Weeklong Runs
Chicago premiere!
LOUISE BOURGEOIS: THE SPIDER, THE MISTRESS AND THE TANGERINE
2008, Marion Cajori and Amei Wallach, USA, 99 min.
“Art world iconoclast, feminist icon, cranky old Frenchwoman with a sharp tongue and a gothic family history: artist and sculptor Louise Bourgeois is all these things and more.”--Ken Fox, TV Guide
“Reveals much about this haunting and haunted master.”--Nathan Lee, The New York Times
No ordinary art documentary, this film allows its subject, peppery, breathtakingly prolific 96-year-old sculptor Louise Bourgeois, to command the screen. Command it she does, with gripping tales of her profligate father’s dalliance with the nanny and similar childhood traumas that have become fodder for her art, including the trademark monumental spider inspired by her imperious mother. Bourgeois takes viewers on an intimate journey through her creative process in a manner that is not just fresh but raw. The outsized impact of the artist’s work in the world is portrayed by following the installation of her towering three-part piece “I Do, I Undo, I Redo” at London’s Tate Modern. DigiBeta video. (BS)
October 3--9
Fri., Mon., and Wed. at 8:00 pm;
Sat. at 4:45 pm and 8:30 pm;
Sun. at 3:15 pm;
Tue. and Thu. at 6:00 pm
Two-film discount! Buy a ticket to either LOUISE BOURGEOIS or A MAN NAMED PEARL and get a ticket to any performance of the other film at this discount rate (tickets must be purchased at the same time): General Admission $7; Students $5; Members $4.
Chicago premiere!
A MAN NAMED PEARL
2006, Scott Galloway and Brent Pierson, USA, 78 min.
“As much a portrait of a small Southern town as of an unassuming black folk artist.”--Jeanette Catsoulis, The New York Times
The monumental, abstract, wildly undulating topiary art of self-taught horticulturist Pearl Fryar have made him world famous and put his struggling South Carolina town on the map. It’s the sweetest way to have the last word for this son of a sharecropper who was once prevented from buying a home in a white neighborhood because “black people don’t keep up their yards.” An obsessed, manic worker whose living sculptures have been aptly termed “Gaudi-esque,” Fryar never ceases shaping and grooming his beloved creations while the filmmakers track the history and impact of his message of “love, peace & goodwill” through greenery. 35mm. (BS)
October 3--9
Fri., Mon,. and Wed. at 6:15 pm;
Sat. at 3:00 pm and 6:45 pm;
Sun. at 5:15 pm;
Tue. and Thu. at 8:00 pm
Two-film discount! Buy a ticket to either LOUISE BOURGEOIS or A MAN NAMED PEARL and get a ticket to any performance of the other film at this discount rate (tickets must be purchased at the same time): General Admission $7; Students $5; Members $4.
Chicago premiere!
FLOW: FOR LOVE OF WATER
2008, Irena Salina, USA, 93 min.
“Envisioning a day when water and not oil is the planet’s most valuable limited resource.”--Sam Adams, Philadelphia City Paper
“A wake-up call to safeguard the planet’s most essential resource…shows how activists and scientists are challenging water profiteering.”--Justin Lowe, The Hollywood Reporter
An exposé essential to anyone who drinks water, FLOW doesn’t soften the facts that pour from inquiries into the environmental crises that place water supplies around the world in dire danger. While Americans spend an estimated $9 billion on bottled water annually, much of it merely treated tap water, citizens of developing nations remain at the mercy of profiteering corporations that hold clean water hostage, forced to buy or risk the consequences of drawing on sources heavily polluted by industrial and agricultural waste. Director Salina sounds the alarm most effectively while detailing the growth of global awareness and activism. 35mm. (BS)
October 10--16
Fri., Mon., Tue., and Thu. at 6:00 pm and 8:00 pm;
Sat. at 3:15 pm, 5:15 pm, and 7:45 pm;
Sun. at 3:15 pm and 5:15 pm;
Wed. at 8:00 pm only
MOVING MIDWAY
2007, Godfrey Cheshire, USA, 98 min.
“A rich, heartfelt document about people dealing with the legacy inescapably embedded in their DNA.”--Fernando F. Croce, Slant Magazine
A ghost in the attic and skeletons in the closet figure in this very personal chronicle that revolves around a North Carolina family relocating the cherished mansion-house of their long-ago plantation to make way for a strip mall. While Southern roots are temporarily uprooted, new branches sprout on the family tree when the moving process becomes the catalyst for introducing the family to the African American descendants of their ancestor’s previously unknown liaison with a slave. Director Cheshire, better known as a film critic, looks at the myths and iconography surrounding the much-romanticized Old South, influenced not least of all by movies including BIRTH OF A NATION, GONE WITH THE WIND, and the miniseries ROOTS. 35mm. (BS)
October 17--23
Fri. and Mon.-Thu. at 6:00 pm and 8:00 pm;
Sat. at 3:15 pm, 5:15 pm, and 7:45 pm;
Sun. at 3:15 pm and 5:15 pm
First Chicago run!
LONDON TO BRIGHTON
2006, Paul Andrew Williams, UK, 85 min.
With Lorraine Stanley, Johnny Harris
“A 120-degree proof thriller...it’s the best British film of the year.”--Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
“After so many LOCK, STOCK clones, this single-handedly reinvents the British crime movie--it’s an urban noir with a heart of gold and balls of steel.”--Alan Morrison, Empire
This tour-de-force thriller opens with two girls in full flight and never lets up. The fugitives in question are a veteran prostitute and a 12-year-old newcomer; as they take cover in the seedy side of Brighton, we learn why a ruthless pimp with a shotgun is hot on their trail. Williams, in his first feature, deftly combines mixes Loach/Leigh social realism with Brit gangster flash à la SEXY BEAST and the elemental suspense of a D.W. Griffith cliffhanger. 35mm widescreen. (MR)
October 24--30
Fri. at 6:15 pm;
Sat. at 3:15 pm and 7:45 pm;
Sun. at 5:15 pm;
Mon. and Wed. at 6:00 pm;
Tue. and Thu. at 8:00 pm
Two-film discount! Buy a ticket to either LONDON TO BRIGHTON or THE TIGER’S TAIL and get a ticket to any performance of the other film at this discount rate (tickets must be purchased at the same time): General Admission $7; Students $5; Members $4.
First Chicago run!
THE TIGER’S TAIL
2006, John Boorman, Ireland, 107 min.
Brendan Gleeson, Kim Cattrall, Sinéad Cusack
“The director’s most appealing entry since THE GENERAL…The age-old premise of lookalikes who exchange lives feels fresh and springy here.”--Deborah Young, Variety
“Gleeson delivers a bravura performance.”--Amber Wilkinson, Eye for Film
A marvelously versatile Brendan Gleeson (THE GENERAL) pulls off two demanding roles in this fable set in a Dublin awash in luxuries in the wake of Ireland’s economic boom. Liam O’Leary (Gleeson) is a bullheaded self-made developer on the brink of his biggest triumph when a snarling homeless man who could be a figment of his imagination--or his twin brother--comes into his life. The slickest of identity thieves soon leaves the man who has it all on the outside looking in, but the dark secrets of family, money, and conscience are yet to be revealed. 35mm. (BS)
October 24--30
Fri. at 8:00 pm;
Sat. at 5:00 pm;
Sun. at 3:00 pm;
Mon. and Wed. at 7:45 pm;
Tue. and Thu. at 6:00 pm
Two-film discount! Buy a ticket to either LONDON TO BRIGHTON or THE TIGER’S TAIL and get a ticket to any performance of the other film at this discount rate (tickets must be purchased at the same time): General Admission $7; Students $5; Members $4.
Chicago premiere!
THE UNIVERSE OF KEITH HARING
2007, Christine Clausen, Italy/France, 82 min.
Keith Haring was a protean artist who, in less than ten years of feverish activity, produced a prodigious output that lived up to his motto, “Art is for everyone!” His work ranged from explicit raunch to church murals, from highbrow institutions to playground walls to body art, all imprinted with one of the most dazzling and distinctive styles of any modern artist. Employing on-the-spot video footage (including amazing records of Haring’s lightning-fast working methods) and interviews with friends, family, and icons (Yoko Ono, Fab 5 Freddy, Junior Vasquez, Bill T. Jones), director Clausen captures both Haring’s ebullient personality and the 1980s cultural ferment that shaped his art, including the Mudd Club, graffiti, hip hop, and the AIDS crisis. DigiBeta video. (MR)
October 31--November 6
Fri., Mon., and Wed. at 6:15 pm;
Sat. at 3:00 pm and 6:30 pm;
Sun. at 5:00 pm;
Tue. and Thu. at 8:00 pm
Two-film discount! Buy a ticket to either THE UNIVERSE OF KEITH HARING or OBSCENE and get a ticket to any performance of the other film at this discount rate (tickets must be purchased at the same time): General Admission $7; Students $5; Members $4.
Chicago premiere!
OBSCENE
2007, Neil Ortenberg and Daniel O’Connor, USA, 90 min.
The filmmakers assert, “Barney Rosset is the greatest American publisher of the twentieth century and the most influential cultural figure you never heard of.” As owner of Grove Press, Rosset was in the front line of the cultural battleground of the 1950s and 1960s. He was the first American publisher of Samuel Beckett, Che Guevara, Malcolm X, and many others. He expanded the First Amendment in landmark (and ruinously expensive) obscenity cases involving “Howl,” Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Tropic of Cancer, Naked Lunch, and I AM CURIOUS (YELLOW). The lively list of talking heads includes Amiri Baraka, Jim Carroll, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Al Goldstein, Erica Jong, Ray Manzarek, Ed Sanders, John Sayles, Gore Vidal, and John Waters, but they cannot overshadow the electric presence of Rosset himself, still zealous and contentious in his eighties. DigiBeta video. (MR)
October 31--November 6
Fri., Mon., and Wed. at 8:00 pm;
Sat. at 4:45 pm and 8:15 pm;
Sun. at 3:15 pm;
Tue. and Thu. at 6:15 pm
Two-film discount! Buy a ticket to either THE UNIVERSE OF KEITH HARING or OBSCENE and get a ticket to any performance of the other film at this discount rate (tickets must be purchased at the same time): General Admission $7; Students $5; Members $4.
Chicago premiere!
LOVE COMES LATELY
2007, Jan Schütte, USA/Germany/Austria, 86 min.
With Otto Tausig, Rhea Perlman, Barbara Hershey
“Sweetly transporting.”--Ruth Graham, The New York Sun
“Atmospheric, exhilaratingly ambitious.”--Ella Taylor, Village Voice
Three stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer, “The Briefcase,” “Alone,” and “Old Love,” come to life and flow seamlessly into one another in the form of the saucily romantic dreams and fantasies of aging writer Max Cohn (Tausig) en route to a humdrum gig on the college lecture circuit. Something of a babe magnet despite his advancing years, Max’s imagination remains stoked by his libido. The alter ego lothario of his reveries is propositioned by a motel maid, has a nostalgic fling with a former student (Hershey), and infallibly ignites lust in the hearts of ladies of a certain age. His paramours are superbly cast, including Perlman as the long-suffering girlfriend, Elizabeth Peña as the maverick maid, Hershey as a luscious indulgence, and Tovah Feldshuh as a lonely widow. 35mm. (BS)