Ghost Anthology: A History of Argentine Experimental Film (Experimental)

Conversations at the Edge at the Gene Siskel Film Center - Thursday 6pm
Presented entirely from Super 8, this is likely the only opportunity many in Chicago will ever have to see some of the best works from Argentina's prolific experimental film community. Organized by filmmaker Pablo Marín, this showcase provides a glimpse into a group of filmmakers whose work shows a dedication to capturing small gestures, and a whimsy not always present in the avant-garde. One of the highlights is Narcisa Hirsch's TESTAMENTO Y VIDA INTERIOR (1976, 11 min), almost a home-movie performance, featuring four other filmmakers carrying a coffin through the streets of Buenos Aires. Amateur, but not comical, these elegant figures in top hats carry out a jovial wake past parks and stores, and we're not quite sure how they feel about the symbolism of what they're doing. Where Hirsch's work (in this case, at least) owes more to the lyrical vein of the Experimental tradition, both Claudio Caldini's GAMELAN (1981, 12 min) and Gabriel Romano's UNTITLED (1982, 5 min) are working with the materialism of film and camera. Caldini's work begins as a frenetic swoosh of vertical lines in the frame, occasionally curving towards the sides. As this swooshing slows down, it becomes apparent that the camera is being swung at the end of a rope, a fitting metaphor for movement in cinema. Romano's film, discovered after his passing, illuminates the physicality of celluloid, and is a gorgeous pastiche of color and texture as the image is altered through melting and scratching. Not to be confused with a summary of filmmaking from Argentina in the past 35 years, this is a worthy primer, and it should be a treat to see it projected in its original format. Also screening: PASSACAGLIA Y FUGA (Jorge Honik and Laura Abel, 1976, 18 min), ESPECTRO (Sergio Subero, 2010, 9 min), EL QUILPO SUEÑA CATARATAS (Horacio Vallereggio, 2012, 8 min), and TRISTE (Horacio Vallereggio, 1976, Super 8, Sound, 4min). (1976-2013, approx. 75 min total, Super-8mm) JH

James Benning's EASY RIDER + Secret Screening

(New Experimental)
The Nightingale (1084 N. Milwaukee Ave.) - Friday, 8pm
Borrowing both the title and locations from the iconic 1969 film, the comparisons between James Benning's and Dennis Hopper's films end there. Following a formula for landscape films that he's used for some time, Benning's static camera captures elegant frames, as he loosely follows the same route of Wyatt and Billy through New Mexico and New Orleans. Each take in this version is timed out to equal the length of a single scene in the original movie and, with some notable exceptions, it works to remind one of the energy of the original, and serve as a comment on contemporary America. Unlike much of Benning's recent work, the synchronous sound in these long takes is occasionally supplanted by non-diegetic music--four recent indie rock tunes by female vocalists--as well as dialogue from the movie. As a mood and space changer, this works, but it also comes off as canned. Much of the frustration in a feature-length Benning work comes from the tightly structured length of each delicate composition, and it can feel that there is no counterpoint within the rhythm of each shot. Change does happen, and there is a nice usage of off-screen sound to create anticipation for cars, trains, and other objects passing through our scene. Some of these cues result in a lovely payoff, others never materialize on-screen, and still others happen eventually, but lack the cathartic impact that was promised. Flaws aside, there is a meditation on the change in America since Hopper's EASY RIDER was originally released, a meditation on the lost promise of a mass-underground movement, and a lament for the derelict in society, both as landscapes and characters. EASY RIDER will be followed by a screening of a film about Pussy Riot and Voina whose title can't be listed. (2012, 95 min, Digital File) JH

Surveillance, Protest, Spectacle: Films by Michael Vass and Jem Cohen

(Experimental Documentary)
The Nightingale (1084 N. Milwaukee Ave.) - Saturday, 8pm
The street-theater of a good protest should, through its very nature, provide a rich allegory for the systems it rails against and rich contrast to the street-theater of collective celebration that takes place outside any major sporting event. Yet both forms of spectacle can render control over an audience so absolutely that their will to object is taken away and a de facto participation results, merely through the act of observing. This intersection is central to Michael Vass' VANCOUVER #1-13 (NOTES FOR A REPORT…) (2012, 60 min, HD Video Projection), which uses the critical distance of a fictional intelligence-agent-as-narrator to weave a self-reflexive essay about the disparate goals of protesters and drunken revelers, while visually highlighting the many behavioral similarities between the two groups. Often relying on footage with a crisp and well-intentioned handheld aesthetic, Vass initially guides the viewer toward a left-wing interpretation of both the arrest of protesters during the 2010 G20 meeting in Toronto and the early public gatherings during Vancouver's Winter Olympics. However, as the "agent" assigned to view the "confiscated" tapes of a protester proceeds to analyze the motivations of the cameraperson in ever-greater detail, Vass' own perspective becomes increasingly less clear. While the structure is not a direct route to an essay film, the major point is to provide documentation of these two events through simultaneous objective and subjective lenses, highlighting the unseen hand of the artist in this process. The film questions the morality of street videography, both literally and figuratively, and conveys skepticism of direct documentation's ability to give agency to the protest filmmaker. Although uneven and, by its narrator's admission, ambiguous in its policy statement, it ultimately succeeds in using distanced intimacy to contextualize two events that represent opposite poles of living in a globalized world. Shorter in length but still great in impact are two brief videos by Jem Cohen, GRAVITY HILL NEWSREEL NO. 2 and GRAVITY HILL NEWSRELL NO. 4 (each 2011, 4 min, HD Video). These portraits of the Occupy Wall Street gatherings of 2011 are visually stunning and poetic in their construction and repetition. Equally ambiguous about the prospects of the protesters, they also place the filmmaker's conflicted emotions near the surface. Michael Vass in person. JH

Films by PHIL SOLOMON (Experimental)

Doc Films (University of Chicago) - Sunday, 7pm
The experimental cinema work of Phil Solomon is obsessed with the dark, the night, the past, and the lost. Reworking found images, he draws forth worlds that are epic and personal, historical and specific. Though he has branched out in recent years to produce machinima videos and multi-channel installation work, this selection of celluloid work represents the best of his output from the '80s and early '90s. NOCTURNE (1980, 10 min) remains a masterwork of post-structuralist film with its attention to rhythmic editing and mix of distanced original and personalized appropriated imagery. Often evoking the night bombings of London during WWII, nighttime cinematography of domestic scenes creates a landscape of America that is more Lynch than Brakhage. About THE SECRET GARDEN (1988, 23 min), U. of C's Tom Gunning wrote, "there is the shadow of a story here, one which deals with the passage from innocence and experience and invokes equally terror and ecstasy." A maturing cinematic voice is present in the abstraction here, blurring layers of movement into a single stream of subconsciousness. In the start of what would become a signature visual element of Solomon's films, THE EXQUISITE HOUR (1989/1994, 14 min) and REMAINS TO BE SEEN (1989/1994, 17 min) are living, crackling, bubbling, blistering memories, growing off the screen in a an almost tangible surface texture. Chemically treated and optically printed, home movies both inherited and acquired become a meditation on the passage of life, the pain of losing loved ones, the cruelty of loss.
(1980-94, 64 min total, 16mm) JH

Bill Morrison's THE GREAT FLOOD (Experimental/Special Event)

Chicago Symphony Orchestra's Symphony Center - Friday, 8pm
There are documents embedded in archives, and within those documents is embedded the magic of memory. Although the footage mined by Bill Morrison in this film radiates from the Mississippi river floods of 1927, the mythology of its cascading effect is what fascinates him. Moving across the entire landscape and influence of the great river—from cotton farm to tiny town, from delta mud to Chicago concrete—the score by Bill Frisell and his quartet never steal the scene while gently pulling us through. While the visuals, culled from a laundry list of archival resources, bring us back to the lives of people 90 years ago, it is the Americana Jazz that ties it all together. Largely avoiding the damaged footage featured in his most famous work, DECASIA, Morrison presents the river as the primary character throughout much of the first half of the film. But as people carry their belongings, and themselves, away from the raging water, they become the focus, and the massive effort of human labor is forefront. The film concludes with three sections about Chicago, emphasizing the role that this natural disaster played in the Great Migration. The first of these is a long take of parishioners exiting the Friendship Baptist Church in a steady stream, the most blatant of allegories. The second brings us along for the trip as countless people hitch a ride on the rails, destined for a new life up north. The final scene is a beautiful counterpoint to the hypnotic score, with lively and intimate shots of African-American musicians picking frenetically at guitars. First on an acoustic, then a shiny steel-bodied early electric, before finishing with scenes from patrons dancing at cramped juke joints of yesteryear. And all the while, the slowest and lushest rendition of "Old Man River" you'll ever hear fills the background. History and memory have merged. The Bill Frisell Quartet will accompany this screening. (2011, 80 min, HD File Projection) JH

Magnificat: Films by Pat O'Neill (Experimental)

Chicago Filmmakers (at the Second Unitarian Church of Chicago, 656 W. Barry Ave.) - Friday, 8:30pm
Any screening of Pat O'Neill's work is work checking out, but placing his beautiful, repetitive, and glowing images inside the walls of a church makes the experience extra special. Working with a combination of animation, optical printing, fragments of found footage, and his own precise cinematography, O'Neill delights in the absurd juxtapositions of life. His films have a wit that is often lacking in an artist of such technical mastery, and invite the viewer to be both absorbed into the psychedelic glow of matted outlines on the screen and delight in the skewering of consumerism and the construct of urban/suburban sprawl for which his hometown of Los Angeles is known. Covering much of his filmic output during the 1970s, this collection of shorts marries his imagery to the familiar sounds of movie soundtrack explosions, fragments of seemingly random speech ("they injected a bubble into my brain at that time...") and pop music from a banjo rendition of "Dixie" to the needle drop of T-Rex's IS IT LOVE. This audio-visual combination not only provides fluidity and contrast, it adds to the sardonic nature of his work. Films screening: DOWN WIND (1973), LAST OF THE PERSIMMONS (1972), SAUGUS SERIES (1974), SIDEWINDERS DELTA (1976), and RUNS GOOD (1971). (1971-76, 74 min total, 16mm)  JH

Elaine May's MIKEY AND NICKY (American Revival)

Block Cinema (Northwestern University) - Friday, 7pm

Letting Peter Falk (Mikey) and John Cassavetes (Nicky) run wild on film can be a dangerous proposition. Sure, Cassavetes got away with it as a director, but he financed his own movies. After shooting 1.4 million feet of film while running 3 cameras at once, Elaine May was understandably over budget and the studio was understandably disappointed. Paramount buried the film after a short run, and it would be 12 more years until she would direct again (ISHTAR). Although panned by critics at the time, May's approach yielded a nuanced portrait of the male ego and of Downtown LA that has rarely been matched. The 2 close-ups and a master approach to cinematography was effective, albeit listless, in generating a claustrophobic world – a structure largely controlled during May's lengthy editing process. Although the two leads play low-level LA gangsters, they may as well be any of Cassavetes' standard protagonists: cornered by their jobs and social circumstances, and long past fighting to break out of them. We know the hero isn't going to win by the end of the first reel, and we know that he's not much of a hero by the end of the second. But watching May's collaboration with two great method actors in their prime is worth savoring until the credits roll. (1976, 119 min, 35mm) JH - cine-file.info

John Cassavetes' LOVE STREAMS (American Revival)

Block Cinema (Northwestern University) - Friday, 7pm
John Cassavetes' final film, LOVE STREAMS, is both his most fully realized in its portrayal of the fallacy of human connection and his most conventional in cinematic style. Working in front of the camera for the last time, he once again cast his wife Gena Rowlands in the female lead—a fitting public bow for their long collaboration. They play Robert and Sarah, a dysfunctional brother and sister—he's never learned to love and she loves too much—who lean on each other as their lives fall apart. LOVE STREAMS lacks anything that could be called an exposition despite the heaviest use of non-diegetic music and the only use of dream sequences in any of Cassavetes' work. We are dropped into the lives of an aging, drunk, womanizing, and wealthy writer and his clinically depressed, soon-to-be divorced sister, initially by following them separately on parallel paths and downward trajectories. Each sibling has a child that they make a genuine but clumsy attempt to bond with, but ultimately they prove unfit as parents. Sarah shows up on Robert's doorstep just as he's taking the 8 year-old son he's never met before on a weekend bender to Las Vegas. When he returns without his son, Cassavetes and Rowlands are left to act out the end of this tragedy. The story is somewhat secondary here, though, as the film functions as a recap of Cassavetes' previous directorial themes. Cassavetes' lonely artist is colored by a splash of personal regret (he had already been diagnosed with the liver cirrhosis that would kill him five years later). His sister, on the other hand, echoes the absurdist antics that Cassavetes was known for as a younger man, going further and further to keep everything cheery in the face of her own depression. Using one last script from her husband to show just what an amazing actress she is, Rowlands continually makes us forget her character's mental instability, only to unleash it again like a tantrum. For any fan of his films the use of Cassavetes and Rowlands' home as the primary set is both comforting and distressing. In color, we see all the rich, dark wood on the walls and the clutter of years filling up each room, scribbling the scent of John’s physical decline on every frame. As his life was coming to a close, Cassavetes seemed willing to yield a little of his standard formal difficulty in order to be understood more clearly. What he would not yield, though, was an insistence that Hollywood sold the public a false bill of goods regarding love and marriage. It is through understanding the pain of life that Cassavetes depicts on the screen that we gain greater appreciation for the joys of our own lives off it, not the other way around. (1984, 141 min, 35mm) JH - cine-file.info

Blake Edward's BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S (American Revival)

Music Box — Sunday, 2pm
With one of the most well known plots in movie history, it is the more insidious aspects of this romantic favorite that lend it an enduring appeal. In the popular imagination neither Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn) nor Paul Varjak (George Peppard) are remembered for how they pay their rent. To face facts, each of them is a kept person, accepting money from dates or steady lovers. Therein lies much of the appeal of these two characters, who eventually fall in love. Neither is perfect but they have big dreams. They use hope to get through today and to forget the past. Emblematic of this existence is the character of Cat, Holly's rice-paper-thin-metaphor of an orange tabby. Content when given a saucer of milk and happy to stay for some fun, this pet demands no commitments and wouldn't notice them anyway. As much a film about the masks we use to face the world as it is about love (which never really comes), it's fitting that Cat ends up being tossed from a cab into the pouring rain. Untethered and free is fun to a point, but only in the movies do the girl and the boy come back for a kiss, and rescue the sloppy and matted Cat from the downpour. (1961, 115 min, unconfirmed format) JH - Cine-File.info

Lizzie Borden's BORN IN FLAMES (American Revival)

White Light Cinema and The Nightingale at Cinema Borealis (1550 N. Milwaukee Ave., 4th Floor) - Saturday, 7pm
With a concept, style, and politics that are still radical and relevant, Lizzie Borden's 1983 film gets a revival screening that is long overdue. Railing against the patriarchal and racist structures that remained in even the most progressive corners of American Society after the '60s and '70s, we are thrust into a feature length narrative of critique. Borden is able to place her ideology front and center, but also let the story sneak up around it. Embracing the gritty look of both 16mm film and the more battered parts of New York City in the early '80s, and combining them with an objective camera, she uses her low-budget as a storytelling asset. The world in which the anarchist movement dubbed the Women's Army carries out its counterrevolutionary campaign of pirate radio and direct action is rendered complete through a skillful combination of narrative and documentary modes. Artificial news clips about the progress of the current Socialist government and covert operations of the Women's Army's are mixed with observational shots of unemployed men and women on the streets, and we are constantly reminded of the veiled nature of the allegory. Other fictional scenes feel like we're watching the unedited negotiations between rival factions in a civil war as shot by an embedded cameraperson. When the pirate radio DJ—who acts as the film's voiceover—declares that the true nature of socialism is constant revolution, it seems a natural reinforcement of the film's message, rather than a didactic add-on. Managing to tow the line between preaching and pandering is not an easy task when taking on the very fiber of our society, and rarely has a film done it with such ease. The screening will be introduced by SAIC grad student Beth Capper. (1983, 90 min, 16mm) JH - Cine-File.info

Perry Henzell's THE HARDER THEY COME (Jamaican Revival)

Doc Films (University of Chicago) - Thursday, 9:45pm
Too often dismissed as "that Jimmy Cliff film," it might be overlooked that this 1972 slum-gangster click cum star-vehicle was the first feature to be made in Jamaica by Jamaicans, and is a heck of a smart story. Loosely based on the true story of Rhygin, a '50s era outlaw folk hero, alongside elements taken from Cliff's own life, the film mixes pop and politics to capture the emerging identity of the post-colonial Caribbean nation and the structural struggles that its people faced. Violent and self-reflexive, the scenes of destitute poverty in the Kingston slums stand in contrast to the pockets of wealth where Ivan (Jimmy Cliff) begs for work upon his arrival from the country. Finding no opportunities, the plight of many in the third world is captured as Cliff digs through the garbage at Kingston's landfill alongside real people who were scavenging for their daily subsistence. He turns to a preacher in the ghetto for help, and is offered employment, but not respect. This affords the subplot containing high-energy scenes of a poor Baptist congregation, its choir singing and dancing with palpable emotion so real it's hard to discern the actors from the extras. Wearing out his welcome with the preacher, Ivan leaves and gets the chance to cut a record, only to find out that he has to sign away the rights if he wants it released. His exploitation almost complete, he takes a job trafficking marijuana, and becomes an outlaw. Just as his song is starting to get radio play, he shoots a cop and as he goes on the lamb. He tries to flee the country, but the film hurtles towards a finale where the hero will be gunned down before he can escape the cycle of poverty for a shot in the US. The movie also features a soundtrack that's a who's who of the Reggae world (sans Bob Marley) and served as a primary vehicle for the worldwide popularization the music. A fitting film for an art that was itself a social and political movement. Though not particularly well received upon its release, THE HARDER THEY COME has aged well, and remains a benchmark in post-colonial cinema. (1972, 120 min, 35mm) JH - Cine-File.info

Tim Burton's EDWARD SCISSORHANDS (American Revival)

Music Box — Monday-Tuesday, Dec. 19-20, Check venue website for showtimes
After the success of BATMAN, Tim Burton was able pull out all the stops for this surreal take on teenage suburban isolation, and got twice the budget that was originally planned. Often referred to as his masterpiece, this contemporary fairy tale vacillates between story elements straight out of a Universal horror film and a stylized set of pastel tract homes, emphasizing Burton's mixed feelings about the American middle class lifestyle. Based on drawings Burton made while growing up in Burbank, where he struggled to keep friends and often retreated into his painting and stop-motion animation, Johnny Depp's portrayal of the meek and scarred Edward is amongst his finest performances. Notable for his character's economy of dialogue and cautious demeanor, the meek and scarred Edward is the incomplete construction of a deceased inventor, played by Vincent Price. Emotionally stunted from his "father's" death but bursting with creativity, our hero stands in for every adolescent who would rather be left alone to make art than conform in order to make friends. Dianne West is wonderful as the Avon Lady who finds Edward in the abandoned mansion on a hill, and takes him home to join the cookie cutter enclave below. Frightened by his outward appearance but seeing the gentle prince underneath, her motherly efforts to integrate him into the conservative town are doomed from the start. But, there is magic in both of their hearts, and eye-candy galore for us. (1990, 105 min, 35mm) JH - Cine-File.info

BILL & TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE (American Revival)

Music Box — Friday and Saturday (11/25 and 11/26), Midnight
This buddy comedy about two California teenagers (Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves) trying to make up for lost academic time is both dated and, well, excellent. Faced with the prospect of failing History class and Ted being shipped to military school, the pair of wannabe rock stars is visited by a mysterious figure from the future (George Carlin). He gives them a time machine disguised as a telephone booth, and they go on something of a road trip through the past to collect historical figures for a last-chance final project. Stops in ancient Greece, Napoleonic France, the Wild West, and the Mongol Empire show a simplification of events the target audience (12-18 year old males) could easily relate to. But, from this boiling down of history to the "important truths," the film gets its biggest laughs with a collision of historical stereotypes and 80s suburban staples. Knowing Napoleon only as a "short, dead dude," we get blindsided by the ridiculous image of him wearing a bib while conquering "the single greatest ice cream spectacle known to man" and battling lines at the local water park. Inevitably, the pair manages to overcome familiar teenage obstacles (house chores and the cops), make it to school on time, and give a rock star presentation with the help of their new friends. These dudes are dumb, but they're so harmless you have to root when they get inspired. The first in what would turn out to be a line of slacker pairs to grace the big screen as the 90s began, it is a clever little film about just getting by, and doing it in style. (1989, 90 min, 35mm) JH - Cine-File.info

John Landis' AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON (American Revival)

Terror in the Aisles 9 at the Portage Theater - Friday 9pm
Maybe a little too funny for hard-core Horror fans, and a little too creepy for your average moviegoer, this might be the best werewolf film ever made. Sparse on bloodshed, Landis' tale of a college-aged American who gets infected by a lycan while backpacking through the moors of Scotland has aged quite well. We don't get bogged down with too much "legend of the beast" talk, and the love story between David (David Naughton) and his nurse (Jenny Agutter) fits naturally into the plot. Killed in the original werewolf attack, David's friend Jack (Griffin Dunne) appears as a mauled and decomposing corpse who warns him that at the next full moon he will change into an animal. Much of the film's humor is derived from this continual repetition of a chummy but stern berating delivered by the progressively-less-flesh-covered apparition. Some of the film comes out of left field, and the ending is a bit abrupt, but those things can be easily excused. The real highlights are David's transformation scenes and Jack's prosthetics, both of which were so well done the Academy had to create a new awards category (Outstanding Achievement in Makeup) just for them. Comparing them to the VFX of today makes you long for a time before CGI supplanted the art of fake blood and body parts. Actor David Naughton in person (1981, 97 min, 35mm) JH - Cine-File.info

William Friedkin's THE BOYS IN THE BAND (American Revival)

Gene Siskel Film Center — Friday and Tuesday, 6pm
Making a feature film about gay men in 1970 was a bold move. THE BOYS IN THE BAND is often cited as being the first Hollywood narrative to put queer men front and center, and that meant it was going to be judged more for its politics than its content. It generally received tepidly positive reviews from critics, but at the same time some major newspapers refused to run its ads. Released less than a year's remove from the Stonewall Riots, the Boys in this Band were not the cheerleaders for gay pride that some would hope for. Based on an off-Broadway play by Mart Crowley and featuring the same cast, it has aged well, in most ways. Accused of trafficking in negativity by some in the gay community because of the self-hatred that is so apparent in most of the characters, it gives its gay-stereotyped ensemble the three-dimensionality they deserve. We're not supposed to love or hate these men; we just drop in on an emotional evening that ends with a lot of hurt feelings. Despite some unevenness in the dialog and over-reliance on the close-up, the film is essential viewing because of the topic it chose to address. Sometimes, a period piece that is the first of its kind is more important than repeatable one-liners and intricate plot twists. The Boys aren't likable movie icons, but they are real, and necessary. Pamela Robertson Wojcik lectures at the Tuesday screening. (1970, 119 min, 35mm) JH - Cine-File.info

Arthur Penn's ALICE'S RESTAURANT (American Revival)

Music Box — Friday, Midnight and Saturday and Sunday, 11:30am
A quirky little movie, loosely based on a quirky song. As the 1960's were coming to a close, Arlo Guthrie and Arthur Penn had their collaborative fingers on the pulse of the counterculture. For both men this was also the height of their popularity, with Penn fresh off of 1967's taboo breaking BONNIE AND CLYDE, and Guthrie's 1967 song and album with the same title as the movie having become a defining symbol of the anti-Vietnam war movement. But where that song had a catchy ragtime backbeat to make tuning in and dropping out seem like a whole lot of fun, the movie catches the darker side of the alternative lifestyle. Not without its moments of joy, the multiple, mostly fictional plot lines include a 13 year-old runaway groupie who hits on Arlo so she can add him to her collection, the death of a talented young artist named Shelly from drug addiction, and the emotional breakdown of a battered wife. Sure, we get the silly play about how an arrest for littering ends up saving Guthrie from being drafted (this part of the story is true), but the power of this film lies in its depiction of tragedies. In one scene, the wintertime funeral of the young Shelly is accompanied only by the sound of a song by Joni Mitchell, who also appears on-screen. As it begins, the camera slowly tracks past the cemetery, shaking slightly as if we are watching from a car driving on the other side of the fence, at a remove from the characters that are spread throughout the cemetery as snow falls. As we travel downhill to catch a glimpse of the grave and casket, the camera lifts higher as if we're just passing them by, keeping our distance. We do get a series of close-ups to end the scene, but these only reveal a numb makeshift family, watching as one of their own is buried. No one talks, and no one touches; all are left as singular people, separately pondering whether their carefree existence has been a terrible mistake. The sadness in this scene is echoed in the film's final shot, when the camera drives away again. The titular Alice is standing alone on the porch of the church where she and her husband have played parents to ragtag love children, staring blankly towards a future that could have been. Penn understood that the Summer of Love was already a memory, and the revolution had not been a success. (1969, 111 min, 35mm) JH - Cine-File.info

John Hughes' SIXTEEN CANDLES, WEIRD SCIENCE, and FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF (Contemporary American Revivals)

Music Box — Showtimes noted below
On a hot streak after penning the screen gems that were NATIONAL LAMPOON'S VACATION and MR. MOM, John Hughes started a three year directorial run that would redefine the Teen Movie, and made a splash with his 1984 debut, SIXTEEN CANDLES (1984, 93 min, DVD Projection; Thursday, 7pm). A romantic comedy with a heavy dose of slapstick, it is best remembered for two things: making the 15 year old stars of the film, Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall, into overnight sensations, and featuring Gedde Wantanabe as Japanese foreign exchange student Long Duk Dong. As far as Ringwald and Hall are concerned, this was their first major step in becoming teen idols of the 80s. Both turned in great performances in what would turn out to be the first of a multi-movie partnership with Hughes, and made this teen oriented movie funnier, if not smarter, than it deserved to be. Ringwald is the awkward sophomore who is madly in love with a popular senior, and Hall is "the Geek." Despite having lengthy, and still active, careers, the characters they played here have cast a long shadow over the two, pigeonholing them for years to come. Wantanabe has carved out a living through bit and supporting parts (most notably on the TV series ER), but he too is irrevocably tied to his role here—he is still being accosted by strangers for his over-the-top portrayal of "the Donger." There is a thin line between funny and offensive when depicting a racial stereotype and, almost 30 years later, it's still not clear where his portrayal lands. Despite this ongoing controversy (NPR did a 2008 story on the cultural reaction to the character), Hughes' knack for crafting memorable comic sidebars was on full display here, as it would be in his 1985 effort, WEIRD SCIENCE (1985, 94 min, DVD Projection; Thursday, 9:30pm). Again casting Hall as the geek, this lighthearted tale is to computer pornography as TRON was to computer gaming. Taking creative license from the Frankenstein films (which the boys watch in the movie), Hall and his nerdy cohort use a computer to create the perfect woman. Through the power of a military mainframe and the perfect timing of a lightning bolt, these two uptight virgins accidentally spawn Kelly LeBrock, and comedy ensues. Though not featuring the most sophisticated of storylines (basically, nerds use virtual woman to gain popularity and meet girls), the film is noteworthy as the further development of Hughes' career and commercial success. Beyond that, its focus on two insecure high-school outcasts who learn to be comfortable in their own skin is a theme that Hughes would return to time and again. The appeal of both these films lies in their relatable teenage heroes, at once shy and smart, just waiting to grow up. In contrast, there is the picaresque tale of FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF (1986, 103 min, 35mm; Friday and Saturday, Midnight), about a confident young man doing what he can to postpone adulthood. In a performance that made him a bonafide leading man at the age of 23, Matthew Broderick creates a character so clever and charming that you can't help but root for him. Beginning with a little white lie about a serious illness to get a final day off before going to college, Ferris schemes to cheer up his best friend Cameron with a VIP tour of the city. Wrigley Field, the Art Institute, Michigan Avenue, and the Sears Tower ("I think I see my dad") are the backdrop for the greatest senior ditch day ever put on film. Its enduring appeal lies in the subplot, however, in which the evil dean of students, Edward Rooney (Jeffery Jones), vows to catch Ferris in the act and force him to repeat his senior year. In the film that not only taught countless youngsters how to properly play sick, but also showcased our city as the playground for Broderick's under stimulated Northshore slacker, there are moments of cinematic greatness. Along with 1985's THE BREAKFAST CLUB, these films mark the high point of Hughes' career as a director, and the popularity of the teen movie. SIXTEEN CANDLES and WEIRD SCIENCE show as part of the Chicago United Film Festival. JH - Cine-File.info

Joe Cornish's ATTACK THE BLOCK (New British)

AMC River East — Check Venue website for showtimes
As we near the end of what has been a fairly disappointing season for popcorn movies, here comes a band of underprivileged British teenagers to save the day. The directorial debut of comedian Joe Cornish is an unexpectedly good action-thriller, set in a high-rise council estate (British for "projects") in the south of London. Already drawing comparisons to GOONIES due to it's ensemble teen cast and light-hearted joking, ATTACK THE BLOCK is a whole lot darker, a little farther from the beaten path, and even more class conscious in its approach. Looking past the basic plot about some hooligans who save the earth from an alien invasion, the best part of this movie is the morally challenged hero, Moses, played by the 19 year old John Boyega. He initially displays some of the more prevalent stereotypes of the angry black teen: the film opens with Moses leading a group of thrill seeking youths through the knife-point mugging of a female neighbor; he then follows that up by eagerly agreeing to sell drugs for the local kingpin. But, as the mysterious aliens grow in number and the body count inside the Block piles up, Moses begins to make the right choices, and protect both his gang and his neighbors. In this tale of redemption, the tough kid from a broken home, wise beyond his 15 years, comes through and saves the planet. Excusing the preachy, didactic, conspiracy theory-laced monologue that Moses delivers at the end of Act II, what makes this film special is the political stance the filmmakers take in favor of the poor and systematically oppressed. Cornish champions the boys in Moses' gang by showing them as fun-loving, feral kids, trying to act like grown-ups. Where Mikey and his friends were young adventurers out on a treasure hunt to save the family home in GOONIES, Moses and his crew begin as petty criminals in search of a power trip. Instead of giving us characters to instantly root for, we're shown realistic grit and violence inside public housing, along with brief glimpses of the broken home lives that spawn it. Like all good blockbusters there are plenty of funny moments, mostly courtesy of Nick Frost (SHAUN OF THE DEAD, HOT FUZZ) as the pot dealer on the top floor, and the film eventually delivers a good guy to root for. But, the real guilty pleasure here is watching a teen thug find the tools to play the hero. (2011, 88 min, Digital Projection) - Cine-File.info

DeWitt Beall's LORD THING & Robert Ford's THE CORNER (Documentary Revival)

Southside Projections at the South Side Community Art Center
(3831 S. Michigan Ave.) — Thursday, 7:30pm
For most of its history, Chicago has been a hotbed of gang culture in America. Although the street gangs of Los Angeles get more attention from the national media and Hollywood screenwriters, the Chicago gangs that formed in the late 1950s and expanded throughout the Civil Rights era really created the model for what we know today. The beginnings of the Vice Lords, one of the oldest and largest street gangs to emerge from this era, is the subject of the two documentaries presented in this rare screening of almost-forgotten films. Made just a few years after some young men from the North Lawndale neighborhood met at a juvenile correctional facility and founded the gang in 1958, Ford's THE CORNER (1962) is perhaps the earliest glimpse of the "club." Highlighting their increasing impact on Chicago's African-American communities, it feels like an industrial or educational film, but is more concerned with the feelings and viewpoints of it subjects than either would be. Utilizing non-synch narration by members of the gang, we get a sense of how these young men see themselves. They talk about why they joined a gang, why they drink, how they feel when they fight, their respect for hardworking single mothers, and their indifference towards absent fathers. These matter-of-fact statements are powerful in their self-awareness, even if they were obviously staged in a studio. We hear an articulation of the despair and hopelessness that these young men have about their prospects for a job and financial security, and their knowledge of being trapped in a cycle of poverty. This mood changes significantly in Beall's LORD THING (1970), which chronicles the VL's growth into a large coalition of gangs with over 20,000 members, and its emergence as both a community and business force. During the late 60s and early 70s, the leaders of the gang, now sometimes know as the Conservative Vice Lords (or even CVL, Inc.), began thinking well beyond their immediate surroundings and utilized their collective confidence in completely new ways. Beall gives us a fair amount of back-story, presented through re-enactments of historical fights with rival gangs, played by a cast of actual CVL members. He also documents numerous meetings of gang leaders that look and feel like town-hall meetings, and show both their increasing size and expanding concerns. Political actions such as protests carried out at construction sites, and a march on city hall—conducted as a joint action with other large Chicago gangs—illustrate how the CVL chose to use their power to influence the economic and social conditions in their turf and beyond. At times, Beall's film feels rather propagandistic—pro VL— but this may only be due to the desire that leaders like Bobby Gore have for using the VL's power to effect social and economic change. Perhaps this sympathetic depiction is the reason the film was never shown in the US, despite screening at Cannes and winning an award at the Venice Film Festival. After funding the film, the Xerox Corporation decided not to release it. Allegedly, they bowed to pressure from Richard J. Daley and the Chicago Democratic Machine, both of whom are roundly criticized in the film's final moments. Followed by a discussion with former CVL members (including poet and musician Orron Marshall), local historians, and activists. (1970 & 1962, 58 min & 26 min, DVD Projection)

Jean-Luc Godard's FILM SOCIALISME (New Swiss/French)

Gene Siskel Film Center — Check Venue website for showtimes
The five best words in the English language: new Jean-Luc Godard movie. OK, so three of those words are technically French, but no one is being particular, least of all Godard. The film at-hand, FILM SOCIALISME, is at best a fragmented, three-part narrative, and unlikely to win any new fans for the legendary new-waver. Once again Godard displays a mastery of the cinematic form. Here he makes fascinating contrapuntal use of several differing video formats (including cell phone, standard definition digital video, and crisp, beautiful HD video), focusing on and weaving together the visual textures unique to each of the various technologies. As a result, the shots at times bang against one another, jarring the viewer with each seemingly random cut, while at others the contrast works to give us an intimate view of an elderly couple eating a meal (cell phone) or a bourgeois family basking in the sun (HD). Godard's deep understanding of film as an audio-visual medium is also on display. A sound bridge carries us from the mostly white passengers on a cruise ship—the location of the first sequence of the film—dancing the night away, to the Asian and African workers who keep the playland going; an older male voice speaks like a narrator from off-screen while a young woman lectures back at him about Lenin and ideals while watching a movie on a laptop, perched on the bed in one of the ship's cabins. Various soundtrack elements clog our ears as they compete with one another, forcing the audience to pick one out of the crowd, and drop the others. The social commentary about the clueless, apathetic rich and the poor workers whom they ignore is overt in each of these scenes (I can imagine Marcuse laughing from farther off-screen than the old narrator), and equally excusable. The film's dialogue, which is primarily in French and English with a sprinkling of other languages, is only given in fragmented pidgin English, utilizing what Godard has termed "Navajo" subtitles. We get perhaps one or two words of text for every twenty that are spoken, a stunted poetic comment, misspellings and all ("AIDS tool forkilling blacks," e.g.). This provocative withholding of information can make the already subtextually and thematically dense narrative frustrating to follow, but it's results are brilliant when one is able to synthesize the different details being communicated in the pictures, sounds, and text into a larger meaning. Like an epic poem using 3 tangentially related stories to explore a unified theme, the film eventually shifts to a second stanza where the family crisis of a French politician goes down at a gas station (while her daughter reads Balzac next to a llama), and then shifts again to show what appears to be a montage of the various cultures which border the Mediterranean Sea. This distinct separation makes story tertiarily important. Secondarily, the film is an essay on the current state of humanity, akin to Chris Marker's SANS SOLEIL in its multiculturalism and simultaneous hope and disdain (when the travelogue gets to Palestine, an intertitle flashes "Access: Denied"). But, primarily, the film is a stretching of the width and breadth of possibility within the medium. Godard was recently described by Owen Gleiberman as "Stan Brakhage crossed with Noam Chomsky," and he shows us, for perhaps the last time, that he understands both the powers of cinema to make us engage in the act of seeing with ones own eyes, and the power structures inherent in its gestures and punctuation. (2010, 101 min, 35mm) Cine-File.info