CRUCIAL VIEWING
Serge Gainsbourg’s JE T’AIME MOI NON PLUS (French Revival)
Gene Siskel Film Center – Friday, 4pm, Saturday, 3:15pm, Monday, 6pm, and Thursday, 8:30pm
Joe Dallesandro may have been in a movie called TRASH six years earlier, but that title would have been an apt one for Serge Gainsbourg’s 1976 art-sex-film, fixated as it is on waste both literal and metaphorical. JE T’AIME MOI NON PLUS opens with the first of its lurid nods toward the abject when a crow dive-bombs into the windshield of a moving Mack truck, splattering its ketchup-red blood over the glass. Unfazed by the bird’s lifeless body plastered to the window, Krassky (Dallesandro) drives his dump truck up to a giant landfill and proceeds to unload his pile of garbage into the pit. He and his lover Padovan (Hugues Quester) are quintessential mid-century American drifters (despite the French overdub!), neither coming nor going, like refuse suspended in the wind. Wandering a desolate, purgatorial West, they spend most of their time cruising around in their canary yellow Mack transporting trash to nowhere in particular. When they stop at a roadside diner and meet the beguiling Johnny (Jane Birkin), a meek, epicene woman who is immediately attracted to Krassky, the men’s lives receive a jolting, confounding erotic shock. Unable to consummate his relationship with Johnny through vaginal intercourse, Krassky resorts to penetrating her anally, and the two embark on a torrid affair that makes the unstable Padovan livid with envy. The film, in its deliriously overheated register, is not subtle about linking the couple’s sex act of choice to the other forms of abjection that appear throughout; Gainsbourg even goes so far as to have Dallesandro pontificate about the “vomit of mankind” and the inevitability of humans themselves being discarded. As a gay, disenfranchised man, Krassky is part of the socially expelled, and he accepts this position by reveling in the transgressive pleasures of dirt and excess, taking and leaving what he pleases. Such hedonistic, dissolute homosexuality is an upsettingly familiar trope, but then again, there’s really nobody in the debased world of the film to provide any “correct” moral counterpoint. No stranger to the taboo, Gainsbourg instead dignifies his characters’ sexualities by flouting distinctions of propriety, refusing to fit his characters into any safe or normative matrix of desire. Filled with bountiful exposed flesh, as well as some genuinely tender scenes scored to a haunting instrumental version of Gainsbourg and Birkin’s titular hit song, the film seems interested only in rendering uninhibited desire, a desire that chews on and spits its object back out. Like a cross between the open-roads American ennui of TWO-LANE BLACKTOP and the sordid erotic obsessions of De Palma or Lars Von Trier, JE T’AIME MOI NON PLUS is pungent and crass, alternately retrograde and progressive, with a final shot of nihilism that would seem silly, if not purely exploitative, had Gainsbourg not gone so fully for broke in this feverish, ultimately hellish vision. (1976, 88 min, DCP) JL
Les Blank's ALWAYS FOR PLEASURE (Documentary Revival)
Chicago Film Society at Chicago Filmmakers (5720 N. Ridge Ave.) – Saturday, 7pm
Ask me what my favorite Duke Ellington recording is, and I might cite 1962’s Money Jungle, a fractious, jittery date with Max Roach and Charles Mingus—apocryphally, the sessions were so tense that Mingus stormed out halfway through the recording. It’s a uniquely challenging piece of jazz; endlessly exciting to modern ears, yet its fascination arises from a fundamental irreconcilability between the players. It’s incredible, but it’s not beautiful, and thus it fails to capture the quality that was perhaps most essential to Ellington’s art. That’s also the case for the films Les Blank remains best known for, his two great portraits of Werner Herzog, BURDEN OF DREAMS and WERNER HERZOG EATS HIS SHOE. Herzog made an odd subject for Blank, a documentarian with a Mississippi-wide epicurean streak whose most characteristic films are as buoyant and picturesque as Herzog’s are sternly sublime. It’s a shame that these indelible yet uncharacteristic works are often all viewers know of Blank, because when he’s properly in his element, he’s perhaps American cinema’s most reliable conjurer of sheer joy. DIZZY GILLESPIE (1966, 20 min), the first of two films on this jazz-themed program, isn’t prime Blank—it’s the first of over twenty music-focused documentaries he made throughout his five-decade career, and the clumsy stew of direct-cinema stargazing and underlit interviews feels undigested. But something about the bebop legend’s irreverence unmistakably clicks, leading Blank to reach beyond music-appreciation didacticism towards something looser, funnier, and more ephemeral. At one point, the trumpeter observes that “the longer you play, the more aware you should be of the superfluous in your playing.” ALWAYS FOR PLEASURE (1978, 58 min), a rich and savory survey of New Orleans music and culture, proves that Blank took that lesson to heart: every frame is simply a gift. Twelve years of woodshedding with his 16mm Eclair (including films on legendary Texas songster Mance Lipscomb and blues-rocker Leon Russell) have given his eye both a generosity and a dexterity, qualities equaled by sound recorder/producer Maureen Gosling’s ear. The film keeps brisk step with the second-line street parades that pump music into the Big Easy air, periodically branching off to take in the gyrations of dancers or to absorb the lessons of an expert crawdad chef. Underneath all the brass and commotion, ALWAYS FOR PLEASURE is spiked with a surprising volume of historical and cultural insight, effortlessly achieving the woozy balance of didacticism and delight promised in DIZZY GILLESPIE. When, about thirty minutes in, ALWAYS FOR PLEASURE arrives at the city’s most iconic street carnival, it tries to maintain this balance, offering a five-minute breather-cum-history-lesson in the Mardi Gras Indian traditions—their origins in reaction to the harsh prohibitions of slavery, their endurance over generations. But, true to the spirit of Mardi Gras, Blank and Gosling cannot help but get carried away; for the last half hour or so, ALWAYS FOR PLEASURE is a drunkenly ecstatic brocade of color and sound. Between the dazzling costumes (which should absolutely scream in 16mm) and the extended musical performances by the Wild Tchoupitoulas, Professor Longhair, and others, ALWAYS FOR PLEASURE offers unrepentant hedonism masquerading as reportage. Indeed, attentive viewers will catch Blank and Gosling themselves among the revelers, faces painted behind their viewfinders and headphones, fully in their element. It’s beautiful (like, your-face-will-hurt-from-smiling beautiful), and a perfect expression of everything that makes Les Blank’s work essential. (1964/1978, 78 min total, 16mm) MM
Todd Solondz’s HAPPINESS (American Revival)
Doc Films (University of Chicago) – Saturday, 7 and 9:30pm
Given the expectations set by writer-director Todd Solondz’s second film, WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE, the title of his third feature, HAPPINESS, is almost premonitory, forewarning viewers that their concept of the titular sensation will be challenged. Looking back, it's almost too on the nose for Solondz, who’s made a career of discomfiture, exposing—nay, assaulting—the facade of normalcy. At the time, however, the film, a pitch-black comedy-drama hybrid, was incredibly controversial, banned from film festivals, theaters, and video stores; its original distributor, October Films, a Universal Studios subsidiary, even disowned it, resulting in the film being released by one of its producers, the independent production company Good Machine. HAPPINESS is centered around that most localized of social units, the family, including three adult daughters (Trish, Jordan and Joy, played by Cynthia Stevenson, Lara Flynn Boyle, and Jane Adams, respectively), their husbands and various romantic (or not-so-romantic) interests, some more significant to the plot than others, and their divorcing parents, Louise and Lenny (played by Louise Lasser and Ben Gazzara). Each character has his or her own unpleasant idiosyncrasies, the worst of which are Trish’s husband’s pedophilia, which is realized off-screen, and Jordan’s neighbor Allen’s (who is also Trish’s husband Bill’s psychiatric patient, played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman) predilection toward making obscene phone calls to random, unsuspecting women. Meanwhile, less indecently but just as sad, the youngest sister, Joy, seems to embody the definition of pathetic, and her father, Lenny, has lost his desire for most anything and everything, despairing over having been given a clean bill of health—one subtle moment shows him putting extra salt on his meal several scenes after being told by his doctor to maybe lay off the sodium. A common opinion of the film is that it engenders sympathy toward its otherwise unredeemable characters, perhaps in spite of its shock value. Ironically, however, Solondz has said it wasn’t meant to be shocking, and, with regards to sympathy, he told The Guardian in 2009: “Although [Bill] may be a monster, he still has a heart that beats. That's the idea that I was exploring on HAPPINESS, and exploration is very different from sympathy.” This suggests something more disturbing than either shock or sympathy, but rather sincerity, an earnest acknowledgement that these people exist in the world, among us even in the quaintest of American suburbs (here being the New Jersey 'burbs, where Solondz is from). In his review of the film, Roger Ebert cited it as “[occupying] the emerging genre of the New Geek Cinema, films that occupy the shadowland between tragedy and irony,” and it’s often referred to as being anti-suburban, or at the very least, satirizing that milieu. Viewed more than 20 years after its initial release, the latter an era when such art and entertainment was viewed as reactive, as a commentary on the distinct phenomenon that is disaffection and complacency in America, it now seems less a reaction than an observation, one that lays bare the unpleasantness of unpleasant people, people whose hearts still beat and, who, like anyone else, pursue happiness, often at all costs. (1998, 134 min, 35mm) KS
Michael Roemer's NOTHING BUT A MAN (American Revival)
Doc Films (University of Chicago) – Friday, 7 and 9:30pm
Upon learning that NOTHING BUT A MAN is the work of two white filmmakers, we might assume that the title constitutes a syrupy call for brotherhood, smugly proud of its mild liberalism. Likewise, when Ivan Dixon says that he's heading to Birmingham, we naturally jump to the conclusion that he's about to become politicized, join the CORE, and subtend the front line of the civil rights movement. That NOTHING BUT A MAN frustrates both expectations is crucial to its lasting interest. Essentially a missing link between Italian neo-realism and the L.A. Rebellion naturalism of KILLER OF SHEEP and BLESS THEIR LITTLE HEARTS, NOTHING BUT A MAN depicts a world of ceaseless striving and gross social stratification that marks Freedom Summer as both urgently necessary and despairingly distant. More acutely than any film I know, NOTHING BUT A MAN demonstrates how routine economic oppression simultaneously sabotages and stokes the possibility of political action. (When set next to Bertolucci's superficially radical contemporary, it's Roemer's film that lays much greater claim to the title BEFORE THE REVOLUTION.) Like its post-Popular Front antecedent SALT OF THE EARTH, NOTHING BUT A MAN has the rare distinction of treating racial discrimination, gender equality, and labor rights as irreducibly linked. Most bracingly, NOTHING BUT A MAN possesses such an abiding and deep sense of righteousness that it never wastes our time by presenting compromise or gradualism as morally-defensible options. It's also the only movie I've ever seen that credits a film laboratory (DuArt) as its production company, a footnote that suggests a major and neglected avenue of scholarly investigation at a moment when these former industrial behemoths are shriveling away. (1964, 92 min, 16mm) KAW
ALSO RECOMMENDED
James Fargo’s EVERY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE (American Revival)
Chicago Film Society (at Northeastern Illinois University, The Auditorium, Building E, 3701 W. Bryn Mawr Ave.) — Wednesday, 7:30pm
Clint Eastwood and Manis the Orangutan are a screen duo worthy of Martin and Lewis in the two films they made together, EVERY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE (1978) and ANY WHICH WAY YOU CAN (1980), creating a portrait of friendship that’s memorable for its element of vulnerability. Philo Beddoe (Eastwood) is practically a macho caricature: chronically underemployed, he makes his money by taking part in illegal fighting matches and spends his free time drinking and getting into other fights for free. Philo’s constantly followed around by his right-hand man, Orville (Geoffrey Lewis), but his true best friend is Clyde (Manis), the orangutan he won in a fight. Philo allows himself an unguarded intimacy with Clyde that he doesn’t even grant to Lynn Halsey-Taylor (Sondra Locke), the woman he chases across three states after they meet cute at a country-and-western open mic. Clyde often puts his arms around Philo and gives him kisses; when the two walk down the street, they go hand in hand. The films generate numerous laughs from the absurd spectacle of tough-guy icon Eastwood getting personal with an ape (and let’s be clear—they’re hilarious), but the actor’s charisma is too strong to be merely funny. Eastwood could have made a cheap punch line from allowing himself to get upstaged by an orangutan; instead, he drew on his modesty and generosity as a performer to let Manis shine. Clyde is as lovable as Bambi or any other famous movie critter because, in part, we see how special he is to Philo. Allegedly the producer of EVERY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE gave the script to Eastwood entrusting him to give it to his friend Burt Reynolds, who’d just had a hit with the action comedy SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT; after Eastwood read it, he decided to claim the lead part for himself. Forever conscious of his screen image (and capable of seeing through it), Eastwood must have recognized how much funnier and weirder the film would be with him in it. Or maybe he just wanted to act opposite Manis. In any case, Eastwood’s decision proved a commercially successful one—adjusted for inflation, EVERY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE is the biggest hit of his career. Preceded by the 1979 short ROLLING SOUTH (16 min, 35mm). (1978, 114 min, 35mm; slightly faded color) BS
Harold Young’s THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL (British Revival)
Doc Films (University of Chicago) – Wednesday, 7pm
Superheroes with secret identities are all the rage and have been since Baroness Emma Orczy invented the type around the turn of the 20th century with a character who has long outlived his creator: The Scarlet Pimpernel. Since the character first bowed in a 1903 play, at least eight film and TV adaptations and several sequels have been made featuring “that damned elusive Pimpernel,” a British nobleman whose self-assigned task is to rescue members of the French nobility sentenced to the guillotine by Citizen Maximilien de Robespierre following the French Revolution. Arguably the best of the bunch is the 1934 film THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL produced by Hungarian expatriate Alexander Korda for his company, London Film Productions, and starring Leslie Howard in the title role and Korda’s future wife, Merle Oberon. Following Korda’s major success with THE PRIVATE LIFE OF HENRY VIII (1933), the producer hoped to cast that film’s star, Charles Laughton, as Sir Percy Blakeney, who plays the fop and fool to conceal his daring activities across the English Channel. Happy was the day Korda turned from Laughton to Howard. Not only does Howard cut a better figure as a clothes-obsessed dandy, but he also makes a much more romantic partner for Oberon, who plays former French actress Lady Marguerite Blakeney, whose bewilderment at the change that has come over her husband, a manly chap who now seems to despise her, forms the emotional core of the story. THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL was Harold Young’s directorial debut, and given Korda’s reputation for charming manipulation to get the desired results, much of what we see on the screen may be attributed to the latter man’s instinct for grand gestures and his heroic, romantic vision of his adopted country. The film’s opening—the changing of the guard overseen by the Prince of Wales (Nigel Bruce)—is an orderly, patriotic flourish contrasted almost immediately with a bloody blade being pulled into position against a cloud-patched sky and the rowdy crowds of French proletarians cheering every time an aristocrat is parted from his or her head. It is in this crowd that we see how the Pimpernel achieves his end—disguised as an old woman sitting among the tricoteuses knitting beside the guillotine, he is ready to act when his faithful followers create a distraction. We are never left to doubt that Sir Percy’s is a noble cause and that he chooses the most deserving aristocrats to save—the de Tournay family, in this case, whose patriarch (O.B. Clarence) regrets his mistreatment of the common people—nor that the man sent to stop the Pimpernel, Citizen Chauvelin (Raymond Massey), is purely a villain. There are echoes here of the Soviet terror that Korda fled in 1919 that must have resonated with an uneasy English populace witnessing the rise of fascism throughout Europe. Lensed by Harold Rosson, Oberon never looked more luminous, especially in her soft close-ups, nor Howard more tragic in his hopeless love for the wife he disdains for her betrayal of one of the first aristocrats to be guillotined. The film largely eschews action in favor of intrigue and clever dialogue. An admirable attention to detail and thoughtful performances build a very full world around stagey scenes that manage never to feel confining. THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL breathes with suspense, tortured romance, and historical interest, but I’m afraid that my sympathies still remain with the Revolution. (1934, 97 min, 16mm) MF
Liz Toussaint's AMERICAN AS BEAN PIE (New Documentary)
Gene Siskel Film Center — Friday, 6:15pm and Saturday, 8:15pm
There's a moment in Liz Toussaint's moving and honest AMERICAN AS BEAN PIE, a kind of filmed autobiography, when she says, "This is where I'm from. America." It needed to be said, since she is a black woman raised as a Muslim in Chicago, living in an age when the "president" tells people like her to go back where they came from. And not only that: the film is the story of her love for country music and her stubborn determination to forge a career performing country, a genre that, despite its black roots, is stereotypically white and rightwing. Over the course of a brisk hour, Toussaint rails against these stereotypes and many others, coming across as introspective and vulnerable, even confessional, as she relates her experiences. In the bean pie she finds the film's central metaphor. A dessert made of navy beans, it's "an American construct," invented in the U.S. by black Muslims. As Liz's friend, the Nashville writer Kenneth Wright, puts it, Liz is a lot like bean pie. A lot of people would like both, if they'd try it. If anything, I could have done with more footage of Toussaint performing, though we hear enough to know we're being introduced to a real talent. As part of my research, I was listening to her new record (same title as the film), when my wife asked me what it was. "God, that's beautiful!" she declared. She got a powerful gospel vibe from it. Ironic, you might say, until you consider that in the film Toussaint talks about being the only Muslim in the gospel choir. For a variety of reasons, which were cemented after Trump came along and "validated people who feel it's okay to be outright racist," she began to feel that her Islamic name (Munifah Abdullah) was a bit of a stricture, rechristening herself Liz Toussaint after her great grandmother. (The late great Allen Toussaint is a part of her family tree, which has roots in New Orleans). Essentially, what we're seeing here is Toussaint's hard-won journey to find her voice. It's a heartening and uplifting experience to watch her resist conformity from all sides and assert her right to be herself, without having to hide who she really is. In that way, Toussaint is in tune with the best of the 2019 zeitgeist, and in opposition to the worst. Toussaint in person at both screenings. (2019, 62 min, ProRes Digital) SP
Tilman Singer’s LUZ (New German)
Music Box Theatre — Friday and Saturday, 11:45pm
“Lord in Heaven, why art thou such a dick?” This is the at times pessimistic, and oftentimes prophetic sentiment that rings through Tilman Singer’s debut feature like deafening church bells. LUZ, which takes its name from the film’s protagonist, follows a young cab driver (Luana Velis) as she grapples with an unsettling past that comes back to haunt her—namely an alluring and inescapable demonic force that infiltrates the body of an old girlfriend from Catholic school and starts to spread elsewhere. The notion of a typical possession story is turned on its head under Singer’s direction—elements of narrative and time are toyed with, re-written, and, at some moments, forgone altogether. Because of this major disruption of form, LUZ is hard to pin down and can be somewhat inaccessible, but this is balanced by a sense of familiarity—its influences remain clear as fragments of Argento, Cronenberg, and Fulci seep into each and every frame. The real standout element of LUZ is Singer’s masterful grasp of sound design; blending, echoing, and distorting the German and Spanish dialogue as well as creating a tense soundscape that evokes nails on a chalkboard. With LUZ, Singer is cementing himself as a director to watch very closely in the Midnight film space. (2019, 70 min, DCP Digital) CC
Quentin Tarantino’s ONCE UPON A TIME… IN HOLLYWOOD (New American)
Music Box Theatre (70mm) and Logan Theatre (35mm and Digital); plus additional area theaters (all digital presentations) – Check Venue websites for showtimes
Having finally arrived, Quentin Tarantino’s ONCE UPON A TIME… IN HOLLYWOOD could not be any truer to its creator’s decades-long fascination and obsession with 1960’s and 70’s cinema, though it also feels slightly atypical for the director. Without giving anything away, the long blocks of back-and-forth dialogue that Tarantino usually indulges in have begun to give way to more preoccupation with staging, fourth-wall-breaking camera moves, and all around color, resulting in an ambling and evocative dreamscape rife with a whole host of characters. Atmosphere has never been so palpable and dialogue between characters so natural in a Tarantino film—there’s nary a monologue in sight. The film begins at the tail end of an era in Hollywood filmmaking in which rapidly-fading TV actor/cowboy “heavy" Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) is seeing his career head towards Italy, specifically towards the cheap and fast genre films of Sergio Corbucci. Burt Reynolds went to Rome to work with Corbucci, Eastwood did the same for Sergio Leone, along with character actors like Lee Van Cleef, and so did one-time TV western stars like Ty Hardin (Rick Dalton is probably most similar to the latter). In the cases of Reynolds and Eastwood, their careers were revitalized by the Italian industry, but many others, like Hardin, were pushed further into obscurity. While watching his star power sputter out in what he perceives to be his twilight years, Dalton is accompanied by his sidekick/assistant/stunt man/reflective image Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), who lives in a trailer behind a drive-in theater, while Dalton lives in a Benedict Canyon home (with pool, naturally). He lives next door to Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie), and Manson family members are prowling around the streets of L.A., hollering at police officers and offering up blowjobs while they try to hitch back to their nesting grounds at the Spahn Ranch. Tarantino covers a lot of ground in ONCE UPON A TIME—an entire landscape of stories is on view, not dissimilar to something like Robert Altman’s NASHVILLE or even Richard Linklater’s DAZED AND CONFUSED. The film has a near three-hour running time, but three hours that have never seemed so short and compact in recent film memory. The movie has a blink-or-you’ll-miss-it pace, rare for a director who sometimes has a tendency to halt the rush of his work with overly bravura dialogue sequences. Tarantino seems to find fresh new ground within his already steadfast movie-making abilities, to let the scope of his powers extend further than previously thought possible. He barely pauses for the chance to show off his noted screenwriting abilities, and instead chooses to craft an ensemble work that somehow feels more epic than any of his films have ever felt; this is Los Angeles completely transformed back to the summer of 1969, in a way that only a very large budget and large talent could realize. It might possibly be one of the last times we see Hollywood bankroll such an ambitious project, by an auteur still powerful enough to retain final cut. ONCE UPON A TIME isn’t as cynical a look at Hollywood as other films have been (such as Altman’s THE PLAYER—even though it does share a curious opening shot). It’s more bittersweet nostalgia, and is perhaps Tarantino’s breeziest and best work to date; his entire career as a director bursts forth as both a marvelously crafted time-capsule and a fantasy-land-rendering of a mythical Hollywood, specifically the place where dreams, however real, are made. (2019, 165 min, 70mm/35mm/DCP Digital) JD
MORE SCREENINGS AND EVENTS
The Nightingale (1084 N. Milwaukee Ave.) hosts Pomegranates: Queer Muslim Mythologies on Saturday at 7pm. The evening begins with an Eid dinner, followed by a screening of short narrative films by Sal Salam, Ladan Mohamed Siad, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Fawzia Mirza, and Nabil Vega. Tickets are $25, but no one will be turned away (see the Nightingale’s Facebook page for contact about lack of funds/dietary restrictions).
The Rebuild Foundation at the Stony Island Arts Bank (6760 S. Stony Island Ave.) presents a work-in-progress screening of a section of Joe Winston’s documentary PUNCH 9 FOR HAROLD WASHINGTON on Saturday at 4pm. Followed by a panel discussion. Free admission.
At the Gene Siskel Film Center this week: Lila Avilés’ 2018 Mexican film THE CHAMBERMAID (102 min, DCP Digital) and Ron Howard’s 2019 documentary PAVAROTTI (114 min, DCP Digital) both play for a week; and the Black Harvest Film Festival continues with documentary features Jacqueline Olive’s ALWAYS IN SEASON, Liz Toussaint’s AMERICAN AS BEAN PIE (see Also Recommended above), and Erik Ljung’s THE BLOOD IS AT THE DOORSTEP; narrative features Rashaad Ernesto Green’s PREMATURE and Numa Perrier’s JEZEBEL; and shorts programs “Made in Chicago” and “Fantastic Tales.” Check the Siskel website for details.
Also at Doc Films (University of Chicago) this week: Chris Bernard’s 1985 UK film LETTER TO BREZHNEV (94 min, 16mm) is on Thursday at 7pm.
Also at the Music Box Theatre this week: Ljubomir Stefanov and Tamara Kotevska’s 2019 Macedonian documentary HONEYLAND (85 min, DCP Digital) opens; Vincent Sherman’s 1943 film OLD ACQUAINTANCE (110 min, 35mm archival print) is on Saturday at 11am; and Jake Kasdan’s 2007 film WALK HARD: THE DEWEY COX STORY (96 min, DCP Digital) is on Friday and Saturday at Midnight; and a fundraiser screening of Steven Spielberg’s 1975 film JAWS (124 min, DCP Digital) is on Wednesday at 8pm. Tickets are $30 and include popcorn and a drink.
Facets Cinémathèque plays James Longley’s 2018 US/Afghan documentary ANGELS ARE MADE OF LIGHT (117 min, Video Projection) and Casey Affleck’s 2019 film LIGHT OF MY LIFE (119 min, Video Projection) for week-long runs.
Comfort Film at Comfort Station Logan Square (2579 N. Milwaukee Ave.) an outdoor screening of six episodes of Vincent Martell’s 2019 webseries DAMAGED GOODS (63 min total, Digital Projection) on Wednesday at 8:30pm. Free admission.
The ReelAbilities Film Festival screens Jennifer Tennican's 2019 documentary HEARTS OF GLASS (68 min, Digital Projection) on Thursday at 6:30pm at the Chicago Cultural Center. Free admission.
The Chicago Cultural Center hosts the Cinema/Chicago screening of Keren Ben Rafael's 2018 Israeli film VIRGINS (91 min, Video Projection) is on Wednesday at 6:30pm. Free admission.
The Millennium Park Summer Film Series (at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion) presents an outdoor screening of Ang Lee's 2000 Taiwanese/Hong Kong/Chinese/US film CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON (120 min) on Tuesday at 6:30pm. Free admission.
CINE-LIST: August 9 - August 15, 2019
MANAGING EDITOR // Patrick Friel
ASSOCIATE EDITORS // Ben Sachs, Kathleen Sachs, Kyle A. Westphal
CONTRIBUTORS // Cody Corrall, John Dickson, Marilyn Ferdinand, Jonathan Leithold-Patt, Michael Metzger, Scott Pfeiffer