📽️ Crucial Viewing
Richard Brooks’ CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF (US)
Music Box Theatre – Saturday and Sunday, 11:30am
The lurid melodramas of the great Southern American playwright Tennessee Williams were absolutely made for the 1950s, an era of emotional repression that left audiences craving the titillation to be found in his works. The Pulitzer Prize-winning Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955) was one of Williams’s favorites, yet at the prompting of Elia Kazan, who directed its debut on Broadway, he softened the play’s ending to suggest that the supposed sham marriage at the heart of the story might actually be a real one. The 1958 film adaptation by director Richard Brooks and screenwriter James Poe that asserts a true sexual and emotional rapport between the main protagonists was a bridge too far for the playwright. Williams reportedly went to a Florida cinema and tried to dissuade people from buying tickets to see it, saying “This movie will set the industry back fifty years. Go home!” In fact, CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF was one of the blockbuster hits of the 1950s that saved Hollywood’s bacon from the onslaught of television. The irresistible pairing of two of the most alluring actors of the period, Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman as Maggie and Brick Pollitt, and the adoring gaze of cinematographer William H. Daniels, who shot Greta Garbo so memorably in 21 films, ensured that audiences would have a lot to savor. It doesn’t hurt that the loveliness of these two stars puts in high relief the tragedy of unrequited love and desire that was so much a part of Williams’s aesthetic. It’s hard to believe that any mere mortal could resist Liz Taylor at the height of her beauty parading in front of a big, brass bed in a form-fitting slip, but that’s exactly what Newman does. As her husband, he despises her and buries himself in bourbon to dull his disgust not only with her, but also with himself. He failed his football teammate and best friend Skipper at a crucial moment, an act that ended in Skipper’s suicide. Ensconced in the plantation home of his father, Big Daddy (Burl Ives, reprising his role from Broadway), who has returned from a famous clinic where he underwent a battery of medical tests, Brick refuses to be a part of the Southern celebrations of Big Daddy’s 65th birthday arranged by his older brother Gooper (Jack Carson) and sister-in-law Mae (Madeleine Sherwood, also a Broadway holdover), a fecund wife brooding her sixth child. With the possibility of the patriarch’s imminent demise, the heirs will have a large fortune to tussle over, that is, if Brick can be persuaded to care about it. Talk of childlessness, death, sex, alcoholism, purposeless spending, and love set CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF apart from less ambitious family dramas, but the elephant in the room, the queer (though possibly unconsummated) relationship Brick and Skipper most likely shared, dares not speak its name, though allusions to it pepper the script. Taylor, reeling from the death of her husband, Michael Todd, during shooting, screeches her way through an unconvincing performance. Newman, still early in his career, is best in his interactions with Ives, whose surprisingly sympathetic performance adds a welcome grace note to the generally loud and vulgar proceedings. The always excellent Judith Anderson brings poignancy to her role as Big Mama, a matriarch who has been belittled and unloved through a forty-year marriage. Continuity problems and a rickety set that looks like it might have been transferred from the stage to the soundstage mar the presentation, and the annoyances of Gooper and Mae’s children are altogether too annoying. Ironically, however, half-burying the queer subtext only heightens the textual critique of mendacity aimed squarely at the era during which CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF emerged. Screening as part of the Liz & Monty Matinees series. (1958, 108 min, 35mm) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
James Benning’s NORTH ON EVERS (US/Experimental)
Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) – Sunday, 8pm
Doc Films concludes their valuable James Benning series with NORTH ON EVERS, a feature that revisits a critical formal device from the director’s AMERICAN DREAMS (LOST AND FOUND) (1984), which played earlier in the series. In both films, Benning has handwritten diary entries scroll across the bottom of the screen throughout the entire runtime; but where AMERICAN DREAMS presented the diary entries of would-be political assassin Arthur Bremer, NORTH ON EVERS uses text from Benning’s own diaries, resulting in a more personal work. Personal, but not necessarily immediate, since the onscreen text is seldom in sync with the images. Both images and text concern a trip around the United States that Benning made around 1990—driving from California across the Southern US, up the eastern seaboard to New York, then across the Northern part of the country back to California—but the diary entries proceed faster than the images, forcing the viewer to recall what Benning had written about whenever the corresponding shots appear. It isn’t always easy to keep track of NORTH ON EVERS (it’s a pretty overwhelming experience), though the images are consistently beautiful; Benning’s knack for presenting landscapes is fully evident, and his human portraits are compelling too. Various cameos punctuate the location photography, with appearances from Richard Linklater (seen watching SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS [1958] at home), Willem Dafoe, Benning’s daughter Sadie, and various unknown people whom Benning met on the road. The material concerning the filmmaker’s relationship with his daughter provides the most affecting passages of NORTH ON EVERS. Where much of the film concerns movement and fleeting relationships, these sections consider the firm bonds of family, which strengthen over time. Indeed, the whole film is motored by such tensions—between private and public space, the permanence of landscapes and the transience of thought. It’s one of Benning’s densest films and a fine example of how much complexity can exist within a minimalist aesthetic. Screening as part of the series, An Artist of Intimate Intent: James Benning. (1991, 90 min, 16mm) [Ben Sachs]
Paul Thomas Anderson's THERE WILL BE BLOOD (US)
Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) – Friday, 7pm
Paul Thomas Anderson's THERE WILL BE BLOOD portrays the breakneck rise of capitalism in the American West at the dawn of the deadly twentieth century. In 1898, Anderson's antihero Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) finds gold in New Mexico's desert, and just four years later, he begins to drill for oil, becoming wealthy early in his career. Plainview moves on to Little Boston, California, where he will next strike millions in black gold. He also meets an unconventional competitor Eli Sunday (Paul Dano), who tries his damnedest to sabotage Plainview's further acquisition of oil. Although Eli is a preacher, Plainview soon recognizes that he is "a false prophet" and, in fact, a capitalist at heart. Eli deftly uses "his song and dance and superstition" to steal money, but in the end, it does not save him from Plainview's wrath nor the stock market crash of 1929. In contrast, Plainview does not deny that he is a liar, thief, and murderer. In a rare moment, he tells his supposed half-brother Henry (Kevin J. O'Connor) who he is: "I have a competition in me. I want no one else to succeed. I hate most people...There are times when I look at people, and I see nothing worth liking. I want to earn enough money to get away from everyone...I see the worst in people, Henry. I don't need to look past seeing them to get all I need. I've built up my hatreds over the years, little by little. To have you here gives me a second breath. I can't keep doing this on my own with these, um, people." Plainview drowns himself in money, preferring it to religion as his "opium." He cannot face himself nor his reflection in a capitalist world built upon the principle of greed. Yet, Plainview and Eli are also mysteries to us. They often converse as strains of an ideology at war with itself rather than human beings. Each man is a subject of capital to such an extent that it overcomes and replaces his humanity. Toward the middle of this great American film, capital steals the scene when Plainview's oil derrick catches on fire in Little Boston. In an awesome instantiation of hell that simultaneously appears real and surreal, the ever-zealous capitalist Plainview asks his worker, "What are you so miserable about?" He just struck it rich. Screening as part of the Board Picks series. (2007, 158 min, 35mm) [Candace Wirt]
Elaine May's THE HEARTBREAK KID (US)
Alamo Drafthouse – Saturday, 12pm
To have the last laugh is to have “the satisfaction of ultimate triumph or success especially after being scorned or regarded as a failure.” A most pure realization of this is evident in Elaine May’s ingeniously nebulous comedies, specifically A NEW LEAF, THE HEARTBREAK KID, and ISHTAR; MIKEY AND NICKY, the third of her four feature-length films, may end too bleakly to be considered a triumph or success, even if there is some vindication to be felt through its caustic schadenfreude. THE HEARTBREAK KID, her second directorial effort following A NEW LEAF, and the first and only of her own films that she didn’t write herself (Neil Simon adapted the script from the short story “A Change of Plan” by Bruce Jay Friedman), is somewhat of an inversion on this adage, any satisfaction there is to extract from its ending felt only by the audience upon the protagonist’s resulting discontent owing to assuredly contemptuous aims. Lenny, a young, Jewish sports equipment salesman played with obdurate integrity by Charles Grodin—his nebbishness so convincing that he’s had to routinely defend himself against assumptions made about his own character after playing such a vexatious figure—is a quintessential schlemiel who rushes into marriage with Lila, a young, Jewish woman whose greatest fault is not being equal parts comely and insipid. (She’s played by Jeannie Berlin, May’s daughter, two and two that weren’t put together by much of the cast and crew until just before filming began. Simon reportedly thought Berlin wasn’t pretty enough—flames, flames on the side of my face—but she went on to not only deliver a fantastic performance—something altogether irrespective of her looks—but also to receive Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations for it.) Their already tenuous union, hinging on Lila’s reluctance to have sex before marriage, begins to disintegrate on their honeymoon trip to Miami Beach, where Lenny meets shiksa-goddess Kelly, played perspicaciously by Cybill Shepherd, a classic fair-haired beauty who punishes men for their affection while simultaneously lavishing in it. To borrow an observation from Dave Kehr in his review of MIKEY AND NICKY, THE HEARTBREAK KID “takes the form’s mechanics—its dramatic conventions and tricks of structure—and turns them upside down, exposing just those elements that the form was meant to hide.” But where A NEW LEAF found light in the dark, THE HEARTBREAK KID finds darkness in the ostensibly lighthearted genre that is the rom-com. (Calling it an anti-romantic comedy is too simple, if not incorrect. It embodies all the tenets of traditional romantic comedies up to and including its “ironic” ending. To incorporate Kehr’s point, it doesn’t oppose these elements of the rom-com—it reveals them, which is all the more grim.) The most common dynamic in May's films is that of the pair, which makes for a prime jumping-off point from which to develop them as individual characters. If I had to apply, or in this case, make up, a narrative genre to the film, I’d label it a comedy of proportion. Each element, be it a character or a scene, fits perfectly—but not equally—within the whole. Such a sensibility is part of what accounts for May’s distinct brand of New York Jewish humor, a temperament that balances equitably divided self-loathing with genuine affection for all its targets. THE HEARTBREAK KID has been likened to Mike Nichols’ THE GRADUATE, a comparison which, on the surface, makes sense considering both Nichols and May’s longtime comedic partnership (May even had a bit part in the latter film) and the superficial commonalities in plot. Still, THE GRADUATE is perhaps too romantic, Benjamin Braddock’s banausic attitude presented as depth of character rather than what it really is: disaffected entitlement. About Braddock, Pauline Kael wrote that “[i]f he said anything or had any ideas, the audience would probably hate him....Nichols’ 'gift' is that he lets the audience direct him." May, on the other hand, leaves nothing unsaid in THE HEARTBREAK KID, culminating in a brilliantly vacuous monologue about honest vegetables and glib small talk about anything and everything at, of all places, Lenny and Kelly’s wedding. (Indeed, Simon wrote the script, but May’s signature improvisation comes through in these bits especially.) May is pragmatic, not romantic, in a tonal sense, a testament likely owed to her gender rather than her ethnic background. Lenny doesn’t know he’s a schmuck, but she does, and so do we—thus it’s we who have the last laugh. THE HEARTBREAK KID was May’s most critically and commercially successful film; MIKEY AND NICKY was virtually ignored upon its initial release, and we all know what happened with ISHTAR. Still, May hasn't been altogether forsaken: she received a National Medal of Arts in 2012 and is now the object of much veneration amongst cinephiles, young and old alike, who recognize her as a singular talent from one of American cinema’s most idiosyncratic eras. Whatever the reasons for May’s lack of broader success in the decades prior, she’s certainly having the last laugh now. (1972, 106 min, DCP Digital) [Kat Sachs]
Peter Kass’ TIME OF THE HEATHEN (US)
Gene Siskel Film Center – See Venue website for showtimes
A magic trick occurs about an hour into Peter Kass’ long-lost cinematic gem, a work of independent cinema whose elusive nature has buried one of the most mind-melding pieces of visual filmmaking from the 20th century. Up to this point, Kass’ fable has felt more akin to a moralistic silent film, an issue drama more interested in preaching than entertaining. But at a certain point, the film practically bursts into flame, its visual palette upending itself in ways that are thematically consistent but structurally miraculous with what came before it. This is not to discount the earlier portions of this pseudo-morality tale, the story of a Bible-carrying wanderer who gets falsely accused of raping and murdering the Black housekeeper of a gun-toting tycoon. Kass’ use of shadow and space in these early scenes is highly commendable, his scenes primarily taking place outside against the blank sky that provides a canvas for towering nature, stark housing structures, and bodies wilding through the woods. TIME OF THE HEATHEN brings to mind the specifically American religious reckoning of THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (1955), and the low-budget nightmare filmmaking of CARNIVAL OF SOULS (1962), forming a kind of haunted trilogy of black-and-white features mining the depths of American and religious trauma in the mid-20th century. It seems innocuous at first that the film opens with text explicitly stating that the story takes place four years after America’s bombing of Hiroshima, but that poisoned mindset of wartime annihilation infecting the nation’s soul finds itself physicalized in unseemly fashion here, resulting in a finale that holds your focus through minutes of mangled imagery until it’s too late. The crimes of the wicked run rampant in a country that’s already crossed the threshold into immorality, and all that our wandering protagonist can do is bear witness to these atrocities before being swallowed up by them entirely. The personal becomes political, and the political becomes artistic bombast, finally unearthed to reach a new audience in a still-poisoned nation. Heathens, have at it. (1961, 76 min, New 4K DCP Digital Restoration) [Ben Kaye]
📽️ ALSO RECOMMENDED
Steven Spielberg’s DUEL (US) & John Carpenter’s SOMEONE’S WATCHING ME! (US)
FACETS Cinema – Friday, 7pm
Half a century ago, a path existed for young, eager directors to prove their mettle in the film industry by entering the arena of made-for-TV filmmaking. Sure, resources were much slimmer than in the feature film business, but those able to rise to the challenge could harness those limitations to make something economical, inventive, and timelessly entertaining. Two such examples are paired together in an exciting double feature that showcases two noteworthy American directors honing their craft right before their respective big breaks: Steven Spielberg’s DUEL (1971, 90 min, 4K DCP Digital) built up his directorial cred before JAWS (1975) would change the cinematic landscape forever, and John Carpenter’s SOMEONE’S WATCHING ME! (1978, 97 min, Blu-ray Projection) aired a few weeks after HALLOWEEN (1978) became a slasher sensation across the country. These TV features act as perfect distillations of the skills each director would bring to their later works. DUEL—a nervy game of cat-and-mouse through the California desert between an anxious Dennis Weaver and his mud-covered big-rig opponent—is a prime showcase for Spielberg’s ambitious and adventurous camera work, using the open landscape of the American West to craft a chase film that fills its pencil-thin plot and characterizations with tense action set pieces that handily double as explorations of the fragile naivete of masculinity. Carpenter’s TV outing similarly builds upon his own personal toolbox he so expertly employed in his slasher opus, here crafting a Hitchcockian surveillance thriller exploring female agency in a world out to protect men at all costs. That both Spielberg and Carpenter each found ways to tell stories about protagonists fighting for their lives against brutal masculine forces with wildly different results is a testament to their distinct stylistic strengths, as each finds his own ways to triumphantly create more with less. Tension is palpable in both films, in the Spielberg with a roaring truck barreling towards us, and in the Carpenter with his camera acting as voyeur, preying upon the valiant Lauren Hutton. That both films culminate with bittersweet “happy” endings is less a spoiler and rather a testament to similar tendencies to celebrate the triumph over evil with a cost; similarly, it's only fitting that were you to switch the titles for these films, neither would lose their dramatic potency. [Ben Kaye]
So Young Shelly Yo’s SMOKING TIGERS (US)
Gene Siskel Film Center – Thursday, 6pm
The coming-of-age story gets a distinct twist with the feature film debut of director So Young Shelly Yo’s SMOKING TIGERS. Her protagonist, Hayoung (Ji-young Yoo), is a Korean American whose close relationship with her father (Jeong Jun-ho) is undergoing a wrenching transformation after her parents’ separation. Both adults are having great difficulty making ends meet, but her mother (Abin Andrews) finds a way to shell out $3,000 for a four-week, intensive college-prep course. There, Hayoung meets teens from wealthy Korean families and forms a tentative friendship with Rose (Erin Yoo), a mediocre student who has been in the course for two years, and a flirtation with Joon (Phinehas Yoon), to whom she is attracted because he smokes the same cigarettes her father does. Yo, who wrote the screenplay based on some memories from her youth, explores a corner of American life few films have tackled. Hayoung being pushed to attend an elite university, her wish to live in a grand house like her peers do, her poor judgment about her love life—none of this is atypical for teens. What is new is how Yo presents her story, showing the code switching that is common to bilingual children and the homely comfort food that is quite different from the basic American diet. Most notable are the most arrestingly gorgeous images I have seen all year. Cinematographer Heijun Yun creates flawless mirror images, glowing nightscapes, and a sparkling light show at a party that envelopes a crystal-adorned Hayoung, all of which make a fantasy landscape not only for her, but also for the audience. But, Yo is careful not to ignore the ugliness in Hayoung’s life. She shows Hayoung helping her sister Ara (Erin Choi) drown out her parents’ argument with the music on her iPod—music that takes over our soundtrack as well—and reveals the physical abuse Rose suffers at the hands of her mother. Yo captures the poignancy not only of Hayoung’s life, but also the tender harshness of the teen years. (2023, 91 min, DCP Digital) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
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Screening as part of the 27th Annual Asian American Showcase. More info on the fest, including the full schedule, here.
Ethan Hawke’s WILDCAT (US)
Gene Siskel Film Center and the Music Box Theatre – See Venue websites for showtimes
Ethan Hawke tackles one of the giants of American literature, Flannery O’Connor. Written in collaboration with Shelby Gaines, Hawke’s script follows the life of O’Connor (played by Maya Hawke) at 24, when she's living in New York and trying to break through as a published writer. While working on what would become her novel, Wise Blood, O’Connor occupies her time by prolifically writing short stories. When she returns to Georgia, she gets diagnosed with lupus, the same disease that killed her father. Her mother, Regina (played by Laura Linney) encourages her to write more upbeat prose, to the tune of Margaret Mitchell. Each moment in the young artist’s journey is followed by a vignette from the author’s work. In many ways, Hawke and Gaines’ script mirrors MISHIMA: A LIFE IN FOUR CHAPTERS (1985), a work by Hawke's former collaborator, Paul Schrader. They illustrate an existence absorbed by aggressive mother-daughter dynamics, loneliness, violence, and fascination with death. For O’Connor with her declining health, death becomes an imminent reality that cannot be ignored. O’Connor compares her circumstance to that of Franz Kafka, only requesting she not pay the price he paid for greatness. Eventually, she embraces her solitude and lack of well-being to shock and shape the landscape of American literature for decades to come. Playing opposite one another, Hawke and Linney disappear into each character like seasoned theater actors boldly tackling each persona. Supporting the two, Cooper Hoffman and Vincent D’Onofrio disappear into the masculine entities that reverberate through O’Connor’s work. As the family priest, Liam Neeson leads a touching scene with our protagonist. Hawke’s playful direction brings to life a cinematic portrayal of O’Connor’s short story, "Revelation." His joyful and lively sensibility shines in his direction of this vignette. For an artist as deeply complicated as O’Connor, as much as her work is celebrated, her racist and conservative philosophy would be irresponsible to ignore. Hawke unflinchingly presents characters despite their abhorrent views. When recommended by a white Northern intellectual to use more politically correct language when referring to Black people, Flannery retorts “I prefer not to tidy up reality,” highlighting the difficult circumstances tied to living in the South. (2023, 108 min, DCP Digital) [Ray Ebarb]
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Hawke in person for a post-screening Q&A at the Music Box on Friday at 7pm and at the Film Center on Saturday at 1pm; Hawke will also introduce the 3:45pm screening at the Film Center on Saturday. All of these showtimes are sold out.
JoaquĂn Cociña and CristĂłbal LeĂłn's THE WOLF HOUSE (Chile/Animation)
Alamo Drafthouse – Wednesday, 7pm
An instant classic of experimental animation, this short Chilean feature blends folk and avant-garde traditions so fluidly that it seems to belong to no era in particular. The writer-directors, JoaquĂn Cociña and CristĂłbal LeĂłn, conjure an out-of-time feeling from the start, presenting the movie, falsely, as a piece of outsider art found in the vault of a secluded, German-speaking community in Chile’s far south. An unidentified narrator explains that this community lives according to longstanding traditions and generally ignores modern customs; however, he insists that the communards maintain a healthy relationship with the surrounding Chilean population, contrary to nasty rumors about them being standoffish. This introduction, with its tone of cultural ambassadorship, suggests that the film we’re about to see will present the community in a positive light, yet the first sly joke of THE WOLF HOUSE is that it makes the communards seem awful right away. The movie proper starts with printed text informing us that the heroine, Maria (a member of the traditionalist community), has been sentenced to 100 days of isolation because she absentmindedly let three pigs escape from the community farm. Upset with her punishment, Maria flees into the surrounding woods and runs until she finds a strange abandoned house. She decides to squat there, unaware that the house has a life of its own—and that it thrives on torturing its human guests. It quickly becomes clear that this fairy tale is an allegory by and for the communards, showing what happens to people who disobey the community and try to make it on their own; the nightmare house represents the communards’ small-minded fears of the world at large. Cociña and LeĂłn realize the story with an exquisite mix of painted and stop-motion animation, moving unpredictably between the two modes or else combining them in the same shots. There’s a handmade quality to it all befitting the (fictional) rustic community that it comes from; you can see the fingertip imprints on the three-dimensional figures, which seem to be made from clay, papier mâchĂ©, and other school-room art materials. Further, the story proceeds according to a dream logic that feels like it derives from folklore. In one passage, Maria finds two pigs living in the house, then casts a spell that gives the animals human arms and legs. Later, the half-animals transform entirely into human children. In another sequence, Maria accidentally sets fire to her house during dinner; Cociña and LeĂłn depict the fire by having the backgrounds gradually turn gray, as if they were coloring over them. Such rudimentary effects speak directly to the imagination because the viewer must fill in the details of the scene in his or her mind—the very place where nightmares take root. (2018, 73 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]
Michael Mann's COLLATERAL (US)
Oscarbate at the Davis Theater – Thursday, 7pm
Tom Cruise's final line in COLLATERAL is "This is what I do for a living," shouted with angry determination while holding a gun at the ready. It's a key moment in Michael Mann's filmography, a distillation of themes he'd been working on for more than a decade but presented as just another detail necessary to the film's restless momentum. Mann had always been fascinated with the costs of high professionalism—​lives that must be lived outside the culture at large (in this sense, he's as much of an "underground" filmmaker as Jim Jarmusch)—​but starting with THE INSIDER, his subject became the elusiveness of integrity itself. This approach came about pragmatically, when Mann set out to reinvent the modern docudrama (shifting its orientation from the meaning of events to their impression on individuals); in COLLATERAL, a preposterous story that could have been fleshed out by any hack director, it achieves an abstract beauty. The film was Mann's first in digital video—​used, he said, to find new textures in a city under winter night—​and it is a marvel to behold on the big screen, something like a moving exhibition by Chuck Close or Richard Estes. But there is an authenticity to the emotions, too, which is why Mann regularly stuffs his casts with great character actors. Special attention should be paid to Barry Shabaka Henley, a Mann regular since ALI, who has a remarkable scene as a jazz club owner quietly made aware of his own mortality; yet Jamie Foxx is overwhelming in the lead. Underplaying a taciturn cab driver forced to play chauffeur for a hitman (Cruise) on a night of work, Foxx builds a complex performance out of naked dread. It is not the fear of death that shapes this character, but the fear that he may die having made so little of himself. The action scenes in the movie's final third—​which eschew special effects for brilliant stunt work and a masterful use of locations in downtown LA—​are cathartic, intense, and unsettling. Screening as part of a double feature with a secret film that has yet to be announced. (2004, 120 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]
Bill Ross IV and Turner Ross’ GASOLINE RAINBOW (US)
Music Box Theatre – See Venue website for showtimes
In an ever-expanding filmography blurring the lines between documentary and fiction, the Ross Brothers are fleshing out their own cinematic language in real time, focusing on emotional truth within constructed circumstances. Their subjects here are a quintet of high schoolers taking a road trip from their nowheresville town of Wiley, Oregon, to the coast, a nomadic quest to break free of the confines of their listless lives in pursuit of "one last great adventure." The improvisational nature of the dialogue means scenes are always natural, consistently human, and intermittently poetic, but the Ross Brothers’ visual inventiveness keeps things alive even when the scenes otherwise hit a lull. The early portions of the film, in which desert skies of orange and pink and purple cast a roof above the hopeful yearnings of these endlessly likable teens, are a magnificent encapsulation of the wandering youthful spirits on this journey. A character muses later on that the biggest difference between grown-ups and children is that "grown-ups aren’t supervised." Here, then, is a feature-length adventure of kids with no adult supervision in sight, growing up before our eyes, bright-eyed and awkward and stumbling towards an ocean full of possibility before them. The only question they’re left with is how to get back home. (2023, 110 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Kaye]
Mike Cheslik's HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS (US)
Music Box Theatre – Saturday, Midnight
A largely silent film that draws on Looney Tunes aesthetics as well as video game logic, HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS balances slapstick, sight gags, and sound effects with a genuinely arresting visual aesthetic, combining live action with animated elements. While all the features are familiar, together they create an imaginative modern approach and clever take on cinematic comedy. Jean Kayak (Ryland Brickson Cole Tews, who also co-wrote the film) is a popular applejack salesman, but when he loses his business in an explosion, he’s forced to find a way to survive in the snowy Midwestern wilderness. Desperate to find food, Kayak must learn the ways of a northern fur trapper, receiving help from some locals, though mostly struggling on his own to succeed; his goal to earn better equipment—and ultimately the hand of a local merchant’s daughter—​by selling pelts is where HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS draws on a video game style, including recognizable sound cues, animations of how many pelts earn him which tools, and Kayak’s sneaking into the beavers’ hideout; it all adds to the uniqueness of the film’s storytelling. The cunning animals themselves are an annoying barrier to Kayak’s success. Larger creatures (such as the titular beavers) are performed by actors in mascot costumes, but director and effects designer Mike Cheslik also rounds out the animal residents with animation, puppets, and stuffed animals—​which themselves are filled with stuffing guts; there’s a constant concurrence of the adorable, the gross, and cartoonish violence. Shot in black and white in both Wisconsin and Michigan, the film also looks striking, the backdrop of the forest landscape grounding the silly antics that ensue. Due its silent nature, the jaunty score by Chris Ryan is also an important driving force in the film, demonstrated in its first few moments with a catchy theme song about Kayak’s popular applejack. (2022, 108 min, DCP Digital) [Megan Fariello]
Radu Jude's DO NOT EXPECT TOO MUCH FROM THE END OF THE WORLD (Romania)
FACETS Cinema – See Venue website for showtimes
DO NOT EXPECT TOO MUCH FROM THE END OF THE WORLD is completely unhinged with an overwhelming sense of immediacy; it also feels impressively controlled in its chaos. It’s humorous, in large part due to its main performance, but also wholly serious. It’s generally a biting political satire of the current state of things, but it focuses on the struggle of everyday people, the horrors of modern technology, and the damaging effects of work culture. Overworked and suffering from lack of sleep, Angela (a compelling Ilinca Manolache) is a PA working on a multinational corporation’s video about work safety; her task is to drive around Bucharest interviewing potential participants. She spends most of her time in her car—she also works for Uber on the side—and Jude parallels this with moments from ANGELA MOVES ON, a 1981 film by Romanian director Lucian Bratu. The earlier film is about a taxi driver also named Angela (Dorina Lazar), also driving the streets of Bucharest. It’s an interesting internal comparison, but it becomes profound when Bratu’s Angela, played by the same actress, shows up as a relative of one of the current Angela’s participants; their interaction makes for the sincerest and most illuminating moments of the film. It's also the most striking example of how DO NOT EXPECT travels across time, challenging the audience’s ideas about fiction, non-fiction, and the filmmaking processes in general. Current Angela also creates TikToks as an Andrew Tate-inspired persona using an AI filter, streaming the crudest of material from her phone; the streams are presented in full color, while our dystopian present is in black and white. She’s also not afraid to question the state of things around her, shining a light on how those in power place the blame for any injustices on the workers, leaving them to deal with the fallout of unsafe work conditions. DO NOT EXPECT ends with a nearly 40-minute uninterrupted shot of the filming of the work safety promotional video. It’s impossible to fully flesh out everything this film presents, just as it contains so many instances of screens within screens, stories within stories, reflected and refracted, asking “to what end?” (2023, 163 min, DCP Digital) [Megan Fariello]
Rose Glass’ LOVE LIES BLEEDING (US)
FACETS Cinema – See Venue website for showtimes
Director Rose Glass’ acclaimed first feature SAINT MAUD told a story about a woman navigating crushing loneliness, combining body horror with a shocking, yet powerful, disturbing ending. Her follow-up film, LOVE LIES BLEEDING, is similarly surprising in its scenes of intense violence and distinctive body horror; the film is, however, focused on staving off loneliness, focusing on the extremes of love and fixation, what one will or won’t do to protect the person they most care about. Lou (Kristen Stewart), a withdrawn manager at a local gym in New Mexico, meets Jackie (Katy O’Brian), a drifter who’s on her way to Vegas to participate in a bodybuilding competition. There’s an instant, intense, romantic connection and Jackie moves in with Lou, who also introduces her to steroids. Jackie quickly becomes addicted, with violent outbursts and hallucinations that threaten their newfound relationship. Lou’s situation is also complicated by her family: she’s estranged from her local crime leader father (Ed Harris) and constantly concerned about the safety of her sister (Jenna Malone), whose husband (Dave Franco) is physically abusive. This collision of love and family leads to intense violence. The body horror in particular feels unexpected in its strangeness–much of the visuals are connected to Jackie’s transformation on steroids. The southwestern setting is depicted as vast and empty—Glass renders the space quite alien. She also uses a pulsating sound design to emphasize the eccentricity of the world she presents, grounding it in real life while disorienting the audience; as it's set in the late 80s, LOVE LIES BLEEDING also includes an incredible synth pop soundtrack. The film is also humorous, taking its subject matter seriously while acknowledging how extreme and bizarre is the situation in which Lou and Jackie find themselves. Ultimately, they’re striving for a love-story finale regardless of what might follow them. (2024, 104 min, DCP Digital) [Megan Fariello]
🎞️ ALSO SCREENING
âš« Alamo Drafthouse
Harmony Korine’s AGGRO DR1FT (2023, 80 min, DCP Digital) continues screening. More info here.
⚫ AMC River East 21 and Landmark’s Century Centre Cinema
Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s 2023 film EVIL DOES NOT EXIST (106 min, DCP Digital) continues screening this week. See Venue websites for showtimes.
âš« Block Cinema (at Northwestern University)
Jumana Manna’s 2018 documentary WILD RELATIVES (65 min, DCP Digital) screens Friday, 7pm, as part of the Seed Time series, with an introduction by Domietta Torlasco (Professor of Italian and Comparative Literature) as part of the "Ecologies of Resistance" workshop, convened by Torlasco and students from Weinberg and the School of Communication.
Gabrielle Brady’s 2018 documentary ISLAND OF THE HUNGRY GHOSTS (98 min, DCP Digital) screens Thursday, 7pm, followed by a post-screening discussion with film participant Poh Lin Lee and other discussants. In recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month, Northwestern University's Pritzker Pucker Studio Lab presents the Chicago Mental Health Film Showcase (May 23 - 24, 2024) – two days of films, conversations, and a creative workshop with film consultant and narrative therapist Poh Lin Lee. Free admission to both. More info here.
âš« 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 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 will be projected onto a wall in the mezzanine area of the station and will run day and night through March 15, 2026. More info here.
âš« Chicago Public Library
View all screenings taking place at Chicago Public Library branches here.
âš« Comfort Film at Comfort Station (2579 N. Milwaukee Ave.)
Marina Sargenti’s 1990 film MIRROR MIRROR (104 min, Digital Projection) screens Wednesday at 8pm. Free admission. More info here.
âš« Doc Films (at the University of Chicago)
Roger Ross Williams’s 2023 film CASSANDRO (107 min, DCP Digital) screens Sunday, 1pm, as part of the New Releases (+ More) series.
Issac Julien’s 1991 film YOUNG SOUL REBELS (105 min, DCP Digital) screens Sunday, 4pm, as part of the Black Britain series. More info on all screenings here.
âš« Film Studies Center (at the Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th St., University of Chicago)
The Speculative Archive: Ina Archer and Crystal Z Campbell takes place Friday, 7pm, in the Logan Center Screening Room with Archer and Campbell in person for a post-screening conversation with Jennifer DeClue, Christopher Harris, and Allyson Nadia Field. More info here.
âš« Leather Archives & Museum (6418 N. Greenview Ave.)
Norbert Pfaffenbichler’s 2023 film THE ORGY OF THE DAMNED (82 min, Digital Projection) screens Saturday, 7pm, as part of the Fetish Film Forum. More info here.
âš« Music Box Theatre
Margreth Olin’s 2023 documentary SONGS OF EARTH (91 min, DCP Digital) screens Tuesday, 7pm, with Olin in person for a post-screening Q&A. More info here.
âš« Sweet Void Cinema (3036 W. Chicago Ave.)
Tone Glow presents Elemental Meditations, a program of avant-garde films by James Cagle and Paul Sharits on 16mm, on Friday at 7pm. More info here.
Find more information on the Humboldt Park microcinema, including its larger screening and workshop schedule, here.
🎞️ ONLINE SCREENINGS/EVENTS
âš« VDB TV
Filmmaker-choreographer Sarah Friedland's feature-length trilogy Movement Exercises, presented in conjunction with Friedland's participation in the Visual Studies Workshop (VSW) Project Space Residency, screens for free on VDB TV. More info here.
CINE-LIST: May 17 - May 23, 2024
MANAGING EDITORS // Ben and Kat Sachs
CONTRIBUTORS // Ray Ebarb, Megan Fariello, Marilyn Ferdinand, Ben Kaye, Candace Wirt