1 The Fits (Siskel, opens Friday, July 29) Motion and emotion trounce text in Anna Rose Holmer’s patient, powerful debut feature, starring a wonder of a eleven-year-old girl named Royalty Hightower.
2 Wiener-Dog (Music Box, opens Friday, July 15) Putting on the pup in four vignettes by Todd Solondz: can Wiener Dog motor through multiple owners and find true happiness? Or at least stay away from the blast-force sorrow?
3 Café Society (Opens July 22) Woody Allen’s forty-sixth or so feature at the age of eighty is a light romance lit with the most serious of ethereal light by the great Vittorio Storaro (“The Conformist,” “Apocalypse Now”). Whether in overcast New York City or honeyed L.A., “Café Society” is Woody Allen’s best-looking movie since the heyday of his seminal collaboration with Gordon Willis. Kristen Stewart. Luminous.
4 Indignation (Opens Friday, July 29) Ang Lee’s screenwriter-producer/Dreyer scholar/studio executive extraordinaire James Schamus turns first-time director at the fine age of fifty-six in an adaptation of Philip Roth’s 2008 novel about the savage repercussions of a generous sexual act during the Korean War era, starring Logan Lerman, Sarah Gadon and, in a show-stopping extended confrontation, Chicago’s own Tracy Letts.
5 Microbe & Gasoline (Music Box, opens Friday, July 29) Two teen boys build their own car and escape being outcasts by hitting the highway. Another quirksome miracle of Michel Gondry, sketched on the back of a wisp of a memory of his own antics as a teenager in France.
Ray Pride is Newcity’s Senior Editor and Film Critic. He is a contributing editor of Filmmaker magazine.
Ray’s history of Chicago Ghost Signs is planned for publication next year. Previews of the project are on Twitter and on Instagram. More photography on Instagram.
