCP Digital Projection) ML
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More info at www.blockmuseum.northwestern.edu.
John Hughes' FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF (American Revival)
Doc Films (University of Chicago) - Friday, 7, 9, and 11pm; Sunday, 1pm
John Hughes' FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF is a picaresque tale about a confident young man doing what he can to postpone adulthood. In a performance that made him a bonafide leading man at the age of 23, Matthew Broderick creates a character so clever and charming that you can't help but root for him. Beginning with a little white lie about a serious illness to get a final day off before going to college, Ferris schemes to cheer up his best friend Cameron with a VIP tour of the city. Wrigley Field, the Art Institute, Michigan Avenue, and the Sears Tower ("I think I see my dad") are the backdrop for the greatest senior ditch day ever put on film. Its enduring appeal lies in the subplot, however, in which the evil dean of students, Edward Rooney (Jeffery Jones), vows to catch Ferris in the act and force him to repeat his senior year. In the film that not only taught countless youngsters how to properly play sick, but also showcased our city as the playground for Broderick's under stimulated Northshore slacker, there are moments of cinematic greatness. (1986, 103 min, 35mm) JH
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More info at www.docfilms.uchicago.edu.
MORE SCREENINGS AND EVENTS
The Chicago International Film Festival continues through October 23 at the AMC River East 21. Also see the Music Box section in More Screenings below for information on a mini-tribute to actress Isabelle Huppert.
The Chicago Film Archives presents CFA Crashers: Lee Bey on Tuesday at 6pm at the Hideout (1354 W. Wabansia Ave.). Architecture critic Bey has selected the following films from the CFA collection: FOOTE CONE BELDING'S 25TH ANNIVERSARY (Goldsholl Design & Film Associates, 1967, 4 min, 16mm), CHICAGO MURAL: MIDWEST METROPOLIS (Gordon Weisenborn, c. 1960, 26 min, 16mm), BERNARD CAREY "ENDORSEMENT" (1972, 1 min, 16mm), and A PLACE TO LIVE (DeWitt Beall, 1968, 28 min, 16mm).
Chicago Filmmakers and Chicago Cinema Society present Sean Ellis' 2013 film METRO MANILA (115 min, Video Projection - Unconfirmed Format) on Saturday at 8pm at Chicago Filmmakers (5243 N. Clark St.) and on Wednesday at 6:30pm at Columbia College Chicago - Hokin Hall (623 S. Wabash, Room 109).
The Society for the Arts (1112 N. Milwaukee Ave.) presents Commercials by Andrzej Bukowinski, with Polish director Bukowinski in person, on Saturday at 8pm.
Also at the Gene Siskel Film Center this week: Lydia Smith's 2013 documentary WALKING THE CAMINO: SIX WAYS TO SANTIAGO (84 min, DCP Digital) returns for a week's run, with subject and co-producer Annie O'Neill in person at all Friday and Saturday shows and the Sunday 3pm show; Peter Strickland and Nick Fenton's 2014 performance film BJÖRK: BIOPHILIA LIVE (97 min, DCP Digital) plays for a week; Sandra Nettelbeck's 2001 German film MOSTLY MARTHA (109 min, 35mm) is on Sunday at 3pm and Monday at 6pm; Jim McBride's 1974 film HOT TIMES (aka A HARD DAY FOR ARCHIE; MY EROTIC FANTASIES) (80 min, Archival 35mm Print) is on Tuesday at 6pm, with a lecture by Jonathan Rosenbaum; and the lecture presentation Dior + Couture by Alexandra Palmer, Senior Curator of Textiles and Costumes at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, which includes the documentary PASSAGE #5: CHRISTIAN DIOR SPRING/SUMMER 2011) (2011, 5i min, Unconfirmed Format) is on Wednesday at 6pm.
Also at Doc Films (University of Chicago) this week: Matt Reeves' 2014 film DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES (131 min, DCP Digital) is on Saturday at 7 and 9:45pm and Sunday at 3:15pm; Ben K. Blake's 1938 film TWO SISTERS (82 min, 16mm; Free Admission) is on Sunday at 7pm; and Victor Erice's 1976 film THE SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE (99 min, 35mm) is on Monday at 7pm.
Also at the Music Box Theatre this week: Sam Cullman, Jennifer Grausman, and Mark Becker's 2014 documentary ART AND CRAFT (89 min, Digital Projection - Unconfirmed Format) opens; Rory Kennedy's 2014 documentary LAST DAYS IN VIETNAM (98 min, Digital Projection - Unconfirmed Format) continues; Steven Spielberg's 1993 film JURASSIC PARK (127 min, 35mm) is on Friday at 7:30pm, with a talk by Pete Makovicky, Associate Curator of Dinosaurs at the Field Museum; and, as part of the Chicago International Film Festival, a mini-tribute to actress Isabelle Huppert featuring (and reportedly all in 35mm prints) Michael Haneke's 2001 film THE PIANO TEACHER (131 min) on Sunday at 4pm; Marc Fitoussi's 2010 film COPACABANA (107 min) on Sunday at 7pm; Claude Chabrol's 2006 film COMEDY OF POWER (110 min) on Tuesday at 5:30pm; and Claire Denis' 2009 film WHITE MATERIAL (106 min) on Tuesday at 8pm.
Facets Cinémathèque plays Jeff Radice's 2014 documentary NO NO: A DOCKUMENTARY (100 min, Unconfirmed Format) for a week's run.
Retrospective titles at the Logan Theatre this week: Wes Craven's 1984 film A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (91 min) is on Friday-Monday at 10:30pm; Sean S. Cunningham's 1980 film FRIDAY THE 13TH (95 min) is on Friday-Monday at 11pm; Tim Burton's 1988 film BEETLEJUICE (92 min) is on Saturday and Sunday at Noon; Michael Dougherty's 2007 film TRICK 'R TREAT (82 min) is on Tuesday-Thursday at 10:30pm; and George A. Romero's 1982 film CREEPSHOW (120 min) is on Tuesday-Thursday at 11pm. All Digital Projection - Unconfirmed Format.
Gallery 400 (400 S. Peoria, UIC) hosts the Sistah Sinema Chicago presentation of ZombieShorts (Video Projection - Unconfirmed Format) on Saturday at 2pm. Screening are A NIGHT IN THE WOODS, KISS GOOD NIGHT, and BOOK OF RUTH; on Saturday at 2pm, G400 presents A Feminist Perspective on Gun Violence in Chicago: Screening and Performance. The event includes two films, Lonnie Edwards' PARIETAL GUIDANCE and Michael Paulucci's SHIRLEY'S KIDS, followed by INGRAVESCO, a performance by RJ EL and Cheryl Pope in collaboration with young Chicago poets; and on Wednesday at 6pm, G400 presents the next program in the Art 21 Access '14 Film Series: Episode 2: Secrets, which features the artists Elliott Hundley, Arlene Shechet, Trevor Paglen. Free admission.
At Chicago Public Library locations this week: Adrian Prawica's 2013 documentary THE FOURTH PARTITION (Unconfirmed Running Time, Video Projection - Unconfirmed Format) is at the Harold Washington Branch (400 S. State St.) on Wednesday at 6pm. Free admission.
The Goethe-Institut Chicago (150 N. Michigan Ave.) screens Dieter Reifarth's 2013 documentary HAUS TUGENDHAT (116 min, Video Projection - Unconfirmed Format), introduced by local architect Dirk Lohan, on Thursday at 6pm. Free admission.
The Logan Square International Film Series at Comfort Station in Logan Square (2579 N. Milwaukee Ave.), in collaboration with Daily Grindhouse present Claude Héroux's 1977 film THE UNCANNY (88 min, DVD Projection) on Wednesday at 7:30pm. Free admission.
At the Portage Theater this week: Stevie Nicks and David A. Stewart's 2013 documentary STEVIE NICKS: IN YOUR DREAMS (112 min) is on Friday at 8pm; Rupert Julian's 1925 silent film THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (93 min) is on Sunday at 3pm, presented by the Silent Film Society of Chicago; John Ennis' 2014 documentary PAY 2 PLAY: DEMOCRACY'S HIGH STAKES (87 min) is on Monday at 5pm; Robert Wiene's 1924 silent film THE HANDS OF ORLAC (92 min) is on Monday at 8pm, presented by the Silent Film Society of Chicago; Roland West's 1925 silent film THE MONSTER (86 min) is on Tuesday at 8pm, presented by the Silent Film Society of Chicago; and Sacha Gervasi's 2008 music documentary ANVIL: THE STORY OF ANVIL (80 min) is on Thursday at 8pm. All Unconfirmed Format (though suspected all Video Projection).
ONGOING FILM/VIDEO INSTALLATIONS
The Art Institute of Chicago presents Anri Sala's 2003 digital video installation Mixed Behavior (8 min loop) through March 1.
I Am Logan Square (2644 ½ N. Milwaukee Ave.) presents a show of horror movie posters from the collection of the Logan Theater through November 14.
Washington Park Arts Incubator (301 E. Garfield) continues the exhibition How To Make A Hood through October 10. Included is "The Hood We Live In," a sculpted 3 channel video installation by Amir George. More info at www.htmah.com.
UPDATES/CLOSURES
The Northbrook Public Library film series is on hiatus during renovations at the library. Expected completion is Spring 2015.
The Portage Theatre has resumed occasional screenings (from Blu-Ray/DVD only we believe).
As of July 2014 the Patio Theater is up for sale.
The Northwest Chicago Film Society is again on hiatus for their weekly series, with the closing of the Patio Theater. They plan to do occasional screenings as opportunities arise.
