:: FRIDAY, MARCH 13 - THURSDAY, MARCH 19 ::

📽️ CRUCIAL VIEWING

Bruce Baillie's QUICK BILLY (US/Experimental)

Chicago Film Society at Constellation (3111 N. Western Ave.) – Wednesday, 8pm

Baillie described this, his greatest film, as a "horse opera in four reels," adding that it is "a kind of interior documentary" formulated as a rendering of "The Great Liberation by Hearing," the funeral chapter of The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Filmed over the course of three full years, this is at its most basic level a symbolic record of Baillie's near-death from hepatitis and its aftermath, but over the course of the film the viewer metaphorically enters into the underworld, is transformed, and finally released back into the world through the power of light itself. "I had studied The Tibetan Book of the Dead," he has said. "There the deceased is on a journey, 'the time of uncertainty.' The specters come to us as our own personal cinema: we are obliged to confront the results of our own deeds. It becomes more and more frightening. As I pursued the experience, I found this delightful moment in the beginning which was so lovely; it degenerated into a terrifying but lovely cosmic storm. In The Tibetan Book of the Dead each moment has an opposite side, and there's a color for every aspect." However, for all the concern for self amongst the mythos, this is an astoundingly tactile film, filled with dense fields of color, intricate superimpositional montages, and meaty, rich source sounds, all of which serve to underline the crucial questions at the heart of QUICK BILLY, for Baillie's concern here is always to anchor spiritual concerns within those of the flesh, filmed in extraordinary abstraction—too close, too fast, too intimate. He set out to make a film that wasn't beautiful but instead was true, a distinction his final product erases, for it is a work in which neither can exist without the other and with which we as extraordinarily limited horizons in an infinite space can glimpse the infinite solace of the projected shadow. Followed by QUICK BILLY: SIX ROLLS, a series of “correspondences” with Stan Brakhage that Baillie described as “magic cousins” to his feature. (1970, 60 min, 16mm) [Kian Bergstrom]

Jon Moritsugu’s MY DEGENERATION (US)

FACETS – Friday, 9pm

“BEEF = 1) Life! 2) Art! 3) Sex!” reads one of the many signs in Jon Moritsugu’s first feature, MY DEGENERATION. Bunny Love, an all-girl rock band, gets scouted by the meat industry, moves to Los Angeles, and becomes Fetish, the cool new face of all things beef and beef-related products. We’re introduced to the three women of soon-to-be Fetish during a collage credits montage, layered with magazine cutout letters and 16mm scratches, in which they flaunt for the camera, effortlessly oozing cool. Loryn Sotsky is Justine B., the lead singer; Amy Davis is Molly R., the drummer; and Lesely Grant is Amanda Jones, the bassist. Filmed in Providence, RI, upon Moritsugu’s graduation in 1987, the film was briefly postponed due to an industrial accident in which Jon’s right arm was pulled into a conveyor belt and almost severed. Punk rock enough for you? That gnarly imagery is translated onto the screen in the more absurd elements of the story as filming (which Moritsugu thought of as “physical therapy”) resumed. Of course, I am referring to the love affair Justine, the singer, is having with a sentient pig’s head named Livingston during Fetish’s rise to fame. As she caresses Livingston, he brings her a sense of calm and a bit of guidance. Frankly, I’m glad she has him to alleviate some of the stress of overnight stardom, but she keeps him hidden from her bandmates for most of the runtime out of shame. The film plays like a series of sketches and montages with friends, an excuse to get together and make art about art you love, and a playground of lo-fi punk, texture, media, homage, and invention. MY DEGENERATION is less about narrative and more about time and place, a musical movement (scrappily, scuzzily soundtracked by bands such as Vomit Launch, Government Issue, and Bongwater), a capsule of a disaffected generation of kids who are “too cool for school” but not too cool to constantly create. Moritsugu’s films evoke perpetual motion, nonstop communication with an era that was often playful but sidelined as merely angry. Moritsugu is fiery, loud, proud, and artistically “dangerous,” for lack of a better word. On his website, Jon claims that, at MY DEGENERATION’s Sundance premiere, Roger Ebert “threw down his popcorn in a fit and walked out after just 7 minutes.” When was the last time art made the establishment throw a fit? I truly can’t remember. If I can’t have my artistic revolt in 2026, I’ll happily go back and watch it unfold in 1990. (1990, 61 min, DCP Digital) [Olivia Hunter Willke]
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Jon Moritsugu & Amy Davis’ 2026 film NUMBSKULL REVOLUTION (93 min, DCP Digital) screens Friday, 7pm, both as part of an Optical Noise double feature.

Hazel M. & Mae M.’s DIVINE HAMMER (US)

FACETS – Wednesday, 7pm

Hazel M. and Mae M., both established and celebrated voices across Twitch and YouTube, have a visceral and innate understanding of what can blossom and what can fester across the internet. Perhaps more crucially, they understand the inextricable relationship between those two ends, this twisted dichotomy no more prevalent than in their feature film debut DIVINE HAMMER, a work whose dark and sordid subject matter is confidently buoyed by its rapid, almost jovial tone, an earnest, bemused chuckle at a world on fire. The internet has an almost alchemical ability to connect people through the murkiest of means; in this instance, a group called the Gore Preservation Society, a Discord server devoted to those looking to collect, admire, and even glorify photos and videos of murder, harm, and mutilation. Such graphic subcultures have provided fodder for great cinema before—the Canadian drama RED ROOMS (2023) took a more traditional, dramatic thriller approach to the subject with grand, rancid results—but Hazel and Mae find trenchant insight and great humor in exploring the almost mundane nature of the current generation’s normalization to tragic events in a world where school shootings and overseas militarism have spread through the digital ether to become the norm (“there’s no gratification in tragedy anymore”). The narrative kicks itself into a new gear when two members of the server (Hollie and Rose, played by Hazel and Mae, respectively) hatch a plan to meet up in person and attempt to kill one another, the surviving gore enthusiast planning to share the footage with the world. Such transgressive, maniacal plans give way to one of the more tender, earnest stories of female friendship I’ve seen in modern cinema, the M. Sisters ingeniously deploying the bordering-on-edgelord tendencies of contemporary online culture to explore our generational crises around social isolation, nihilism, and capitalist drudgery. Filmed on low-resolution mini-DV cameras, the imagery on display is jaw-dropping in its simultaneously expansive and intimate scope, using outdated tools to capture Sheetz parking lots, old camp sites, and scummy apartments with clarity and purpose and heart. DIVINE HAMMER, by logline alone, is not for the faint of heart, but the open-hearted, communal spirit lying under the rot of it all is a gift that keeps on giving. Followed by a pre-recorded Q&A with the directors. (2025, 75 mins, Digital Projection) [Ben Kaye]

Abderrahmane Sissako's BAMAKO (Mali)

Siskel Film Center – Sunday, 12pm

Similar to the work of Ousmane Sembène, Abderrahmane Sissako's BAMAKO is an audacious piece of political filmmaking that imagines a trial in which the plaintiff, African society, has charged the defendant, international financial institutions such as World Bank and the IMF, with the crimes of neocolonialism and the unjust exploitation of African peoples. Shot almost entirely in Sissako's childhood courtyard, the film is an intriguing blend of fiction and documentary. On the one hand, the scenario couldn't be more fantastical, however, the film features real Malian denizens voicing their outcries as well as professional lawyers who approach the proceedings as if they were part of an actual court case. As the trial progresses, the hum of everyday existence continues in the periphery: a marriage disintegrates, women dye cloth, a wedding takes place. This attention to marginalia has a humanizing effect, reminding the viewer that amidst all the weighty political rhetoric, individual lives carry on. One of BAMAKO's most surreal moments is a mini-film parody of the western genre titled "Death in Timbuktu" starring Danny Glover (one of the film's producers), which satirizes the dispensability of African life and the omnipresence of American influence. When the trial reaches its crescendo, Brechtian detachment gives way to an impassioned indictment of global capitalism and a vociferous demand for a guilty verdict. Screening as part of the African Cinema from Independence to Now lecture series. (2006, 118 min, DCP Digital) [Harrison Sherrod]

Lindsay Anderson’s BRITANNIA HOSPITAL (UK)

Alamo Drafthouse – Thursday, 7pm

BRITANNIA HOSPITAL concludes a trilogy of satirical films directed by Lindsay Anderson, written or cowritten by David Sherwin, and featuring Malcolm McDowell as a character named Mick Travis. All three films are concerned with the makeup of English society—particularly its cruelties and inequalities—as reflected in the nation’s institutions. The Palme d’Or-winning IF… (1968) took place at an elite boarding school; in that film, Travis is a student revolutionary who literally wages war on his teachers in the famous conclusion. The follow-up, O LUCKY MAN! (1973), found Travis reborn as an idealistic naif obsessed with succeeding in the business world. An epic picaresque on the themes of imperialism and economic power, the film took the character all over the country and up and down the social ladder. Like IF…, BRITANNIA HOSPITAL is mainly confined to a single setting, yet that place comes to stand in for England at large. Travis is now an unscrupulous reporter bent on covering the strange experiments going on in the new wing of the titular location; unlike the previous films, he isn’t the main character, but rather part of a large ensemble that also includes administrators, doctors, other employees, and the violent mob outside protesting the hospital’s questionable practices, such as their recent decision to treat an African dictator modeled after Idi Amin. The humor is broader and the fantastical elements more pronounced than in the other two films in the trilogy; both of these elements come to a head (pun intended) during the movie’s climax, a Frankenstein parody by way of Hammer horror. BRITANNIA HOSPITAL also feels more unwieldy than its predecessors, given how Anderson cuts between multiple groups of people in loose, Altmanesque fashion, a mode that seems a bit alien to the typically laser-focused critic and director. Yet the film’s ambition is commendable, with Anderson and Sherwin making room to tackle such topics as class conflict, modern science, and journalistic ethics. The sense of perpetual crisis, however played for laughs, is meant to mirror the state of England at the time of the film’s making, just a few years into Margaret Thatcher’s regime. Free Victory screening. (1982, 111 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]

📽️ ALSO RECOMMENDED

Oliver Laxe’s SIRĀT (Spain/France)

Alamo Drafthouse, AMC River East 21, Davis Theater, Music Box Theatre, and Siskel Film Center – See Venue websites for showtimes

Indebted to Henri-Georges Clouzot’s THE WAGES OF FEAR (1953) and William Friedkin’s remake SORCERER (1977) (to say nothing of Werner Herzog’s output), SIRĀT is something of an arthouse blockbuster, delivering as much in the way of shocks and suspense as any action movie while inspiring rumination on the tenacity of humankind and the uncaring majesty of the natural world. It’s commanding filmmaking, especially in a theatrical setting, thanks to the meticulous, at times overwhelming sound design and the no less overwhelming desert landscapes. As Dave Kehr wrote of THE TARNISHED ANGELS (1957), this should be seen on a big screen or not at all—it’s a film about the kinds of momentous experiences that make us feel small in relation to world around us. SIRĀT begins at a rave in the desert (it was shot mainly in Morocco, with some portions shot in Spain), as the film cuts between various dancers and technicians. It gradually comes to focus an older Spanish gentleman named Luis (Sergi López, one of the only professional actors in the cast); he hasn’t heard from his adult daughter in five months, and he’s come to the desert with his other child, a preteen boy, because he believes she’s joined the nomadic raver community in this part of the world. Luis befriends a group of itinerants and chooses to follow them to the next rave they’ve heard about, little knowing how perilous the trek across the desert will be. The physical hardships that the characters face recall the aforementioned Clouzot and Friedkin films, but where the protagonists of those films were motivated by greed and self-preservation, the characters of SIRĀT are driven by different urges. Luis wants to reunite his family, while his new friends are in search of a perpetual high, be it from drugs, music, nature, or danger. As Laxe presents them, there is a spiritual element to both of these quests, which makes the nomads’ acceptance of family man Luis less strange than it may first appear. And because Laxe maintains such a spiritual vibe, it feels particularly staggering when real-world concerns intrude on the proceedings, such as the news that World War III has broken out. That the narrative of SIRĀT exists under the shadow of war gives the film a frightening topicality that only adds to its urgency. (2025, 114 min, 35mm [at select Music Box showtimes] and DCP Digital [everywhere else]) [Ben Sachs]

David Lynch's TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME (US)

Music Box Theatre – Monday, 7pm

I once knew a survivor of childhood sexual abuse who told me that David Lynch's TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME is the only film that ever really got it right. The way incest deranges you, the unprocessable betrayal, the PTSD. Describing her abuse, she said she'd had her own personal Freddie Krueger, and Lynch portrays Laura Palmer's final days as a horror movie—scarier than most, and truer. Critics missed the thrust of this baffler, calling it the worst thing Lynch ever did, if not one of the worst films ever made. Today, it looks like a flawed masterpiece, exhausting and exhilarating. It's a singular portrayal of "garmonbozia" (pain and sorrow), the cream corn of evil—with all the Lynchian disjunctures that sentence implies. It's abrasive at every level, from Lynch's screaming, whooping sound design to the punishing immersion into Laura's hell. But its extremism is the source of its hypnotic power, and Lynch's corybantic surrealism fits the theme. Sheryl Lee is astonishing as doomed, anguished Laura; Ray Wise is terrifying (and, in deranging moments, loving) as her molester father. Then there's that first 35 minutes, which play like a savage parody of the TV show, with Chris Isaak and Keifer Sutherland investigating a murder in Deer Meadow, a negative image of our favorite Pacific Northwest town. Here, the coffee's two days old, the diner is seedy, the small-town cops are jerks, and the dead woman is not exactly the homecoming queen. (One suspects that the cherry pie would be damn poor.) The "Lil the Dancer" scene is a delightful thumbnail illustration of semiotics, and Harry Dean Stanton is on hand as Carl, manager of the Fat Trout trailer park. Angelo Badalamenti's score is creamy and dreamy, mournful and menacing. Actually, I suspect that if you're not already well-versed in the lore of Bob, Mike, the One Armed Man, The Arm a.k.a. The Man From Another Place, Mrs. Tremond and her grandson, and the Owl Cave ring, then you might have stumbled upon this site by accident. I'd guess our readers share my excitement that the stars, and the passage of 25 years, have aligned so that we are actually poised to reenter the Black Lodge. If you haven't boned up on this prequel, then hie to this revival. (Or even if you have: you'll see something new every time.) (1992, 135 min, DCP Digital) [Scott Pfeiffer]
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Co-presented with the Horror House; there’s a meet and greet with Ray Wise in the Music Box Lounge starting at 5pm and then a Q&A with Wise afterwards.Wise will also be in person for the Tuesday event, including two hand-picked episodes of Twin Peaks, starting at 7pm

Brittany Shyne’s SEEDS (US)

FACETS – Saturday, 1pm and Sunday, 6pm

When discussing her debut feature SEEDS, director Brittany Shyne has described the film as "the maintenance of legacy and cultural presentation." This becomes painfully clear as the full scope of her work comes into view, a kaleidoscopic look at the lives of Black farmers in the American South that, like the best documentaries, acts as both art and artifact. Originally conceiving of the film as a project while in grad school, Shyne, also acting as cinematographer here, wanted to use her filmic voice to capture a perspective that she had yet to see portrayed faithfully, if at all, on camera. Structurally, SEEDS exists as a “process” documentary; there are no talking heads, no descriptive voiceovers, simply the footage of these farmers in Georgia and Mississippi working, talking, and simply living, Shyne’s imagery providing enough context and artistry to paint a sumptuous picture as is. We are thrust, in pristine black-and-white, into the world of these “centennial farmers,” those whose families have owned their respective land for over a hundred years, their cultural footprint measured in acres, struggling to keep up with an agricultural community that has systematically left them far behind. Shyne’s compositions are gorgeously intimate, her camera finding its way into the deep crevasses of gigantic mechanical cotton pickers, into funeral homes during reverentially joyful services, and even to Washington DC, joining the farmer’s mass protests against the blatantly racially discriminatory practices of the Department of Agriculture (during the Biden Administration, mind you). Two figures who find themselves poking through the artistic morass of agricultural imagery are Willie Jr. and Carlie, two enigmatic farmers whose presence particularly highlights how this profession—for Black southerners, at least—still mainly rests in the hands of the elderly (Carlie is 89 in the footage here, but has since passed). There is an existential weight at the heart of SEEDS, of Black Americans finally owning land in a country that has brutally othered them for centuries, hoping that there will be someone to whom they can pass down these fields of legacy. Cotton and corn will continue to grow, but will those who have given their lives to cultivate these crops still be given the space to do so, to grow even fuller, even stronger? (2025, 123 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Kaye]

Stephen King’s MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE (US)

Alamo Drafthouse – Tuesday, 7pm

Stephen King's sole directorial effort was panned by critics upon release. King has admitted he barely remembers filming it due to heavy cocaine use, which may explain its erratic pacing. He adapted his novella Trucks to focus on machinery rather than people, as he felt too shy to direct actors. The result is a film where sequences of homicidal diesel rigs, rocket-launching vending machines, and steamrolled little leaguers show more competence than any of the dramatic moments inside the Dixie Boy Truck Stop. King originally wanted Bruce Springsteen for the role of Billy (eventually played by Emilio Estevez), an odd fit for a film scored entirely by AC/DC. The movie opens with Earth engulfed by a green atmosphere from a rogue comet's tail. The apocalypse begins with a bank marquee changing from time and temperature to "Fuck You!" King shows up with his white suit and topaz boater hat in his best cameo. Text on an ATM screen leads to the line: "This machine just called me an asshole." Now we know how the comet feels about humans. Other cameos include a young Giancarlo Esposito electrocuted in an arcade and Marla Maples surviving a watermelon attack. Most memorable is Yeardley Smith (future voice of Lisa Simpson) as a shrill newlywed who asks her husband, "Curtis, are you dead?" Angus Young screams “Who Made Who” as the title appears gearing us up for a fast-paced thrill-ride. While the tempo slows to a near-stop trying to develop a romance between Billy and Brett (Laura Harrington), other characters are highlighted, such as the real villain of the film, Bubba Hendershot (Pat Hingle), owner and proprietor of the Dixie Boy. Bubba exploits free labor from his ex-convict employees and calls everyone "Bubba" as if erasing their identities. The film never explains what in the comet's tail animates machines, or why some vehicles are possessed while others aren't, how a hair dryer strangles someone with its cord, or how it controls sprinklers. These inconsistencies contribute to the film's overall messiness, but also its cult appeal. The vacuous non-criticism of so-bad-it’s-good is often used to describe King’s film; however, there is such proficiency in the action sequences that MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE refuses to be a bad film. Critics questioned why Estevez, fresh from THE BREAKFAST CLUB (1985) and ST. ELMO'S FIRE (1985), would star opposite a truck with a Green Goblin hood ornament. His resume at the time included: Francis Ford Coppola, Alex Cox, John Hughes, Joel Schumacher, showing an actor strategically collecting directors. Estevez enjoyed the experience and concept enough to start writing an unauthorized sequel in 2023. The movie's themes of labor exploitation followed by enslavement to machines we’ve built to make our work easier is more of a reality now. Today, with only 85 seconds left on the Doomsday Clock and mere moments away from sentient artificial intelligence, the fears that may have elicited a laugh in 1986 are sobering now. The film's June 19, 1987, setting gained eerie significance when, exactly 22 years later, King was struck by a vehicle while walking on a roadside shoulder. King had spent his career foreshadowing such events in many of his novels, including Pet Sematary, Monkey Shines, and of course Trucks. King's film has outlasted its reputation to become a genuine cult classic, not despite its flaws, but because the chaos, cocaine, and AC/DC created something uniquely unrepeatable. Screening as part of the Terror Tuesday series. (1986, 97 min, DCP Digital) [Shaun Huhn]
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Followed by Carlos Aured’s 1973 film HORROR RISES FROM THE TOMB (89 min, DCP Digital); both screen as part of the Terror Tuesday series.

Howard Hawks' GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES (US)

Music Box Theatre – Monday, 2pm

Howard Hawks' glitzy sing-along of consumerism on tour is headlined by the hottest of commodities, Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe. GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES is, of course, far most interested in what these ladies prefer--which may be love or may be diamonds, depending on whom you ask--as opposed to the gents, here occupying a grand range of caricatures from buffoonish millionaires to meddling private investigators to rigidly-disciplined muscle men. Russell and Monroe are Dorothy Shaw and Lorelei Lee, two showgirls fresh out of Little Rock and adrift on an Olympian-infested ocean liner bound for Paris. Both women give career defining performances here, with Monroe playing up American extravagances to hyperbolic heights, and Russell as the lovelorn straight woman, a term infused with entirely new meaning during the great "Ain't There Anyone Here For Love" number. Here's a film that is an equal-opportunity objectifier, a carefree capitalist musical as essential for piecing together American identity in the 1950s as any film by Nicholas Ray or Douglas Sirk. (1953, 91 min, DCP Digital) [Tristan Johnson]

Hong Sang-soo’s WHAT DOES THAT NATURE SAY TO YOU (South Korea)

Siskel Film Center – See Venue website for showtimes

How many of Hong Sang-soo’s movies don’t contain a scene where someone gets drunk and makes a fool of themselves? No matter how much he evolves formally, Hong returns again and again to the same narrative and thematic fixations (his filmography may be the closest equivalent in narrative cinema to Monet’s haystacks), and drunken embarrassment happens to be one of them. So, if you’re a fan of the South Korean writer-director, then WHAT DOES THAT NATURE SAY TO YOU might play like a mystery for most of its run time, the mystery being, who will play the inebriated ass? In this film, Hong assembles a collection of characters who all seem likely to implode when drunk, puts them in close proximity of one another for long enough for their foibles to become apparent, then gives everybody booze. Here’s the set-up: Dong-hwa (Ha Seong-guk), a 30-something poet, goes with his girlfriend of three years, Jun-ee (Kang So-yi), to meet her family for the first time. Her mother, father, and older sister (who recently moved back home to “work things out”) live on the side of a mountain outside of Seoul; all three are interesting people with cool hobbies. Dong-hwa starts to clash with Junee’s socially awkward sister (Park Mi-so) in subtle ways, which may lead you to think that one of them will make a faux pas after the wine starts to pour. But what about Jun-ee’s dad (Hong regular Kwon Hae-hyo), who seems almost unnaturally happy about everything? Or her mom (Cho-Yun-hee), herself a poet of local renown? Who knows what resentments they’re harboring? As usual with Hong, the fun of WHAT DOES THAT NATURE SAY TO YOU lies in how the filmmaker unpeels his characters, revealing more about them as the story progresses until you reach their true natures. The film contains some jabs at the egos of poets, but for the most part, it maintains the gentle attitude that’s been running through Hong’s 2020s work so far. (2025, 108 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]

Carson Lund's EEPHUS (US)

Music Box Theatre – Saturday, 11:30am

It’s a beautiful autumn day in Massachusetts, with the trees painting the sky various shades of green and orange, and the clouds taking up just enough space to leave room for plenty of sunshine. Sounds like a great day to play some baseball. Carson Lund’s debut feature—focused around a rec-league of ball players and their final game before the town baseball field is paved over to become a school—revels in this pristine sense of atmosphere, creating a baseball film less interested in who ends up winning than the feeling of watching the sun go down while heading into the ninth inning. Baseball is, after all, more than just the game; it’s the old man in the stalls muttering to himself, the crotchety obsessive keeping score in his worn-out notebook, the food truck parked nearby peddling slices of pizza for passersby, and the friendly barbs thrown back and forth between teammates. EEPHUS somehow lands somewhere between “Slow Cinema” and indie dramedy without ever feeling self-indulgent or crass, its respect for its suburban characters too earnest in practice. There’s something inherently noble and relatable about the seriousness with which the players take their sport; here's a group of men who don’t do this for a living but feel some kind of pull towards the game, whether it's passion, obligation, or just an excuse to get out of the house. That Lund’s film is able to capture the tactility of a New England autumnal day, and carry such emotionally lofty material without feeling overly sentimental, and have some of the funniest dialogue in a film I’ve heard in recent memory, is no small feat. Perhaps it’s notable that the first character we hear in the film is voiced by legendary documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman, maybe a nod to the film’s pursuit of capturing life’s circuitousness, the great American pastime acting as grand metaphor for all great things having their great moment in the sun, until we’re well into the night, and it’s time to pack it in. After all, there’s always next year. (2024, 98 mins, DCP Digital) [Ben Kaye]

Peter Bogdanovich's WHAT'S UP, DOC? (US)

The Davis Theater – Tuesday, 7pm

WHAT'S UP, DOC? is a screwball comedy to watch if you appreciate the fact that someone who just loves screwball comedies wound up with an opportunity to shoot a movie with Barbra Streisand and Ryan O'Neal (two of the hottest actors at the time) but had no script. What did he do? He asked two screenwriter friends to write a modern version of BRINGING UP BABY, and they didn’t do a bad job! Admittedly Babs has quite a different vibe and is a little more... sexual, shall we say, than Katharine Hepburn. And Ryan O'Neal is a little less... charming, shall we say, than Cary Grant. That's to be expected. No one can be a second Cary Grant without doing some crazy voodoo. That said, WHAT'S UP, DOC? is a delightful screwball comedy from start to finish. The plot is expertly, dizzyingly, incomprehensibly presented. There are four plaid briefcases, and they all have silly items in them. That's really all you need to know to enjoy the film. Well, I guess a few additional details might help: Howard (Ryan O'Neal) is betrothed to Eunice (Madeline Kahn, in what is, shockingly, her feature debut—she's already a comedic genius). To put it mildly, Eunice is a little bit of a wet blanket, although to be fair, Howard is an awkward geology geek with no social skills. Howard meets Judy (Barbra Streisand) in a drugstore, and Judy is instantly smitten, tracking him with frightening precision and disastrous consequences before they inevitably fall madly in love. Howard should be presenting some boring rocks to a musical geology conference in order to win an important grant. That… does not succeed. Instead, there are mix-ups, jewel thefts, secret government papers misplaced, a few gunshots, a fire in a hotel, an obligatory car chase through hilly San Francisco streets, and, of course, a delightful Cole Porter number murmured by Babs (sorry, Judy) atop a piano on the rooftop of the very hotel that she and Ryan (sorry, Howard) have been ejected from hours before. WHAT'S UP, DOC? is a comedy to watch if you really need an escape and 93 solid minutes of entertainment constructed lovingly by a critic's director. The scene under the table at the awards banquet alone makes the movie worth watching. Screening as part of the Big Screen Classics series. (1972, 93 min, DCP Digital) [Alex Ensign]

Chuck Russell's THE MASK (US)

The Davis Theater – Thursday, 9pm

THE MASK is about an everyman nice guy, Stanley Ipkiss, who can’t catch a break and who consistently places others' convenience before his own needs. After blowing his chances with potential client/girlfriend at his bank job, he finds a Norse mask that turns him into a green-headed deity with Looney Tunes-like powers and carries out his repressed desires. Russell’s original script reflected the dark nature of the source material, a comic book series created by Mahnke and John Arcudi, in which anyone who wears the mask turns into a psychopathic killer. The story was reshaped around Jim Carrey's comedic gifts when Russell realized the boundless possibilities of the actor’s talent. Few times in modern movie making has the filmmaking worked so in tandem with the actor. Seven years had passed since Russell’s previous film, THE BLOB (1988), a film utterly different in tone and style. Due to Carrey's impressive physicality and flexibility, the production saved money by not having to computer generate the actor’s movements or stunts. To date, THE MASK is Russell’s only comedy (with musical numbers, nonetheless). Russell didn’t play to Carrey’s strength because a studio told him to—he observed the actor’s abilities and allowed them to influence his filmmaking. Carrey shot into stardom months before the film’s summer release due to the explosive popularity of ACE VENTURA: PET DETECTIVE. Cast in her first film as the bombshell blonde love interest, Cameron Diaz has charisma from her entrance on screen. The male gaze of the filmmaking emphasizes Diaz’s sensuality so strongly, it feels like self-parody for a modern audience. Though cornered as the film’s two-dimensional sex appeal, Diaz proves her star power, and this film establishes her as the sex symbol she would become by the late '90s. (Russell originally wanted Anna Nicole Smith before giving the role to the 21-year-old former model.) With a dragshow performance from Bottom the Drag Clown before the feature. (1994, 101 min, New 4K DCP Digital Restoration) [Ray Ebarb]

Maggie Gyllenhaal’s THE BRIDE! (US)

Alamo Drafthouse, The Davis Theater, local AMCs and many others – See Venue websites for showtimes

The trailer for THE BRIDE! unfolds to Florence + The Machine’s “Everybody Scream,” cut like a feverish music video tracing the bond between Frankenstein’s monster and his reanimated companion. Its lyrics, insisting “Here I don’t have to be quiet” and “Here I can take up the whole of the sky,” frame the film’s central demand: autonomy. Maggie Gyllenhaal’s follow-up to THE LOST DAUGHTER (2021) revisits and revises James Whale’s THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935), reclaiming a figure who, in Whale’s version, appears for less than five minutes, never speaks, and recoils in horror. Capable of independent thought from the moment lightning strikes, her first sound is a ghastly scream. Given life only to be immediately subjugated to the will of men. It is a scream that echoes through time. Gyllenhaal begins from the absence of The Bride’s point of view. Set in 1930s Chicago, the film situates itself within the industrial and aesthetic history that produced Universal’s monster cycle. IMAX-certified cinematography by Lawrence Sher renders the period with architectural clarity while accommodating stylized departures, including surreal dance sequences and anachronistic music. The narrative introduces Mary Shelley, played by Jessie Buckley, in black-and-white sequences that place her beyond death, seeking continuation of a male-suppressed narrative. She finds a vessel to possess in Ida, also played by Buckley, a woman cornered by mob violence. After Ida’s death, she becomes the candidate for reanimation at Frankenstein’s request. Christian Bale’s creature adopts his creator’s surname, consolidating authorship and identity within one name. Dr. Euphronius, portrayed by Annette Bening, replaces Whale’s Pretorius. The name references the Greek artisan associated with the Sarpedon Krater, an image of divine escort of the dead. Unlike Pretorius, Euphronius resists the logic of manufacturing a woman for male consolation, articulating ethical objection within the diegesis. When The Bride claws her way back to life, expelling black viscous reagent, Buckley’s layered performance fuses Ida’s bruised defiance with Shelley’s historical rage. From this internal conflict emerges a self no longer divisible. Buckley has described the production as “proper punk,” and Bale reportedly cited Sid Vicious as a visual touchstone. The design merges 1930s material culture with gender-subversive costuming and abrasive performance registers. Early test screenings prompted reductions in graphic violence, which Gyllenhaal accepted, while insisting the suffering of the dying remain visible. Each murder carries consequence; brutality is not anonymous spectacle. The film includes Gyllenhaal’s husband Peter Sarsgaard as a detective, brother Jake Gyllenhaal as a 1930s film star whom Frankenstein idolizes, and Penelope Cruz attempting to assert authority within law enforcement. The film nods to Mel Brooks’ YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN through a “Puttin’ On The Ritz” performance, cites THE BRIDE OF RE-ANIMATOR through musical reference, and echoes BONNIE AND CLYDE and BADLANDS in its outlaw romanticism. This intertextuality strengthens its abrasive sensibility without diluting its critique. When saying, “yes,” to a man out of fear is replaced with, “I’d prefer not to,” The Bride becomes a monster. She isn’t the monstrous feminine because she’s a reanimated corpse. She’s considered vile for requesting individuality, agency, and embracing her sexual desires. Original music by Fever Ray, including a cameo by Karin Dreijer, and a score by Hildur Guðnadóttir heighten the tension between rebellion and acceptance, as the film embraces Frankenstein's unwavering acceptance of The Bride’s multitudes. Expanding from an intimate drama about motherhood to a studio spectacle, Gyllenhaal sustains her inquiry into women navigating power and self-definition, reframing a canonical horror narrative through consent, authorship, and the right to speak. (2026, 126 min, DCP Digital) [Shaun Huhn]

📽️ ALSO SCREENING

⚫ Alamo Drafthouse
Grace Glowicki’s 2025 film DEAD LOVER (83 min, Digital Projection) screens Wednesday, 9:30pm, as part of the Weird Wednesday series. More info here.

⚫ Block Cinema (at Northwestern University)
In recognition of Women’s History Month, the Gichigamiin Indigenous Nations Museum, Evanston History Center, Wilmette History Museum, and Northwestern University’s Block Cinema present a special screening of Susan Roe Musacchio Kelsey’s 2025 film OUILMETTE (30 min, Digital Projection) on Saturday, 1pm,  followed by a Q&A with Sharon Hoogstraten and filmmaker Susan Roe Musacchio Kelsey. Free admission. More info here.

⚫ Chicago Film Archives 
A Celebration, a new video artwork at 150 Media Stream created by experimental filmmaker Colin Mason, will showcase images from home movies in Chicago Film Archives collections. 150 Media Stream is a large-scale digital art installation spanning a 150-foot LED wall in downtown Chicago curated by Yuge Zhou. In the lobby of 150 N. Riverside Plaza; enter through the Randolph Street entrance. More info here.

⚫ Chicago Public Library
View all screenings taking place at Chicago Public Library branches here. 

⚫ The Davis Theater
Darren Aronofsky’s 1998 film PI (84 min, 4K DCP Digital Restoration) screens Saturday, 3:14pm, in celebration of Pi Day. More info here.

⚫ FACETS
Lynne Ramsay’s 2025 film DIE MY LOVE (119 min, DCP Digital) screens Saturday and Sunday at 3:30pm.

Andrew Davis’ 1993 film THE FUGITIVE (131 min, DCP Digital) screens Saturday, 7pm, with an introduction from FUGITIVE location manager Rich Moskal. There’s a pre-screening mingle beginning at 6:30pm.

Chloé Zhao’s 2025 film HAMNET (125 min, DCP Digital) screens Sunday at 1pm.

Full Spectrum Features presents Cafe Focus, a monthly coworking pop-up for Chicago filmmakers and film workers of all backgrounds and experience levels, in the FACETS Studio on Sunday starting at 2pm.

Sweet Void Cinema’s Industry Hobnob in the FACETS Studio (Oscars Edition) takes place Sunday at 6pm.

Sweet Void Cinema presents a screenwriting workshop in the FACETS Studio on Wednesday from 6 to 9pm. More info on all screenings and events here.

⚫ Music Box Theatre
Tony Benna’s 2025 documentary ANDRE IS AN IDIOT (88 min, DCP Digital) begins screening (Benna in person for a post-screening Q&A after the 2pm screening on Sunday) and the 2026 Oscar Nominated Animated Short Films and 2026 Oscar Nominated Live Action Short Films continue. See Venue website for showtimes.

A 70mm early access screening of Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s 2026 film PROJECT HAIL MARY (156 min) takes place Friday at 7pm. Note that this screening is sold out.

Jim Sharman’s 1975 cult classic ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (100 min, 35mm) screens Saturday at midnight. Every screening has a shadowcast of the film (that’s actors acting in front of the screen during the film) performed by Midnight Madness.

The Chicago Film Society presents Filth and Freedom: Selections from the Vinegar Syndrome Film Archive on Sunday at 11:30am.

In celebration of the Brewed’s fourth anniversary, Steven Kostanski’s 2020 film PSYCHO GOREMAN and his 2025 film DEATHSTALKER screen Sunday starting at 7pm with prerecorded introductions from Kostanski for both films.

Julie Pacino’s 2025 film I LIVE HERE NOW (99 min, DCP Digital) screens Monday, 10:30pm, with a pre-recorded introduction from star Sheryl Lee. 

The X-rated cut of John Henry Timmis IV’s 1985 film CANNIBAL ORGY (65 min), preceded by Kelso Antoine’s 2025 short film RELEASE THE HOUNDS (7 min, DCP Digital), screens Tuesday at 9pm. 

The Banff Mountain Film Festival takes place Wednesday and Thursday starting at 7pm. More info on all screenings and events here.

⚫ Siskel Film Center
Gianfranco Rosi’s 2025 documentary POMPEI: BELOW THE CLOUDS (114 min, DCP Digital) begins screening. See Venue website for showtimes.

JCC Chicago’s Jewish Film Festival presents Judith Colell’s 2025 film FRONTIER (101 min, DCP Digital) on Sunday at 1pm. More info on all screenings here.

⚫ South Side Home Movie Project
As part of its 20th anniversary celebration, the South Side Home Movie Project presents Spinning Home Movies Episode 20: Quiet Still with Jason Campbell, a week-long exhibition that showcases the materiality, architecture and temporality of home through archival films and architectural design, at Washington Park Arts Incubator (301 E. Garfield Blvd.) through Saturday. There’s a closing night event on Saturday starting at 5:30pm with a performance by Jenn Freeman. More info here.

⚫ Tone Glow at Elastic Arts (3429 W. Diversey Ave. #208)
Tone Glow presents Life's Collapsed Stanzas, a two-program event featuring 12 films by the pioneering filmmaker Bruce Baillie, on Tuesday at 6pm. More info here. 

CINE-LIST: March 13 - March 19, 2026

MANAGING EDITORS // Ben and Kat Sachs

CONTRIBUTORS // Kian Bergstrom, Ray Ebarb, Alex Ensign, Shaun Huhn, Tristan Johnson, Ben Kaye, Scott Pfeiffer, Harrison Sherrod, Olivia Hunter Willke