:: FRIDAY, JULY 21 - THURSDAY, JULY 27 ::

📽️ CRUCIAL VIEWING

Victor Erice’s THE QUINCE TREE SUN (Spain)

Chicago Film Society at Northeastern Illinois University (The Auditorium, Building E 3701 W. Bryn Mawr Ave.) – Wednesday, 7:30pm

The work of Victor Erice is without question one of the treasures of world cinema. His films are poetic, nuanced, throbbing with emotion, and yet never pretentious—each of his carefully composed shots conveys a specific response to living in the world. Where Erice’s first two features, THE SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE (1973) and EL SUR (1983), are luxurious fictions about childhood, his third, THE QUINCE TREE SUN, is an equally sumptuous quasi-documentary about the making of images. Erice created the film with the painter Antonio López García, observing him over a few months in 1990 as he worked on a large canvas depicting a quince tree in his backyard. The film presents in vivid detail how such an artwork comes to life; as an exhaustive, materialist approach to painting, its only real rival may be Jacques Rivette’s LA BELLE NOISEUSE (1991), another immersive work that rejects conventional plotting in order to reflect the mental state of a great artist. The film moves at a slow pace as it revels in the fine points of López García’s craft: we see what lengths he goes to in order to ensure that his perspective stays the same over weeks of work, constructing an apparatus around the quince tree to fix his position and even painting lines on the branches and fruit to chart where his gaze meets his subject. There’s a firm realism to Erice’s depiction of the creative process, though he takes a hazier, almost dreamlike view of things like time’s passing, López García’s relationships with friends and family, and the state of the world circa 1990. Employing soothing dissolves both between and within shots, Erice makes it seem as though the film is drifting in and out of time, despite the fact that the frequent title cards let us know exactly what day it is. In its quiet fashion, THE QUINCE TREE SUN shows how the creation of art can be all consuming for creators, yet this never emerges as a source of stress or conflict. López García’s talent and the value of his art are instantly apparent, and his ability to produce such beautiful canvases seems like a minor miracle. Co-presented with Pentimenti Productions. (1992, 134 min, 35mm) [Ben Sachs]

Vincente Minnelli's MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS (US)

Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) – Friday, 4pm and Saturday, 7pm

Produced by MGM’s immortal Arthur Freed unit at a time when Technicolor made every shot look like an oil painting come to life, MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS would have looked gorgeous even if Vincente Minnelli hadn’t directed it. Yet he did, and the world is a better place as a result. This is the movie (only Minnelli’s third as director) where the former Marshall Field’s window dresser became the American Max Ophüls; the balletic camera movements invoke, alternately, intoxication with rediscovering the past and a skeptical interrogation of the past. Comparably, the dense mise-en-scène is filled with countless little observations about how people lived in a particular time and place (specifically, an upper-middle-class St. Louis neighborhood in 1903-’04), and remarkably, the imagery always feels in harmony with the emotional content, which is Chaplinesque in how it can be appreciated by small children and wizened adults for pretty much the same reasons. The onscreen world of MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS was only four decades old when the movie was made, but given that this was during the worst days of World War II, the rosy images of the past probably seemed as distant then as they do today. (Notably, when the characters speak of different nations interacting, they’re talking about the strictly benign spectacle of the coming World’s Fair.) The film continues to triumph as escapist entertainment: Who doesn’t swoon over the exuberance of “The Trolley Song” sequence, grin beamingly at the expertly timed light comedy of the family interaction, or get misty-eyed during Judy Garland’s soulful rendition of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”? Yet what makes MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS endure as art are the countless ways that Minnelli and company complicate their project of escapism. Consider the anecdotal narrative structure, which recognizes the banality and commonness of life in its focus on everyday events; or consider the film’s groundbreaking integration of songs into the story (before MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS, the songs in most American musicals were distinctly separate entities from the narratives), which grants unprecedented depth to familiar emotions. These emotions are not always pretty or easily contained—Minnelli generates a surprising amount of anxiety from the Smith family’s impending move, and the scene of Margaret O’Brien’s Tootie taking her anger out on her snowmen is always more unnerving than you expect. Robin Wood once suggested, only half-jokingly, that MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS could be categorized as a horror movie, with Tootie being the monstrous personification of her family members’ repressed emotions, and no less than John Carpenter took inspiration from the Halloween section of the film in his design of the original HALLOWEEN (1978). Apparently, there’s something about the forced perfection of all-American town life that lends itself to the horrific imagination. Screening as part of the Programmers’ Picks series. (1944, 113 min, 35mm) [Ben Sachs]

Russ Meyer's BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS (US)

Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) – Friday, 7pm and Saturday, 4pm

Perhaps the best sequel ever made, Russ Meyer's love letter to groovy '60s culture triumphs by having nothing to do with Jacqueline Susann's 1966 novel and just a slight resemblance to Mark Robson's 1967 film adaptation. Nominally still a cautionary tale about a group of beautiful young women coming to the big city and being corrupted by fame and fortune, it marries Meyer's lifelong fixation with oversized bosoms to a lurid color palette and a cartoonishly square, moralizing voiceover. The result is like a gleeful episode of The Partridge Family set in a bordello. Viewed with 2023 eyes, it might be tempting to give Meyer credit for open-mindedness in depicting alternate lifestyles and nonbinary presentation, but though his outlook is primarily optimistic, it is still that of a traditional '50s American male. Like touring a safari, this is a chance to get an eyeful of sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll from the comfort of staid suburbia. Meyer's true innovation was in owning all his intellectual property. He was a truly independent filmmaker even when working for studios, like he did here. That insistence on controlling his own economic and creative destiny is the lesson he can teach young filmmakers whose careers are imperiled before they even begin by corporations and AI. Meyer's perspective on sexual and broader societal mores are firmly patriarchal. In that way, his work is in line with Hugh Hefner's Playboy magazine, in whose pages many of this film's stars were featured. Unlike Hefner, Meyer was self-aware enough not to try to sell his preoccupations as a wholesome lifestyle brand. Like a leering uncle, you wouldn't go to him for advice on how to treat your girlfriend, but you might ask about how he got the house with the two-car garage. Along with FASTER PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL! (1965), this is Meyer's most successful attempt at quasi-mainstream entertainment. The fetishism is buoyed by a bouncy soundtrack and there's a triple wedding in the end. It's not really a happening and it won't freak you out, but you'll have a good time anyway. Screening as part of the Some Dreamers of the Silver Screen: L.A.'67-'76 series. (1970, 107 min, DCP Digital) [Dmitry Samarov]

Kansas Bowling’s CUDDLY TOYS (US)

The Davis Theater – Tuesday, 7pm; Alamo Drafthouse – Wednesday, 7:30pm; and FACETS Cinema – Thursday, 9pm

CUDDLY TOYS is at once funny and sad, even as it's mostly horrifying, effectively reflecting and illuminating the complete confusion and vulnerability of coming of age as a teenage girl. Shot in 16mm, the film is inspired by the Italian mondo shockumentaries of the 60s, exploitation films presented as pseudo-documentaries on sensational topics like death and sex. CUDDLY TOYS works in a completely different genre in its hazy pastels as well as its content, which are reminiscent of Joyce Copra’s SMOOTH TALK. Both films take seriously the important distinction between girls innocently exploring their own desires and someone else—or society at large—aggressively forcing his upon them. Director Kansas Bowling suggests that whatever the situation is, there is no escape. The connection between abuse and love is cemented from the beginning. The sexualization of girls is inevitable, and they’re taught this early on, from the games they play to the cutesy songs and stories they recite—the film relies a lot on music throughout. The dream of falling in love is juxtaposed by disturbing depictions of violent sexual assault and abuse. The film focuses, too, on coercion and the cultural importance placed on virginity and youth that make a smooth transition from girl to woman impossibly challenging to navigate. Bowling herself plays a scientist examining the plights of the teenage girl, her evidence presented as vignettes and short clips that artistically weave in and out of one another, often out of order. Her findings are empathetic, reinforcing that teenage girls who “act out” are in fact searching for freedom, individuality, and creative expression, and the dangerous situations they find themselves in are in no way their choice or fault. The film eventually delves into the shame and difficulty of taking any action against the men that hurt them; it's utterly heartbreaking to watch. Bowling’s scientist, too, begins to crumble under the weight of her conclusions. Both terrifying and remarkable in its bleak honesty, CUDDLY TOYS is revelatory in its clever, playful construction and '60s inspired visuals which only heighten the disturbing but unsurprising fact that every girl has a story like this to tell. (2022, 102 min, Digital Projection) [Megan Fariello]
---
Read Raphael Jose Martinez’s interview with Bowling on the blog here. 
---
Bowling in person at all screenings. Filmmaker Joe Swanberg will be leading a Q&A with Bowling after the screenings at the Davis Theater and Alamo Drafthouse; Cine-File co-managing editor Kat Sachs will do so at FACETS. The screening at FACETS will be preceded by FACETS Trivia at 7pm, hosted by Martinez. More info here.

📽️ ALSO RECOMMENDED

Cem Kaya’s LOVE, DEUTSCHMARKS AND DEATH (Germany/Documentary)

Goethe-Institut Chicago (150 N. Michigan Ave., Suite 200) – Tuesday, 6pm

Well researched and compellingly edited, LOVE, DEUTSCHMARKS AND DEATH provides a worthy sociological lesson about Turkish immigrants in Germany between the mid 1950s and the present, presenting this community’s experience through the lens of the popular music they created and vice-versa. Cem Kaya introduces dozens of performers from the past seven decades, most of whom sang in Turkish but lived and recorded in Germany; he also repurposes old TV and film footage to reveal things about the times in which these musicians performed. A section about performers in the late ‘60s, for instance, hinges on a musical number from a contemporaneous German variety show about how good immigrant workers have been for the national economy (a facilely sunny take on the formal guest worker programs that had met with controversy since their inception in 1955). LOVE, DEUTSCHMARKS AND DEATH is rife with funny, self-aware flourishes like this, not only from Kaya but many of his subjects: there's Hatay Engin, a flamboyantly gay lounge singer who would interrupt his own concerts to tell jokes for up to half an hour; Cavidan Ünal, the self-proclaimed “diva of Europe”; and the rock musicians who honed their acts in the early ‘70s by playing weddings that attracted one to two thousand guests. There are also serious passages about how Turkish immigrants (and later their children and grandchildren) were ostracized and discriminated against within German society; these sections provide a crucial backdrop to the story of Cem Karaca, a Turkish immigrant who started singing protest songs in German in the 1970s to draw more attention to his community among native Germans. Karaca’s legacy can be felt in the confrontational work of Turkish-German rappers of the ‘90s and on; the film closes with a consideration of their social impact. What emerges across generations and genres is a common theme of creating a sense of home without a homeland, somewhat like what Yiddish-language theater and cinema achieved. Not surprisingly, homesickness is another recurring theme of LOVE, DEUTSCHMARKS AND DEATH, which provides the film's bittersweet undertone. (2022, 98 min, Digital Projection) [Ben Sachs]

Stanley Tong’s SUPERCOP (Hong Kong)

Gene Siskel Film Center – Friday, 7:45pm

Stanley Tong jumps into the director’s chair for the first of his many collaborations with Jackie Chan in SUPERCOP, a film that takes Chan’s slapstick and Keaton-inspired work in the first two POLICE STORY films and expands the scope into more of an out-and-out action affair. Thanks to his previous exploits, everyman police officer Ka-Kui (Chan) has been deemed a ‘super cop’ by the Hong Kong police and now ready for his biggest assignment to date, taking down a large Chinese drug cartel by infiltrating it from within. He is joined by series newcomer, Inspector Jessica Yang, who is played by Michelle Yeoh in a role that greatly matches the artful blend of physicality, humor, and martial arts prowess that Chan had made his trademarks. The highlights of any Jackie Chan vehicle are always the spectacular stunts the human crash test dummy pulls off; the addition of Yeoh to this equation doubles the fun. The film places its two leads in constant peril, from taking out an armed base of mercenaries with explosives to fighting on top of cars and trains to even dangling from a helicopter high over Kuala Lumpur. These dangerous feats are held in frame, and Tong lingers on the shots instead of employing the quick cuts and camera trickery that limit typical action movies. The onscreen chemistry between Chan and Yeoh through their hijinks, collaboration, and combat are the backbone to the film’s success. SUPERCOP’s expansion of scope to the POLICE STORY formula takes the protagonists from local heroes to bona fide international forces to be reckoned with, mirroring the career paths of Chan and Yeoh, who soon jumped to global acclaim upon this movie’s release in the early 1990s. Screening as part of the Hong Kong Summer series. (1992, 91 min, DCP Digital) [Kyle Cubr]

Johnnie To's THE HEROIC TRIO (Hong Kong)

Gene Siskel Film Center – Thursday, 6pm

THE HEROIC TRIO feels closer in sensibility to the films of Tsui Hark than it does to Johnnie To’s later output with Milkyway Image. Not that that’s a bad thing. The world needs more superhero movies like this—cheery, goofy, casually feminist, and devoid of self-importance. That it barely makes sense (the most obvious sign of Tsui’s influence) is an added bonus. The trio in question consists of Thief Catcher (Maggie Cheung), Invisible Woman (Michelle Yeoh), and Wonder Woman (Anita Mui), super-powered mystery-women who overcome their differences to stop a villain who’s kidnapping babies all over Hong Kong. The costumes, production design, and fight choreography are all bonkers, making the film an eyeful from start to finish. Olivier Assayas was sufficiently impressed by the film to include clips from it in IRMA VEP (1996)—the fictional director in that movie played by Jean-Pierre Léaud says that Cheung’s character in HEROIC TRIO reminds him of the great anti-heroine of Louis Feuillade’s serial LES VAMPIRES. Watching To’s film, you can sort of see what the Léaud character means; Cheung exudes charisma and an air of mystery, adding unexpected depth to the cartoonish characterization (the other lead actresses aren’t bad either). Screening as part of the Hong Kong Summer series. (1993, 88 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]

Anime Auteurs

FACETS Cinema – Friday and Saturday

Satoshi Kon's MILLENNIUM ACTRESS (Japan/Animation)
Saturday, 7pm
When Japanese filmmakers Satoshi Kon and Sadayuki Murai decided to collaborate on a film script, the guiding principle was to create a stereogram, a story within a story. The result, MILLENNIUM ACTRESS, appears to be exploding with stories within stories—but that is a bit deceptive. The film tells in relatively linear fashion the story of its titular character from girlhood into her 70s, touching on important events in 20th-century Japanese history. But the reigning atmosphere is one of fantasy—the fantasy of being able to immerse oneself in successive filmic worlds. TV documentarian Genya Tachibana (voice of Shôzô Îzuka) and his hip, young cameraman Kyōji Ida (voice of Masaya Onosaka) are filming the bulldozing of Ginei Studios, formerly a prestige studio during the first 100 years of filmmaking in Japan. Realizing there isn’t much to the story, Genya seeks out the studio’s biggest star, Chiyoko Fujiwara (voice of Miyoko Shōji), now elderly and living in seclusion. She agrees to be interviewed on camera and slowly unravels the story of her life in episodes that freely float between her real life and her screen roles. For Chiyoko, every role she played submerges into the same psychodrama—her attempt to reunite with a mysterious stranger she fell hopelessly in love with when she was ten. Her undying devotion is linked to a key he gave her for safekeeping that he says opens “the most important thing in the world.” The desire to discover that thing is as propulsive to us as it is to Chiyoko. Kyōji and Genya, the latter of whom worked at Ginei and idolizes the actress, are literally pulled into the plot of every story she tells; the older man occupies roles as her heroic retainer and the younger man remains himself—bewildered, frightened, and wondering how to get back to reality. Genya represents all the movie lovers who can’t wait to live vicariously in the high drama and romance of motion pictures. For Chiyoko, her single act of kindness set her on the path to a successful career and a lifelong pursuit that gave her existence meaning. Beautifully illustrated and imaginatively scripted, MILLENNIUM ACTRESS takes viewers along on the ride of their lives. (2001, 87 min, DCP Digital) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
---
Satoshi Kon's PERFECT BLUE (Japan/Animation)
Saturday, 9pm
Many consider PERFECT BLUE to be Satoshi Kon's magnum opus—and for good reason. The film’s impact on culture reaches far beyond that of most other anime films, arguably rivaling the work of contemporaries like Hayao Miyazaki and AKIRA creator Katsuhiro Otomo. Those filmmakers regularly utilize the format to explore new, colorful worlds of fantasy and science fiction, which was also true of Kon. However, his work in the late '90s and early 2000s was more grounded in reality, exploring a dreamy aesthetic instead through his characters’ psychoses and fractured senses of self; Kon's approach led him to adapt Yoshikazu Takuchi’s novel of the same name, its story acting as a vehicle through which he could explore these themes. The film introduces us to Mima Kirigoe, a pop singer who leaves her idol group to become an actress. Between disappointed fanboys, mysterious deaths in her agency’s circle, and an acting role that increasingly mirrors her struggle to self-identify, Mima begins to lose herself in the horrors around her. This film would not be the last time Kon used cinema to tackle a character’s identity; he further explored the concept in his next original screenplay, MILLENNIUM ACTRESS, which he penned with frequent collaborator and PERFECT BLUE screenwriter Sadyuki Murai. Where that film uses cinema as a positive additive, heightening a tale of lost love and legacy to dramatic peaks, PERFECT BLUE hones in on the anxiety of performance, depicting an actress who loses herself both on camera and in the public eye. To categorize this film as a great work in anime is to do it a disservice; it's a masterclass in psychological horror that holds its own in one of the latter genre’s most memorable decades. (1997, 81 min, DCP Digital) [Michael Bates]
---
Also screening as part of the series are Shinichirō Watanabe’s 2001 film COWBOY BEBOP: THE MOVIE (115 min, Digital Projection) on Friday at 7pm and the 2003 anthology film THE ANIMATRIX (102 min, Digital Projection) on Friday at 9:30pm.

Li Ruijun’s RETURN TO DUST (China)

Gene Siskel Film Center – See Venue website for showtimes

They say that home is where the heart is. In several of his films, independent Chinese director Li Ruijun has gone back to his rural home town of Gaotai on the western border of Inner Mongolia to examine the state of personal relationships in a rapidly changing society. His latest film, RETURN TO DUST, eulogizes the connection between human beings and nature without sentimentalizing the harsh life Chinese farmers have as they work the land with primitive tools and suffer exploitation by those who buy their crops. The center of this film, however, is a couple of throwaway people who shoulder their burdens energetically because they have found an unlikely love. Iron (Wu Renlin) is an illiterate, middle-age farmer who is becoming a burden to his family. Similarly, Guiying (Hai Qing) is handicapped, incontinent, and regularly beaten and kept like a dog in a shed by her family. A matchmaker puts them together, and their awkward first days of marriage give way to a gentle opening up and a true union. Watching them work side by side to plow a field with Iron’s donkey pulling a wooden tiller, make bricks from mud for a home they will build themselves, and watch out for each other’s health and safety is beautiful beyond words. Wu and Hai bravely create indelible characters who have been treated cruelly but have not lost their ability to hope and love. But can something so delicate survive in the go-go Chinese society of today? Iron and Guiying may seem worthless to those bent on progress at all costs, but not to each other or those privileged to witness their story. (2022, 133 min, DCP Digital) [Marilyn Ferdinand]

Wong Kar-wai’s AS TEARS GO BY (Hong Kong)

Gene Siskel Film Center – Sunday, 4pm and Monday, 6pm

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. Screening as part of the Hong Kong Summer series. (1988, 102 min, DCP Digital) [Kat Sachs]

Wes Anderson's ASTEROID CITY (US)

Music Box Theatre – See Venue website for showtimes

Through ten feature films made over nearly thirty years, Wes Anderson has honed an exacting Lionel Model Train set aesthetic in which human history and emotions often play second banana to design considerations and deadpan humor. Especially since his first stop-motion animation film, FANTASTIC MR. FOX (2009), Anderson's movies have mostly dispensed with any pretense of naturalism in favor of a strictly controlled environment in which the puppeteer's hand often invades the frame to rearrange the furniture or to recast his doll-like charges' fates. Depending on your tolerance for his near-autistic compulsion to demonstrate mastery over his domain, these films can be either an unbearable slog or a charming detour from humdrum reality. I'm an admirer of Anderson's steadfast dedication to his vision but often find that not much about his toy constructions follow me out of the theater after the credits roll. Though he often puts his characters in fraught world-historical settings and programs them to emote after heartbreak or other traumas, these feelings and reactions rarely break through the symmetrical compositions and wind-up gizmos buzzing about in the background. The need to deflect and distract oneself from pain through obsessive hobbyism is a time-honored strategy, especially for men, or, more precisely, boys who refuse to grow up. Anderson's latest has all the hallmarks of his previous work but adds a layer of present-day resonance. Though set in the 1950s, in a small western town on the edge of a nuclear testing site, and featuring a cascade of major and minor movie stars and even an alien landing, the references to COVID lockdown life are everywhere. This time the unreality, panic, and erratic behavior—while still often played for laughs—is not cribbed from beloved short stories or arcana, but from the very recently experienced every day. This gives the film a gravity the previous ones lacked. We all lived through a thing even a control freak like Anderson can't ignore by descending into his basement tinkerer's kingdom and his work is all the better for it. (2023, 105 min, DCP Digital) [Dmitry Samarov]

🎞️ PHYSICAL SCREENINGS/EVENTS –
ALSO SCREENING

⚫ Chicago Film Archives
The Chicago Transit Authority, in partnership with the Chicago Film Archives (CFA), presents a new, one-of-a-kind temporary art installation now playing at the Cicero Green Line station (4800 W. Lake St.). The installation, called we love, is a filmic exhibition of home movies and amateur films selected from collections housed and preserved at CFA. The video, which has a runtime of approximately 48 minutes, will be projected onto a wall in the mezzanine area of the station. The video will run day and night through mid-March next year. More info here. 

⚫ Cinema/Chicago
Lim Jung-eun’s 2020 South Korean film OUR MIDNIGHT (77 min, Digital Projection) screens Wednesday, 6:30pm, at the Chicago Cultural Center (78 E. Washington St.). Note that advance tickets are no longer available. Please pick up a Rush Card when doors open at 5:45pm to reserve your place for a last-minute ticket. Open seats will be made available to Rush Card holders 15 minutes prior to showtime on a first-come, first-served basis. Admission is not guaranteed. More info here.

⚫ Comfort Film at Comfort Station (2579 N. Milwaukee Ave.)
Aaron McCann and Dominic Pearce’s 2017 documentary TOP KNOT DETECTIVE (87 min, Digital Projection) screens Wednesday at 8pm. Free admission. More info here.

⚫ Gene Siskel Film Center
Savanah Leaf’s 2023 film EARTH MAMA (100 min, DCP Digital) begins screening this week. See Venue website for showtimes. More info here.

⚫ Music Box Theatre
It’s officially Music Box Garden Movies season! See Venue website for films and showtimes. 

Christopher Nolan’s 2023 film OPPENHEIMER (180 min, 70mm) and Scott Monahan’s 2023 film ANCHORAGE (82 min, DCP Digital) begin screening this week. See Venue website for showtimes. 

The 2pm screening of OPPENHEIMER on Saturday is presented by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the Japanese Arts Foundation, and the DePaul Humanities Center and features a post-film panel and Q&A with representatives from those groups. 

ANCHORAGE director Scott Monahan and writer Dakota Loesch (both of whom also star in the film) will be in attendance for post-film Q&As following all screenings through Thursday. More info on all screenings and events here. 

⚫ Sideshow Gelato (4819 N. Western Ave.)
The Sideshow Gelato shop presents Sideshow Sinema!, during which they will screen films connected to the shop theme, every Thursday. More info here.

⚫ Sweet Void Cinema (3036 W. Chicago Ave.)
Find information on the Humboldt Park microcinema, including its screening and workshop schedule, here.

CINE-LIST: July 21 - July 27, 2023

MANAGING EDITORS // Ben and Kat Sachs

CONTRIBUTORS // Michael Bates, Kyle Cubr, Megan Fariello, Marilyn Ferdinand, Dmitry Samarov