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

John Hughes' THE BREAKFAST CLUB (American Revival)

Music Box — Friday and Saturday, Midnight
For people of a certain age, Anthony Michael Hall's voiceover that bookends this film will forever define the only roles everyone at their high school had to play: a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, and a criminal. And for the brat packers who formed our ensemble cast, these labels would stick with them for the rest of their careers. Watching this film makes you recall a time when Molly Ringwald (the princess) was the Emma Stone of her day, and Emilio Estevez (the athlete) was the Zach Ephron. Both were young and cute, with girl/boy-next-door good looks, and it seemed that their careers could last forever. Hall was so good as the pressure-cooked nerd who couldn't get an A in shop class that he would spend then next decade-plus trying to show his range. Ally Sheedy (the basket case) is the exception that proves the rule, as she was able to lose that label as soon as the credits rolled. Our criminal, played by the now shaggy Judd Nelson, defined cool rebellion for the better part of a decade and is surely the highlight of the film. As John Bender, he insulted the school principal right to his face (Does Barry Manilow know you raid his wardrobe?), hid dope in his locker (and in AMH's underwear), saw through everyone's bullshit and called them out on it, and got to make out with the prom queen. John Bender was also full of some real malice, and had the cigarette burns on his arm to show us why. Ultimately, he forced a bonding ritual on his fellow high school students, and seemed to be the life of the party. He was the hero of the film, but what is left out of the diegesis may be Hughes' most important comment of all. We know that Bender's triumphant fist pump to close the movie (“Don't you...forget about me!”) is the high point of his life. At best he is destined for a crappy job in a bleak suburb, stuck in a loveless marriage with kids he can't stand. At worst he's drunk and alone, recounting how he blew his last best chance with that pretty little rich girl. Easily John Hughes' most mature effort up to that point, the film encapsulated the social structure of the white, middle-class, suburban high school experience of the 1980s. It celebrated the characters and the institutional halls they roamed, but also paid respect to their anxieties and problems, and never implied that these weren't the best years of their lives. (1985, 97 min, 35mm) Cine-File.info

Huang Weikai's (DIS)ORDER (New Chinese Documentary)

White Light Cinema at the Nightingale — Friday, 8pm
Part cinema verité, part city symphony, part essay on humans living in an urban reality, and part celebration of digital egalitarianism, Huang's film is surprisingly cohesive and concise in it's focus. Casting the city of Guangzhou (the least famous city of 10 million people in the world) as the dominant manipulator of human behavior, the filmmaker allows the viewer to make connections between the chaotic behavior of a scam artist pretending to be hit by a car, a group of men swimming in protest of an oppressive government, a black market dealer of bear paws and frozen anteaters, and countless other actual occurrences that are at once absurd and commonplace. Compiled from what is purported to be over 1000 hours of footage shot by amateur videographers, DISORDER is a seesaw between anxiety and gleeful wonderment. The sequences are bridged by asynchronous sound, bleeding from one event to the next, and the most common through-line is a never-ending parade of apathetic authority figures. “It will lead to paperwork, we have bigger problems” would be an apt alternate title for this modern masterpiece, if that didn't sidestep the greater argument being made here. By shedding light on the magnificent number of situations people get into for which there is no logical resolution, Huang renders these occurrences mundane. The man seeking relief from a health inspector for the roach in his meal is just as crazy as the man threatening to jump of a bridge unless the police help him get relief (from what we never really know). Life as a system of orderly events is not just an illusion, but is the most illogical thought of all. (2010, 58 min, Video) JH - Cine-File.info

The Cinematic Formula: Hollis Frampton (Experimental Revival)

Doc Films (University of Chicago) — Monday, 7pm  
Watching any one of Hollis Frampton's structuralist masterpieces takes commitment and patience, but seeing six of them in a row? That's either going to lead to an inspired collective mental breakthrough or the first theater-wide brain-eye melt of the spring. Focusing on Frampton's output from the 1960's, the highlights of this program are ARTIFICIAL LIGHT (1966) and MANUAL OF ARMS (1969). Each film is silent and uses the hypnotic pattern of visual repetition and textural optic variation, a mode that would be perfected in the next decade. But if the creation of an internal cinematic language is the goal in some of his later work, then these two films celebrate the inclusiveness of the human gesture. In MANUAL, various performances for the camera by 14 "actors" walk the line between over-indulgence and rhythmic serendipity, always tripping towards joy eventually. Body movement from one edge of the frame to the other and an emphasis on the light/dark dichotomy of black-and-white film emphasize each beat, and the difference between the 14 sections is like the same note played on a different instrument. Sequential fades from one face to another create the content of ARTIFICIAL LIGHT, and 21 repetitions of the sequence make the form. After the first round (which is shown upside-down), a variety of interventions are performed: negative, hand-drawn clown makeup, still shots in sequence, a flicker of colors, and so on. At each variation, despite the film's formulaic premise, or perhaps because of it, an ascending tone is struck as faces emerge from the chaos, glances are exchanged, and the power of the close-up is realized. Also Screening: HETERODYNE (1967), PALINDROME (1969), STATES (1967), and SURFACE TENSION (1968). (1966-69, 98 min total, 16mm) JH - Cine-File.info