Film Top 5 May 16-May 31, 2016

1
A Brighter Summer Day
(Siskel, May 20-21)
The late Edward Yang’s four-hour 1991 masterpiece, a coming-of-age film, a love story, and a true-crime tale, is astonishing and a wondrous gift in so many ways and especially on a large screen in this digital restoration.

2
The Lobster
(Opens May 20)
An allegory without a single straight answer: Yorgos Lanthimos’ fourth precise, absurdist comedy (following “Dogtooth” and “Alps”), and his first in English, is the answer to the question: Is one of the worst bad-date movies ever made also one of the great ones? Oh yeah. If you can see below the surfaces and talk about relationships…

3
Viktoria
(Facets, opens May 13)
A girl is a woman is a country in the bold thunderclap of Bulgarian filmmaker Maya Vitkova’s magical mixed-genre debut feature.

4
Love & Friendship
(Opens May 20)
Bitter connivance brightly played in Whit Stillman’s appropriation of Jane Austen’s first, unfinished, epistolary novel.

5
Chicagoland Shorts #2
(Facets, opens May 14)
New work by Daniel Davison, Lonnie Edwards, Aren Zolninger, Jim Vendiola, Brian Zahm, Eunhye Hong Kim, Shiri Burson, Monica Thomas, Mina Fitzpatrick and Jennifer Reeder.