Weeklong Runs
Chicago premiere!
SHOTGUN STORIES
2007, Jeff Nichols, USA, 92 min.
With Michael Shannon, Douglas Ligon
“Perched between Old Testament and Southern gothic…a marvelously expressive work.”--Patrick Z. McGavin, Screen Daily
“As cool-headed as its characters are reckless…a here-and-now American potboiler.”--Matt Zoller Seitz, The New York Times
Separate clutches of male progeny are spawned on two women by an Arkansas patriarch, the before-and-after traces of a born-again life. Three trailer-trash bad-boys known only as Son, Kid, and Boy, seal eternal enmity with their four shirt-and-tie-wearing half-brothers by crashing the funeral, where Son spits on the old man’s coffin. Hatred and snakelike cunning drive a clan feud to tragic heights in the sleepy streets of a town where the silence is broken only by the whistles of long-gone trains. An award-winning festival hit, SHOTGUN STORIES conjures up the mesmerizing saga of a family poisoned by the very blood they share. 35mm widescreen. (BS)
June 6--12
Fri. at 6:00 pm;
Sat. at 3:15 pm and 7:45 pm;
Sun. at 5:15 pm;
Mon. and Wed. at 8:15 pm;
Tue. and Thu. at 6:15 pm
Chicago premiere!
‘TIS AUTUMN: THE SEARCH FOR JACKIE PARIS
2007, Raymond De Felitta, USA, 100 min.
“Entertaining and passionate…the tale of an extraordinary voice and a self-destructive genius.”--John Anderson, Newsday
“Part tribute, part musical mystery…shines an overdue spotlight on a great who got away.”--Jeannette Catsoulis, The New York Times
American jazz-singer Jackie Paris, indelibly linked to his legendary styling of “Skylark,” was for decades known only to the cognoscenti, until the day filmmaker De Felitta encountered one of his out-of-print records and fell under the spell of Paris’s versatile voice. Once an artist of huge promise and stellar reviews, he opened for Lenny Bruce, toured with Charlie Parker, and recorded for Charles Mingus in the 50s, but dropped out of sight in the 60s, his rising career derailed by bad choices and personal problems. With a keen ear for the music and a passion to set the record straight, De Felitta finds 79-year-old Paris, reconstructs the career that almost was, and gloriously brings legendary lost performances to the screen. Interviews include Billy Taylor, George Wein, Mark Murphy, and Ruth Price. 35mm. (BS)
June 6--12
Fri. at 8:00 pm;
Sat. at 5:15 pm;
Sun. at 3:15 pm;
Mon. and Wed. at 6:15 pm;
Tue. and Thu. at 8:15 pm
Chicago theatrical premiere!
OPERATION FILMMAKER
2007, Nina Davenport, USA, 95 min.
“Not since Luis Buñuel have we had such a wonderful joke on do-gooder liberalism.”--Gerald Peary, Boston Phoenix
“This is the story of how well-intentioned Americans try to intervene in the life of an Iraqi. And how nothing goes as planned.”--Thom Powers, Toronto International Film Festival program
An MTV segment on an Iraqi film student and his bombed-out Baghdad film school inspired actor Liev Schreiber to invite 25-year-old Muthana Mohmed to work as an intern on a Hollywood production shooting in Prague. A seeming golden opportunity and win-win scenario soon evolves into a careful-what-you-wish-for dilemma. A seriously bruised ego results when Mohmed is assigned as a bottom-rung gofer, and his benefactors are puzzled, then angered at his lack of ambition. With the production ending, his visa running out, Mohmed blows his big chance to edit the wrap-party gag reel, and the disillusioned filmmakers sink into a moral quagmire with a lame-duck intern on their hands. In English and Arabic with English subtitles. HDCAM video. (BS)
June 13--19
Fri. and Mon.-Thu. at 6:15 pm and 8:15 pm;
Sat. at 3:15 pm, 5:15 pm, and 7:45 pm;
Sun. at 3:15 pm and 5:15 pm
Chicago premiere!
GLASS: A PORTRAIT OF PHILIP IN TWELVE PARTS
2007, Scott Hicks, Australia/USA, 115 min.
“An informal and affectionate demystification of the artist.”--Gregory Kirschling, Entertainment Weekly
“With his self-deprecating demeanor and easy laugh, Glass is a congenial presence.”--Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle
With a nod to one of the composer’s own scores, director Hicks (SHINE) divides this profile of Philip Glass into segments, each serving as a significant chapter in the personal life and career of this towering figure in contemporary avant-garde music. The film follows Glass through the year of preparation that culminates in the premiere of his opera Waiting for the Barbarians, and engages his musical collaborators, siblings, wife, ex-wife, Woody Allen, and longtime confidant, painter Chuck Close, in revealing interviews. The man himself blithely bakes vegetarian pizza and declares he has no secrets. HDCAM video. (BS)
June 20--26
Fri. and Mon.-Thu. at 6:00 pm and 8:15 pm;
Sat. at 3:15 pm, 5:30 pm, and 7:45 pm;
Sun. at 3:00 pm and 5:15 pm
New 35mm print!
MONSIEUR VERDOUX
1947, Charles Chaplin, USA, 124 min.
With Charles Chaplin, Martha Raye
“Charlie Chaplin’s darkest, loneliest and possibly funniest film...one part slapstick, one part steely wit…an urgent work of necessary art.”--Josh Vasquez, Slant Magazine
The great Chaplin gambled with this Bluebeard-inspired black comedy based on an idea by Orson Welles, abandoning his beloved Little Tramp screen persona for the edgy character of a serial killer. Posters trumpeted “Chaplin changes! Can you?” but the result was the first box office failure of his career. This new, darker Chaplin, playing a Parisian bank clerk who lures dowagers into fatal marriage, is both funny and disturbingly sympathetic. Some of his finest late-career comedy is represented by sequences in which Verdoux’s clueless prey Annabella (Raye) escapes her fate through repeated mishaps. Sparkling, brand-new 35mm print. (BS)
June 27--July 3
Fri. and Mon.-Wed. at 6:00 pm and 8:30 pm ;
Sat. at 3:00 pm, 5:30 pm, and 8:00 pm;
Sun. at 3:00 pm and 5:30 pm;
Thu. at 6:00 pm only
[Photo credit for MONSIEUR VERDOUX:
Courtesy Roy Export Company Establishment]