We will highlight physical screenings at the top of the list for theaters and venues that are open, grouped in our standard Crucial Viewing and Also Recommended sections, as well as all other physical screenings, and list streaming/online screenings below.
Remember to check venue websites for information on safety protocols and other procedures put in place for Covid prevention. We recommend verifying those before every trip to the theater.
⛰️⛰️ DAVID LYNCH: A COMPLETE RETROSPECTIVE - THE RETURN
The Music Box Theatre’s tribute to the man whom J. Hoberman once named “the most successful avant-garde filmmaker of all time” runs through Thursday. The series, programmed by projectionist and musician Daniel Knox, includes screenings of all of David Lynch’s features as well as documentaries about Lynch, programs of his commercial and music video work, and films directed by his close associates (including daughter Jennifer Lynch’s rarely revived BOXING HELENA). Each screening includes either a pre-show program of Lynch-related material or a Q&A with a special guest. Reviews of most of the films in the series can be found below. For the rest of the schedule, including showtimes, visit the Music Box website here.
David Lynch's THE ELEPHANT MAN (US)
Friday, 4pm and Sunday, 11:30pm
An admirer of David Lynch’s ERASERHEAD, Mel Brooks lobbied to get Lynch hired as director for this historical drama about Joseph Merrick, a profoundly disfigured young man who became a minor celebrity in Victorian-era London after he was taken under the care of the physician Frederick Treves. Brooks also fought executives to let Lynch shoot the film in black-and-white and incorporate some experimental dream sequences reminiscent of his underground classic. The producer’s victories are worth mentioning not only because they speak to Brooks’ magnanimity, but also because they helped shape THE ELEPHANT MAN into the gorgeous work that it is. A quick scan of IMDB’s trivia page for the film reveals that it’s highly inaccurate with regards to Merrick’s life: he was never abused by the proprietor of the freak show where Treves discovered him, nor did the proprietor ever abduct him from the hospital where he came to live. Yet Lynch’s film is still a deeply moving fairy tale on the themes of friendship and compassion, imagining how caring individuals can elevate a person long held in low esteem by others and himself. The scenes of Merrick tearfully accepting the kindness of his benefactors are among the most forthrightly emotional in Lynch’s filmography; as realized by John Hurt (and an extraordinary team of makeup artists), the character is perhaps the most beautifully vulnerable Lynch would consider prior to Alvin Straight in THE STRAIGHT STORY. The film’s aesthetic adds greatly to its emotional impact—the sooty and shadowy black-and-white imagery, the dreamlike dissolves, and the haunting sound design (co-created by Lynch and as dense in industrial noises as the soundtrack of ERASERHEAD) evoke a decaying world where kindness seems an especially rare commodity. You feel almost as grateful as Merrick when you sense its presence. (1980, 124 min, 35mm) [Ben Sachs]
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David Lynch's MULHOLLAND DRIVE (US)
Friday, 6:45pm and Wednesday, 2:30pm
Part mind-bending mystery, part hair-raising thriller, part tear-jerking break-up soapfest, David Lynch’s MULHOLLAND DRIVE evokes an aura of nocturnal wonder and dread, a realm caught between the parameters of waking life and dreams, achingly poignant in its emotional core, absolutely hypnotizing in it’s formal ambiance, and sometimes-frustratingly labyrinthine in its thorny construction. Addressing the cult of personality that is David Lynch’s public persona, it’s hard to look past the hovering cloud that is his semi-comical presence as a cult figure. His fan base certainly gives the impression that Lynch has been, and will always be, the only director who can tap into the idea of dreamworlds and existential cinematic strangeness. Even though this is severely not the case, it isn’t enough to diminish an artist who frequently operates at the height of his powers behind the camera. MULHOLLAND DRIVE contains many elements of his previous work and re-contextualizes them into a concise, epic investigation into the landscape of a shifting personality, that moves with the weight of a person waking and falling into a series of dreams, contrasted with possible realities imagined and lived in. Naomi Watts plays “Betty,” who comes to Hollywood hoping to achieve stardom as an actress in the movies. She catches the attention of a young director played by Justin Theroux, who has been told by a shady, ultra-powerful group (led by Twin Peaks’ “The Arm”) to cast a different actress in his movie. This actress, first glimpsed being driven along the spiraling and ink-black road of the film’s title, suffers a near-assassination attempt, and is left an amnesiac. When she wakes, she believes her name is “Rita”, eventually running into “Betty,” where together they try to solve the mystery regarding “Rita” and her true identity, falling into a romantic obsession in the process. Over the course of the movie, the characters’ identities begin to shift, leading to possible alternate realities in the film’s story and timeline, where Lynch plays with the illusion of the cinema as a false construction that occasionally evokes deep emotional responses from those witnessing it. This idea is fleshed out in the “Silencio” scene, where the two women stumble upon a nightclub with a singer, Rebecca Del Rio, performing a Spanish version of a famous Roy Orbison song. As she sings, the two women begin to cry uncontrollably at the performance, which is eventually revealed to be false, as the singer isn’t even singing and the music is pre-recorded. When the music stops, so does the singer, as she collapses on stage and is dragged off. Lynch pulls a cinematic magic trick on his viewers, engulfing them in the emotions of these two women, who are witnessing something that is a construct, while simultaneously being emotionally swept up in its power and beauty, crying to an illusion that is revealed to be false. One of the most powerful scenes of the last several decades, the rest of the film is a testament to a director operating at peak levels of his matured artistry. Twin Peaks: The Return has much in common with this bewitching work, even in its production history. MULHOLLAND DRIVE started originally as a TV pilot, later to become a series, but never actually materialized into one, so it was changed to a feature film, while Twin Peaks: The Return is a television show that feels more like a long movie in the spirit of Jacques Rivette (who once remarked that the feature film TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME, very much the origin to MULHOLLAND, left the French filmmaker “floating” when he left the theater). Much like his recent work with Peaks, characters tend to appear and vanish without trace, while identities twist and morph into sometimes wholly different characters. Like the devastating, yet cathartic ending of his recent 18-hour masterwork, digging deeper into an obsessive mystery can sometimes bring you further and further from the reality of what it is you began searching for in the first place. (2001, 147 min, 35mm) [John Dickson]
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David Lynch's ERASERHEAD (US)
Friday, Midnight and Monday, 7pm
"It's my PHILADELPHIA STORY. It just doesn't have Jimmy Stewart in it." In Lynch's debut feature, a man and a woman conceive a monstrous child somewhere in between suburban alienation and industrial rot, a mostly conventional situation with the most grotesque punchline. Watching ERASERHEAD now feels like wandering through a nightmare more than ever, due in part to its central conceit and the expected barrage of disturbing events and images that it entails—distended faces, animal carcasses, etc.—but even the film's few familiar features add to this dreamlike quality. For example, most of ERASERHEAD takes place in an apartment building whose lobby is recognizable as the Other Place from TWIN PEAKS, and its checkerboard floors trigger a series of half-conscious connections, the common dream trope of a location playing the role of another location. But for every fact we know about the film's production, we're equally uncertain about what it is we're actually looking at, including the creature-child itself, whose uncertain origins have inspired theories that claim it as everything from a cow fetus to an elaborate puppet. Then, amidst this uncertainty, the film's most destabilizing quality emerges: its sweetness. As the father, Jack Nance has a constant wide-eyed, beleaguered stare that is almost as infantile as the creature-child that he tends to, ambivalently at first and then urgently as soon as he sees it in distress. It's effectively moving for the same reason that it's effectively dreamlike, with conscious logic and psychological realism applied to unreal conditions. But because Lynch's mind doesn't seem to format in the conditional or hypothetical, this aspect of unreality is always underlined as literal, so that the scenario of a largely silent father figure demonstrating real concern over his freak spawn is never played as what would happen but what is happening, shifting the focus onto affect and away from conditions. The silhouette of Nance's head has become a visual shorthand for the film, and is also emblematic in many ways of this oddly bound logic; it's shape is both inexplicable and inevitable, and the only place it could possibly make sense is on the floor of a pencil factory, which is exactly where it ends up. (1977, 89 min, 35mm) [Anne Orchier]
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David Lynch’s THE STRAIGHT STORY (US)
Saturday, 11:30am; Sunday, 6:30pm; and Thursday, 4pm
Critics regularly describe THE STRAIGHT STORY as David Lynch’s least characteristic film because it’s a G-rated docudrama without any explicitly avant-garde flourishes, yet Lynch’s artistic personality is plainly evident throughout. The performers speak in that unemphatic, naïve-sounding manner that’s been a Lynch trademark since the beginning of his career, and the director films the all-American imagery (in this case, Midwestern farmlands and small towns) in an iconographic way that shows a direct connection to the settings of his BLUE VELVET and Twin Peaks. After the fashion of those two landmarks, there are even implications of dark, buried secrets beneath the Norman Rockwell-esque surfaces: the life of Alvin Straight, we learn, is marked by war trauma, alcoholism, family disputes, and a particularly heartbreaking episode that befell his adult daughter. These secrets never come to light in images, however (which is why the film had no trouble getting its G rating); instead, they take the form of poignant monologues that reveal how Straight has internalized and atoned for his tragedies. This narrative strategy allows THE STRAIGHT STORY to maintain a warm, contemplative tone from beginning to end. Some have likened this to the late films of Yasujiro Ozu, but it more likely has roots in Lynch’s longtime practice of transcendental meditation. Whatever inspired the film’s blissful patience is less important than the refreshing effect it has on the viewer; to watch THE STRAIGHT STORY is a bit like engaging in transcendental meditation yourself. For me, it all comes down to the long shot of Straight on his riding lawn mower, progressing at a snail’s pace down an unremarkable highway. The camera pans up, contemplates a perfect Heartland horizon for a few moments, then pans back down to find that Straight has barely progressed since we last saw him. The moment is both funny (Lynch suggests an ellipsis, only to reveal it isn’t one) and touching (the moment encapsulates the old man’s perseverance and quiet integrity), showing how much Lynch is able to assert his personal aesthetic in atypical circumstances. Deserving special mention for their creative contributions are veteran cinematographer Freddie Francis (who came out of retirement to shoot the film) and Sissy Spacek, who gives an unbelievably moving performance as Straight’s daughter. (1999, 112 min, 35mm) [Ben Sachs]
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David Lynch's WILD AT HEART (US)
Saturday, 2pm
Films of the “lovers on the run” subgenre are sexual, dark, and exude a melodramatic dreaminess. They often, too, thematically address complications of Americana and nostalgia. With continual references to THE WIZARD OF OZ, WILD AT HEART explores themes of home that are found throughout David Lynch's work; while his more recent Twin Peaks: The Return is all about how it’s impossible to go home again, WILD AT HEART is ultimately about the dream beyond the rainbow. After getting out of prison for murder, Elvis-obsessed Sailor (Nicolas Cage) and his girlfriend Lula (a transcendent Laura Dern) run away to California, telling each other stories of their pasts along the way. Unbeknownst to them, they’re pursued by Lula’s mother (a fabulously unhinged Diane Ladd), who hires hitmen to kill Sailor. Filled with surreal vignettes and characters, WILD AT HEART is dynamic and strange, sordid and ethereal. At one point Lula and Sailor pull over to dance on the side of the road to heavy metal; it’s as if the film, too, needs to shake off some irrepressible energy. Scenes like these are paired with quiet moments of horror—namely, the scene where Willem Defoe’s character aggressively corners Lula in a motel is one of the most upsetting in cinema; Laura Dern portrays Lula’s reaction with heartbreaking authenticity. But the most affecting scene is where Lula and Sailor find a woman (Sherilyn Fenn) injured in a car accident on the side of the road. These kinds of emotionally driven images of violence and trauma experienced by women would be more fully addressed in his film TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME, released just a few years later. (1990, 124 min, 35mm) [Megan Fariello]
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David Lynch’s DUNE (US)
Sunday, 9:15pm
Having seen David Lynch's adaptation DUNE after watching Denis Villeneuve’s version, I am struck at how similar the two are—and by how easy it is to teeter from making an adaptation work to completely missing the mark. While Villeneuve may have found a way to streamline the original novel’s plot, he didn’t make it any less dense. Lynch’s version never figured out its impermeability; this led to a challenging production and eventual box office failure on release. In revisiting, I’m most surprised to see so many parallels between Lynch’s DUNE and his more recent Twin Peaks: The Return, both in the aesthetic—particularly set design and special effects–and in its puzzling nature. Set in the future, the intricate plot—much of it divulged through voiceover—follows young Paul Atreides (an enthusiastic Kyle MacLachlan in his first film role) as his powerful family relocates to the desert planet Arrakis, which is the only place in the universe where spice, a necessary resource for interplanetary space travel, is found. DUNE is filled with bizarre performances by Lynch regulars and one-offs alike: Patrick Stewart, Brad Dourif, Sting, and Alicia Witt, just to name a handful. The film is also scored by rock band Toto with a theme by Brian Eno. There’s a lot going on, and a lot of that doesn’t work, but it's impressive in its attempt, and often weirdly fascinating. While it’s a perplexing film to grapple with, Lynch's DUNE sits oddly somewhere between two of my favorite kinds of cinema: the ambitious and mainly unsuccessful sci-fi/fantasy films of the 80s on the one hand and Lynch’s most inscrutable work on the other. The former taught me missteps can still contain some stunning visuals; the latter taught me that a seemingly impenetrable film experience can also be a very rewarding one. (1984, 137 min, 35mm) [Megan Fariello]
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David Lynch's LOST HIGHWAY (US)
Monday, 9:30pm
David Lynch loves to play in the dark. His longtime cinematographer Frederick Elmes once remarked that "with David, my job is to determine how dark we're talking about." There's sort-of-dark, and really-dark, and pitch-black-dark; all of these kinds and more are put to gripping use in LOST HIGHWAY. The most breathtaking example (perhaps echoing a shot from THRONE OF BLOOD) is a scene that takes place in a shadowy hallway. Avant-garde sax player and demi-protangonist Fred Madison slowly moves from lightness to dark, appearing to slowly dissolve before our very eyes. It's the sort of infinitely subtle visual moment that home video just can't adequately reproduce, and LOST HIGHWAY is packed with them. For too long this movie has overshadowed by its more-celebrated follow-up, MULHOLLAND DR. But the fact is the two movies function as a true diptych, exploring similar themes of doubling and identity in ways that complement each other. To ignore LOST HIGHWAY is to discount some of Lynch's most indelible moments: including an unforgettably disquieting sex scene, the eerie Natalie Woodishness of a leather-clad Natasha Gregson Wagner, a gorgeous use of This Mortal Coil's "Song to the Siren," Richard Pryor's out-of-left-field cameo (it was his final film), and of course Robert Blake's unforgettable performance as the sinister Mystery Man. (1997, 135 min, 35mm) [Rob Christopher]
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David Lynch's TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME (US)
Tuesday, 7:30pm and Thursday, 9:45pm
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, 35mm) [Scott Pfeiffer]
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David Lynch's INLAND EMPIRE (US)
Wednesday, 7:30pm
So few digitally-shot features dare to place the medium's technical limitations at the front and center of their aesthetic. Mostly filmmakers just hope that the audience ignores how crappy everything looks. Not David Lynch. INLAND EMPIRE obsessively fixates on the look of mid-grade digital video: blocky smears of light, washed-out colors, hazy and peculiar. It's literally a dreamworld. As in a dream, you can't always tell what you're seeing—or what it means. There is only the eternal now; in the film's world, memory can just as easily refer to tomorrow as to yesterday. Memory is as blurry as the degraded visuals. We're forced to squint between the pixels, trying to remember. Lynch marries this to a soundtrack that's arrestingly intricate, populated with all manner of industrial noises and hair-raising sound effects. It's an image/sound mashup as scary and bewildering as any nightmare. Seen in a darkened theater we're caught in its brilliant grip. (2006, 180 min, DCP Digital — New 4K Picture and Sound Remaster) [Rob Christopher]
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David Lynch's BLUE VELVET (US)
Thursday, 7pm
This is where the legend really began. It's curious to think how Lynch's career would have developed if DUNE (1984) had not been a box office failure, but cinema history can thank him for not playing it safe with this rebound project. Though Lynch had already made three features, BLUE VELVET was the first full articulation of his core theme of the evil that lurks in small towns everywhere. Not the outright surrealist endeavor that was ERASERHEAD, it is also not the most accessible of narratives. Dark, violent, sexual, and reeking of 1963 suburbia, the film is at times a noir mystery and at others a violent thriller. Many of the visual symbols that would populate TWIN PEAKS are introduced here, such as red curtains appearing when danger is present in a scene, and Lynch's continued growth as a complete cinematic artist is evident. Despite having a cast that didn't feature a legitimate star (Dennis Hopper may be the exception, but his career was in the dumps when he was cast...as the third choice), the film earned Lynch his second Academy Award nomination for Best Picture, as well as praise from critics throughout the world. It's also notable that Kyle MacLachlan (essentially playing Dale Cooper) might never have worked again if not for his excellent performance. Still dangerous all these years later, the film is as gorgeous as it is classic. (1986, 120 min, 35mm) [Jason Halprin]
📽️ CRUCIAL VIEWING
Michael Curtiz and William Keighley’s THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD (US)
Film Studies Center (at the Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th St., University of Chicago) – Friday, 7pm (Free Admission)
When Warner Bros. wanted to change its pre-Code image as a purveyor of mayhem and sin to align with the full enforcement of the Hays Code, it turned to making films that recast its populist messages as something more in line with traditional notions of American patriotism and values—generosity of spirit, obedience to just laws, and chivalry toward women. One of the studio’s best examples of this approach is THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD, a big-budget, three-strip Technicolor swashbuckler that hit audiences the world over in their sweet spot when it was released and has continued to garner legions of fans to this day. The script by Norman Reilly Raine and Seton I. Miller is based around centuries-old legends of Robin Hood, with some serious nods to historical authenticity mixed with pure invention and sharp editing to keep the film moving at a breakneck pace. The stirring, heroic score by Erich Wolfgang Korngold won an Academy Award—an ironic twist for the composer who very reluctantly agreed to write it as a way get out of Austria before its imminent occupation by the Nazis—and this third pairing of Errol Flynn at his Boys’ Own best as Robin and a luminous Olivia de Havilland as Marian cemented their position as one of the most attractive couples on the big screen. Basil Rathbone forever buried his early image as a romantic lead with his cold, cruel portrayal of Sir Guy of Gisbourne, a character invented for this film to be the heavy when the Sheriff of Nottingham (Melville Cooper) was written as a buffoonish coward. Director Keighley, much beloved by the cast, was replaced by the much-loathed Michael Curtiz, but the latter’s signature silhouette images, particularly during the final sword fight between Guy and Robin, are as majestic as they are effective. Superb archery sequences created by Howard Hill (the so-called “World’s Greatest Archer,” who lofted the actual shot that split the arrow for the film’s archery contest), excellent matte painting work, expertly planned and realized stunt performances by a raft of stunt men and women, and lively characterizations by such supporting players as Claude Rains, Alan Hale Sr., Eugene Pallette, and Una O’Connor help complete the package. Take advantage of this opportunity to see this dazzlingly photographed classic on the big screen. Screening as part of the University of Chicago and Folks Operetta’s Korngold Rediscovered festival. (1938, 102 min, 35mm) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Ilisa Barbash’s SWEETGRASS (US/Documentary)
Block Cinema (at Northwestern University) – Thursday, 7pm
I watched SWEETGRASS with the closed captions on and was still flummoxed by what its de facto protagonists—two sheepherders working on Montana's Absaroka-Beartooth mountains—were saying at times. Not because I couldn’t understand the words, but because what they were saying didn’t make sense to me, nor could I understand how they understood one another. But they certainly seemed to, and it’s this tacit recognition that steeps the documentary-cum-eulogy in a knowingness that’s both elusive and captivating. The filmmakers, anthropologist and director of Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab Lucien Castaing-Taylor and the school’s Peabody Museum Curator of Visual Anthropology Ilisa Barbash (the filmmaking duo are also married), spent three years in the early aughts documenting modern-day shepherds, here a family of Norwegian-American ranchers with a grazing permit handed down through generations, and the yearly sojourn up the mountain range for their sheep’s summer pasture. The Allestads were supposedly the last to drive their stock on the mountains’ public lands, a painstaking endeavor that requires the constant presence and assiduous vigilance of long-suffering ranch hands. Opening with a look at what happens on the ranch before sending the sheep to pasture—a part composed of several brutal sequences wherein the sheep are treated like the product they literally are—the film soon transitions to the summer months spent upon the mountain. Here we get to know the two ranch hands: John, an old cowboy akin to Jimmy Stewart’s fatherlike westerners in his collaborations with Anthony Mann, and Pat, a younger guy who still gets excited over pretty rocks he finds on the ground. It’s between them, and toward the sheep, that most of the pidgin-esque conversations take place, evoking a world where language is picayune and its inhabitants are in silent awe of their surroundings. This is, of course, an overly romantic version of the American West that Castaing-Taylor and Barbash temper with moments of frustration; Pat especially is prone to angry outbursts toward the sheep, hurling an array of expletives at them. In one scene he calls his mother and cries, overwhelmed by the task at hand. It may not be the stuff of the traditional Western but it is the stuff of work, the physical and mental exertion required by this job an extraordinary effort for not much monetary gain. (Castaing-Taylor himself lost weight and later needed double foot surgery to treat trauma-induced advanced degenerative arthritis.) Despite the Herculean achievement of successfully pasturing a large body of sheep, the ending is bittersweet, reflecting the uncertainty faced by independent farmers; indeed, the Allestads’ ranch would close a few years later. Undoubtful, though, is the terrain’s majestic beauty, which reigns supreme over the trivial follies of man in all its silent splendor. Filmmaker Castaing-Taylor will appear in person to discuss the film with filmmaker J.P. Sniadecki, associate professor and Director of the MFA in Documentary Media at Northwestern. (2009, 115 min, DCP Digital) [Kat Sachs]
Jon Moritsugu's MOD FUCK EXPLOSION (US)
Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) – Thursday, 9:30pm
MOD FUCK EXPLOSION is among the great films about teenagers, an avant-garde masterpiece that breaks taboos and tests audience members' patience in equal measure. It's the story of disaffected teenager London (Amy Davis, Moritsugu's longtime muse and partner) mooning around listlessly, bemoaning her meaningless life, against a backdrop of pending war between a Japanese biker gang (led by Moritsugu) and a gang of Mods. She wants a leather jacket; she wants to lose her virginity; she wants to know what it all means. The closest she gets to any of that is with M16 (Desi del Valle), an androgynous Sal Mineo type who sometimes calls her to read horrific stories from the newspaper. The dominant mode is a sort-of satire of corporate movies about earnestly moody teenage angst: WEST SIDE STORY is the easy choice, but it exists alongside aspects of REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, THE WILD ONE, and any number of featureless 1950s and 60s (and 1990s and 2000s) angry-teenager movies. A lot of it is loud and obnoxious and amateurish by design; the camera is too far away from the actors, the lighting is inadequate so the scenes are murky, it looks like the film was developed in a urinal, and the dialogue is a distracting mix of post-sync and location sound, often in the same scene. The actors stand around awkwardly, delivering their lines about youth and despair in loud, bored voices. But don't let any of this fool you: Moritsugu knows what to do with a camera, how to use limited lighting in evocative ways, how to work magic with his grainy 16mm stock. He throws in shots of delicate beauty that come and go so abruptly that it's almost like he's winking at the audience before going back to spitting in their faces. He's also a brilliant satirist; I know I haven't laughed so hard this year as I did during a scene where London flips through her record collection, cataloging records by invented bands like Dildo and Shit-Matrix according to their resale value like a hipster on Record Store Day. Other portions are sweetly disarming, like a scene when London and androgynous gang leader M16 are bragging about imagined sexual experiences. The soundtrack, apparently recorded for the film by punk bands Unrest and Karyo Tengoku, is an unheralded masterpiece that slyly comments on the film. I'm emphasizing these fleeting, beautiful things because it would be very tempting to miss them or discount them in the often-nonsensical swirl of violence, bad acting, profanity, deliberate offense, and enervating pacing that sometimes surrounds them. I suspect that Moritsugu is an incredibly talented filmmaker who can do just about anything he wants, and this is what he wanted to do—all of it. Screening as part of Doc’s second Thursday series: Punks Behind the Camera. (1994, 67 min, 16mm) [Michael W. Phillips Jr.]
Jessie Maple's TWICE AS NICE (US)
Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) and South Side Projections – Monday, 7pm
Jessie Maple is a bona fide trailblazer, having been the first African-American woman admitted to the union of International Photographers of Motion Picture & Television (IATSE) in New York. (Maple details this experience in her 1977 book How to Become a Union Camerawoman, which appears to be out of print. She published a follow-up memoir several years ago called The Maple Crew; it’s essential reading for anyone interested in the experience of women and people of color in the film industry.) According to the New York Times, her first feature, WILL, is “the first post-civil rights feature film directed by a woman,” with other sources claiming it was the first post-civil rights feature directed by a Black woman specifically. Many sources also claim that, with TWICE AS NICE, she became the first Black woman to direct two feature-length films. Co-produced by her husband Leroy Patton under the auspices of their independent production company, LJ Films, TWICE AS NICE is about twin college basketball stars, Caren and Camilla Parker (played by Pamela and Paula McGee, both real-life basketball players), at a pivotal point in their respective lives and careers—for example, Caren hopes to be the first woman to join the “MBA,” the WNBA having not yet been established. (That would happen in the mid-90s.) Eventual WNBA superstar Cynthia Cooper-Dyke appears as one of the girls’ teammates, and poet, actress, and filmmaker S. Pearl Sharp wrote the script. Most impressive is what the film doesn’t say; though it’s a relatively short feature, the narrative is magnified by Maple’s canny direction. The audacious physicality helps to account for this, Maple utilizing both the sport and her actors’ bodies, those which are criminally underrepresented on the big screen, to imposing effect. Preceded by Ngozi Onwurah’s 1988 short film COFFEE COLOURED CHILDREN (15 min, Digital Projection). Screening as part of Doc’s Monday series: An Open Window: Black Female Directors Across the Diaspora with an introduction from Danielle Scruggs, founder and editor of Black Women Directors. (1989, 70 min, DCP Digital) [Kat Sachs]
Ron Fricke's BARAKA (US/Documentary)
Facets Cinema – Friday, 7pm
At a time when Americans’ wings were clipped, and rightly so, because of our previous (mis)leader’s murderous fumbling of the Covid-19 pandemic, I needed Ron Fricke’s BARAKA. I was able to roam and fly across the world virtually via this sweeping, breathtakingly gorgeous documentary. BARAKA (the word denotes “blessing” in both Judaism and Islam) was shot by Fricke himself in widescreen (“Todd-AO”) 70mm, on every continent except Antarctica and in almost as many countries as there are letters of the alphabet. Associational and non-narrative, and deploying not a single word, BARAKA sings of the universal human impulse toward the numinous. We flit across St. Peter’s Basilica, the Western Wall, whirling dervishes in Istanbul, a mass of pilgrims circling Kaaba in Mecca for Hajj, the sacred Uluru/Ayers Rock sandstone formation. The film pulses with a primal beat which evokes the quest—religious, intellectual, or both—for personal or collective transcendence. Michael Stearns composed the original music and curated the soundtrack, which conceives of all the world’s song, on one level, as a form of prayer. It is at least as important as the images to setting the movie’s tone, which veers from solemn majesty to sorrowful/ironic witness to our dehumanizing tendencies. I suppose a certain kind of critic may feel the film’s critique—essentially, that our modern world is out of balance, and that ancient or “primitive” cultures may offer more thoughtful, less destructive ways of living on our planet—is almost cliché. Maybe, but the point happens to be correct; moreover, Fricke’s juxtapositions are never facile, and his method actually involves a certain objectivity. Watch the fast-motion footage of workers in an electronics factory in Tokyo, and perhaps you reflect that it is probably much like the one where your laptop was made. Watch chicks being spit down the conveyor belt in a factory farm in Santa Cruz, and draw your own conclusions about what it takes to produce food for a mass society—as well as what, if any, connections might exist between overconsumption in the West and people foraging for sustenance in dumps in Calcutta. Nor do we pass over humanity’s genocidal impulse—at one moment we find ourselves alone inside Auschwitz, the next we’re in the Khmer Rouge’s S-21 prison/torture center. On the whole, though, this is a deeply humanistic vision. One of Fricke’s motifs is to have subjects gaze without expression directly into the camera, seeming to peer into us even as we regard them. If any of this sounds familiar, it is because Fricke was the cinematographer on Godfrey Reggio’s KOYAANISQATSI, that landmark of “pure cinema” from 1982. I vividly recall huddling around a TV in a darkened room with the family in the ‘80s, mesmerized by that film’s dizzying imagery and the hypnotic Philip Glass music. BARAKA is an evolution of that film’s techniques and themes, using time-lapse photography to show dawn break and night fall from the Angkor ruins to the pyramids of Giza, as the world turns under a whirling, vapory sky. Some may interpret the film as a work of praise—an invitation to celebrate God’s labors in the grandeur of nature. Your choice—but for sure it’s an overwhelming sensory and emotional experience. As BARAKA crescendos to its climax, we glide through the interior of the Shah-e-Cheragh mosque in Shiraz, Iran, which blazes with a seemingly infinite array of bits of colored glass. Its makers meant to evoke heaven. So beautiful. BARAKA is the movie I want flowing through my head on my deathbed. Screening as part of Facets’ Arthouse Environmentalism series. (1992, 97 min, Digital Projection) [Scott Pfeiffer]
Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s FLEE (Denmark/Animation/Documentary)
Facets Cinema – See Venue website for showtimes
Mass media has a tendency to reduce refugees to a faceless, monolithic Other; in ubiquitous images of teeming crowds spilling off lifeboats or huddled in asylum centers, a harmful narrative is perpetuated that anonymizes and dehumanizes a vast array of individuals seeking to escape myriad perilous circumstances. FLEE is a compassionate, much-needed corrective to the popular narrative, replacing xenophobic generalizations with lived specificities. The film is structured as an extended interview between former refugee Amin Nawabi and Jonas Poher Rasmussen, his close friend; crucially, this marks the first time Amin has shared his story, making FLEE a project of genuine biographical revelation. In his soft-spoken but candid words, Amin recounts his turbulent upbringing in war-torn Kabul, Afghanistan, in the 1980s and his and his family’s tense, splintered attempts to find asylum in safer lands. Compounding the danger was Amin’s burgeoning awareness of his homosexuality, one of many facets of his identity he learned to suppress for the sake of survival (now out and married, his forthcoming observations about his nascent gay desire provide FLEE’s loveliest moments). Rasmussen renders both the present-day interview and the dramatic re-creations of Amin's harrowing journey in animation, a decision no doubt motivated in part by a respect for Amin’s privacy, allowing him to talk openly about his experiences without having to fear the sensationalistic exposure made possible by photography. Although the primary animation style here is more serviceable than compelling in its own right (better are the intermittent passages that take on an expressionistic, charcoal-like aesthetic), it feels beside the point to quibble. What’s more pertinent is the very use of the animated medium both to fill in for what can’t be shown and to foreground Amin’s voice, tacitly privileging his oral history over the schematics of visual re-presentation. His narration illuminates with great clarity and palpability not only the social, political, and economic conditions of his displacement, but the lingering, internalized shame and vulnerability that continue to pattern his thoughts and behavior. A stirring testimony, FLEE suggests how simply being able to tell your own story can be a radical and liberating act of agency. (2021, 90 min, DCP Digital) [Jonathan Leithold-Patt]
📽️ ALSO RECOMMENDED
Chris Chan Lee's SILENT RIVER (US)
Gene Siskel Film Center — Friday, 8pm
A slow pan from within a car traveling through the American West begins with the road ahead, the driver visible briefly in the rearview mirror, then floats slowly past the passenger-side windows before settling on the view looking backward. It's a deliberate and intentional scene-setting for what Elliot (West Liang), the driver, will experience over the next two hours, days, or years—time isn't working correctly for this man at all. Elliott has shuttered his car repair shop, leaving his former employees enraged, and taken to the road in a last-ditch attempt to salvage his marriage to Julie (Amy Tsang). He stops at a roadside motor lodge, and everything goes sideways. Phantom knocks on the door, clocks not working, hallucinations—Elliott is dealing with a lot. What grounds his trip, no matter how far out it goes, is the stone sober knowledge that he's putting himself through these torments, trying to get back to something that's gone for good. Anyone who has ever gone through a breakup will shudder with recognition watching Elliott project his wedding video over the walls of his motel room. He's got a suitcase full of his wife's clothes that he keeps looking through. I've been this guy and you have too. Along the way, we meet mythological creatures, malevolent forces, doppelgangers, even a clone, all of which are comforting in comparison to the absence and loss Elliott feels. By establishing an emotional truth from the jump, writer-director Chris Chan Lee makes every dream-state non sequitur plausible. This isn't one of those movies that's trying to be weird for the sake of weirdness. There are few more fraught or illogical terrains than the broken heart, nor many with as powerful a capacity for self-preservation by any means at its disposal. Screening as part of the Asian American Showcase, which is presented in partnership with the Foundation for Asian American Independent Media (FAAIM). More info here. (2021, 121 min, DCP Digital) [Dmitry Samarov]
Jûzô Itami’s TAMPOPO (Japan)
Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) – Sunday, 7pm
Frequently billed as a ‘ramen western,’ the satirical TAMPOPO follows the SHANE-esque Goro who decides to help the bubbly Tampopo turn around her struggling noodle shop. Tampopo wants to learn the secret to making the perfect ramen. Although Jûzô Itami’s film was only marginally successful in Japan upon first release, it has since been received with almost universal praise thanks to its delightfully whimsical interweaving of food, sex, and death. TAMPOPO is episodic in nature: Itami’s free flowing narrative draws influence from the work of Luis Buñuel. Each humorous sequence flows freely into the other, often aided by sheer preposterousness that works charmingly well. The real star here is the food. Dish after dish, meal after meal, it’s impossible not to feel hungry when watching this film. A foodie’s ultimate dream, the impressive showcase of culinary offerings is staggering, and their preparations are shown in great detail. There’s a prevailing sense of joy permeating the entire film that delights in simple pleasures like cooking, lovemaking, and sometimes the two combined. Like some of the tantalizing ramen presented onscreen, TAMPOPO is a hearty visual feast best enjoyed in the company of others and with a ferocious appetite. Screening as part of Doc’s Sunday series: Food, the Common Tongue: Loves, Rages, and Delights of Gastro-Cinema. (1985, 114 min, DCP Digital) [Kyle Cubr]
Wong Kar-wai’s CHUNGKING EXPRESS (Hong Kong)
Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) – Friday, 7pm
Love is a beautiful thing. Film is a beautiful thing. To create something that celebrates not only love but also film requires the craftsmanship of a master and none are better equipped for this than Wong Kar-wai, as demonstrated in CHUNGKING EXPRESS. Centered on two separate tales of two different, lovelorn Hong Kong policemen, the movie explores what heartache and love can mean on a person-to-person basis. Is it about physical proximity, as in the case of the young policeman who tries nightly to reclaim his ex-girlfriend by phone while simultaneously trying to find a new lover, only to come “0.01 cm apart”—the closest he will get? Or perhaps it’s about the older policeman whose daily trip to a food stand and his subsequent flirtations with the young woman who works the counter; can this form the basis for a different kind of relationship? Beyond Wong’s thematic concerns, what truly makes CHUNGKING EXPRESS stand out is the aesthetic juxtaposition of the two storylines; the first story takes on a French New Wave vibe, both in its cinematography and its pacing, while the other has a more calculated pace, with patient shot compositions and deliberate camera movement. The biggest question Wong asks is whether intimacy is defined as physical proximity in space to another or is it sharing of the same space while not in proximity? While the two plots are distinctly separate from one another, eagle-eyed viewers will appreciate the minute crossovers that can occasionally be seen in the background, à la THE RULES OF THE GAME. The film’s dreamy shot composition and well-curated soundtrack allows one to bask in the movie’s marvels and float downstream in tandem with its characters. A masterfully poetic musing on love, loss, memory, and the many forms they can take, CHUNGKING EXPRESS is the perfect entry point to the esteemed auteur’s filmography. Screening as part of Doc’s Friday series: In the Mood for Wong Kar-wai. (1994, 102 min, DCP Digital) [Kyle Cubr]
Tomm Moore's SONG OF THE SEA (Ireland/Animation)
Gene Siskel Film Center – Saturday and Sunday, 11am
Since the release of Walt Disney's 1937 masterpiece SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS as one of the first animated feature length films, animation has come a long way. From cut-outs to cel shading to stop motion to CGI, the medium has evolved greatly. In this current era, traditional animation techniques are now eschewed for CGI due to its stylistic appearance, rapid production, and overall flexibility. Tomm Moore's SONG OF THE SEA is a throwback to the hand drawn Golden Age of Animation of Disney and others. An Irish folk tale that has a timeless feel and would fit well in any era, it is one of the most visually stunning animated films ever made. To be frank, gorgeous is an understatement for how breathtaking this movie is to behold. Every cel is a labor of love. Full of eye-popping spiral, circular, and fractal images, Moore's film is one to be experienced on the big screen in order to completely absorb his intoxicating efforts. Hayao Miyazaki, famous for MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO and SPIRITED AWAY among many others, is indisputably the greatest living master of hand drawn animation, and his influences are on full display in Moore's film with a couple slight nods to boot. After his previous 2009 work, THE SECRET OF KELLS, Moore has improved upon his skills in every way, from his refined characters to his rich and vibrant storytelling to his graceful art design. Moore is staking a claim as the next great animation auteur with SONG. If and when Miyazaki decides to retire for good and actually means it, audiences can rest assured that the torch is being passed into capable hands. One can only hope that his career is just as long and prosperous. Screening as part of the Film Center’s monthly Kid Flix series. (2014, 93 min, DCP Digital) [Kyle Cubr]
Nadav Lapid’s AHED’S KNEE (Israel/Germany/France)
Gene Siskel Film Center – See Venue website for showtimes
Israeli director Nadav Lapid’s four films lay out an ongoing crisis in the director’s relationship to his home country. In SYNONYMS (2019) and AHED’S KNEE, he gives some of his own experiences and opinions to his anti-heroes. AHED’S KNEE is blatantly autobiographical. Not only is its protagonist, Y (Avshalom Pollak), a filmmaker based on Lapid, but the story was inspired by his experience with Israel’s censorious Culture Minister in 2018. Y plans to make a film about Ahed Tahimi, a Palestinian teenager who served eight months in prison for hitting an Israeli soldier serving in the West Bank. But after holding auditions for the role, he heads to the desert town of Sapir, where he’s greeted by Yahalon (Nur Fibak), who works for the Ministry of Culture. She lays down the law, telling him to avoid controversial subjects, but admits she’s less than thrilled by these dictates here. Y rages for the entire film, which is interspersed with flashbacks to his days in the Israeli army. Lapid’s style is extremely abrasive, using dizzying whip-pans, showing Pollak’s face in unflattering, huge close-ups and setting montages to rap-metal. If this is a self-portrait, it does not spare the artist. Y’s politics may be thoughtful, but he expresses them in a particularly boorish way, aiming his anger at the wrong people. (The scene where he pisses a circle into the desert shows both his opinion of Israel and his tendency toward empty macho gestures.) While the army scenes suggest that the IDF’s draft is a way of making all Israeli Jews (who have to serve when they turn 18, apart from Orthodox Jews) complicit in their country’s violence, by the film’s end they show an authoritarian streak to his personality. AHED’S KNEE is excitingly confrontational in a way that’s rare these days. (Recent Radu Jude films might be the best comparison.) As Richard Brody noted in his review for the New Yorker, Lapid could only deal with the anger and isolation expressed in AHED’S KNEE by moving to France again. (2021, 110 min, DCP Digital) [Steve Erickson]
Ti West's X (US)
Music Box Theatre – See Venue website for showtimes
With clear inspiration from the likes of Brian DePalma, Tobe Hooper, and John Carpenter, Ti West’s X is a love letter to late '70s horror. Like West’s outstanding HOUSE OF THE DEVIL (2009), X utilizes familiar horror tropes and visuals while making something fresh. Set in rural Texas in 1979, the film follows a group of actors and filmmakers as they set off to make a porno. Maxine (Mia Goth) is determined to become a star by any means necessary; her producer boyfriend (Martin Henderson) is keen to make it rich by taking advantage of the burgeoning home video market. With two seasoned stars (Scott Mescudi and a standout Brittany Snow), an eager aspiring auteur director (Owen Campbell) and his sound assistant/girlfriend (Jenna Ortega) joining, they settle down to shoot in a rented house on farmland property. The elderly landowner and his wife are unwelcoming, to say the least, and as night falls, the porn shoot turns bloody. With blatant eroticism, X turns the slasher on its head, challenging the established ways in which the genre deals with sexuality, especially in female characters, and it's complicated by its larger themes about aging and vitality. The film also maintains a sense of humor, always quite self-aware of how it distorts and restructures expectations. Perhaps most noteworthy is X’s overall aesthetic, as the film looks and sounds like it’s straight from the late 70s. West’s editing choices, directly inspired by the aforementioned horror icons, is particularly fantastic; with quick cross cutting, overhead and splitscreen shots, the film inventively reveals its themes while successfully building dread. X is both fun and introspective and proof that the slasher is a genre that can be consistently reconsidered and recalibrated. (2022, 105 min, DCP Projection) [Megan Fariello]
🎞️ PHYSICAL SCREENINGS/EVENTS –
Also Screening
⚫ Asian Pop-Up Cinema
The Asian Pop-Up Cinema’s fourteenth season comes to a close on Sunday. Visit their website for more information about the remaining screenings.
⚫ Block Cinema
Presented with the Prison Education Program and Undergraduate Prison Education Partnership at Northwestern University, Sabrina van Tasse’s 2020 documentary THE STATE OF TEXAS VS MELISSA (98 min, DCP Digital) screens on Friday at 6pm. Jennifer Lackey, director of the Northwestern Prison Education Program, will introduce the screening; after the screening, there will be a Zoom conversation with a member from subject Melissa Lucio’s family. More info here.
⚫ Doc Films
Guillermo del Toro’s 2021 film NIGHTMARE ALLEY (140 min, 35mm) screens on Saturday at 7pm as part of the New Releases series.
Brian De Palma’s 1992 film RAISING CAIN (91 min, 35mm) screens on Tuesday at 7pm as part of the Neo-Noir ‘92 series.
Warren Beatty and Buck Henry’s 1978 film HEAVEN CAN WAIT (101 min, DCP Digital) screens on Wednesday at 7pm as part of the They Thought I Was a Nice Girl: The Films of Elaine May series.
Costa-Gavras’ 1969 French film Z (83 min, 35mm) screens on Thursday at 7pm as part of the Projecting Paranoia series. More info on all screenings here.
⚫ Gene Siskel Film Center
Andrea Arnold’s 2021 documentary COW (94 min, DCP Digital) begins screening this week. See Venue website for showtimes.
In presentation with the Doc10 festival, Daniel Roher’s 2022 documentary NAVALNY (98 min, DCP Digital) screens on Saturday at 5:30pm, with a director Q&A.
The Asian American Showcase continues through Wednesday. Also screening in addition to SILENT RIVER, reviewed above, are Jiayan "Jenny" Shi’s 2020 documentary FINDING YINGYING on Saturday at 8pm, with Shi scheduled to attend; Ann Kaneko’s 2021 documentary MANZANAR, DIVERTED: WHEN WATER BECOMES DUST (84 min, DCP Digital) on Sunday at 1:30pm; Patricio Ginelsa’s 2020 film LUMPIA WITH A VENGEANCE (109 min, DCP Digital) on Sunday at 5pm, with Ginelsa scheduled to attend; and Tom Huang’s 2022 film DEALING WITH DAD (106 min, DCP Digital) on Wednesday at 8pm, with Huang scheduled to attend.
John Hughes’ 1986 film FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF (103 min, 35mm) screens on Monday at 6pm as part of the ongoing 50/50 series.
As part of Conversations at the Edge, “An Evening with Nick Briz” takes place on Thursday at 6pm. Per the event description, “[i]n this interactive, performance-based work, [Briz] expands on his recent award-winning hypermedia essay howthey.watch/you (2021) to underscore the myriad ways digital fingerprinting and tracking technology is built into our daily lives and to highlight its social, political, and psychic implications.” The screening will be followed by a discussion with Briz. More info on all screenings here.
⚫ Music Box Theatre
Goran Stolevski’s 2022 Australian horror film YOU WON’T BE ALONE (108 min, DCP Digital) continues this week. See Venue website for showtimes.
🎞️ LOCAL ONLINE SCREENINGS –
Held Over/Still Screening/Return Engagements (Selected)
Hong Sang-soo’s VIRGIN STRIPPED BARE BY HER BACHELORS (South Korea)
Available to rent through Facets Cinema here
Hong Sang-soo’s films oscillate between different versions of reality. Often showing the same scenes with slight changes multiple times in his films, he distorts our perception of what’s playing out onscreen. Each character morphs into someone a little different, a new perception brought forward. His third feature, VIRGIN STRIPPED BARE BY HER BACHELORS (titled after the Marcel Duchamp artwork The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even), finds the director honing this skill. Following a love triangle between a TV news director, his assistant, and his wealthy friend, the film examines the exploits and advances, both wanted and unwanted, of these two men toward this young woman. Much colder than Hong’s later works, this film, cut into two nearly equal parts, examines fleeting, realistic relationships, placing them in contrast to the expectations of each party involved. It also serves as a showcase for Lee Eun-ju, who plays the titular virgin and whose film career was cut short by suicide in 2005. She’s fantastic as a woman gliding through these relationships, forced into moments and actions she’d rather avoid, mediating the foolish and abusive actions of her would-be romantic partners. The two men swirl around her, acting like grown children, confused why they aren’t getting what they want, and entranced by the idea of her virginity. As in many of Hong’s films, these men spend their days eating, drinking, and hoping to have sex, their sensual natures on full display. It contains an air of exploitation as well as a sense of disdain that Hong has for how these people treat each other; the director looks at these relationships with a keen, yet unsympathetic, eye. (2000, 126 min) [Michael Frank]
🎞️ LOCAL ONLINE SCREENINGS –
Also Screening/Streaming
⚫ Facets Cinema
Ivaylo Hristov’s 2020 Bulgarian film FEAR is available to rent through April 28. More info here.
⚫ Media Burn Archive
On Thursday at 6pm, Media Burn Archive will host a sneak preview of the soon-to-be-released documentary CATALYST: DURO WICKS’ HISTORY OF CHICAGO HIP HOP as part of the Virtual Talks with Video Activists series. It will be followed by a discussion with filmmaker Dave Steck and Wicks, moderated by poet, educator, and activist Mario Smith. More info here.
CINE-LIST: April 8 - April 14, 2022
MANAGING EDITORS // Ben and Kat Sachs
CONTRIBUTORS // Maxwell Courtright, Rob Christopher, Kyle Cubr, John Dickson, Steve Erickson, Megan Fariello, Marilyn Ferdinand, Michael Frank, Jason Halprin, Jonathan Leithold-Patt, Anne Orchier, Scott Pfeiffer, Michael W. Phillips Jr., Dmitry Samarov