RECOMMENDED We torture. You knew that. Earlier this week, CIA Director General General Michael Hayden testified, “Waterboarding has been used on only three detainees” (the interrogations of two of the subjects were recorded but destroyed). Another drip down the wall. Alex Gibney’s “Taxi to the Dark Side” (which is distributed by a Canadian-held company) uses the case of an Afghani taxi driver who disappeared to suggest the larger moral failings of our supposed anti-terror policy. A clip of Vice President Cheney saying that we must “work the dark side, spend time in the shadows, use any means at our disposal” may even be the least chilling thing in this dark litany. There’s steely irony in calling “Taxi to the Dark Side” essential; it’s essential, fluent, understated, enraged, engaged filmmaking, but it is essential as well because of the responsibility abdicated by government, both in the executive branch and the Democratic majority that enables crimes like these, the responsibility to question those actions that defeat, defy and undermine the foundations of our country. So sad that that’s true. Gibney’s indignant, measured work, as in “Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room,” which he directed, and Charles Ferguson’s “No End in Sight,” which he supervised as an executive producer, stings. Do principles count any longer? 106m. (Ray Pride) “Taxi to the Dark Side” opens Friday at the Music Box.
Talking Screens, October 6-12, 2023: Winter Kills is Deliciously Berserk | Vermeer: The Greatest Exhibition Takes Us to the… This week: The Chicago Film Society presents 16mm films by Fred Camper; "The Storms Of Jeremy Thomas" at Landmark Century; "Opera" and "The Thing" at Drafthouse; "Lost Highway" and "Brokeback Mountain" at Doc Films; the "One And Done" series, plus "Vermeer: The Greatest Exhibition" at Siskel; "Bride of Music Box of Horrors" series plus "Unfriended: Dark Web" and "Winter Kills"…
Seeing The Elephant: A Review Of Babylon The boisterous, brawling yet melancholy "Babylon," is a variation on film history, but more drawing for drama. It's gaudy and mean, celebratory and sorrowful.
Heart: A Review of Soul The real world is soulful, too, in Pixar's bountiful life of the mind.
Spawn Sacrifice: A Review Of The Creator "The Creator" is richly detailed, punchy, pulpy, punkish entertainment that still has highly serious subjects in mind, without growing didactic and with substantial heart.
A Drag Getting Old: A Review Of Indiana Jones 5 In the protracted opening couple of reels, a very young, computer-crafted Harrison Ford plays a younger cultural marauder who first encounters the dull MacGuffin of the title.
