:: FRIDAY, JULY 12 - THURSDAY, JULY 18 ::

📽️ CRUCIAL VIEWING

John Cassavetes’ MINNIE AND MOSKOWITZ (US)

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

"You know I think that movies are a conspiracy? I mean it. They are actually a conspiracy, because they set you up. They set you up from the time you're a little kid. They set you up to believe in everything. They set you up to believe in ideals and strength and good guys and romance and of course love... But there's no Charles Boyer in my life. I never even met a Charles Boyer. I never met Clark Gable. I never met Humphrey Bogart. I never met any of 'em! I mean, they don't exist! That's the truth. But the movies set you up, you know? They set you up, and no matter how bright you are, you believe it." So rants Minnie to her work friend Florence as a cynical introduction to her character in MINNIE AND MOSKOWITZ, Cassavetes' manic, violent, disruptive deconstruction of a classic screwball comedy. Minnie, played by Cassavetes' wife and frequent star Gena Rowlands, is no innocent and pliable damsel to be saved by Humphrey Bogart or Charles Boyer. Nor is Seymour Moskowitz, played by longtime collaborator Seymour Cassel, a gallant hero or charismatic antihero. Both characters instead inhabit a realm of uncomfortable disappointment with themselves and others as they navigate a chaotic urban landscape and overwhelming loneliness, punctuated by scenes of transgressive violence and oversharing ignited by toxic masculinity and machismo, one of Cassavetes' favorite subjects to explore, especially in HUSBANDS (1970) and KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE (1976). References to Hollywood movies and tropes peppered throughout the movie illustrate the disillusionment the titular characters face as they careen headlong into each other and attempt to find romance and connection. Minnie and Moskowitz do not hit it off, but nothing about this comedy resembles a classic screwball comedy as their friction continues. Fights between Minnie and Seymour as they develop a strange chemistry and magnetic attraction are visceral, frenzied, and messily unresolved, revealing Cassavetes' ambivalence about modern romance and the ability of two people to truly connect across the boundaries of regressive gender roles and neurotic impulses ingrained by modernity. Despite this ambivalence and the incredibly uncomfortable and terrifying situations Minnie endures at the hands of various repulsive men (Cassavetes plays one of the worst, Minnie's abusive, married boyfriend), MINNIE AND MOSKOWITZ maintains a bizarrely relentless optimism about the possibility and longing for romantic love. The ending of the film may come as a surprise to first-time viewers, in that it is the only element of the film that seems to adhere to generic conventions, although it does reveal that, at least on some levels, Cassavetes was very much a romantic. Contemporary critic Pauline Kael was not a fan of Cassavetes in general, and gave this film a very negative review, writing, "Cassavetes built this movie on a small conceit—​a love affair between two people who are wildly unsuited to each other—​and it doesn't work." Famously, Cassavetes shared a cab on the way to an event with Kael and they argued so vociferously that he took off her shoes and threw them out the window. She had to attend the event in her stockings. Cassavetes' impulsivity and shocking behavior in this incident don’t stray far from the character of Moskowitz, which makes for an interesting reading of the film: perhaps this love story is just as unbelievable to Cassavetes himself, who still couldn't believe a bum like him got a classy woman like Gena Rowlands. Preceded by Friz Freleng's 1961 cartoon D' FIGHTIN' ONES (7 min, 35mm). (1971, 114 min, 35mm) [Alex Ensign]

Looney Tunes on 35mm

Music Box Theatre – Saturday and Sunday, 11am - 3:30pm (Free Admission)

As integral as the characters of the Looney Tunes (Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, you know the rest, I hope) have become to our modern day lives and vernacular, some might be hard-pressed to describe the short adventures of this wacky bunch as "cinema." But how else are we to categorize the artful grandiosity of WHAT’S OPERA, DOC?, the surrealist experimentation of DUCK AMUCK, the grand array of silent antics found in any number of Wile E. Coyote vs. Roadrunner shorts? The Looney Tunes—​concocted by, but not limited to, the likes of actor Mel Blanc, writer Michael Maltese, and illustrious directors including Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, Tex Avery, and Bob Clampett—​have endured for nearly a century not just because of their excessive entertainment value, but arguably because of how intricately in conversation they are with the history of moviemaking; the rapid ratatat dialogue and anarchic banter between Bugs and Daffy in RABBIT FIRE feel directly pulled from a Three Stooges short, the visual iconography of DUCK DODGERS IN THE 24 1/2TH CENTURY is entirely indebted to the serial adventures of Buck Rogers, and the comic ingenuity of the gags in FASTEST WITH THE MOSTEST would be enough to make Buster Keaton blush. The artists who wrote, voiced, and animated these hilarious feats of filmmaking deserve a worthy mention in the lineage of cinema, fulfilling the promise of silent film’s particular brand of antics by blowing them up via the seemingly endless possibilities within the medium of animation. Above all else, the durability of these films lies in how strong these scenarios have withstood the test of time, how well-defined these characters remain, how each cel of animation bursts from the screen with vivid movement and color. There is undeniably thorough intentionality in the way Bugs Bunny cheekily breaks the fourth wall, or when and how Roadrunner tilts his head for a particular "Meep meep!" Or perhaps it’s just as simple as our collective desire to laugh at silly-looking characters doing funny things. Maybe that is all, folks. [Ben Kaye]

Catherine Breillat’s LAST SUMMER (France/Norway)

Gene Siskel Film Center – See Venue website for showtimes

LAST SUMMER is very much a movie of its moment, and not just because it deals in hot-button issues about power dynamics in sexual relationships. The film’s third act (which deviates significantly from that of QUEEN OF HEARTS, the 2019 Danish film it’s based on) relates the heroine’s protracted, knowing deception of the people around her—in other words, her distortion of reality to make it play out in her favor. The character’s self-serving actions are nothing new, yet her methodicalness and thoroughness suggest an exaggerated version of what people do on social media every day, manipulating the facts of their lives in order to create the most attractive versions of themselves. What Catherine Breillat achieves with this section of the film is comparable to what Radu Jude achieves in another great movie of 2023, DO NOT EXPECT TOO MUCH FROM THE END OF THE WORLD, with the extraordinary 40-minute shot that shows the real-time manipulation of reality that occurs during the making of a public safety video. In both cases, a major filmmaker is assessing the zeitgeist using the cinematic mode in which they operate best: for Jude, that mode is presentational, Brechtian, and ironically distanced, while for Breillat, it’s inquisitive, wry, and discomfitingly intimate. The French auteur has long shown interest in challenging sexual taboos (indeed, her filmic perspective seems to have grown out of it), and she does it again in LAST SUMMER, a film about what happens when a middle-aged woman enters into a sexual relationship with her 17-year-old stepson. Yet the onscreen sex is relatively brief (especially when compared with some of the director’s other films), as the consequences of the affair take up far more screen time than the affair itself. Breillat uses a similar approach to delineate both the sexual relationship and the heroine’s efforts to cover it up, employing closeups and highly specific sound design to bring viewers into a sense of confidentiality with the characters. Most of the scenes are structured around seduction, persuasion, or argument, which makes the film feel oddly Shakespearean; the classical grounding brings a timeless gravitas to the contemporary concerns. (2023, 104 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]

Neveldine/Taylor’s GAMER (US)

Music Box Theatre – Friday, 11:30pm

Comparable to the work of Seijun Suzuki at his manic mid-‘60s peak, the four films directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor are notable for their social commentary, appropriation of lowbrow pop culture, and bracing, even combative montage. GAMER is probably the best of those four, an action-packed satire of internet culture starring a surprisingly tolerable Gerard Butler as a living online video game character. Set in a future America that’s only slightly more mean-spirited than ours, it imagines a society obsessed with online games in which real people are controlled via neuro-link by players at home. One of these games, Slayers, is a shoot-‘em-up that uses actual death-row inmates as avatars; if a player gets through 30 rounds without getting killed, their avatar is released from their sentence in the real world. Butler plays the first prisoner to have a shot at 30 wins and who become embroiled with a secret anti-gaming network called the Humanz, who are plotting to take down the network that’s exploiting him. Neveldine and Taylor intercut this story with scenes of the maniacal billionaire who created Slayers; he’s played by Michael C. Hall in a performance so cheerfully hammy that it seems to have come out of a George Kuchar film. Indeed, much of the cast has an infectious underground energy about them—almost everyone gets to deliver some lines with adolescent snottiness. That attitude carries over to the direction; GAMER maintains a markedly angry tone, not only in the sarcastic performances, but the juiced-up, post-Tony Scott editing, which makes the film feel like an endless barrage of popup ads. It may not be a movie people want, but it’s a movie we deserve, a reflection of the anger, pettiness, and overstimulation that proliferate online. Programmed and presented by The Front Row, Olivia Hunter Willke, and Mages Guild. There will be Mages Guild DJs in the Music Box Lounge at 10pm and live experimental electronic music from care_online with live visuals by Taylor Dye in the Main Theater at 11:30pm. Film screening begins at midnight. (2009, 95 min, 35mm) [Ben Sachs]

Victor Fleming’s MANTRAP (US/Silent)

Chicago Film Society at the Music Box Theatre – Sunday, 7pm

It’s not just summer—it’s brat girl summer. Coquettish big city manicurist Alverna (Clara Bow, in her first leading role for Paramount) could be the prototype for this recent phenomenon, as she's an interminable flirt and the life of any party. But when she meets Joe Easter (Ernest Torrence), who’s gone to the city for a reprieve from his relatively isolated life in the country, she impulsively decides to trade urban living for Joe’s rural homestead in Mantrap, Canada. As we later find out, they’ve gone so far as to get married. The first part of the film alternates between the origin of Alverna and Joe’s whirlwind—if unlikely—romance, considering that Joe is older, bigger, and, for lack of a better word, dopier, and the curmudgeonly grousing of Ralph Prescott (Percy Marmont), a divorce lawyer who is decidedly immune to brat girl allure. Ralph chooses Mantrap as a secluded retreat from the cacophony of flirtation, where he soon crosses paths with Joe and Alverna. Initially resistant to Alverna’s trifling, borne as much from boredom with the placid countryside as from her general nature, he eventually falls under her spell. Based on Sinclair Lewis’ poorly received 1926 novel, this is decidedly light fare, elevated primarily by Bow’s exuberant performance. Her personality shines through in a way that transcends the film’s silence; the turn is relatively artless and all the better for it, Bow’s joie de vivre more a magnetic force than any kind of skill. She later called it “the best silent picture” she ever made; not only was it a critical and commercial success, the film helped catapult her to a stardom that would be solidified the next year with IT (1927). In addition to bringing her success the film also brought her love. She and director Victor Fleming forged a romantic connection that resulted in a short engagement, though Bow later left him for Gary Cooper. But just as with MANTRAP she looked back fondly on her time with Fleming, whom she affectionately called “Vickie.” Fleming’s direction is more proficient than inspired, but I’d imagine his feelings for Bow contributed to the halo of charisma illuminating her. This was one of several collaborations between Fleming and cinematographer James Wong Howe; it was shot on location and demonstrates a maturation of Howe’s then-evolving style. Naturally the title extends to more than just the locale which Howe photographed so beautifully. Just as Bow traps the men in her life, so does the proposed godmother of all brat girls trap us, too. Preceded by Walt Disney’s 1926 short film ALICE IN THE WOOLY WEST (8 min, 16mm). With live musical accompaniment by David Drazin. (1926, 71 min, 35mm) [Kat Sachs]

Spike Lee's SCHOOL DAZE (US)

Gene Siskel Film Center – Saturday, 8pm

For his sophomore film, Spike Lee followed his low-budget melodrama SHE’S GOTTA HAVE IT (1986) with SCHOOL DAZE, a barrage of vignettes and musical numbers set at the white-funded Black university, Mission College. At the time of its release, SCHOOL DAZE depicted Black middle-class Americans and integrated all Black colleges in a new light, with a level of indifference to a white audience. From the script down to the casting, it appeared that Lee had no interest in how white America viewed the film. In it, Julian (Giancarlo Esposito) insists on being called "Big Brother Almighty" by his troops at Gamma Phi Gamma and has a pronounced taste for the paramilitary, swinging a billy club to terrorize pledges. Julian, whose life is dedicated to Gamma, and Dap come to represent different polarities of Black consciousness, with runt-of-the-litter Half-Pint caught between them. In many ways, SCHOOL DAZE marks the antithesis to Lee’s debut feature. Coming from a low-budget independent film financed by quarters in soda cans to a deal with Columbia, this is a bigger, messier, more ambitious film, even as Lee returns to themes of sex and sexism between young Black men and women. Wrapped together by the director’s feelings towards contemporary black society, SCHOOL DAZE collects musical numbers, dramatic episodes, attempts at parody, and cinematic wild cards. In the number “Straight and Nappy,” light-skinned and darker black-skinned women express their feelings for each other. Lee’s choice of a musical production number to consider these emotionally charged subjects is brilliant; the film labels these factions ''wannabees'' (as in ''wanna be better than me'') and, to give some indication of its level of bitterness, ''jigaboos.'' SCHOOL DAZE stars an ensemble of Black actors who would appear in his masterpiece, DO THE RIGHT THING (1989), and into his nineties work as well. Screening as part of the Last Shot series. (1988, 121 min, 35mm) [Ray Ebarb]

John Ford's THE SEARCHERS (US)

Gene Siskel Film Center – Sunday, 12pm

The greatest western ever made is also arguably the greatest American movie ever made. Before filming began, director John Ford described THE SEARCHERS as "a kind of psychological epic" and indeed his complex take on the settling of the West, with its head-on—and daringly ahead-of-the-time—examination of racism, finds an appropriately complex and tragic anti-hero in the character of the mysterious Ethan Edwards (John Wayne in his best and most nuanced performance). Spurred on by an unrequited love for his deceased sister-in-law (Dorothy Jordan), the maniacal, Indian-hating Edwards will stop at nothing to recapture his nieces who have been kidnapped by Comanche Indians. "We'll find 'em," Ethan says in one of many memorable lines of dialogue written by Frank S. Nugent but worthy of Herman Melville, "just as sure as the turning of the earth." The dialectic between civilization and barbarism posited by Ford, with Ethan standing in a metaphorical doorway between them, would have an incalculable effect on subsequent generations of filmmakers—from Martin Scorsese to misguided Ford-hater Quentin Tarantino. If you've never seen THE SEARCHERS, or if you've only seen it on home video, you owe it to yourself to catch it projected on 35mm: both the breathtaking Monument Valley vistas and the minute details of the film's production design (e.g., the "Confederate States of America" logo on Ethan's belt buckle), gloriously captured by Winton Hoch's splendiferous VistaVision cinematography, only really come through on the biggest of big screens. Screening as part of the Last Shot series. (1956, 119 min, 35mm) [Michael Glover Smith]

Max Reinhardt & William Dieterle's A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM (US)

Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) – Thursday, 8pm

“Opulence” is the word at top-of-mind when watching Max Reinhardt and William Dieterle’s stately adaptation of one of Shakespeare’s most enduring comic works. It’s quite bizarre that A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a mainstay of Shakespearean performance troupes the world over, has somehow eluded an excess of cinematic treatments, but perhaps the more grounded settings of Shakespeare’s histories and dramas (alongside their weightier thematic material) have been seen as more ample material for film adaptation than this flighty piece of magical stagework. The film, itself adapted from a successful Hollywood Bowl staging of the material helmed by Reinhardt—​with Dieterle joining the cinematic proceedings presumably as a steady film-literate hand to steer the ship—​is most successful as a marvelous display of production grandeur; early scenes of Athens adorned in twisting columns are populated by leagues of actors in Elizabethan garb, contrasted with the roaming pastoral scenes of the forest where the glittering fairies drown the frame in flowing silk garb. There’s little formal experimentation outside of these design elements, the film remaining a pretty steadfast and true stage-to-screen adaptation, even if the twisting twigs of the Fairy King Oberon’s crown or the horrifying goblin costumes populating the forest call out for a more surrealist take on the material than what’s present. But the sight of hundreds of extras swarming the backgrounds of scenes is sometimes more than enough, certainly making an impression in scenes of fairies cavorting through the forest. Reinhardt and Dieterle wrangle a few noteworthy performances out of this motley crew, most notably James Cagney’s Bottom, a joyfully obtuse piece of comic performance that is, sadly, hidden under a garish donkey mask for half the film. The impish fairy Puck who closes out the play is played here by a fifteen-year-old Mickey Rooney, bloviating an obnoxious energy that threatens to sink the entire affair but is, thankfully, no match for the lush environs that make up this world, alongside the grand balletic fairy sequence near the film’s conclusion that makes this entire Hollywood dream worth it. Screening as part of the Public Enemy: Cagney on Film series. (1935, 143 min, 35mm) [Ben Kaye]

Nicholas Ray's IN A LONELY PLACE (US)

Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) – Thursday, 5pm

Let's set aside for a moment the convention that IN A LONELY PLACE is another of Nicholas Ray's sub rosa memoirs, charting the decline of his marriage to Gloria Grahame; that the apartment complex Bogart and Grahame's LONELY lovers live in is a replica of one of Ray's own early Hollywood residences; that screenwriter Dixon Steele (Bogart) is in some way a stand-in for Ray's own Hollywood disaffection: an "abnormal" man isolated among jocular thieves and pretty louts. What's up on the screen is enough to satisfy us without resorting to biographical criticism: that is, a film whose wit, maturity, and bruised romanticism defy us to subdue or deconstruct them. LONELY is the most perfect sort of romance: one that shows the lover revealed as a "tyrannical detective" (Bogart is Spade even when he isn't); one that squeezes out a little of our own optimism as we watch suspicion roast our heroes alive. It is the most perfect sort of mystery: one that succeeds in making its own solution entirely irrelevant before it's revealed. Finally, it is the most perfect sort of noir: one that isn't. The tropes are here, but LONELY is as much about the impossible hope of shoehorning real and immutable suffering into a Hollywood film circa 1950 as about the gruesome deaths of hat-check girls or the fatality of character. They don't make 'em like this anymore—and, like the man says, they never really did. If anyone's counting, LONELY may be the best Bogart movie ever made, and it certainly contains his best performance. More to the point, it is one of the great American sound films: turning star-power and genre both into deadly weapons for getting under our skin. Screening as part of the Nicholas Ray’s Heyday Series. (1950, 94 min, 35mm) [Jeremy M. Davies]

📽️ ALSO RECOMMENDED

Nicholas Ray's JOHNNY GUITAR (US)

Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) – Friday, 8pm and Saturday, 7pm

The western is an odd beast, a genre bound only by location, easily shaped into something as desolate or as crowded, as stark or vivid, as is required. They come more varied than science fiction films, expanding the West into something more complex than outer space, and creating dozens of different landscapes out of the same mold—Anthony Mann's West, John Ford's West, Budd Boetticher's West. Nicholas Ray's West, at least as created in JOHNNY GUITAR, is one of the most bizarrely beautiful. From Peggy Lee's desperate title song and Victor Young's score, hanging over the film like a sympathetic vulture, to the unearthly two-strip Trucolor, which seems to bind the film's characters into their environment as if they're bleeding into one another, it's Ray's most aesthetic film. But it's every bit as personal as IN A LONELY PLACE or WE CAN'T GO HOME AGAIN. Joan Crawford and Sterling Hayden don't seem fit for the west, and the same could be said of their gender roles, but it's their complete discomfort that gives the film its tense and uneasy beauty. Ray has a knack for finding poetry where others would surely fumble, and here he's at his most poetic. Screening as part of the Nicholas Ray’s Heyday Series. (1954, 110 min, DCP Digital) [Julian Antos]

Sidney Lumet's NETWORK (US)

Gene Siskel Film Center – Saturday, 3pm and Wednesday, 6pm

A common complaint among detractors of NETWORK is encapsulated by this customer review found on Amazon: "My apologies to this movie's many diehard fans, but I've always had a problem with Paddy Chayefsky's work. Nobody... and I mean NOBODY... actually talks like his characters, so the plaudits he routinely receives for his 'realism' are a mystery to me ... plunge into the purple thicket of dialogue for yourself and see. But pack a machete; you may need to do a lot of hacking to get back to daylight." These same charges were often leveled against Rod Serling's work, another writer who came of age during the golden age of live television drama in the 1950s. That line of criticism misses the point. Serling's best Twilight Zone episodes and Chayefsky's screenplay for NETWORK still resonate precisely because of the "purple thicket of dialogue." Of course Chayefsky's characters don't talk like "real" people; they talk the way that Chayefsky wished they could talk, replete with virtuosic articulations of their inner philosophy. And of course the brilliant performances of William Holden, Faye Dunaway, and especially Peter Finch vividly bring those words to life. Ned Beatty's famous speech on corporate cosmology is a tour de force, the prescience of which each succeeding generation discovers for itself—like the rest of the movie, it's as timely now as it was during the Me Decade. Screening as part of the Sidney Lumet Centennial series. (1976, 121 min, 35mm) [Rob Christopher]

Lloyd Bacon's FOOTLIGHT PARADE (US)

Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) – Friday, 5pm

Busby Berkeley, Lloyd Bacon, and company have a lot on their minds with FOOTLIGHT PARADE, the Pre-Code musical spectacular most concerned with the idea of what place, if any, theatrical productions have within cinema. James Cagney, hoofer extraordinaire, stars as an ex-stage director, now tasked with developing movie prologues—live performance spectacles to be put on prior to film screenings. The order is a tall one, and the setbacks pile on, but with the help of Berkeley mainstays Joan Blondell, Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell and Guy Kibbee, three lavish musical numbers emerge from all the shenanigans. Two of these alone are worth the price of admission: the geometric water dance "By A Waterfall" and Cagney's barstool ballad of lost love,"Shanghai Lil." The former ranks perhaps as Berkeley's definitive number, the screen awash with shower-capped sirens synchronized in a mind-bending water ballet. The display may be the logical extension of Berkeley's famed work as a Broadway choreographer, but his eye on the whole extravaganza is nothing if not cinematic. He shoots his chorus of mermaids with a restless camera, and in the moments where it assumes a bird's eye view of the proceedings, lovely ladies and narrative structure alike fall by the wayside and a purely psychedelic experience overwhelms the screen. And no sooner has "By A Waterfall" carved out a niche for the stage spectacle on film then along comes "Shanghai Lil," making the case that musical numbers were born for the movies. It fittingly starts offstage, as Cagney trips through the curtain and finds himself before an audience, assuming the role with a coolness that's only bolstered by Berkeley's slow-tracking reveal. Here's a number that owes its very conception to movie lore (Sternberg's SHANGHAI EXPRESS had topped the box-office the year before, with Marlene Dietrich turning heads as Shanghai Lily), and FOOTLIGHT PARADE's grand finale escalates from a clever barroom riff on the Shanghai Lil' mythology to a grand musical march sporting every cinematic tool in the book, from tracking shots to animation. It may just be the best musical number of the 1930s, which is no small feat because it's only barely the best musical number in the film. Screening as part of the Public Enemy: Cagney on Film series. (1933, 104 min, 35mm) [Tristan Johnson]

Brittani Ward's SINGLE CAR CRASHES (US)

Gene Siskel Film Center – See Venue website for showtimes

The debut feature of Chicago director Brittani Ward, SINGLE CAR CRASHES hits all its marks as a suburban Midwestern drama. Opening with faded images of joy: an old video tape of young friends, family, and lovers having the time of their lives cuts to our hero waking up hungover in his car. Ten years have passed since a devastating car crash took the life of Zach, Sean’s (Trevor Morgan) best friend. He lives the childhood suburban existence he has always known, tormented by survivor’s guilt. Now a father, Sean watches as Kendall (Lindsay Morgan), his first love and Zach’s sister, return to town in preparation for her wedding to another man. Rather than connect to those in his orbit including his son, Sean chases a memory of what once was. Trevor Morgan gives an exceptional performance as Sean, the self-medicated deadbeat dad on a death march towards the end of his twenties. Appearing in the film as "Coach," Billy Zane exhibits a gripping enigmatic charisma that coaxes audiences through a faithful Chicago accent. In Coach’s office, Zane and Morgan delicately deliver a gut-wrenching scene with tactful ease. Lindsay Morgan captivates as the long-lost love, bringing pathos to each scene. The three tall women of the film, Kendall, Jane (Paulina Olszynski), and Ashley (Cruz Gonzalez-Cadel) represent past, present, and future for our principal player. Each with complicated lives approach their predicaments in a healthy manner. While Sean attempts to attain his desires through dysfunction, each blow to his ego comes in the form of reality checks from other characters. Even the fiancé, a stock character who typically serves as an antagonist (see: WEDDING CRASHERS [2005]), shows support for Sean. Whether it’s those who have lost their lives or the one that got away, SINGLE CAR CRASHES reminds us we can only control our response to life’s entropy. The film is a case study in grief, a reply to our deep longing for others who were once close and dear to our hearts; or as stated by Ward, the cost of love and deep emotional connection. Ward has said in an interview, “If you are alive, you have the autonomy to change the course of your life.” Destitute and ashamed, the only one left in Sean’s corner is Zach’s mother, who reminds him, “When a person that close to you dies, that hole never goes away. But eventually, if you fill it with memories and love and life, that hole stops causing you pain, and becomes a source of strength.” The viewer doesn’t have a chance to see Sean do the right thing, and yet our pity persists. After trial and tribulation, our final image hints Sean may begin to move in the right direction, the first steps of atonement. When we lose someone close to us, all that is left is images, memories and emotions. While never letting go, a better life is possible for those left behind. (2024, 90 min, DCP Digital) [Ray Ebarb]

Lucy Kerr’s FAMILY PORTRAIT (US)

Gene Siskel Film Center – See Venue website for showtimes

Lucy Kerr’s deceptively simple tale of a family preparing to pose for their yearly Christmas card photo is an intriguing look at the distortion of reality. This experimental, pseudo-documentary film opens on an extended sequence of Katy (Deragh Campell) and her family haphazardly moving to a spot near a river backing their Texas compound where previous Christmas photos have been taken; sound only gradually filters into the action. The film then cuts to the home Katy shares with her Polish boyfriend Olek (Chris Galust) on the morning of the photo session. Katy recounts a disturbing dream in which she repeatedly encounters her mother Barbara (Silvana Jakich), only to be faced with Barbara’s vacant, unknowing eyes. Olek responds with his own frustration that Katy’s family doesn’t understand that Poland is not Russia, which they seem to think is his home country. Once they arrive at Katy’s parents’ house, her father (Robert Salas) shows off a photo of his father taken at the moment he was killed in World War II—a photo that has become such a symbol for all fallen American soldiers that it was co-opted for a t-shirt honoring the dead of the Vietnam War. When Barbara vanishes, confounding the photo shoot, Katy goes in search of her in the woods and waters of her childhood home. The sound design of this film reflects an eerie world of garbled communication and unbridled nature, perhaps evoking obliquely the elemental threat and family absences caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. For me, the film was heir to the mystery of Peter Weir’s PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK (1975) and the futile endeavors in Luis Buñuel’s THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE (1972). This oddly transfixing feature debut makes Kerr a talent to watch. (2023, 73 min, DCP Digital) [Marilyn Ferdinand]

Osgood Perkins’ LONGLEGS (US)

Various Theaters – See Venue websites for showtimes

LONGLEGS has an unanticipated fairy tale quality about it. Though maybe one shouldn’t be too surprised, as horror director Osgood Perkins has trod into that arena before with his previous film GRETEL AND HANSEL. His most recent film is dreamy, focusing on imprints left by objects and images and their role in creating and warping memories. The physicality of objects is important, too; they have meaning and magic in a way that at times feels like a nebulous commentary on the importance of physical media—​its '90s setting with '70s flashbacks contributes to this as well. LONGLEGS is a procedural, often reminiscent of SILENCE OF THE LAMBS and ZODIAC. Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) is a young FBI agent working on a decades-spanning case concerning a serial killer known as Longlegs (Nicolas Cage), who targets families with young girls and leaves behind coded messages wrought with satanic imagery. Lee is naturally—​perhaps supernaturally—​intuitive, but she may have an even deeper connection to the case than she realizes. This all feels very familiar, but Perkins' distinct style gives an added layer. Lee is shot in warped close ups, as if the camera is trying desperately to get inside her head; Monroe’s strained expressions and reserved anxiety also adds to the sensation that she’s silently screaming. Subliminal, satanic imagery flashes on screen as both Lee and the audience try to piece together what evil is at work here. Cage’s performance is simultaneously what you expect and yet still so unsettling and funny in surprising ways—​despite the lack of visuals in promotional material, Perkins doesn’t hold back from ultimately showcasing this performance. Longlegs is more Twin Peaks' Bob than anything else, a very real threat shrouded in a bizarre supernatural element. The film does however feel cold in its cool-toned settings and the way it keeps the audience at an arm’s length from the details of the evil that’s occurring. Wide shots combined with overcrowded interiors suggest there’s a worse monster lurking just off screen, perhaps captured in a letter or photograph, hidden in the past somewhere. What is most disturbing and resonate about LONGLEGS is what’s left beneath the surface, a fairy tale disguised as a procedural horror, thematically reminiscent with something like THE COMPANY OF WOLVES about the terror of growing up; Lee’s religious mother (a haunting Alicia Witt) even repeatedly mentions a big bad wolf in reference to her childhood. LONGLEGS is impressive in that it’s suggestive without being exploitative: that surviving girlhood is a dangerous minefield that often takes a lot of sacrifice and rarely leaves one unscathed. (2024, 101 min, DCP Digital) [Megan Fariello]

Anime Club Presents

FACETS Cinema – See below for titles and showtimes

Friday, 7pm
The animated romcom THE NIGHT IS SHORT, WALK ON GIRL hits many of the marks familiar in Masaaki Yuasa’s work: infatuated men bordering on pathetic, complexly interwoven threads of fate, musical sequences, and an idiosyncratic narrative logic that feels like a flow of (un)consciousness. Yet the film feels just as fresh, funny, and inspiring as any of his other masterworks. The story is really hard to pin down; as the title suggests, a girl has a short night out and makes the most of it, either by her own determination or merely by chance. We meet an amusing cast of characters, including an unnamed young man desperately chasing after the main character (as he attempts to turn their “coincidental” encounters into fate itself) and Don Underwear, a man who refuses to change his underwear until he can track down the lost love of his life. Yuasa takes us along for the ride as he lays out charming, seemingly random encounters that eventually come full circle to impact at least one other person. This motif in Masaaki’s work is a force that battles against the characters' self-loathing. Every action creates a butterfly effect that binds lives together irrevocably. This allows the characters to find a certain serenity, even if they don’t act on it for good, like our protagonist does in her short, yet grand night. (2017, 93 min, DCP Digital) [Drew Van Weelden]
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Takashi Miike’s HAPPINESS OF THE KATAKURIS (Japan)
Friday, 9pm
The always surprising Japanese director Takashi Miike, known for his ultraviolence, has never let his reputation get in the way of making any kind of story he has the opportunity to explore. In 2001, he released a gonzo piece of filmmaking called HAPPINESS OF THE KATAKURIS, a remake of the dark Korean comedy THE QUIET FAMILY (1998). Masao Katakuri (singing star Kenji Sawada), miserable in his job, decides to pursue his dream of family togetherness. He hears about plans to build a major road near a remote volcano. Masao wants to get in on the ground floor of the tourist industry that is sure to explode, and moves his family to the area to run a B&B called the White Lover’s Inn. Unfortunately, work on the road is delayed, and the venture seems doomed. One evening, however, the Katakuris greet their first guest. The entire family moves in well-rehearsed unison to register him and tend to his every need. The next day, they find he has paid back their hospitality by stabbing himself in the neck and dying on their clean floor. Worried that guests will shun the inn if they hear it was the site of a suicide, the family decides to bury the body themselves. After a time, a new pair of guests, a sumo wrestler and his underage girlfriend, check in for some extremely vigorous and loud sex—Miike signals what’s on the Katakuris’ mind in a shot of the full moon with craters shaped like two bunnies humping. The next morning, the wrestler is face down on the bed—dead—and his girl nowhere to be found until they lift the heart-attack victim and find her smothered below him. Out come the shovels again. There is one more death and hurried plans to dig up the corpses and move them when road construction finally begins, threatening to unearth the bodies. In between, absurdity reigns, including a Claymation sequence in which a woman eating soup fights with a sea monkey, as well as a song-and-dance number by the Katakuris and the corpses. Miike juggles an odd combination of horror, comedy, fantasy, and romantic musical. If you can go with the absurd tone, you’ll find that this film really has a heart, as Miike demonstrates how people are brought together and stick by each other through disaster, death, and disappointment. Screening as part of the Anime Club Presents series. (2001, 113 min, DCP Digital) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
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Also screening as part of the Anime Club Presents series is Hideaki Anno and Kazuya Tsurumaki’s 1997 film THE END OF EVANGELION (87 min, Digital Projection) on Saturday at 7pm, screening as a double feature with the 2005 Japanese surrealist anthology FUNKY FOREST: THE FIRST CONTACT (150 min, Digital Projection) at 9pm; and Shunji Iwai’s 2002 film ALL ABOUT LILY CHOU-CHOU (157 min, Digital Projection) on Sunday at 2pm. More info here.

Yasujiro Ozu's AN AUTUMN AFTERNOON (Japan)

Gene Siskel Film Center – Sunday, 6pm

The Japanese title of Yasujiro Ozu’s last film translates as “Taste of Mackerel,” so you can understand why it was renamed AN AUTUMN AFTERNOON for western audiences. An invocation of fall seems befitting for a final work, particularly one about a 60-ish gentleman taking stock of his life to date and preparing for his last decades on earth. Yet the original title is no less appropriate for Ozu, one of the greatest chroniclers of everyday life in cinema. In his untouchable postwar masterpieces, the writer-director constructed stories around quotidian sensations and routines, finding beauty in experiences most of us take for granted. So it goes with AN AUTUMN AFTERNOON, which reaches its poignant insights about aging, disappointment, and loss through observations of the protagonist (played by Ozu’s favorite actor, Chishu Ryu) as he goes to his white-collar job, meets his buddies for drinks after work, and dines at home with his grown children. The film also considers Ryu’s character’s mission to find a husband for his daughter before she becomes an old maid, but this never assumes the urgency that Ozu brought to a similar search in LATE SPRING (1949). Rather, one comes to sense—through a characteristically subtle network of allusions and behavioral cues—that most of the major events in this character’s life have already taken place, namely his military service, his experience of raising children, and the death of his wife. The pervasive feeling of important events having already happened makes AN AUTUMN AFTERNOON one of Ozu’s most melancholy films; and in one critical scene, when Ryu encounters a man who’d served under him in the war (and who still experiences nostalgia for the Japanese military), that sense of melancholy takes on national proportions. The theme of defeat becomes obvious only in hindsight, however, as the movie is by and large a cheerful one. Building on the pleasant comedy of their recent GOOD MORNING (1959), Ozu and his longtime cowriter Kogo Noda fill AN AUTUMN AFTERNOON with humorous scenarios and charming character portraits. A key subplot involves Ryu and his friends catching up with their old middle-school teacher and discovering that he loves nothing more than getting blissed-out drunk; one motif involves the drinking buddies playing practical jokes on the barmaid at their favorite watering hole; and one of Ryu’s grown sons begins to sulk like the little boys of GOOD MORNING when his wife won’t let him buy new golf clubs. Such details contribute to a sweet (or, better, mackerel-flavored) appreciation of the day-to-day in which every encounter provides something to savor. Screening as part of the Last Shot series. (1962, 113 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]

Francis Ford Coppola's THE GODFATHER (US)

Gene Siskel Film Center – Monday, 6pm

It's tough (or impossible) to summarize the impact THE GODFATHER has had. So, instead, only three points. Gordon Willis's brilliant cinematography—Rembrandt by way of Manhattan—made it acceptable for studio-made color films to be as shadowy and moody as the black & white noirs had been earlier. Where would classic paranoiac thrillers be without that added palette? Its flowing, epic structure, courtesy of Mario Puzo's screenplay and Coppola's subtle, no-nonsense direction, remains a model of classic storytelling. And finally, because of its amazing critical and commercial success, gangster movies have been continuously in vogue ever since. Utterly disgraceful then that, according to a New York Times article, the original negatives "were so torn up and dirty that they could no longer be run through standard film laboratory printing equipment, and so the only option became a digital, rather than a photochemical, restoration." Luckily Robert A. Harris, working with Willis and Coppola, stepped in to save the day. Screening as part of the Last Shot series. (1972, 175 min, DCP Digital) [Rob Christopher]

Bob Fosse's CABARET (US)

Gene Siskel Film Center – Thursday, 8:15pm

CABARET starts off with a bang—it’s got one of the best opening sequences in the New Hollywood canon. Bob Fosse synthesizes a stunning range of influences: the ironic, modernist songs of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht; the circus-like atmospherics of Federico Fellini; the immersive camerawork and editing of direct-cinema documentaries (Fosse conveys the high of performing like few other directors); and the richly detailed yet subtly melancholy depiction of a past era that one finds in Bernardo Bertolucci’s THE CONFORMIST and in Luchino Visconti’s films from THE LEOPARD on. And all this in the service of reviving the Hollywood musical, one of the great popular genres. Fosse’s choreography is astonishing in its forthright eroticism; the dance numbers draw out the film’s themes of sexual liberation and exploitation in a way the conversations can only suggest. The subsequent musical numbers sustain the energy of the introductory number, and they comment on the drama in a Greek chorus-like fashion. The story follows the relationship between Brian (Michael York), a closeted gay British writer who’s moved to Berlin in 1931, and Sally (Liza Minnelli), an American expat who performs at a burlesque club. They fall in love, but the relationship, like the liberated Weimar era, can’t last. Brian says can’t adjust to Sally’s libertine ways, but really he can’t respect her for the moral compromises she makes for show business. It’s still remarkable that a serious, two-hour consideration of sexual revolution under the Weimar Republic could get released with a PG rating. I wonder how many kids learned about threesomes, cross dressing, and queer-positive attitudes from CABARET. The film won eight Academy Awards, including Best Director, Best Actress, and Best Cinematography (for Geoffrey Unsworth, who also shot 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY and Polanski’s TESS). Screening as part of the Last Shot series. (1972, 124 min, 35mm) [Ben Sachs]

Agnieszka Holland’s GREEN BORDER (Poland)

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

To say that one can’t see the forest for the trees is to suggest that they’re too focused on the details, unable to see the bigger picture in question. Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland’s latest does the opposite, positioning Europe’s refugee crisis as the forest and those suffering through it as the trees, prioritizing them rather than the macro-level issue of immigration that can sometimes obfuscate the faces of those involved. This inverted metaphor is echoed in the beginning of GREEN BORDER, as an audacious tracking shot glides over the tops of trees, their near-gothic verdancy both ravishing and prescient; much of the film takes place in the forest, its sprawling landscape an innocent cover for the specific tragedies it conceals. As the title appears on screen, the image turns to black-and-white and stays that way for the rest of the film. Holland has said she made this aesthetic choice to give the film a timeless quality, perhaps a knowing reference toward the cyclical nature of history, which Holland, whose oeuvre is defined by films addressing critical junctures in the 20th (and now 21st) century, such as the Holocaust, that risk repetition should they remain only broad subjects, all too easily brushed off by the ignorant and impressionable alike and therefore not acknowledged for their devastating nuance. Written by Holland, Maciej Pisuk and Gabriela Łazarkiewicz-Sieczko, the film is divided into three parts. The first centers on a Syrian family and Afghan teacher flying to Belarus at the behest of Belarus’ president, Aleksandr Lukashenko, who promoted the Belarus-Polish border as a way for refugees to enter the EU in order to flood the countries with immigrants and simultaneously undermine their purportedly humanistic views and stoke right-wing aggression. (Holland faced much backlash and even censorship, with the country’s interior minister requiring theaters showing the film to screen a government-produced video beforehand that challenges the film’s portrayal of events.) These characters are initially strangers but later band together, as they enter the EU via Poland in hopes of obtaining asylum. The frustrated game of ping-pong played by the two governments, in which Polish border guards force the refugees back into Belarus, continuing to do so as they attempt over and over again to get into Poland, accounts for much of the film; Holland highlights through this dilemma the Kafkaesque nature of asylum-seeking. The second section focuses on the border guards, one in particular, though the previous characters’ stories continue even as the film shifts its attention to this other facet of the refugee paradigm. The border guard contends with the reality of his job, eventually, it would seem, coming to gain more empathy toward refugees, whom he sees being treated badly by his colleagues firsthand and whose experiences he knows to be brutal. It’s cliché to explore the notion that there are good people in the world and that sometimes minds can be changed, but Holland does so in such a forthright way as to make it seem undeniable, a pearl of truth in a sea of misery. The third section follows a widowed psychologist who’s pulled into the fray after she attempts to help some refugees in the woods behind her house, witnessing one die in the process. This radicalizes her, and she subsequently becomes an activist, taking a more hands-on approach than some of those she works with. Holland’s epic approach to the subject covers many of the experiences of and attitudes toward refugees, and as such doesn’t necessarily conclude in a pat fashion, though there’s both a hint of optimism and unequivocal admonishment, the latter by way of an epilogue that shows border police welcoming Ukrainian refugees with none of the vitriol they showed those coming from the Middle East and Africa. It’s not a concise text by any means—its running time is a solid two-and-a-half hours—yet somehow Holland manages to distill both a perennial and timely issue (here in the United States as well, obviously), that of people seeking refuge from persecution, into a precise narrative that conveys the indisputable facets of goodness and the complicated nuances of reality. Screening as part of the Agnieszka Holland’s Poland series. (2023, 152 min, DCP Digital) [Kat Sachs]

Rainer Werner Fassbinder's THE MARRIAGE OF MARIA BRAUN (West Germany)

Goethe-Institut Chicago (150 Michigan Ave., #420) – Saturday, 6pm [Free Admission with Advanced Registration]

Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s biggest commercial hit is in some ways uncharacteristic of his work. For one thing, Fassbinder didn’t write the screenplay (as he had done for all but one of his films before this); rather, he gave a treatment to two other writers, Peter Märthesheimer and Pea Fröhlich, and had them develop the structure, characters, and dialogue. The budget is also noticeably larger than what the director usually worked with, and he takes full advantage of it—the settings seem richer, more lived-in than they typically do in his films. Thirdly, there are fewer long-takes here than in most other Fassbinder works, with the director often cutting between medium close-ups during dialogue scenes. As a result, there are times when THE MARRIAGE OF MARIA BRAUN really looks and feels like a postwar Hollywood women’s picture, a genre that Fassbinder had invoked with such previous films as THE BITTER TEARS OF PETRA VON KANT, ALI: FEAR EATS THE SOUL, and FEAR OF FEAR. But where the style is more deeply indebted to classic Hollywood than ever before, the subject matter is distinctly German—not only that, it foregrounds its consideration of German history as no previous Fassbinder had done before (save for BOLWEISER, aka THE STATIONMASTER’S WIFE). One recognizes that Maria Braun’s development—from impoverished waif at the end of WWII to cynical, successful businesswoman by the early 1950s—is meant to mirror Germany’s postwar reconstruction, that the story is a historical fable about gaining material success but losing one’s ideals. The moral is distinctly Fassbinderian, as is the film’s attendant theme that happiness is at best a social bargain and at worst an illusion. Maria spends most of the picture waiting for her husband, Hermann, to come home—first from war, then from prison—and while waiting on happiness, she rises in the business world, amassing a fortune she hopes to one day enjoy with her man. Her real life put on hold, Maria becomes callous, miserly, even mean, yet Fassbinder never looks at her without sympathy. She’s one of the director’s most complex heroines, and Hanna Schygulla plays her for what she was meant to be: the role of a lifetime. Screening as part of the 70 Years of German Films series. (1979, 120 min, Digital Projection) [Ben Sachs]

David Lynch's BLUE VELVET (US)

Music Box Theatre – Thursday, 9:45pm

This is where the legend really began. It's curious to think how Lynch's career would have developed if DUNE (1984) had not been a box office failure, but cinema history can thank him for not playing it safe with this rebound project. Though Lynch had already made three features, BLUE VELVET was the first full articulation of his core theme of the evil that lurks in small towns everywhere. Not the outright surrealist endeavor that was ERASERHEAD, it is also not the most accessible of narratives. Dark, violent, sexual, and reeking of 1963 suburbia, the film is at times a noir mystery and at others a violent thriller. Many of the visual symbols that would populate TWIN PEAKS are introduced here, such as red curtains appearing when danger is present in a scene, and Lynch's continued growth as a complete cinematic artist is evident. Despite having a cast that didn't feature a legitimate star (Dennis Hopper may be the exception, but his career was in the dumps when he was cast...as the third choice), the film earned Lynch his second Academy Award nomination for Best Picture, as well as praise from critics throughout the world. It's also notable that Kyle MacLachlan (essentially playing Dale Cooper) might never have worked again if not for his excellent performance. Still dangerous all these years later, the film is as gorgeous as it is classic. Presented by Ramona Slick and Rated Q - A Celebration of Queer, Camp, & Cult Cinema. Enjoy pre-show drinks and DJ set in the Music Box Lounge at 9pm.  (1986, 120 min, DCP Digital) [Jason Halprin]

Joe Dante's GREMLINS (US)

Alamo Drafthouse – Friday, 9:30pm

Filmed on backlots in homage to IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE and styled after Norman Rockwell illustrations, GREMLINS creates a memorable nightmare of the wholesale destruction of its settings by the titular monsters. The movie can be genuinely scary, but it’s also a laugh riot, thanks in part to the adolescent glee that Dante and company take from laying waste to such cherished American institutions as Christmastime, Walt Disney, and suburban architecture. A product of ’60s counterculture and ’70s exploitation cinema, Dante has always maintained his outsider bona fides no matter how mainstream his productions have gotten, and one of the wonderful things about GREMLINS is how it feels like a bunch of weirdos successfully crashing the ultra-square party that was Reagan-era Hollywood. The movie’s subversive humor reaches its strongest expression in Phoebe Cates’ sickly funny Santa Claus monologue (which would have been cut from the finished film had not executive producer Steven Spielberg intervened with Warner Bros. studio bosses), but the sentiment can be found even in the premise—that inside every cuddly Spielbergian creation is a destructive monster desperate to come out. Both Dave Kehr and Jonathan Rosenbaum have likened Dante to Frank Tashlin, the Warner Bros. cartoonist who carried over the rubbery reality of Looney Tunes into his work as a director of live-action satires. Like Tashlin, Dante makes fun of his subjects with an air of gee-whiz affection. But Dante’s electrifying shifts between humor and horror show the influence of directors who came before Tashlin: James Whale, who was mixing the two genres in the early 1930s and after, as well as the pop-obsessed auteurs of the French New Wave. Indeed, GREMLINS is so rich in knowledge of film history that it requires several viewings to catch all the references Dante hides around the frames, which are as visually packed in their way as Vincente Minnelli’s. (1984, 106 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]

Steven Spielberg's E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL (US)

Alamo Drafthouse – Monday, 11:30am

Perhaps the definitive Steven Spielberg statement, E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL is a potent mix of wonderment and sentimentality. The film imagines the friendship between a grade-school boy and an affectionate space alien, advancing the optimistic message that love is truly the universal language. In his essay “Papering the Cracks,” critic Robin Wood attacked E.T. for its emotional opportunism, noting that Spielberg and screenwriter Melissa Mathison fail to characterize the title character consistently; the alien alternates between seeming wise, innocent, helpless, and godlike, depending on how the filmmakers want the audience to feel at any given moment. Yet this lack of consistency is integral to the movie’s fantasy: one reason why the character of E.T. seems so magical is because he provides what Elliot needs at exactly the right time. The alien is a playmate, a teacher, and a source of emotional support—he fills the gaps in Elliot’s broken family unit. Indeed the film derives much of its power from Spielberg’s sincere and nuanced depiction of a suburban family after a divorce. One recognizes from the opening scenes that the family is missing something and longs to be made whole. These feelings of abandonment and longing give weight to the movie’s fantasy—the wonderment comes as a source of relief. The movie is no less astute in its depiction of children, which shows the influence of François Truffaut (whom Spielberg cast in CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND). The kids of E.T. are adorable yet retain a certain realistic scrappiness—Spielberg clearly relates to his young characters, and he loves them, warts and all. (1982, 115 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]

Hayao Miyazaki's NAUSICAÄ OF THE VALLEY OF THE WIND (Japan/Animation)

Alamo Drafthouse – Monday, 7pm

NAUSICAÄ OF THE VALLEY OF THE WIND by the beloved animation factory Studio Ghibli is the film that made their whole operation possible, and—if we're setting aside all modesty—ushered in a veritable golden age of animation. It is in so many ways the prototypical Hayao Miyazaki film: a sprawling environmentalist parable with a headstrong female protagonist, a girl with blinding, childlike optimism who faces down a world thrown into chaos. Recurring Miyazaki themes, including his fascination with flight and his abiding love of nature, are front-and-center here, all wrapped up in a cavalcade of cartoon adventure for all ages. A princess with more agency, not to mention spunk, than Disney had yet to devise, Nausicaä is the favorite daughter of the Valley of the Wind, one of the world's last refuges against the ever-encroaching Toxic Jungle, the inhospitable fallout of a global war occupied by giant insects known as the Ohmu. Gradually, a larger picture of the world is painted, as neighboring military powers Tolmekia and Pejite threaten the safety of the planet in their misguided quests to push back against the Jungle. The film packs in an alarming amount of back-story, thanks largely to Nausicaä's knack for interior monologue, a habit forgivable not just because this is still ostensibly a children's film, but also for the gasp-inducing visuals that often accompany her chronic narration. Joe Hisaishi's score is a marvel too; an oscillating mix of nostalgia-inducing synthesizers and his typical swelling orchestral compositions. NAUSICAÄ remains one of Miyazaki's most arresting and under-appreciated masterpieces. (1984, 116 min, DCP Digital) [Tristan Johnson]

🎞️ ALSO SCREENING

⚫ Chicago Film Archives
The Chicago Transit Authority, in partnership with 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.

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

⚫ FACETS Cinema
The Big Teeth Small Shorts film festival takes place Thursday starting at 7pm. More info here.

⚫ Gene Siskel Film Center
Niclass Larson’s 2024 film MOTHER, COUCH (93 min, DCP Digital) begins screening this week. See Venue website for showtimes. 

A members-only exclusive sneak peek of Thomas Napper’s 2023 film MADAME CLICQUOT (89 min, DCP Digital) takes place Friday at 6pm and Saturday at 12pm. A “Wine and Watch” event, attendees will receive a free glass of wine and can bring a guest for free. Limit one complimentary ticket per member with purchase of a member ticket (dual members can each bring a friend).

Mike Nichols’ 1967 film THE GRADUATE (106 min, DCP Digital) screens Thursday, 6pm, as part of the Last Shot series. More info on all screenings here. 

⚫ Goethe-Institut Chicago (150 Michigan Ave., #420) 
Frank Beyer’s 1974 film JACOB THE LIAR (101 min, Digital Projection) screens Thursday, 6pm, as part of the 70 Years of German Films collection. Free admission with advanced registration. More info here. 

⚫ Music Box Theatre
Music Box Garden Movies continue. See Venue website for films and showtimes.

Ti West’s MAXXXINE (101 min, 35mm) and Yorgos Lanthimos’ 2024 film KINDS OF KINDNESS (165 min, DCP Digital) continue screening this week. See Venue website for showtimes.

Dimitri Coats’ 2024 film FREE LSD (97 min, DCP Digital) screens Wednesday, 9:15pm,  followed by a post-screening Q&A with Coats and OFF! band members. More info on all screenings here. 

⚫ Sideshow Gelato (4819 W. Western Ave.)
SUPER-HORROR-RAMA! presents Don Coscarelli's 1979 horror film PHANTASM (89 min, Digital Projection) on Wednesday, 7pm, as part of 666 FLAVORS, a new weekly horror gathering and screening series. There’s a social hour starting at 6pm. More info here.

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

🎞️ ONLINE SCREENINGS/EVENTS

⚫ VDB TV
Saif Alsaegh: Bittersweet Landscape, a program of three short films by Alsaegh, screens for free on VDB TV. More info here.

CINE-LIST: July 12 - July 18, 2024

MANAGING EDITORS // Ben and Kat Sachs

CONTRIBUTORS // Julian Antos, Rob Christopher, Jeremy M. Davies, Ray Ebarb, Alex Ensign, Megan Fariello, Marilyn Ferdinand, Jason Halprin, Tristan Johnson, Ben Kaye, Michael Glover Smith, Drew Van Weelden