Chicago premiere!
SITA SINGS THE BLUES
2008, Nina Paley, USA, 82 min.
“I am enchanted. I am swept away. I am smiling from one end of the film to the other. It is astonishingly original. It brings together four entirely separate elements and combines them into a great whimsical chord.”--Roger Ebert, SunTimes.com
“A one-woman Pixar.”--Patrick Di Justo, Wired Magazine
When cartoonist/animator Nina Paley’s husband moved to India for his job and then dumped her via e-mail, she chose a unique way of exorcising the demons: creating this delightful, marvelously creative, millennium-hopping romp through the Indian mythic story The Ramayana. Goddess Sita, a Betty-Boopish vixen with big round eyes and sumptuous curves, is also cruelly dumped by her blue-skinned husband Rama, and therein lies a tale to parallel the telling of the director’s own. Paley populates the two-pronged story with bickering shadow-puppet narrators, monsters, warriors, rival deities, and winged creatures, all punctuated by blues ballads crooned by the late Annette Hanshaw. This is surely one of the don’t-miss movies of the year. 35mm. (BS)
May 1--7
Fri. and Mon-Thu. at 6:00 pm and 7:45 pm;
Sat. at 3:00 pm, 4:45 pm, 6:30 pm, and 8:15 pm;
Sun. at 3:00 pm and 4:45 pm
Noir Goes Technicolor!
The film noir movement is usually associated with low-key black-and-white cinematography and dark city streets. We present two rarely screened cult films that demonstrate the versatility of noir by transporting its characteristic perversity into the brilliance of Technicolor and the wide-open spaces of the modern-day west. Both films are presented in newly struck 35mm prints. Special thanks to Brian Block of Criterion Pictures and Paul Ginsburg of NBC Universal.
New 35mm print!
LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN
1945, John M. Stahl, USA, 110 min.
With Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde
“Spectacular!...The most frightening film that cinema has given us about the evil of jealousy.”--Pedro Almodóvar
“Has any woman ever looked more awfully gorgeous?”--Guy Maddin
“Movies like Stahl’s were not made for TV. Their purpose unfolds only on the big screen, where the blue-velvet skies and the lethally smooth waters of LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN acquire the unquestioned clarity of a fever dream.”--Anthony Lane, The New Yorker
A novelist (Wilde) visiting New Mexico comes under the spell of a possessive young woman (Tierney, in an Oscar-nominated performance) whose major flaw is that “she loves too much.” And how! John M. Stahl’s legendary film noir boasts one of the cinema’s most chilling murder scenes, and Gene Tierney’s Ellen Harland is perhaps the most beautiful and deadly of all femmes fatales. The spectacular color design attains a nearly surreal intensity, from the incandescent red of Tierney’s painted toenails to the icy green waters of a mountain lake. 35mm. (MR)
May 8--14
Fri., Tue., and Thu. at 6:00 pm;
Sat. at 3:00 pm and 7:45 pm;
Sun. at 3:00 pm;
Mon. and Wed. at 8:00 pm
New 35mm print!
DESERT FURY
1947, Lewis Allen, USA, 96 min.
With Lizabeth Scott, Burt Lancaster
Scripted by A.I. Bezzerides (KISS ME DEADLY) and Robert Rossen (THE HUSTLER), DESERT FURY is esteemed among noirhounds for its luscious Technicolor and its perverse undertones. After being kicked out of yet another school, discontented Lizabeth Scott returns to her Nevada hometown looking for trouble. She finds it in the person of shady gambler John Hodiak, much to the dismay of torch-carrying cop Burt Lancaster and Scott’s casino-owner mom Mary Astor. Several observers have pointed out that the relationship between Scott and the tough, pants-wearing Astor seems more baby-dyke-and-butch than daughter-and-mother, while the gay subtext crackling between Hodiak and his jealous “nursemaid” Wendell Corey is so transparent that it could barely be called a subtext. 35mm. (MR)
May 8--14
Fri., Tue., and Thu. at 8:15 pm;
Sat. and Sun. at 5:15 pm;
Mon. and Wed. at 6:00 pm
Noir Goes Technicolor discount!
Buy a ticket at our regular prices to either LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN or DESERT FURY, 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. (This discount rate applies to the second film only.)
Chicago theatrical premiere!
LAILA’S BIRTHDAY
(EID MILAD LAILA)
2008, Rashid Masharawi, Palestine/Tunisia/Netherlands, 72 min.
With Mohamed Bakri, Areen Omari
“A brilliant fusion of road movie, family drama, cinema of the absurd, and sociological expose.”--Howard Feinstein, Screen Daily
“Mohamed Bakri has a dour, proper face built for comedy. He looks like Buster Keaton and moves through the dusty, ramshackle setting with the fastidiousness of Chaplin’s Little Tramp.”--Cameron Bailey, Toronto International Film Festival program
Director Masharawi (CURFEW, TICKET TO JERUSALEM) mines a rich vein of absurdity in this chronicle of one chaotic day in the life of a Palestinian taxi driver. Abu Laila (Bakri), a former judge forced by bureaucratic tangles to temporarily drive a cab, sets out impeccably dressed in a suit on the morning of his daughter’s seventh birthday, primed to score a cake and a gift by day’s end. Little does Abu realize, he has just entered The Twilight Zone Palestinian-style, and the universe means to thwart him. It all begins with a passenger’s lost cell phone. In Arabic with English subtitles. DigiBeta video. (BS)
May 15--21
Fri. and Mon.-Thu. at 6:15 pm and 7:45 pm;
Sat. at 3:15 pm, 4:45 pm, 6:15 pm, and 8:00 pm;
Sun. at 3:15 pm and 4:45 pm
First Chicago run!
FADOS
2007, Carlos Saura, Portugal/Spain, 88 min.
With Mariza, Camané, Carlos do Carmo, Chico Buarque, Lila Downs, Caetano Veloso.
“An orgy for the eyes and ears.”--Ed Gonzalez, Slant Magazine
“Seductive and beautifully made, it could be the date movie of the year for performing-arts fans.”--John DeFore, The Hollywood Reporter
In SEVILLANAS, FLAMENCO, and IBERIA, Carlos Saura perfected a genre that could be called the album film: plot-free spectacles that showcase a particular musical style by gathering its greatest performers into a studio where song, dance, and instrumental numbers are given highly stylized interpretations. Now Saura explores fado--the soulful, sensual Portuguese music sometimes compared to the American blues. As in his previous album films, Saura ingeniously deploys mirrors, flats, back projections, lighting effects, and lush colors to conjure an expressive frame for each song, ranging from a campfire ringed by sinuous dancers to a balletic catfight between two jealous women to a thrilling desgarrada (musical duel) in a smoky tavern. In Portuguese with English subtitles. 35mm. (MR)
May 22--28
Fri., Tue., and Thu. at 6:00 pm and 7:45 pm;
Sat. at 3:15 pm and 7:45 pm;
Sun. at 3:15 pm, 7:00 pm, and 8:45 pm;
Mon. at 3:15 pm and 5:00 pm;
Wed. at 6:00 pm only
Chicago premiere!
RIFFRAFF
2008, Justen Naughton, USA, 106 min.
With Ben Wells, Robert Belushi, Chryssie Whitehead, Katie O’Hagan
Horny guys on the make, babes in bikinis, beer, and more beer: spring break in Acapulco? No, it’s Chicago’s own North Avenue beach, where a coed crew of park district lifeguards headed by best friends Hughie (Wells) and Otis (Belushi) rules the waves in a story more than a little akin in attitude, brashness, and hilarious profanity to Mamet’s classic Sexual Perversity in Chicago. Over the course of one summer, team spirit gives away to hopping hormones as uninhibited Maggie (O’Hagan) and reserved May (Whitehead) become the catalysts for hot-headed rivalry in love. DigiBeta video. (BS)
Writer/director Justen Naughton and selected members of the cast and crew will be present for audience discussion at the 8:00 Friday, 8:00 Saturday, and 3:00 Sunday screenings. Come in your lifeguard gear Monday through Thursday and get in for only $7! Monday at 8:30 is Lifeguard Costume Night with prizes for best costumes!
May 29--June 4
Fri. at 8:00 pm;
Sat. at 3:00 pm, 5:30 pm, and 8:00 pm;
Sun. at 3:00 pm and 5:30 pm;
Mon.-Thu. at 6:00 pm and 8:30 pm
New 35mm print!
DILLINGER IS DEAD
(DILLINGER È MORTO)
1969, Marco Ferreri, Italy, 90 min.
With Michel Piccoli, Anita Pallenberg
“40 years later, DILLINGER IS DEAD can still send an audience startled and scintillated into the night.”--Scott Foundas, Village Voice
“Ferreri’s movie remains a loaded gun...Piccoli is typically brilliant.”--Jason Jude Chan, flavorwire
Along with Dusan Makavejev and Nagisa Oshima, Marco Ferreri was one of the top transgressive filmmakers of the 1970s, when his gorgefest LA GRANDE BOUFFE and his castration drama THE LAST WOMAN packed them in at art houses. However, Ferreri’s first major provocation, DILLINGER IS DEAD, remained undistributed in the U.S. until a newly struck print was circulated this year by Janus Films. The film stars Michel Piccoli (CONTEMPT, BELLE DE JOUR) in a tour-de-force performance as a gas-mask manufacturer whose proto-JEANNE DIELMAN domestic routine is disrupted by a sticky-sweet encounter with the maid (Annie Girardot) and the discovery of a gun that might have belonged to John Dillinger. The climax is shocking (one would expect no less from Ferreri), and the coda is inscrutably idyllic. In Italian with English subtitles. 35mm. (MR)
May 29--June 4
Fri., Tue., and Thu. at 6:15 pm;
Sat. at 3:15 pm and 7:45 pm;
Sun. at 5:15 pm;
Mon. and Wed. at 8:00 pm
Chicago premiere!
COURTING CONDI
2008, Sebastian Doggart, USA, 107 min.
“The first-ever musical docu-tragi-comedy…highly creative.”--Betty Jo Tucker, Reel Talk
“Witty, poetic and informative. It’s amazing how much of Rice’s life story is in the film.”--Marcus Mabry, The New York Times
When Devin Ratray (a child actor in HOME ALONE 2) realizes he is in love with Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, he does what any red-blooded guy would do: he records songs in her honor, then stalks her and makes a film about it. In a film that is part mockumentary, part biopic, and part self-satirizing bellows of a moose in heat, director Doggart (Project Runway) follows Ratray’s detailed obsession with every aspect of Condi’s life, beginning with a now-abandoned Birmingham delivery room, and moving on to Denver, Stanford, and Washington. Meanwhile, familiarity breeds something more like disillusionment, and Ratray begins to discover that his idol may have feet of clay. DigiBeta video. (BS)
There will be a discussion with director Sebastian Doggart via speakerphone following the 8:15 pm screening on Friday, May 29.