Note: This list covers the three-week period between Friday, December 18 and Thursday, January 7. We will list everything we are aware of during that time as either reviews or listings, but given the more fluid nature of online virtual screenings, the list will inevitably be incomplete. Check the websites of venues for the most up-to-date information regarding new films available and ending dates.
Cine-File continues to cover streaming and other online offerings during this time of covidity. We will list/highlight physical screenings at the top of the list for theaters and venues that have reopened, and list streaming/online screenings below. Cine-File takes no position on whether theaters should be reopening, nor on whether individuals should be attending in-person. Check the venues’ websites for information on safety protocols and other procedures put in place.
Happy holidays from our film-loving family to yours!
WONG KAR-WAI RETROSPECTIVE
Music Box Theatre – Virtual Screenings (Begins Friday, Dec. 18)
Films available for rent here
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The Music Box presents this “touring” package from Janus Films of seven films by Hong Kong master Wong Kar-wai, presented in new 4K restorations.
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Wong Kar-wai’s AS TEARS GO BY (Hong Kong)
Wong Kar-wai’s directorial debut is often compared to Martin Scorsese’s MEAN STREETS; while there are indeed similarities between the two films, Wong’s mentor, Hong Kong director and editor Patrick Tam, noted that Wong also had in mind Jim Jarmusch’s auspicious 1984 debut, STRANGER THAN PARADISE, specifically with regards to the plotline involving the protagonist’s second cousin, Ngor (frequent Wong collaborator Maggie Cheung, effervescent as always), who briefly comes to stay with him—as Eszter Balint's character did with her cousin in Jarmusch’s film—and later emerges as the love interest. Though it doesn’t explicitly embody the art-house differentia that defines Wong’s output, AS TEARS GOES BY does display a merging of technique that seems to split the difference between those two influences—on the one hand, a straightforward action-romance centered on the social framework of a Hong Kong triad gang; on the other a comparatively stylized drama with elegant flourishes and an abundance of pathos. Wah, played by Cantopop heartthrob Andy Lau, is a debt collector for a local gang and “big brother” to Fly (Jacky Cheung), a young, hot-headed wannabe-bigshot who’s eager to prove himself. Much of the skillfully-wrought action revolves around Wah helping Fly out of various scrapes; concurrently Ngor comes to stay with him, and the two fall in love. Desperate to save face in light of various humiliations, Fly takes on the task of assassinating an informant at a police station, which takes Wah away from his newfound bliss with Ngor. The ending elevates TEARS above other films of its kind; it’s near Shakespearean in its amalgamation of ‘family’ loyalty and star-crossed romance. (Wong would describe his 1994 wuxia epic ASHES OF TIME as “Shakespeare meets Sergio Leone,” which isn’t precisely applicable to TEARS but represents Wong’s propensity for merging genres.) Throughout are hints of what’s to come in Wong’s career: glinting neon, passages of ethereal beauty, and a ravishing sequence set to an exhilarating Cantopop version of Berlin’s “Take My Breath Away,” which results in the coming-together of Wah and Ngor. It takes place midway through the film and signals a shift from the familiar to the sublime. Wong made the film as part of a new production company, In-Gear, for which he had previously scripted Tam’s FINAL VICTORY and Joe Cheung’s FLAMING BROTHERS, both from 1987 and thematically similar to TEARS, eager to prove himself, much like the gangsters in his film; thankfully what came after was far from despairing. (1988, 102 min) [Kathleen Sachs]
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Wong Kar-wai’s DAYS OF BEING WILD (Hong Kong)
DAYS OF BEING WILD is not just the movie where Wong Kar-wai came into his own as a filmmaker; it introduces themes, motifs, and even music cues that would appear in most of his subsequent films. Wong’s distinctive, poetic style is fully realized here, and it’s so rapturous that the film sustains its hypnotic effect even when little is happening onscreen. Befitting a movie about early adulthood, DAYS OF BEING WILD is brimming with a sense of possibility: Wong’s seductive camera movements, vibrant color combinations, and jazzy shifts in place and time reveal a director at play with the elements of cinema (not for nothing did his 90s work inspire comparisons with the French New Wave), and his good cheer is infectious. At the same time, the film is infused with melancholy, communicating the irretrievability of the past and longings for love and home. Set in Hong Kong in 1960, the movie begins with the promise of a love story between Li-zhen (Maggie Cheung), a ticket seller at a downtown stadium, and a Lothario called York (Leslie Cheung). They meet cute, and he seduces her with moony talk about the nature of time. Yet York quickly grows tired of Li-zhen and takes up with a showgirl named Mimi (Carina Lau); sometime later Li-zhen captures the romantic attention of a lonely young police officer played by Andy Lau. The plot splinters between all four characters, each of whom gets a chance to narrate the action, yet the bittersweet mood carries across each of the narrative strands. Everyone pines for someone who won’t reciprocate his or her feelings—even the callous York, who longs to connect with the biological mother who abandoned him as a baby. (York was brought up by a prostitute, and his thorny relationship with her feels like something out of a Tennessee Williams play.) DAYS OF BEING WILD is overwhelming in how it conveys so many conflicting emotions at once (romance and lovesickness, loneliness and connection, nostalgia and a heightened sense of the present), but the filmmaking is always fluid and enticing. (1990, 94 min) [Ben Sachs]
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Wong Kar-wai’s CHUNGKING EXPRESS (Hong Kong)
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 composition 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. (1994, 102 min) [Kyle Cubr]
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Wong Kar-wai’s FALLEN ANGELS (Hong Kong)
Released on the heels of his international breakthrough, CHUNGKING EXPRESS, Wong Kar-wai’s FALLEN ANGELS was initially envisioned as a section of the earlier film. Expanded into its own exploration of loneliness and longing in the neon-colored and noir-inspired cityscape of Hong Kong, FALLEN ANGELS follows two intersecting stories of chance encounters. The first concerns a detached hitman (Leon Lai), who’s ready to quit killing for good, and his associate (Michelle Reis). They’ve never met, but she cleans for him and sends him his next assignments—she’s also completely infatuated with him, fantasizing about this mysterious partner as they exchange secret messages. The second story has a lighter and more comedic tone and features the partner’s cheerful neighbor (Takeshi Kaneshiro), a mute delinquent who still lives with his father. He roams the city at night breaking into various businesses, pretending to be the proprietor to unwitting customers in order to make money. He ends up helping—and falling for—Charlie (Charlie Yeung), who he meets after her boyfriend dumps her for another woman, leaving her heartbroken and out for revenge. The two stories spiral around each other as characters intersect in the neon-lit nightscape. Wong uses kinetic camera movements and canted wide-angled close-up shots to drive emotion and intensity—in one scene, blood drips down the lens. The camera traps the audience in the visual maze of the city while still whimsically expressing the characters’ sense of isolation and aching for connection. It is clear how the film is both an extension of CHUNGKING EXPRESS while still standing on its own as a noirish, melodramatic departure; the world of FALLEN ANGELS is simultaneously dark yet sweet, cool yet funny, where it’s always night and everything—including love—has an expiration date, though that doesn’t mean it is without significance. (1995, 99 min) [Megan Fariello]
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Wong Kar-wai’s HAPPY TOGETHER (Hong Kong)
Many of Wong Kar-wai’s films are preoccupied with the cultural anxieties surrounding the British handover of Hong Kong, from CHUNGKING EXPRESS’s expiration date-obsessed cop to the titular year of 2046, which marks the period before the city’s self-regulation ends. Released in 1997, the year of the handover, HAPPY TOGETHER filters these anxieties and longings—as well as the possibilities of what a new, globalized Hong Kong might mean—through the prism of a tumultuous gay romance. The partners are the assertive Ho Po-Wing (Leslie Cheung) and more mild-mannered Lai Yiu-Fai (Tony Leung), who have come to Buenos Aires looking to recharge their floundering relationship, and to see Iguazu Falls, their symbolically elusive destination. We understand this is not the first time they have tried an implausible romantic gambit: Fai instructs us via voiceover of Po-Wing’s constant refrain after each so-called breakup, “Let’s start over.” Start over, and over, they do. After a split in Argentina, and without money to fly back home, the two reluctantly get back together when Fai spots Po-Wing cruising at the tango club where the former has taken a job. Wong proves that, indeed, it takes two to tango, as the lovers push and pull in a torrid dance, quarreling over money and their cramped apartment at one moment, and then, in Wong’s impressionistic montage, tenderly swaying in one another’s arms in the next. The two might seem like polarities, echoing the antipode status of Buenos Aries and Hong Kong, but really they are sides of the same coin, lonely and displaced, even if their desires manifest differently. Wong conveys their underlying reversibility through sleight-of-hand doublings and substitutions, using mirrors and jump cuts to make the men assume each other’s places. It doesn’t take much parsing to read their relationship as a metaphor for Hong Kong’s uncertain future with China, while a third character introduced later, Chang (Chang Chen), represents a similarly unmoored Taiwan. But HAPPY TOGETHER can also just be enjoyed as a ravishing, emotionally plangent song from the heart, saturated with all of Wong’s dreamy stylistic flourishes and musical grace notes. Few shots in his filmography are so simply, shatteringly poignant as Tony Leung sobbing into a tape recorder, or the protracted aerial footage of Iguazu Falls pouring its contents with both the majesty and implacable flux of nature. (1997, 96 min) [Jonathan
Leithold-Patt]
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Wong Kar-wai's IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE (Hong Kong)
Taking place in 1960s Hong Kong or in the memory of 1960s Hong Kong—that city deemed too modern, many of the film's exteriors were shot in Bangkok, after all—Wong Kar-wai's film is a beautiful rumination on its title. Much has been made of IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE's restraint, and there is that: a couple, married to other people who are themselves having affairs, become intimate in every way but physical—save for slight, loaded gestures and tight spaces. The film is pregnant with the overwhelming feeling of infatuation, executed in a lusciousness that recalls something from a dream. But for every restraint there is a counterpoint in excess: Maggie Cheung's many gorgeous dresses are as flamboyant as they are confining; the musical score is both pitch-perfect and overwhelming, familiar and foreign; the cinematography is so rich and meticulous that its multitude of color is evocative of Douglas Sirk's melodramas. IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE has hit upon such acclaim because of its local particularity—a commemoration of sorts for Hong Kong's transfer of sovereignty that had not yet happened—as well as its thematic universality as a transnational melodrama. As characters move through Hong Kong, Singapore, the Philippines, Cambodia, and the film shifts forward and backward in time, we are reminded of the fluidity of borders, time, and memory. The moment is paramount, and Wong Kar-wai gives us a series of beautiful, sumptuous moments that we can live in forever. (2000, 98 min) [Brian Welesko]
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Wong Kar-wai’s THE HAND [Extended Cut] (Hong Kong)
Wong Kar-wai’s 2046 was the official sequel to his IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE, but the featurette THE HAND (originally released as part of the omnibus film EROS) is just as much of a follow-up, expanding on the earlier feature’s fetishistic approach to the 1960s and its theme of unrequited longing. Containing few characters and locations, (though spanning a number of years in its narrative), it’s a chamber drama in which every gesture carries great weight. The story charts the relationship between Zhang (Chang Chen), a timid tailor’s apprentice, and Ms. Hua (Gong Li), a confident, high-class courtesan. Zhang idolizes the courtesan from the moment he sees her, though she mocks him on their first encounter, making a joke of his sexual desire. Over time, however, she comes to rely on him—first for fancy dresses, then ultimately for companionship when she falls from her social station. Their second and final sexual encounter is a bittersweet facsimile of the first, with the power dynamics between the two having been upended. This moment occurs after what feels like hours of pining; Wong stretches out every minute so that the film feels much longer than its 56 minutes, often presenting the action in rapturous slow motion. Working again with production designer William Chang and the great cinematographer Christopher Doyle, Wong builds a complex past environment where even the effect of fluorescent light on a grease-stained wall exudes a mysterious power. (2004, 56 min) [Ben Sachs]
LOCAL ONLINE SCREENINGS – New Reviews
Orlando Lippert’s THE EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK (US/Sponsored Short)
Streams free on the Chicago Film Society’s Vimeo page here
Ever since I saw THE HOUSE IN THE MIDDLE (1954), a crazy piece of fiction sponsored by a division of the National Paint, Varnish, and Lacquer Association that extols the virtues of a fresh coat of paint in helping homes withstand a nuclear blast, I’ve been a fan of sponsored films. These films, which can mainly be classified as self-serving public service pieces, reveal and reinforce a lot about society’s mores. In the case of THE EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK, the value of an independent press is the ostensible purpose of the somewhat dubious material Chicago Daily News Publisher John S. Knight and his management team of white men saw fit to print. The premise of the film is that Knight is writing one of his “The Editor’s Notebook” columns, recounting all of the good work the newspaper has done exposing social problems, tending to ladies’ concerns about fashion, and entertaining Junior with the comics, while complimenting the City of Chicago on its attention to its senior citizens with human interest stories. Of course, there are shots of the muscular web presses printing the daily paper, but it’s also interesting to see how copy goes from typewriter, to pneumatic tube, to linotype composition and plate making. We also learn about some of the famous writers who reported and wrote columns for this afternoon daily, including Carl Sandburg, Ben Hecht, and a favorite of mine who has vanished from memory, Finley Peter Dunne, who wrote in Irish dialect. We get re-enactments of investigative reporters working the skid row on West Madison St. to create an award-winning series aimed at cleaning up the district. (Despite the series, conditions wouldn’t change appreciably until a developer came in and destroyed the district to create Presidential Towers in 1986.) THE EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK reflects a time of conformity, orderliness, and defined gender roles, but it does offer an important reminder that the varied functions of news organizations are of vital importance to social cohesion. This film was preserved by the Chicago Film Society with funding from the National Film Preservation Foundation and provides an interesting look at mid-century Chicago and one of its most iconic industries. (1950, 29 min) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
David Osit’s MAYOR (US/UK/Documentary)
Available for rent at Facets Cinémathèque here (beginning December 24) and the Music Box Theatre here
Many people might disagree with me, but I think that MAYOR, a well-made documentary about Ramallah Mayor Musa Hadid, is a perfect movie for Christmas. True, the film contains scenes of the mayor fielding complaints about sewage runoff from Israeli settlements that are contaminating grazing fields, fires set to protest the 2018 move of the U.S. embassy headquarters in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and Israeli soldiers blasting teargas right in front of city hall and beating someone in a nearby restaurant with the situationally ironic name of Café de la Paix. Nevertheless, spending time with Musa, as he is known familiarly by the many residents of Ramallah who greet him warmly as he walks and drives through the streets, is to be bathed in the light of goodness. Musa is the kind of public servant the humble and powerless need to have in their corner. We see him in a school apparently painted with Pepto-Bismol inspecting its physical condition and promising to replace its broken doors. In another school, he objects to a window design that makes the school look like a prison. He travels to the United States and England to press for more support for Palestine’s nationhood. A Christian who plans spectacular Christmas celebrations for the entire city, he nonetheless rejects U.S. Vice President Pence’s promise to make Palestine safe for Christians by responding that it should be safe for everyone. He’s a loving husband and father who enjoys spending time at home but can’t stop thinking about the problems Ramallah faces. He simply wants the resources, and more importantly, the right to provide Ramallah’s citizens with the things they need to thrive—a right Israel will not grant. Finally, in a conversation he has with a German delegation trying to broker some kind of détente between Palestinians and Israelis, Musa makes his simplest and most profound statement—a Christmas message, if you will—about every person’s right to be treated as a full human with dignity before any understanding can begin. Watching this important and empathetic film would be a great gift for anyone who hopes that the new year will be the start of a more peaceful, just era for our country and our world. (2020, 89 min) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH (Japan/Uzbekistan)
Available to rent through Facets Cinémathèque here (currently scheduled through December 31)
Made to commemorate the 25th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Japan and Uzbekistan, TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH finds Kiyoshi Kurosawa reflecting on the subjects of travel, national identity, and cross-cultural communication. The film recalls Powell and Pressburger’s A CANTERBURY TALE (1944), not only in how it extracts universal themes from arcane subject matter, but in how its seemingly low-stakes drama slowly opens onto profundity. Former J-Pop superstar Atsuko Maeda (in her third collaboration with Kurosawa) stars as Yoko, a moderately successful TV hostess shooting a Japanese travel show in Uzbekistan. For a while, Kurosawa mines pleasant, understated humor from Yoko’s misadventures in a strange land. She and her crew are unable to speak Uzbek, and while they have a translator at their disposal, they still encounter frustrations in communicating with the native population, along with the expected problems that come with television production (trouble finding locations, having to do endless retakes of particular shots, et cetera). Yet as the movie progresses, one intuits larger issues beneath the comedy of mistranslation. For one thing, Yoko seems like a terribly lonely person; even though she has a boyfriend back in Japan, she appears to lack warmth or a sense of connection with the people around her. For another, Uzbekistan seems most inhospitable to Japanese tourists. About a third of the way into ENDS OF THE EARTH, Yoko leaves her hotel in Samarkand to walk to a restaurant and gets lost on her way back. Justly celebrated for his horror and suspense pictures, Kurosawa effortlessly generates a strong sense of dread as Yoko struggles to navigate the alien landscape, suggesting the possibility she’ll never reach the hotel. Kurosawa also abandons the movie’s lighthearted tone in a later sequence where Yoko visits a symphony hall in the capital city of Tashkent. Watching the orchestra rehearse, Yoko imagines herself singing onstage; rather than evoke feelings of abandon, the scene is jarring and eerie, as Kurosawa heightens through filmmaking style the character’s unexpected break with reality. And so, the fear of losing one’s way gives way the fear of losing one’s mind, but these dark notions don’t overwhelm the film. When Kurosawa finally addresses the historic relationship between Uzbekistan and Japan in the movie’s final act, his conclusions are optimistic, even life-affirming. Yoko experiences a genuine cross-cultural exchange on her journey, and this means she learns as much about herself as she does about Uzbekistan. (2019, 120 min) [Ben Sachs]
LOCAL ONLINE SCREENINGS – Held Over/Still Screening/Return Engagements (Selected) - NOTE: Check venue websites for ending dates.
Thomas Vinterberg’s Another Round (Denmark)
Available to rent through the Gene Siskel Film Center here and the Music Box Theatre here
Reuniting with leading man Mads Mikkelsen, Danish writer and director Thomas Vinterberg’s (THE HUNT) newest film, ANOTHER ROUND, reaches for a full bottle of vodka and lands in a drunken state of elation, depression, and mid-life difficulty. Denmark’s submission to the 2021 Oscars for Best International Feature Film, ANOTHER ROUND finds Mikkelsen in an acting showcase, surrounded by other steady and solid counterparts in Magnus Millang, Thomas Bo Larsen, and Lars Ranthe, playing four high school teachers that enter into an odd experiment: keeping themselves at a blood alcohol content of .05 at all times. Vinterberg directs the film like a drunken night on the town, from the joy of dancing on tables with great friends to waking up disoriented, broken, and desperate to either never see alcohol again or grab the nearest bottle and take a swig. ANOTHER ROUND’s tonal shifts work, mostly with ease, due to Mikkelsen’s performance, one in which every look, smirk, and curling of his lips is measured and intentional. It’s not a film filled with speeches or fights that last longer than a couple of minutes. ANOTHER ROUND becomes a snapshot into life at its most middling, in which characters reexamine their place in the world, and the oft overwhelming dreams they feel they haven’t accomplished. Though the structure of the film, especially its third act, falters in finishing this wild idea (and experiment), ANOTHER ROUND should satisfy one’s thirst for high-quality acting, careful and considerate storytelling, and a chance to remember, forget, or attempt to capture the supposed “good ole days.” (2020, 117 min) [Michael Frank]
Gabriel Mascaro’s DIVINE LOVE (Brazil)
Available to rent through the Gene Siskel Film Center here
I have only vague memories of Gabriel Mascaro’s first two features, AUGUST WINDS (2014) and NEON BULL (2015), though by looking up my old reviews I see that I had a low opinion of the first and a mildly positive view of the second. In contrast, I’m not sure what I think of Mascaro’s third feature, DIVINE LOVE, but I’m confident that I won’t forget it any time soon. A peculiar mix of political allegory, science-fiction, and soft-core pornography, the film looks and feels like little else; and thanks to the droning electronic score, you may find yourself hypnotized by it. The story takes place several years in the future. Brazil is now a technologically advanced, highly bureaucratized theocracy whose state religion preaches the sanctity of life, marriage, and free love. Joana (Dira Praes) is a model citizen of this new society. Working for the state records department, she processes divorce certificates from couples about to separate and uses her position to dissuade the couples from breaking up their marriages. Joana and her husband Danilo (Julio Machado) attend couples’ therapy sessions in the evenings where they praise Jesus, then take part in group sex; their lives are centered on trying to conceive a child. Mascaro presents all this in trance-inducing long takes marked by slow camera movements and lots of neon light. The actors, for their part, maintain the director’s deadpan tone with unwaveringly solemn performances, and their commitment reflects the characters’ devotion to the order of the day. One surprising aspect of the film is that the explicit sex emerges as automated and cold—but then, this makes sense, given that Mascaro’s subject is the willingness of some people to accept nearly any form of social control. (2019, 100 min) [Ben Sachs]
Manoel de Oliveira’s FRANCISCA (Portugal)
Available to rent through the Gene Siskel Film Center here
At various points in FRANCISCA, the actors break the fourth wall to stop whatever they’re doing and look directly at the camera. It’s an audacious gesture, and only in part because it disrupts the film’s narrative flow. FRANCISCA takes place in the mid 19th century, and, for the most part, Manoel de Oliveira doesn’t let you forget it—the film advances a deliberately antiquated aesthetic, with declamatory line readings, tableau-like imagery, and extended passages where title cards summarize offscreen dramatic action. Such devices can feel alienating at first, but they have a way of luring you into the past setting. Oliveira doesn’t want to re-create the look of the 19th century, but rather invoke how people comprehended the world then. It’s significant that the film spends so much time on people writing and reading letters; Oliveira wants us to understand how the ubiquity of written expression shaped relationships and perceptions at this point in history. The director’s authoritative sense of the past informs everything about FRANCISCA, even those moments when the actors break the fourth wall. In Oliveira’s hands, the actors’ gazes into the camera suggest the 19th century looking out at us in the present. This experience is rare in cinema, as most historical films dramatize the present looking at the past, yet it defines almost all of Oliveira’s work. To watch a film like FRANCISCA is to stand in dialogue with history, not passively absorb it. The movie recounts a tragedy in the life of author Camilo Castelo Branco (whose novel Doomed Love provided the source material for another Oliveira film), when his friend José Augusto seduced and married a woman Branco had loved, the titular Francisca. For Oliveira, the relationships between these three characters reflect 19th-century (and historically Portuguese) notions of honor, passion, and domination; the film, in its grand provocation, asks us just how distant we feel from the values on display. (1981, 167 min) [Ben Sachs]
Jindřich Polák’s IKARIE XB 1 (Czech Republic)
Available to rent through the Music Box Theatre here
Unmistakably an influence on the consequently influential—and more familiar—films of the late 60s and 70s (namely 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY), IKARIE XB 1 is a stunning landmark in the science-fiction genre. Loosely based on a book by Solaris author Stanisław Lem, this is a restored version; the film was previously widely known through a botched international reedit. Set aboard a spacecraft, IKARIE XB 1 cold-opens with a scene of concern over the well-being of panicked shipmate, Michael (Otto Lackovič), who eventually screams ominously, “The earth is gone; the earth never existed.” The film then flashes back to the early days of the voyage, aboard the “space town,” Ikarie XB 1. The year is 2163 and forty travelers are on a fifteen-year mission to discover life on other planets. Though there are some personal concerns about the journey, the residents of Ikarie XB 1 are fairly comfortable: they’re working out, finding romance, and teasing each other about the sentimental objects from Earth they took with them, including an “antique” robot named Patrick. Things take a darker turn when their on-board fun is interrupted by the discovery of a spacecraft; they learn it is from the 1980s and filled with dead bodies and dangerous weapons. As they continue to move further away from Earth, they must face the perils and wonders of traveling into the unknown. Director Jindřich Polák uses smooth, steady camera movements to take the audience throughout the immense ship, allowing for exploration of the graphic space alight with striking circular and linear shapes. Shot in black and white, the imaginative design, both visually and in the use of sound, is at once unembellished and surreal—this is especially evident in the film’s impressive opening credit sequence. While the hairstyles perhaps give the production away, IKARIE XB 1 rarely feels like a markedly 60s science-fiction film; Patrick, in his clunky Lost in Space robotic-style, is purposefully placed to distinguish between “ancient” ideas of technology with this more advanced, sleeker design. It is, however, a distinctly Cold War science-fiction, coming out of the Eastern Bloc. As with the most affective films of the genre, IKARIE XB 1 focuses not only on conceptions of the far future, but on anxieties about the present and what’s looming on the horizon; as Commander Abayev (Zdeněk Štěphánek) profoundly notes after finding the ship from the 1980s in 2163, “We’ve discovered the 20th century.” (1963, 81 min) [Megan Fariello]
Luchina Fisher’s MAMA GLORIA (US/Documentary)
Available to rent through the Gene Siskel Film Center here
MAMA GLORIA is a deeply personal documentary that illuminates a larger history of transgender people of color in Chicago. Gloria Allen, now in her 70s, is an icon of the community, having started a charm school for transgender people at the Center on Halsted. The charm school inspired Chicago playwright Philip Dawkins’ Charm, and Gloria became known for her maternal support for and engaged work with transgender youth. The charismatic Gloria narrates her own story, which is filled with traumatic moments of violent abuse and loving acceptance from her family and friends, especially her mother. Allen begins by telling how her grandmother worked as a seamstress for drag performers in the early 20th century; she’s aware of how her personal history intertwines with a broader one, framing her story against historically significant moments and people, from the Civil Rights Movement and Emmett Till to the Stonewall Riots and Marsha P. Johnson. MAMA GLORIA emphasizes the power of Gloria sharing her story, not just directly with the film’s audience, as she recounts her personal history into the camera, but also with others, most compellingly with the queer youth she inspires. Gloria mentions, in a lovely scene where she shares a meal with her friends from high school, that she was voted “most friendly,” and the camera captures her welcoming nature. Gloria is also aware that her older age signifies survival, as she mentions losing so many friends; MAMA GLORIA notes that only 14% of transgender identifying adults in the U.S. are seniors. Gloria’s story is compelling not just in its engagement with history, but in its acknowledgement of contemporary struggles, as transgender rights are threatened and incidents of extreme violence against transwomen of color continue. MAMA GLORIA is an optimistic film that also recognizes there is still a lot of work to be done. (2020, 76 min) [Megan Fariello]
Graham Kolbeins’ QUEER JAPAN (US/Documentary)
Available to rent through Facets Cinémathèque here (currently scheduled through December 24)
Made over the course of four years, QUEER JAPAN is a joyous, neon trip through various subcultures in Japan’s LGBTQ community. Taking less of a historical, essayist approach at filmmaking, director Graham Kolbeins instead puts us in the hands of individuals who then take us through their personal life, and the micro-community they inhabit. From drag queens, to trans activists, to women’s only events, to post-gender performance artists, to beefcake bear erotic manga artists, QUEER JAPAN stitches together a gorgeous patchwork of hyper-specific scenes, shows their unique beauty, and presents them as a unit more beautiful together than apart. Each guide has their own world, and we’re invited in. It’s a lovely impressionistic view of Japanese queer culture that I would love to see in documentaries of other countries’ queer communities. I’m of the age where as a little questioning queer boy in nowhere suburbia I would grab at anything queer I could put my hands on, from Alison Bechdel’s Dykes to Watch Out For, to Pansy Division records, to HIGH ART, to Windy City Times and clutch it hard against my chest—it was all the same to me as a ‘90s teen. Queer. Nowadays there seems to be so much digital infighting in queer circles, with identity politics not so much as salvation but as a cudgel—so a film like QUEER JAPAN is a mainline injection of elated delight. Seeing how the film’s chosen queer subjects come together and discuss their community’s differences in theory, praxis, and (very importantly) partying makes me remember when you basically saw everyone in the American queer ecosystem with a Silence = Death patch. Queers being queer together because queers need to support queers. Full stop. Maybe this makes me sound cranky-old-man-yells-at-clouds, but my reply to that is simply, watch QUEER JAPAN. Differences can, and do, exist even in queer circles—but that doesn’t mean they should be the sole means of self-definition and identity. QUEER JAPAN is a jubilant reminder as to how multi-faceted, and global, queer culture is. Enjoy it and celebrate it. (2019, 99 min) [Raphael Jose Martinez]
Hao Wu, Weixi Chen, and Anonymous’ 76 DAYS (US/Documentary)
Available to rent through the Music Box Theatre here
It has been a little more than a year since the first case of COVID-19 was recorded, in Wuhan, China. We didn’t know then what it meant, but slowly we came to understand that an apocalypse was building, moving inexorably toward us like the nuclear fallout coming to claim the last people on earth in Stanley Kramer’s ON THE BEACH (1959). Even now, pandemic fatigue, magical thinking, and personal entitlement have many ignoring the danger to themselves—and especially to others—as they eat, drink, and make merry. It is these people who should be made to watch 76 DAYS, an incredible record of this modern plague from the first day of Wuhan’s lockdown in January to the lifting of restrictions 76 days later. Filming mainly inside four Wuhan hospitals, Hao Wu, Weixi Chen, and an anonymous third director show what actual pandemic fatigue looks like. Healthcare providers work past exhaustion tending to an ICU full of COVID-infected patients while swathed in layers of protective gear so all-encompassing that they must write their names on their jumpsuits just to tell each other apart. Throngs of sick people press in panic against a door trying to gain admission into one hospital on a bitterly cold night as a beleaguered nurse tries to convince them that everyone will get in eventually. Shots taken on the streets of the city reveal an eerie emptiness, broken only by ambulances and vans carrying the dead. 76 DAYS is made in the mold of Frederick Wiseman’s NEAR DEATH (1989), though it’s clear that the Chinese government may have influenced the directors to paint a brighter picture of their plague than actually existed. One couple comes into the hospital together; when the husband’s condition starts to deteriorate, their story is abandoned in favor of patients who survived. Nevertheless, the directors are careful to document the devastation, opening the film with the uncontrollable grief of a daughter whose father has died and closing with the citywide blasting of sirens at the end of the lockdown as residents mourn the dead. The bravery and dedication of the healthcare workers come through most strongly for me in one beautifully captured image of an elderly man who is being discharged placing his hand over the heart decal he received from his medical team, treasuring his reclaimed life and those who saved it. Highly recommended. (2020, 93 min) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
Joyce Chopra’s SMOOTH TALK (US)
Available to rent through the Music Box Theatre here
Winner of the 1986 Sundance Grand Jury Prize for Dramatic Film, SMOOTH TALK stars Laura Dern as Connie, a fifteen-year-old exploring her sexuality, navigating the carefree life of a teenager obsessed with boys and the terror of unwanted sexual attention. Spending the summer before her sophomore year with her friends at the beach and the mall, Connie avoids helping her parents (Mary Kay Place and Levon Helm) and is constantly negatively compared to her more obliging older sister (Elizabeth Berridge). Connie spends nights out flirting with boys, but things get dark when it becomes clear she’s being stalked by an older man (Treat Williams). Director Joyce Chopra deftly balances SMOOTH TALK’s pastel-colored 80s coming-of-age story as it teeters into horror. Williams is so completely menacing that his first quick appearance on screen—watching Connie from afar—creates a distinct shift in the film. His physicality, especially in a scene where he moves further from his parked car towards Connie alone in her house, using the titular “smooth talk” to disarm her from outside the screen door, presents an anxiety-inducing amount of threat. The dread is very much grounded in reality, however, and the film never feels exploitive or critical of Connie. Rather, SMOOTH TALK takes seriously the distinction between Connie innocently exploring her own desires and someone else aggressively forcing his upon her; it’s an overall powerful take on the coming-of-age film. Dern expresses so clearly the fluctuating excitement and unease of a teenager pushing boundaries, and her chemistry with Place conveys a convincingly fraught, yet loving, relationship between concerned mother and teenage daughter. Also noteworthy is the way the film places an everyday importance on music for Connie and those around her—James Taylor acted as music director on the film. (1985, 92 min) [Megan Fariello]
Loira Limbal’s THROUGH THE NIGHT (US/Documentary)
Available to rent through Facets Cinémathèque here (currently scheduled through December 24)
Early on in THROUGH THE NIGHT 24-hour daycare owner Deloris “Nunu” Hogan matter-of-factly states, “This is the way the world is set up at this point.” Loira Limbal’s outstanding feature debut is an intimate exploration of childcare in the United States, showcasing both the everyday struggles for families and the loving caretakers that work so hard to be their support while the current system fails them; it is a gentle film that is still so effectively critical. The documentary focuses on an around-the-clock daycare in New Rochelle, New York, run by Nunu and her husband Patrick and features two single mothers—one a registered nurse working night shifts and another working non-stop at multiple jobs. Using verité style, the film quietly illuminates the challenges these three women face, including the physical toll, through Nunu’s growing health concerns. She is the heart of THROUGH THE NIGHT, as she worries for the families she works with and she and Patrick clearly go above and beyond to create a safety net. Pictures of children fill the daycare as the film highlights scenes of her caring for not only the kids, but the mothers, as well. Heartwarming moments shared by the Hogans and the families demonstrate an unmistakably compassionate community that surrounds the daycare. THROUGH THE NIGHT is crucial viewing for the current moment as the film is a celebration of essential workers—of Nunu, the daycare team, and the mothers—and a condemnation of a system that doesn’t do enough to help them; it’s impossible not to be concerned how the last year has affected the daycare and these families. (2020, 76 min) [Megan Fariello]
Matthew Rankin’s THE TWENTIETH CENTURY (Canada)
Available to rent through the Music Box Theatre here
Most nations have their own primordial myths, stories of valor, ingenuity, and achievement that embed themselves in the cultural imagination and fortify a collective identity. Then, there are nations like Canada. What, as many have wondered, does it mean to be Canadian, to belong to a “middle power” that has for most of its statehood existed in the shadows of the British and French Empires, to say nothing of its downstairs neighbor? Cult film favorite Guy Maddin has famously answered by confabulating myths and memories of his own, resurrecting obsolete cinematic styles to simultaneously exhume a Canadian (film) history that never was; with THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, fellow Winnipegger Matthew Rankin carries the torch. In fittingly daffy, deadpan, and neurotic fashion, he tells the (highly) fictionalized story of the ascent to power of William Lyon Mackenzie King, the 10th and longest-serving prime minister of Canada. One could feasibly call this a “biopic,” but Rankin has no interest in detailing King’s 21 years in office, nor does he care much for historical fidelity (the film takes place in 1899, two decades before King was actually elected). Instead, THE TWENTIETH CENTURY uses the figure of the good-natured but inescapably diffident prime minister to sketch a lovingly scathing portrait of Canadian self-perception. For Rankin, it’s a self-image characterized by perpetual, mostly contented disappointment, by vacillating feelings of inferiority and humble pride, by warring impulses to follow and tamp down one’s desires. “Canada is one failed orgasm after another,” scoffs an embittered daughter of the Governor General. Those failed orgasms are metaphorically manifest in the film’s droll parade of absurdities, from the competition for prime minister itself, which entails such rounds as “Ribbon Cutting” and “Waiting Your Turn,” to, most explicitly, a tumescent cactus and a very noisy chastity belt. Rankin stages all this within brilliantly imaginative set design, utilizing Expressionistic geometric motifs and Lotte Reiniger-esque silhouettes to abstract Toronto, Quebec City, Winnipeg, and more into variably ominous dreamlands. Surreal though it is, THE TWENTIETH CENTURY is ultimately more restrained than Maddin tends to be, and is also more performance-driven. All of the actors give delightful turns (cross-dressing Maddin muse Louis Negin included), none more so than Dan Beirne as King. All clipped, prim cadences and genteel flop sweat, Beirne’s performance is a precision-timed gem of self-effacing comic underplaying. He could just be the face of Canada. (2019, 90 min) [Jonathan Leithold-Patt]
ZAPPA Reviews x 2
Available to rent through the Music Box Theatre here
Alex Winter’s ZAPPA (US/Documentary)
I first started listening to Frank Zappa when I was in middle school, and while I didn’t have enough knowledge of music to comprehend exactly why, I knew it was something profoundly exceptional. I’ve since gained a better understanding of the density of his compositions and their political and social commentary on American culture, but I’ve learned so much more from Alex Winter’s comprehensive and energetic documentary. ZAPPA is an excellent introduction to his work and features an overabundance of footage for those that may already be familiar. Winter interweaves together a detailed personal and musical history of Zappa primarily steered by the artist himself via extensive archive footage, along with interviews from his widow, Gail Zappa, and various musicians that played with him. The sheer amount of this material could be overwhelming, but Winter cohesively grounds it all in a larger historical context which is simultaneously reflected in Zappa’s concurrent music, played as soundtrack throughout. As with Winter’s other striking documentary released this year, SHOWBIZ KIDS, ZAPPA doesn’t sidestep the darker aspects of its subject, allowing for a more honest introspection about Zappa himself as well as outside forces affecting his work; the expressiveness of the film’s last section regarding Zappa’s cancer diagnosis and death is heart wrenching. His final live performance is featured, underscoring that the most arresting points of ZAPPA are when it decelerates to let the audience engage more fully with the music. There is a scene in which the Kronos Quartet play “None of the Above” and, particularly moving, a performance by former Zappa collaborators Ruth Underwood and Joe Travers as they play “The Black Page,” known for its complexity; it’s surprisingly poignant to hear both the musicians and filmmakers behind the camera cheer at the completion of the performance. With its intricacy of form, contradictions of genre, humor, cultural commentary, and avenue for collaboration, his music is the film’s ultimate guiding force and, as Underwood notes, “the music that Frank made, I think, will last;” I’m certainly going to keep listening. (2020, 129 min) [Megan Fariello]
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Alex Winter’s ZAPPA (US/Documentary)
If you know anything about musician/composer Frank Zappa, you will not be at all surprised that Alex Winter’s thorough-going documentary, ZAPPA, begins with the rocker mounting a stage in front of a packed crowd in Prague, where he was such a symbol of revolution that the Czech Republic asked the U.S. to appoint him as their cultural and trade representative. Zappa, whose lyrics were sexually explicit, politically iconoclastic, and seemingly designed to insult as wide a variety of “plastic people” as possible, and whose concerts were raucous and provocative (I attended one in which the stage was hung with the underwear he’d collected from women during the tour) was all about freedom. While he fought Tipper Gore and her Parent Music Resource Center to prevent censorship in music, mainly because none of his musician colleagues seemed interested in getting involved, he also brought a wide-ranging sensibility to his music, writing everything from silly ditties like “White Port and Lemon Juice” to a modern classical composition for the Kronos Quartet. Winter covers a lot of ground in ZAPPA, taking the amazingly self-taught musician from his literally toxic childhood next to a chemical factory where his father worked to his spacious home in Southern California’s Laurel Canyon where his massive archive of all of his work was stored. Interviews with his former bandmates include Steve Vai, a guitar master who started his career with Zappa, and Ruth Underwood, a percussionist who was lured from her elite training at Juilliard for the chance to do more than play the triangle in a symphony orchestra upon graduation. Zappa, we learn, was an emotionally withholding, relentless taskmaster who unilaterally broke up the first iteration of the Mothers, rarely saw his children, and openly cheated on his wife. It’s tempting to think that a fan attack that left him crippled for nearly two years was some kind of cosmic payback, but I felt nothing but sympathy for his disillusioned hurt at how so many people abandoned him in his hour of need. Whatever his faults, he fought the good fight to evolve as a musician, provide a decent living for himself and his bandmates, and expose the corrosiveness in American society. The film is a treasure trove of footage from his life on and off the stage, though I found it frustrating that the music, while ubiquitous, was only presented in snippets—no doubt a copyright-inflected condition producer Ahmet Zappa imposed on Winter. Zappa’s associations with Don Van Vliet (Captain Beefheart) and stop-motion animator Bruce Bickford, who contributed so much to 200 MOTELS (1971), are satisfyingly explored, and the film does not shrink from his losing struggle with prostate cancer. Zappa’s singular focus on trying to achieve the sound he heard in his head eventually turned him to electronics in an effort to completely control the sound. Had he lived, I’m sure we would have seen some major innovations from his quick and exploratory mind. (2020, 129 min) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
LOCAL ONLINE SCREENINGS – Also Screening/Streaming
Chicago Filmmakers
Chicago Filmmakers presents Family Ties, an online program of recent local work—three shorts and a feature—available to rent though Sunday, December 20. Included are SWEET CHILD (Zachery Green, 7 min), REAR VIEW (Stephen Kniss, 17 min), DUBIOUS RUFFIANS (Kevin Pickman, 16 min), and THICKER THAN BLOOD (Anthony Williams, 75 min). A Q&A is scheduled for Saturday at 8pm. More info here.
Sin Cinta Previa + Chuquimarca
“What’s another word for survival?” is a paired online screening and artist panel, featuring work by Lorena Cruz Santiago, Adrián García, Valeria Montoya, Mateo Vargas, and Martin Wannam. The videos are available here. The panel is on Saturday, Dec. 19 at 7:30pm (CST); Zoom registration here.
Video Data Bank
The Video Data Bank presents “Holiday with the Kuchars,” a program of two works by George Kuchar: XMAS 1986 (1986, 37 min) and SOLSTICE (2009, 4 min). No ending date listed. Viewable here.
Facets Cinémathèque
Seamus Murphy’s 2019 Irish/UK documentary/music film PJ HARVEY: A DOG CALLED MONEY (90 min) opens Friday, Dec. 18 (currently scheduled through Dec. 31) and Roseanne Liang’s 2020 New Zealand/US film SHADOW IN THE CLOUD (83 min) opens Jan. 1. Check the Facets website for hold-over titles and any new openings unannounced by our deadline.
Gene Siskel Film Center
Amy Watson and Dennis Keighron-Foster’s 2018 UK documentary DEEP IN VOGUE (62 min), Jennifer Trainer’s 2019 documentary MUSEUM TOWN (76 min), and Juan José Campanella’s 2019 Argentinean film THE WEASELS' TALE (129 min) are all available for streaming beginning this week. Check the Siskel website for hold-over titles and any new openings unannounced by our deadline.
Music Box Theatre
Check the Music Box website for hold-over titles and any new openings unannounced by our deadline.
ADDITIONAL ONLINE SCREENINGS
Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart’s WOLFWALKERS (Ireland/Luxembourg/France/Animation)
Streaming for free (with subscription) on Apple TV+
I am always happy for the release of a Tomm Moore animated film, ever since his stunning feature debut, THE SECRET OF KELLS (co-directed with Nora Twomey) and his heartrending sophomore film, SONG OF THE SEA. WOLFWALKERS—co-directed with Ross Stewart, the art director for Moore’s previous films—is likewise an emotionally poignant and beautifully animated coming-of-age family film inspired by Irish folklore. In the 17th century, Robyn (Honor Kneafsey) has relocated from England to the Irish village of Kilkenny with her father, Bill Goodfellowe (Sean Bean), a hunter who’s been hired by the cruel Lord Protector (Simon McBurney) to rid the area of wolves. Overly eager to help her father in his task, Robyn ventures into the woods and meets a Wolfwalker, Mebh (Eva Whittaker)—a magical girl with healing powers who transforms into a wolf while sleeping. Her infectiously playful nature charms the English girl, and they quickly become friends. Her encounter with the Wolfwalkers, however, has a profound effect on Robyn—not only in a change of heart, but a supernatural one—and complicates her father’s precarious position. The animation captures a dreamlike magic, with softly lit earth tones that made me gasp at times at the expressiveness and intricacy of the imagery. The scenes of Robyn and Mebh spiritedly exploring the forest are particularly enchanting and stand out as they juxtapose the harsher colors and lines seen in Kilkenny. The backgrounds and characters are rendered in such a way that they feel traditionally inspired yet surprise with movement and emotion, such as the use of triptychs to show multiple scenes on screen at once. WOLFWALKERS features arresting animation, but with an equally touching tale of friendship and family, creatively steeped in folklore, art, and history. (2020, 103 min) [Megan Fariello]
SUPPORT LOCAL THEATERS AND SERIES
As we wait for conditions to improve to allow theaters to reopen, consider various ways that you can help support independent film exhibitors in Chicago weather this difficult time. Memberships, gift cards, and/or merchandise are available from the Gene Siskel Film Center, the Music Box Theatre, and Facets. Donations can be made to non-profit venues and organizations like Chicago Filmmakers, the Chicago Film Society, South Side Projections, and many of the film festivals. Online streaming partnerships with distributors are making films available through the Gene Siskel Film Center, the Music Box Theatre, and Facets; and Facets also has a subscription-based streaming service, FacetsEdge, that includes many exclusive titles.
COVID-19 UPDATES
Most independent, alternative, arthouse, grassroots, DIY, and university-based venues and several festivals continue to have suspended operations, are closed, or have cancelled/postponed events until further notice. Below is the most recent information we have, which we will update as new information becomes available.
Note that venues/series marked with an asterisk (*) are currently presenting or plan to do regular or occasional “virtual” online screenings.
CLOSED/POSTPONED/HIATUS:
Beverly Arts Center – Events cancelled/postponed until further notice
Block Cinema (Northwestern University) – Closed until further notice (see above for “virtual” online screenings)*
Chicago Film Society – Events cancelled/postponed until further notice*
Chicago Filmmakers – Events cancelled/postponed until further notice*
Comfort Film (at Comfort Station) – Programming cancelled until further notice
Conversations at the Edge (at the Gene Siskel Film Center) – The Fall 2020 online season has ended; plans for Spring 2021 not yet available
Doc Films (University of Chicago) – Screenings cancelled until further notice
Facets Cinémathèque – Closed until further notice (see above for “virtual” online screenings)*
Film Studies Center (University of Chicago) – Events cancelled/postponed until further notice*
filmfront – Events cancelled/postponed until further notice
Gallery 400 (UIC)*
Gene Siskel Film Center – Closed until further notice (see above for “virtual” online screenings)*
Music Box Theatre – The Music Box has again suspended in-person screenings; it continues to present online-only screenings*
The Nightingale – Events cancelled/postponed until further notice
The Park Ridge Classic Film Series (at the Park Ridge Public Library) – Events cancelled/postponed until further notice
FESTIVALS:
Postponed with no announced plans yet:
The Cinepocalypse film festival (June) – Postponed with plans to reschedule at a future time
The Windy City Horrorama festival (April 24 - 26) – Cancelled; will possibly be rescheduled or reconfigured at a future date
The Chicago Critics Film Festival (May 1 - 7) – Postponed until further notice
CINE-LIST: December 18, 2020 - January 7, 2021
MANAGING EDITOR // Patrick Friel
ASSOCIATE EDITOR // Ben Sachs, Kat Sachs
CONTRIBUTORS // Kyle Cubr, Megan Fariello, Marilyn Ferdinand, Michael Frank, Jonathan Leithold-Patt, Raphael Jose Martinez, Brian Welesko